On books, dear God I should be in bed now.
Superfreakonomics is a fascinating book for the issues it raises.
However, it disagrees with me politically, and is therefore wrong.
I mean, it's understandable. The authors are economists, that legendary discipline born of putting one part pure mathematics, one part statistics, one part psychology, and four parts pure evil in a vat and cooking it until something came out. So it's only to be expected that the same book that talks about "negative externalities" should commend Iran for allowing the sale of human organs. (I can draw a line from that to murder on the streets in three steps, by the way.) It's only to be expected that they'll swallow the 'happy hooker' business hook (pardon me), line, and sinker. It's only to be expected that they'll cast Al Gore as Jeremiah in a hairshirt and Boris Johnson as the far-sighted Alexander who sees through the emperor's new clothes. (I'm allowed to mix metaphors, because I do not have tremendously fake-looking blond hair that shows everyone the twat I secretly am deep inside. I'm sorry, Boris Johnson and I don't get along.)
In all honesty, they mostly do present themselves as showing that approaches can work and taking an amoral view on them. In almost all cases they're not suggesting that what they say is a good thing, just that it's a thing. However, after a bit of a rant about how governments like things to be costly and cumbersome (it's the pure evil, it tends to slant you rightwards) at the end of a section about how simple and effective the seat belt is, they have the following paragraph.
"Nor was it the government that put seat belts in cars. Robert McNamara thought they would give Ford a competetive advantage. He was dead wrong. Ford had a hard time marketing the seat belt, since it seemed to remind customers that driving was inherently unsafe. This led Henry Ford II to complain to a reporter: "McNamara is selling safety but Chevrolet is selling cars.""
Or, in short - "The government doesn't do cheap and simple solutions. Note how this one cheap and simple solution was put into practice by an ex-government employee against the wishes of his employer and lost the company money. This shows that when one's looking to solutions one should always look to the profit-centric free market."
If an editor has seen this paragraph, that editor deserves a smack. Then again, maybe the authors deserve one too.
I'm also planning a post about how the free newspaper you get on Sydney trains is trash, and to parlay from that into the general ghastly unconcern of "Lighter Side"/"News of the Weird" sections. Thus, I should probably start titling these the "Get Off My Lawn Series: Concerns Of The Most Elderly Twenty-Six Year Old In The World".
That said, I've been happy recently. For a wide variety of reasons. Not least of which is that University is Fun and since I have to be awake in five hours to go there tomorrow I think I'll sleep now.
However, it disagrees with me politically, and is therefore wrong.
I mean, it's understandable. The authors are economists, that legendary discipline born of putting one part pure mathematics, one part statistics, one part psychology, and four parts pure evil in a vat and cooking it until something came out. So it's only to be expected that the same book that talks about "negative externalities" should commend Iran for allowing the sale of human organs. (I can draw a line from that to murder on the streets in three steps, by the way.) It's only to be expected that they'll swallow the 'happy hooker' business hook (pardon me), line, and sinker. It's only to be expected that they'll cast Al Gore as Jeremiah in a hairshirt and Boris Johnson as the far-sighted Alexander who sees through the emperor's new clothes. (I'm allowed to mix metaphors, because I do not have tremendously fake-looking blond hair that shows everyone the twat I secretly am deep inside. I'm sorry, Boris Johnson and I don't get along.)
In all honesty, they mostly do present themselves as showing that approaches can work and taking an amoral view on them. In almost all cases they're not suggesting that what they say is a good thing, just that it's a thing. However, after a bit of a rant about how governments like things to be costly and cumbersome (it's the pure evil, it tends to slant you rightwards) at the end of a section about how simple and effective the seat belt is, they have the following paragraph.
"Nor was it the government that put seat belts in cars. Robert McNamara thought they would give Ford a competetive advantage. He was dead wrong. Ford had a hard time marketing the seat belt, since it seemed to remind customers that driving was inherently unsafe. This led Henry Ford II to complain to a reporter: "McNamara is selling safety but Chevrolet is selling cars.""
Or, in short - "The government doesn't do cheap and simple solutions. Note how this one cheap and simple solution was put into practice by an ex-government employee against the wishes of his employer and lost the company money. This shows that when one's looking to solutions one should always look to the profit-centric free market."
If an editor has seen this paragraph, that editor deserves a smack. Then again, maybe the authors deserve one too.
I'm also planning a post about how the free newspaper you get on Sydney trains is trash, and to parlay from that into the general ghastly unconcern of "Lighter Side"/"News of the Weird" sections. Thus, I should probably start titling these the "Get Off My Lawn Series: Concerns Of The Most Elderly Twenty-Six Year Old In The World".
That said, I've been happy recently. For a wide variety of reasons. Not least of which is that University is Fun and since I have to be awake in five hours to go there tomorrow I think I'll sleep now.