The sorts of people who dig through medical journals to find some ingenious nanny state micro solution from the UK, Japan or South Africa that increased or decreased some petty statistic by some petty percentage don’t think in terms of people. They think in terms of statistics. They see people the way that Intel engineers see computer chips and they’re just trying to engineer them to get the best and most efficient performance out of them.
The modern nanny state is a diseased bastard child of Sociology, Marketing and the efficiency experts who used to roam the halls of GM and IBM back when companies still had company songs. It has an Asperger’s level of understanding of actual people, but is an incredible whiz with statistics.
The rest is here. (h/t Adrian)
Approaching worthless fiat currencies world wide, approaching price inflation world wide, approaching religious hatefest world wide, approaching $hit storm. Of course we’ll tinker with the meaningless and then brag about it. Of course we’ll be terrified when mob violence flares up seemingly for no reason. Chickens, meet roost.
The problem with socialist “leaders” (in quotes for full mockery effect) is that:
1. They’re so deeply involved in endless numbers & words that they’ve lost all semblance of Common Sense.
2. They don’t remotely understand the Law of Unintended Consequences.
3. They view themselves as Brilliant Higher Beings when, in fact, they’re nothing more than Lowly Technocrats.
4. They refuse to learn from their past mistakes, of which there are a mountain full of them.
5. They have no sense of Value for Money, mostly because it’s not their own money they’re spending.
Sadly though, one hundred years from now, when these socialist ideas have been proven to be abject failures over & over & over again, do you think that such ideas and their supporters will be in the trashbin of history? I don’t. 🙁
It has an Asperger’s level of understanding of actual people
Well, perhaps, but I’d expect that those with Asperger’s syndrome are less likely than those without to want to control other people.
VDH deliciously describes the future of socialism as it removes the “margin of error” for mitigation of unforseen future circumstances, for US politics and economics:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/350920/americas-vast-margin-error-victor-davis-hanson
Ever since reading Nasim Taleb’s book Antifragile I now view “efficiency experts” as creators of fragility. Human society is a self-organizing system that is wildly inefficient but antifragile. Because of its self-organizing properties it has considerable resilience and when problems occur new configurations of people will come together to solve the problem.
The mindset that is illustrated in this article is all about central top-down control and it operates under the grandiose illusion that a single human mind, that of the planner, can fully forsee all of the consequences of a particular action. WRT to the tylenol overdose prevention problem; what is curious is that the obvious, and simple, solution has never been implemented. Tylenol is virtually non-toxic as long as the liver has adequate glutathione levels to deal with the reactive metabolite of tylenol that is produced in the liver. Once glutathione levels are exhausted, then liver damage occurs. Adding N-acetyl cycteine (NAC) to every tablet of tylenol would make it virtually impossible to overdose on tylenol. NAC infused intravenously is used to treat tylenol overdoses. Similarly, a plan to add thiamine to alcoholic beverages to prevent Korsakoff’s syndrome was rejected and instead the “planners” attempt to control things by raising the price of alcohol.
The attitude exhibited by the statist planners is all about power. They couldn’t give a rats ass about the suicide rate but will jump at any opportunity that allows them to extend their control over what they see as an anarchic and messy society. They hate self-organizing systems and independent people as such individuals are a threat to their power. Because they believe they are of superior intellect, they reject any solution to a problem that hasn’t come form them, or through the results of a byzantine bureaucratic process. They may speak about being believers in free enterprise, but they only free enterprise they will tolerate is that of the crony capitalist entities that they control.
While the situation may appear to be hopeless as the statists attempt to extinguish any spontaneous action by individuals to do something, the systems they build are exceedingly fragile. Thus, it doesn’t take many people to bring down the houses of cards that these statists create. Ridicule is a very good tool as well as being prepared. Given the planners obsession with data, a few EMP devices aimed at statist data repositories would cause severe distress to the planners as they would suddenly know nothing about the statistical properties of the population and wouldn’t have a clue of how to proceed. In such a situation, the web of local interactions among people would continue to function just as well as it did before the separation of the planners from their data (more likely it would function even better without interference from statists).
Perhaps this theory helps to explain why the lefties, or as they dubbed themselves “the evidence based decision makers,” reacted so negatively to the scrapping of the compulsary long form census and the “gutting” of Statistics Canada. Then again, they could always maufacture a supposed social crisis from obscure studies or dig up a threat to our health like large soft drinks. My favorite latest example of progressive looniness in pursuit of a goal, in the case, combatting childhood obesity, is the City of Ottawa eliminating birthday cakes 77tfaqnas part of the introduction of a healthy menu for the city run day care centres.
“Conservatism therefore looks upon the enhancement of man’s spiritual nature as the primary concern of political philosophy. Liberals, on the other hand,–in the name of a concern for “human beings”–regard the satisfaction of economic wants as the dominant mission of society.” – Barry Goldwater, Conscience of a Conservative,1960
A certain RBG at Duke has stirred up a hornets nest. God love him.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/06/13/no-significant-warming-for-17-years-4-months/#comment-1334821
RGB at Duke, sorry
The crash of socialism? If only it would. Reading this link and others, it does not surprise me that Lenin and Stalin found willing workers to staff the Cheka/Nkvd or Hitler found willing workers to staff the SS.
Robert, their ideas and supporters being in the trash bin of history, not likely. There seems to be not end of those suggesting they will get it right this time, and the utopia is just around the corner, next to the labour camp.
Loki, your on a roll today. Good.