A bit of advice

There's something about groups of three. Triplets, trinities and triptychs strike a chord at the very deepest level of thought. (Also troikas and tricycles, but that would make a list of five, which doesn't work nearly so well. Though you should never forget the rule of five.)

Having briefly covered reading, writing and 'rithmetic in the previous post I thought I'd start this one off with another popular triple: fear, uncertainty and doubt.

When you are uncertain how to handle a situation and doubt your ability to succeed in it, it is only natural to fear and avoid the situation itself. For example...

I have been afraid of fitting curtain rails for more than thirty years. I read the do-it yourself guides and the instructions are clear. You mark your target and drill into the concrete lintel using a hammer drill and masonry bit. Perhaps there's something wrong with my masonry bit. Whenever I try, I make no impression at all on the lintel. Though I make a tremendous impression on the (usually ageing) plaster, shaking it to dust for about an inch all round the drill. My curtains are, at best, precarious.

So it was more in sorrow than in anger that I heard the Beloved cry out in alarm from the bedroom window. Like a disreputable politician draped in the Flag, I found her draped in the curtain. So there was nothing for it but to hie me to B&Q, acquire the fixings and a new curtain pole and follow Henry V once more into the breach.

More in desperate hope than expectation, I tried something a little different this time. And, just for once, it worked. Like a charm. So here is my bit (geddit?) of advice:

If you are getting nowhere with a masonry bit, try a High Speed Steel bit. (And switch off the hammer action.)

I don't seriously believe that my houses have all had RSJs over their windows. But they have all been over 100 years old, and perhaps in that time the concrete has hardened to a texture more like steel than brick.

It only took me something over 30 years to find this out.

There are plenty of other things I have been putting off because my tools and methods don't seem to work. I feel inspired: where to begin?

Towards a moral calculus

Notorious Atheist Sam Harris makes the case for applying scientific methods to questions of morality. So far as I can make out, his core arguments are:

1. human wellbeing is a meaningful, objective concept
2. if you pick any two responses to a particular moral dimension, you can in theory (if not in practice) scientifically assess which is going to lead to more human wellbeing.
3. we have a duty to maximise human wellbeing throughout the world
4. therefore we should challenge suboptimal choices in our own and in other societies
5. in particular, we should not abdicate the concept of morality to religion, but should consider it scientifically.

All good stuff and hard to argue. He illustrates his talk with side swipes at a number of practices which he considers religiously motivated. These are less convincing, but should not distract from his core message.

He implies that we can determine a single metric for human well-being which can be assessed. This is where I lose him. It seems to me that there are a number of dimensions to consider. We can generally agree on which of each of the following is better:

• freedom – slavery
• sickness – health
• life – death
• a life of passive acceptance – a life of meaningful contribution
• respect – contempt
• safety – danger
• scarcity – abundance
• construction – destruction
• pain – pleasure

We can probably resolve these into a limited number of independent dimensions. If there are is more than one dimension, then the best we can hope for from science is that it can show us how to get to the envelope where increasing one dimension requires a trade-off in another. At that point, any further change requires a value judgement as to which dimensions we consider most important. Science cannot help us with this.

It is also not as obvious as it may appear that any society is actually far from the envelope already. In any case, to assess this, we need to identify a robust set of rigorously defined set of dimensions of well-being and models showing how they are constrained. Then we can sensibly discuss individual cases and value judgements.

This is so obvious that it must have been done, or at least worked on, already. Presumably Mr Harris can point me in the right direction?

Rule of Five

Right: enough of the whippersnapper Kipling. I think you’re ready for some ancient wisdom: how to understand the essence.
The alchemists had a number of techniques. Perhaps the simplest was to boil off the spirit and distil it. Then take the distillate, boil off the spirit and distil it. Then repeat. And repeat. And repeat. By which time you should have got to something pretty pure. the five times distilled “quintessence”. 
Swooping back to the present, Nicholas Bate's series on "Simplicity, the far side of complexity" rolls on. Episode four is "Dig Deep: Find The Real Issue". But how deep? Bate offers "Deeper", with the implication that you'll know when you've gone far enough.
Slithering back a couple of decades, let me offer a tip I got from Shoji Shiba, the TQM guru, in the early 90s. He recommends that, however well you think you understand a question, you will always understand it better if you go down five levels.

1. Why didn't I get the management team to sponsor my project?
    A. Because the presentation was poorly prepared
2. Why was the presentation poorly prepared?
    A. Because I did it in a rush the day before
3. Why did I do it in a rush the day before?
    A. Because I was too tired to make time amongst all my other priorities until I had no option
4. Why was I so tired?
    A. Because I stay up late browsing social media late into the night
5. Why do I stay up late browsing social media?
    A. Because I don't feel I've achieved anything worthwhile during the day

This is a trivial example. As often as not, round about the fourth question, you break through a bland, conventional explanation to get down into the root of a problem, or make a lateral link that gives a new and useful insight.
This is very much Mother Nature's learning strategy, as any parent of a small child will recognise. Can a million years of evolution be wrong?
Perhaps it should be "The Rule of Five Year Olds"?
Try it: it costs nothing to release your inner toddler!

5 More 5s

1. Pentagrams: getting ready to celebrate the feast of All Souls?
2. The Five Marks of Mission: the CofE has always been corporate. Whilst I wouldn’t normally recommend a five part mission statement, theirs is worth five minutes’ contemplation. Would Jesus have allowed weasel words like “seek to” and “strive to”? Still, a good effort, I think. Having read it, how does yours stack up?
3. Five honest serving men: Any of the five Ws from Kipling’s six will each guide you faithfully down to the next level of insight. I had forgotten that he rested them during working hours. Times have changed.
4. Five steps to a project: David Allen’s Natural Planning Model will bring focus and purpose to any task. Requires: the back of an envelope, a pencil and five minutes.
5. Quintessence

A Murder for Monday

It was a hot summers day in the Highlands. Our patrol, the Snipes, had set up camp next to a bog. That week we were forming a lasting and intimate relationship with the Highland Midge, and many of his little friends. It was a relief to be getting away for a hike up into the hills.

During a rest, a rather handsome striped fly lit on the back of my hand. Seized by a treacherous, self conscious attack of the Gerald Durrells, I watched it. Yowch!! A nasty little nip, swelling into a stinging itch that stayed with me for days.

That was 40 years ago, but ever since that day I have loathed and distrusted the bumptious clegg.

British readers will know where I’m going with this.

The loathsome Clegg, Grymer Wormtongue to David Cameron’s fallen Saruman, asks us to believe that he has saved the National Health Service. That his wise woman and her coven have scried out all that is evil in the NHS Bill. That they have woven a web of counterspells that will protect this jewel at the heart of the matter of modern Britain. I fear that all too late we will see this for the fairy tale that it is.

But he speaks the truth when he admits that he erred in not setting out clearly what problem this bill is trying to fix.

So it is difficult to judge by anything other than the likely effect on delivery. Roy Lilley has put it much better than I can. Please, please read this intelligent, punchy analysis. Eight key intentions for the bill, none delivered.

I don’t particularly care about the politics. If some creative, hard working entrepreneurs earn their honest crusts providing a world class service, that’s fine with me. I might even be ready to make modest payments for some non-essential services.

But this is looking like a train wreck. Anyone with eyes and a brain will see disturbing parallels, appropriately enough, to the other massive, artificial, false market of the last 30 years: the privatisation of British Rail.

The Wrong Question

From what I can make out, everyone is asking "what sort of person would take part in a riot?"

It seems to be a huge surprise to find that some people like to let their hair down and some people like free stuff.

The government line seems to be: watch out for people like this:

A solid scoop of ice cream sits in its scoop awaiting its fate with compliant resignation. But when it melts, it runs riot down your chin and clothes, causing both damage and distress.




Most of the time, most of the people do what they know they ought to.. But occasionally, some flashpoint is reached and the populace switches into a different state, where people do what they like.

How did that switch happen?