Silver Lining?

There has been a recent flurry in the media about the wisdom or otherwise of reporting the details of suicides or even reporting the deaths as suicides. As a proponent of an educated populace I can’t see the retention of information as a good thing without a greater good at play. Given that the research on the greater good (i.e. non reporting prevents further suicide) doesn’t seem compelling then I would probably a adopt a more liberal stance than the current environment of pretty much non reporting.


But that was not the most fascinating thing that I read on this topic. The most interesting piece of information was that after the recent Earthquakes in Christchurch suicides in that area ceased. Now if this was just a Christchurch phenomenon then it would be a great question for trival pursuit but that would be about it. But no apparently this phenomenon has been observed before in other disaster zones. So there appears to be a link between community tragedy mitigating personal tragedy.

The working hypothesis is that in a disaster zone everyone starts to help one another against the immediate problems that community faces and the sense of worthless isolation that a lot of suicide victims face goes away for a time. They become valued members of the community with a purpose.

Doesn’t that sound a bit tragic to you? It certainly does to me that such little gestures can eliminate suicide. And they were little, I wasn’t there but as far as I could tell most people’s contribution was to make sure their neighbours were all right, share the gas fired BBQ with folks who’s power was out etc and shovel endless amounts of liquefaction out of sections and footpaths etc. I am not attempting to undermine a difficult time for these folks but very few were called upon to take heroic actions they basically were just required to be interested in their fellow man and women which they gladly were.

Most people are ignorant of the toll of suicide so to put it in perspective in NZ it is about the same as our road toll, two thirds male and mostly young people (under 30) as a very broad brush picture. I suspect that this is similar in most OECD countries with some a bit worse and some better. And for every death there is the inevitable people left behind some of who are permanently damaged by the event and self guilt in particular. Suicides are often linked to drugs and alcohol as well. Sounds very much like the road toll to me.

For the road toll we have a dedicated police force, legislated technology checks (WOF), billions spent on road “black spots” advertising campaigns etc. And for suicide we do have some programs in place and a lot of money is spent on mental health (the health area that suicide crops up in). But to cure it all we apparently have to do is be nice to our neighbours and make sure they are ok, or so it seems from the disaster example.

So there are suicide “victims” who exercise informed free will to end their lives for whatever reason and I don’t think we should be trying to prevent or “cure” these people but for a number of others and I am prepared to suggest the majority it is a very permanent solution to some short term problems.

Sadly Christchurch’s statistics are returning to the pre quake levels as presumably the city returns to some form of normal. Apart from the opportunity to build a truly stunning new city a lack of suicide is another outcome from the quake I am sure they would be happy to hang onto.

Genes or Jeans maketh the man

I have spotted another sign of aging, the people in adverts no longer look like me. OK to be fair I never really looked like the body perfect models who show up in adverts but at least at one point I was the same general age of these people. Now that I am no longer 20 (or 30) something I am definitely not advert material unless potentially we were talking about Regaine or some other “mature focused” products, most of which are a lot less flattering than losing a bit of hair. (Viagra or Xenical anyone)


And it is not that the adverts with the perfect people are not my age any longer I am not sure if they are even advertising at me. There is currently an advert for Fiji on the telly where two perfect specimens step out of a float plane and walk together along a deserted palm tree lined beach. So I know this isn’t for me because apart from the fact I don’t look like the people on the advert if I were to go to Fiji I would have a child with me for a start.

So who are they advertising at because the people who do look like the advert (the 20 something crowd) can’t generally afford that sort of trip with the float planes etc and are much more likely to be backpacking their way around Asia or Europe. So the answer is they are advertising at me and it is supposed to be “aspirational”. I am meant to want to be like the people on the advert and go to Fiji anyway and spend my time by the pool of a resort feeling that in some way I am part of the advert fantasy.

This is the same silliness you hear around brands, the reason why Kelvin Klein jeans are a lot more expensive than some no name brand (or even a standard brand). They are not selling jeans but the Kelvin Klein life style that goes with them. So just like sitting at the pool in Fiji is supposed to make me feel like the six pack model with the perfect girlfriend on the beach, wearing KK jeans is supposed to make you feel a little closer to the fashion divas of Paris etc. (Kelvin Klein is just an example by the way I don’t have it in for him or his brand)

Why do we fall for this stuff (and I presume we must of the advertising mob wouldn’t waste their time with it) What does this say about our self esteem? That we are so easily diverted from true self by some trinkets that pretend to deliver entry into the “right” group.

They say that these days you get to pick your tribe, meaning that once upon a time the total number of people you would meet would be those in your village or nearby so you had a need to conform to the local tribal views. Now with improved travel and especially communications via the Internet you can connect with all sorts of people worldwide that share your views. Of course if you find yourself “following” Kelvin Klein and other aspirational brands then do you really know who you are? Or are you being told what tribe you should follow.

I personally hate being told what to do by anyone, least of all marketing teams so I avoid brands, if I do buy a brand name it is because it earned its status by being the best not because a marketing guy created a vision for me to buy into. Know yourself, think for yourself avoid apirational marketing for no other reason than it makes the products a lot more expensive.

London Calling

"London calling to the underworld’ Come out of the cupboard, all you boys and girls" (The Clash)


So it has taken me a while to mull this over but it was inevitable that there would be a comment on the recent England riots.

Firstly it is not that unusual for the odd bit of rioting in England, there were the Brixton riots, Poll tax riots, student riots and a couple of others besides, it seems that in England the odd riot is merely part of the democratic process. Wide scale looting on the other hand seems to be a different thing and it is this bit that seems to have lead to all the name calling and hand wringing amongst the ruling classes.

So what caused this is what I have been trying to decide. I am probably too far away to truly understand what is going on but that won’t stop me trying.

The first obvious point is that it is the poor that are rioting, but there is nothing much to be learned from that, it is always the peasants causing trouble, the gentry like things the way they are because by definition the system works for them. (not least because they are likely to have had a hand in designing the system) But mostly the poor don’t riot so why are they so grumpy now. Well first a seemingly irrelevant aside.

Every now and then World Vision or some such organisation appears on my television asking me to give them money to feed the people in some place I can’t place on a map (unless you count pointing to an entire continent) because they are suffering from famine. While at a human level the pictures and plight of these people can be distressing I have never been a fan of giving money to feed these folk and here is why.

Any given environment can support a certain number of creatures, this works for fish in a pond and humans in a given area, when the food supply is plentiful the population expands and when there is a natural crash in the food supply the population contracts, again the same for all creatures including people. One of the biggest influences in food supply is weather, good vs bad growing seasons. If you looked at this phenomenon over time you would be able to see that on average a pond can support an average of 10 fish (say) and if the population was restricted to 10 then there would be no boom and bust, especially if you can carry over the surplus from the good seasons to support yourself in the bad seasons, something people have learned to do in any number of ways.

So what happens when you support people through the bust cycle by giving them food? Well you prevent the bust which presumably leads to an even greater population (because some of the breeding stock is not killed off) thereby putting more pressure on the environment increasing the frequency of bad periods (because some of the marginal seasons become bad due to increased population) and so if that cycle continues you just have a continuous famine period because the population exceeds the environments ability to maintain it.

All very interesting but how does this apply to London? Well it shows that sometimes doing a seemingly good thing and a humane thing can sometimes be detrimental and potentially lead to even more suffering in the long term (everyone always in famine conditions) In the case of England potentially this is the welfare system in action.

Welfare is the equivalent of feeding famine victims in the bad years and it masks the signals that might otherwise be sent. For examples having babies that you can’t feed without any intervention would lead to dead babies (yes a very bad thing it is just an example) but it might also stop you having more babies, however with Welfare, no dead babies and less pressure on having more babies therefore a bigger problem. Another example, there is a lot of immigration into England presumably for a lot of different reasons but one reason will be to improve the economic lot of some of the immigrants, however if there were a lot of people starving on the street because there were no jobs this might make some of them not immigrate again less pressure on the environment.

So to be clear I am not blaming the riots on babies or immigrants, my suggestion is that maybe we have reached some sort of welfare induced tipping point where a section of society is in famine all of the time and we got there through a welfare system that is humane but misguided. This has become a problem right now because the total environment (England) has run out of resources (Austerity Britain) and the food supply is drying up. When there are too many fish in the pond even the big fish get unhappy.

The bigger problem for me is that I don’t think England has this problem to itself.

Expediency over Logic

So a little while back I wrote an entry titled My Child Your Taxes where I discussed the government’s decision to cut funding for early childhood education. I think their decision at that time was rational based on the likely economic benefit versus the cost to a government that is struggling to balance its books.

So yesterday it was disappointing to hear that the government has reversed its decision and is now going to continue to fund this sector at the current levels.

So what happened? Clearly in the intervening months the facts of the matter didn’t change, the need for this type of middle class welfare continues to be suspect, the economic benefit is still low to nil and the government certainly hasn’t become any wealthier in fact with the current state of the world it is probably looking at being poorer.

Clearly the vested interest lobby groups (ok that is clearly emotive and redundant language all lobby groups have a vested interest by definition) have done their work and succeeded in applying sufficient political pressure in an election year so that the relevant politicians have caved in.

Is this what we pay these people for? To take the path of least resistance. Isn’t caving in to a lobby group a form of Might is Right. You see given that the decision had been made and was logical people who agreed with the decision would not have felt the need to make their feelings known, therefore this argument becomes completely one sided as the politicians only hear the lobby group side.

And so what any way, if I lobbied for free ice cream on Fridays no matter how many people I could round up to support the proposal it still wouldn’t be a good idea. Any sensible leader at any level would be able to say no to such a request as it is fairly obvious that this is unlikely to produce any real benefit, other than the obvious short term ones of enjoying the ice cream. If the Ice Cream manufacturers came out in favour of the idea on the basis that this would increase employment in their sector and lead to a robust industry that would be the envy of the world. Would that help the argument? Again clearly not as we could see fairly readily that we were just providing a government subsidy in the form of a transfer from tax payers to ice cream manufacturers. And finally just because it would make the politicians popular (everyone likes “free” stuff after all) that wouldn’t make it good as again we could all see that it was really a bribe type of an idea from a political angle.

But this is exactly what has happened with the exception of the ice cream idea doesn’t have a “vulnerable group” to support. As an aside I am a bit over hearing about vulnerable groups, probably because I am never in one, which in one way is a good thing for me but as far as I can tell most people are. We have children no matter how rich and spoilt are always referred to as vulnerable if you cut government spending directed at them. Then there are the old (any one over 65 despite vast evidence to the contrary that most of these folk are anything but “old”) The sick, the disabled, youth, the unemployed, solo mums, working mums, women in general, low paid workers, any ethnic group etc If you want to be a successful lobby group you need to have some “vulnerable” people to support which is relatively easy because with a bit of PR effort anyone can become one.

And at the end of the day so what, leaders should lead for the good of the total community they were elected to represent, not cave into people demanding free ice creams.

Together We Fall

I have been pondering the role of unions in the modern world and my gut reaction is that they are an idea that has past its use by date.

But first the disclaimer, I am employed in a position that puts me in the “bosses” side of the “workers” vs the “bosses” interface between management and unions. Worse than being in that camp it is part of my duties to negotiate with the unions on behalf of my employer. So you can decide for yourself how biased that makes any further comments.

I have tried to persuade some people recently that the union (any union as it wasn’t in fact the one that I deal with that I was discussing) is bad for their employment health. My argument was that when negotiating with a union, the worker that the boss has in their head is inevitably the worst case scenario worker, who while performing their job will always operate to the lowest allowable standard. The union of course thinks all of the people they represent are brilliant workers which in most cases any number of them are but never all. And that is the problem with collective negotiation at best it tends to the middle and it never allows for the performance of individuals within that collective. Net result lower average wages for the group.

If people are rational and it is a bad idea why does it still exist. Well one reason is that for employers it is quite handy to treat workers as a lump. As already mentioned it potentially allows you to keep total wages lower than they might otherwise be and saves you a heap of admin time by having to deal with just one negotiation, rather than many individuals. So maybe the bosses like it and promote it although the evidence for this idea seems scarce given what most would say about unions.

So the individual is smarter than that right, I mean after all it costs them money (union dues) and for most it lowers their wages (the better ones presumably the poor workers may be better off) so they must be doing it for some reason. Presumably it is therefore the protection from “bad” employers that it offers, you know those firms you hear about that fire people at will and offer poor working conditions.

But unions don’t do that. These days it is the law that offers those protections and at best the union offers a sort of enforcement system to make sure the law is adhered to. But it is a very expensive option for the workers given that there are government paid for organisations that will do this stuff for free.

And any way the bigger an employer the more likely they are to have Union involvement but also the more likely they are to behave properly in terms of employment law. It tends to be the small employer who doesn’t know or potentially doesn’t care that abuses worker rights and you seldom have any union involvement.

One of the unions my organisation deals with holds itself out as representing hospitality workers, bar and waiting staff and the like who regularly have their employment rights trampled in bars and cafes around the country but never a peep out of the union because as the union guy told me “it is too much trouble”. So unions represent workers who by and large don’t need it and ignore the little guy cause it is too hard for them which maybe very rational from a union point of view but doesn't seem to add much value to the process.

While historically there was a need for unions who fought for the employment law and workers rights that we, including me, enjoy now (as the union tends to forget I am a worker too just in a different job) the fight is over. The maintenance of those laws (something the union is quick to worry about) is a political fight now not the struggle of the workers at an employee / employer level.

So why workers feel the need to hand over unions dues for no perceptible gain remains a mystery to me, unless like a lot of people and a lot of things in life they have never stopped to think about it and it is “just what we do”.

Just Give Me The Facts

So I have been having an email debate with a colleague over some different ways you can manage an economy. In his latest email he listed a number of “facts” that were clearly wrong. So after burying these ideas with some independently verifiable sources I pronounced myself the winner of that portion of the debate. But no he responded with “well that may all be so but I believe it would be better if...”

This sort of thing drives me nuts, let’s ignore the facts in favour of “beliefs” and people do it all the time. I was particularly reminded about the vaccination “debate” (debate in quotes because I believe there is no valid counter position). Now I am happy for people to have beliefs but this does not make them a valid criteria for decision making.

This got me thinking about “facts” that are subject to challenge or if you will the nature of “facts”. On the face of it what is a fact should be straight forward so I tried to think of things that all of us would agree on. It struck me as harder than I first thought. For example presumably we agree on basic human needs, eg people need to eat, sleep, and drink. (well if they want to stay being people). But perhaps we couldn’t even agree on this as there are examples of people who don’t sleep and eating comes in many forms so potentially even drinking is optional (you might be able to get all your fluid needs from food). So maybe facts are harder to find than I thought.

Then there is the “fact” that there is global climate change, according to a lot of people this is so but I don’t “believe” this fact. There are those words again and I think I have “facts” to back up my belief but not everyone agrees with my facts as I don’t agree with theirs.

Perhaps on second thoughts beliefs are more solid than facts, for example I believe that human life has value. Something that a lot of people would agree with, especially if it is phrased regarding their own life. Do I have “facts” to support my belief. Err well no not really and my belief would be open to challenge in certain situations. (eg sacrificing some lives for the greater good). In fact if we look at the whole concept of human rights this seems more founded on belief than on facts. For example sexual orientation is considered a human right (something I don’t have an issue with before any one sends me hate mail) but I think I could construct an argument that sex without children is potentially a negative idea as that is basically the point right, otherwise the species would die out which is counter to our basic drive.

So where does all this get me, well it makes it more understandable that we debate things that in my mind don’t need debate because the answer is clear. Potentially the answer is clear because of the “facts” I am basing my arguments on, if people won’t accept your facts then you are doomed in your arguments.

Now I don’t think we should throw away scientific enquiry which has at its heart understanding the facts, quite the opposite to agree on the facts or to have aligned beliefs is to agree on the way forward more likely as not. So lets keep our minds open to the search for the truth the whole truth and nothing but, however I guess we need to leave some room for beliefs assuming of course that they don’t conflict with the facts.