Impatience can be a good thing

My first real job was at a branch office of a large company, in a suburb that was not quite close enough to be in the same city as the head office. We had a regular quarterly meeting where we would be bused up to a hall near head office to listen to the CEO talk about... something. Sales targets, or the latest marketing campaigns; nothing that was relevant to my job. The only thing I learned from it was that I wasn't going to be learning anything else. You couldn't read a book, and the days of smart phones were a long way off; for the day or two beforehand I used to look for a tricky problem to chew on while I waited for it to end.

Some of my fellow employees would decline to go, which I thought was wrong of them. In hindsight, I think I had absorbed the lesson of years of education - that if the Powers That Be tell you to do something, and it is unpleasant or boring and not obviously useful, you should do it for the greater good. What greater good that is may not be immediately discernable (and occasionally there won't be one), but that's the way the odds lie.

As the years went by, I moved on to other companies where the equivalent all hands meeting was a lot closer and less time consuming - a walk downstairs or to another meeting room or even to dial in on phone (or listen to a replay). They still weren't useful to me, because the sort of things talked about at these meetings are almost always rah-rah enthusiasm for people whose jobs require it; it's never a thoughtful description of where the company strategy is going and what will be needed to accomplish it. But because the cost kept dropping, it stayed below my impatience level.

Then a few years ago the company I was working for introduced a new set of corporate principles. One of them was a thing along the lines of "acting in the company's best interests". The next big meeting that was called, I argued to my boss that I shouldn't go. Usually I needed a proper reason to do that - some urgent work, or another meeting that clashed, or a fortuitous vacation day. This time I argued that it would be better if I sat at my desk and worked, because that would be better for me (I would enjoy it more), better for the company (more work would get done) and better for everyone else (because there would be more oxygen in the room). I wasn't really serious and my boss told me to go anyway.

But afterwards I realized that although I had been arguing non-seriously, and using this "company's best interests" line to cover the fact that I personally had no interest in going, I was actually completely correct. That feeling that unpleasant things are there for a reason persisted, but in this case it really was in the company's best interest that I not attend. In the unlikely event that important information was to be imparted, it would be much more efficient for someone to come and tell me that one thing instead of making me sit through the rest.

My boss wanted me to go so it didn't look like his department was skiving off; but this sort of politics is a corporate inefficiency. Much better to design targeted meetings that would be specifically useful for each department. And really that "skiving off" feeling is just a case of everyone else thinking that unpleasant things must be useful.

It ties in with a lot of the literature on meetings - badly structured meetings are a great way to waste time; meetings should be designed to achieve their purpose in minimal time. Not turning up to such a meeting is the most sincere and direct feedback you can give that it is a waste of your time. If somebody notices, that's actually a good thing. If they come and ask you why, be prepared to explain directly and seriously. But the truth is, I can't think of one of those meetings where my absence would have been noticed. If I had my time over again, not attending any of them would not make a huge difference to my life, but it would be a 100% positive move. No tradeoffs whatsoever.

I guess a part of growing up is to realize which of the unpleasant things you are told to do are actually also useless, and act on the information...

Liking cheap stuff

I stumbled across this article a while back, and rather enjoyed it. It's about appreciating the cheap things in life. I'm planning to go read more of The Book Of Life to see if it's as good as that bit, but in the meantime a couple of reactions.

They talk about how the view from a plane window has become "commonplace and even a little boring". I don't know how many plane flights you have to go on to achieve that effect, but surely it is a lot? I have been on planes perhaps twenty or thirty times in my life, often enough that I have lost count but not so often that I couldn't get a precise number if I really cared. I always go for a window seat, and spend a big chunk of the flight staring out of said window. Flights over ocean can pall after a while, but takeoff and landing - and any part of the flight that's over land - always have something to offer.

On the other hand, driving at speeds of 60-100 km/h (38-60 mph for you heathens) is something that people simply couldn't do before the twentieth century. It's something I do routinely, but I don't value it nearly as much as I would have when I was a child. I could not possibly count accurately the number of times I have done it, and perhaps that is the dividing line. I couldn't tell you how many times I've eaten pineapple either.

But my other reaction was a sort of antidote to the effect they describe. I realized a long time ago that I could go to the supermarket and buy whatever I wanted to eat without posing any risk to my financial position. It's a kind of wealth that is common in developed countries, but a very long way from ubiquitous. And it has been quite rare for most humans ever since we developed the idea of money.

I do not like alcohol; I've never acquired a taste for it. And I have never developed the kind of sophisticated/snobbish (take your pick) palate that really appreciates the expensive versions of most foods. So when I want to celebrate, I don't really have the option to buy some expensive food or drink that I couldn't normally afford; I'd just be wasting money. This is in many ways a good thing (who can complain about being able to afford everything you want?), but I have had to find some other way.

My approach has been to develop an artificial scarcity, something I hadn't consciously realized until I read this piece. There are foods that I can afford, but which are bad for you in large quantities. Junk foods basically - sugar, salt and fat. Things you need in reasonable quantities and your ancestors couldn't find enough of to overdo, but which we now have almost unlimited access to. I keep these things out of my regular diet, but on special occasions I indulge. The budget limit is how much of these I can eat while staying healthy, rather than how much I can eat while staying solvent (junk food taxes try to merge these two ideas together).

There's a limit to how much we can appreciate things just because someone else once found them hard to obtain. But I have found that even cheap common items like chips and chocolate (both, ironically, New World goods completely unobtainable for my European ancestors prior to the 16th century) can be made into desirable luxury goods simply by not buying them very often.

And anyway, appreciating what you can easily get makes you feel better.

Pigs are not made of kryptonite

Popehat has the story of a free speech case involving a Christian group that was preaching anti-Islamic messages at an Arab festival. I don't have much sympathy for them, but I also don't like the use of violence to silence speech. And the truth is that freedom of speech has to mean freedom of offensive speech, or it doesn't mean anything.

But that's not what I'm hear to talk about - you can read a more thorough analysis of the issues at Popehat than I could give you. What I noticed was this:

They were carrying a severed pigs head "to keep Muslims at bay"...since "unfortunately, they are kind of petrified of that animal."

One of the few positive things I saw in the Koran when I read it was a note of reasonability about the enforcement of some of the laws, and that was one of them. Google was quickly able to direct me to the relevant passage, Sura 5:3:
"Prohibited to you are dead animals, blood, the flesh of swine, and that which has been dedicated to other than Allah , and [those animals] killed by strangling or by a violent blow or by a head-long fall or by the goring of horns, and those from which a wild animal has eaten, except what you [are able to] slaughter [before its death], and those which are sacrificed on stone altars, and [prohibited is] that you seek decision through divining arrows. That is grave disobedience. This day those who disbelieve have despaired of [defeating] your religion; so fear them not, but fear Me. This day I have perfected for you your religion and completed My favor upon you and have approved for you Islam as religion. But whoever is forced by severe hunger with no inclination to sin - then indeed, Allah is Forgiving and Merciful."

Pork is not some kind of kryptonite for Muslims. It's something they are not supposed to eat, along with meat improperly killed or that wild animals have eaten part of. And if the choice is pork or starvation, then they are allowed to eat it.

The only reason a pig's head on a spike would repel Muslims particularly is if the protesters were planning on force feeding it to passers by. There are laws against that. One of the Popehat commentators suggested that they may have fallen foul of food handling laws; that would have been an amusing prosecution, since their own stated objective would be evidence that they intended it as food. Personally I would not be interested in eating part of a pig's head that some religious nut had been waving around on a stick.

And even if they did force-feed it to a Muslim, that would be their crime against their victim, not some terrible sin on the Muslim's part.

There's plenty to criticize in Islam; adding the pig's head just makes them look aggressive and ignorant. I hope the next time they go to this festival the locals just video them and put it on Youtube; that's a much better response than the heckler's veto.

Next!

Well, Donald Trump doesn't seem to have had the effect I was suggesting. Instead of sucking the oxygen away from the other simplistic blowhards, he's sucking it away from what I will call - for want of a better word - the serious candidates.

I can't say I will mourn if Jeb Bush gets knocked out of the race; what would it say about the US if we cannot find a better candidate in 300 million people than yet another Bush?

But so far it looks like we will see a re-run of 2012; with a parade of temporary front-runners while the Republican party tries to find someone better than the default candidate. Only this time the default candidate is Donald Trump instead of Mitt Romney. Exhibit A: Ben Carson.

Ben Carson is apparently a sincere creationist, as opposed to a Republican candidate throwing some red meat to the base. This suggests a problem assimilating evidence that doesn't fit his preconceived ideas, which is not something I want in a president. But he's firmed that impression up enormously by proposing a flat tax.

A flat tax is one of those superficially appealing ideas that get thrown up by well-meaning amateurs with no access to decent economic advice. The problem with it is that you need to get the rate right - too high and you tax low-income earners into bankruptcy, too low and you don't have enough money to run a government. In a modern democracy like the US, there's a pretty broad sweet spot where you can do both.

So Carson will need to convince a lot of low income earners to vote themselves into the poorhouse; or he will need to convince at least half the country that the devastating cuts he will need to inflict will only hurt other people who deserve it. Or he will need to convince enough people that two plus two is at least seventeen, and a bit more once the economy takes off as a result.

The good news is that none of the populist politicians who has come up with this wonderful idea has yet managed to sell it. I don't know whether Carson is dumb enough to think it's a good idea or dumb enough to think he can sell it; but he will not be the nominee.

If we end up with Trump or someone crazier than him, then the Republican party is in real trouble.