The robots are coming

Asimo

It is often said that robots, computers and automation will eventually destroy great swathes of employment. There will be little left for humans to do as the machines take over. 

Fear of automation has been common since the Luddites of course, so how should we react to these concerns? 

One response is that new businesses will spring up as old ones die, providing new goods and services as the old ways are automated into oblivion. Human ingenuity is boundless it is said. Nobody should bet against it.

Certainly human ingenuity deserves great respect for its sheer fecundity. Economic optimists have been right so far, although millions of unemployed in the eurozone may have a different perspective. 

Perhaps as the future is unpredictable we may as well extrapolate from the past and remain optimistic. It’s healthier for one thing.

And yet...

Suppose we turn the question around and ask how many worthwhile human activities there are and how many are suited to financial transactions. If the number, however inexact is limited, then we’ll eventually run out of worthwhile things to do for money. We’ll have to base at least some new businesses on things that in one sense or another aren’t worthwhile.

Well that's not new either. Patent medicines for example, psychoanalysis for another. So perhaps it doesn't matter anyway. It all depends on how we choose to define worthwhile activities, how relaxed we are about creating new needs for the sake of creating new needs, whether exploitation really matters if the exploited are happy.  

If customers can be found then maybe it's not for anyone else to judge. Tattoo studios? Nail bars? Recycling? TV soaps? War?

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Ever Decreasing Circles

Number 11, 1952

Written by John Esmonde and Bob Larbey, Ever Decreasing Circles was a popular BBC situation comedy running through four series from 1984 to 1989.

The main character is Martin Bryce, an obsessive middle class suburban fusspot married to Ann, his loyal stay at home wife. Martin’s orderly existence is continually threatened by Paul Ryman, the witty, charming and effortlessly capable next door neighbour.

To my mind Martin says something about the modern world, but I can’t tell if it is what Esmonde and Larbey intended. He is a figure of fun, a caricature of the domestic control freak nobody ought to like. Yet Martin is also a decent and honourable man, painfully so in many episodes because he is not unaware of his oddities and failures.

So why would anyone set out to make fun of a decent and honourable man, especially as his controlling behaviour is so risible and so often unsuccessful? Martin may be silly, but he is no bully and no threat to anyone.

For example.

In one episode (Jumping to Conclusions) Ann has to write an essay on Jackson Pollock for her Open University course. Martin decides to help her – it’s his contribution to steering her towards a more fulfilling life. True to his character, Martin has a rock solid faith in his wife’s intellectual abilities in spite of his equally firm faith in his capacity to direct those abilities.

After about a second’s consideration, Martin’s contribution is that Jackson Pollock couldn’t paint. He airily assumes Ann will follow this line in her essay simply because it’s so obvious to him that Jackson Pollock couldn’t paint. Ann, being more modern, is bemused by Martin’s dismissal of Pollock and her bemusement is later shared by neighbour Paul who offers clandestine help in writing the essay.

Martin finds out about the clandestine help and assumes Ann is having a fling with Paul. He packs his bag and leaves her a note saying he has gone for good and hopes she will be happy with Paul. The point here is that true to Martin’s character, he genuinely hopes Ann will be happy. His love for her is essentially selfless and in its bottomless decency probably beyond most of us.

Not only that, but in the grand scheme of things it is by no means obvious that Jackson Pollock’s work was anything more than a series of worthless daubs. Martin has a point, but not one suited to the world of Ann, Paul and presumably those who made the programme.

It’s a fascinating contrast. The unsympathetic yet thoroughly decent Martin isn’t allowed to add a single atom of cultural value to the modern world. He belongs to a narrow, blinkered and culturally impoverished past and it is no surprise that he fails so dismally to see Pollock's artistic merits.

Of course situation comedy characters are two dimensional and bolted together for the laughs so we shouldn’t read too much into their construction. It’s not as if decent characters haven’t been used for their comic potential either. 

Even so, there is a dark side to our willingness to laugh at Martin Bryce.

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A hundred flowers

From ChinaSMACK:

We Must Sternly Repress Counter-Revolutionaries (1951)

前三十年毛把中国弄成了人间地狱，后三十年拔乱返正，逐步走上正轨和理性！
The first 30 years turned China into hell on earth, the later 30 years has brought order to disorder, and now we are gradually getting on the right track with reason/rationality!

这里让评论吗，好害怕
Is commenting allowed here, I’m so scared.

查水表
"Here to check your water meter." ("Often used in responses to posts or comments that may be considered subversive or “inharmonious” by the government, suggesting that the police or authorities will be coming to the original poster’s home to arrest them under the guise of “checking their water meter”.)"

Ha, ha. And yet...




"Careers for linguists at GCHQ"

 

From The Guardian, 21 October 2014

 

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The rise of Homo bureaucraticus

...and the evolution of the precautionary principle.

The rise of the precautionary principle since 1900
source

The precautionary principle is a defining characteristic of Homo bureaucraticus, a gender-neutral offshoot of Homo sapiens. Along with its symbiotic partner the expert, a species of hominid parrot, Homo bureaucraticus is now common all over the northern hemisphere.

The traditional definition of the precautionary principle is as a post hoc justification of actions and policies already decided, but it works even better as one of the keys to rise of Homo bureaucraticus.

Most of us are acutely sensitive to personal, family and tribal risk. It’s an ingrained feature of our survival antennae, part of our animal nature. Homo bureaucraticus takes this a step further. If it sees a risk, any risk, then bureaucraticus instructs an expert to slap a precautionary principle on it – the favoured one being avoid and blame.

Bankers go a step further and engineer negative risks for themselves and their cronies – ie other bankers, but that's another story.

Risk wasn’t always so amenable to manipulation though. Before Stonehenge was built, when even the most upmarket kitchen utensils were made of flint, risk was a far more serious business than it is today. Although...

What was the risk of not building Stonehenge? Is Homo bureaucraticus an older species than we have hitherto supposed? It’s an open question.

Anyway, among many other disadvantages our technical civilisation has made risk rather less risky. We may get away with stupidities but Homo bureaucraticus always gets away with stupidities. Much like banking in fact, only with bureaucraticus the risk is parked on voters...

Nope on reflection it’s not much like banking, it’s exactly like banking.

Even so the system copes. It may sag a little but on the whole it seems to cope. Not that we’d ever know if it couldn’t cope. Not until afterwards when bureaucraticus claims it’s all our fault for electing idiots. Which admittedly is something we do rather often.

So without the lure of a very substantial gain Homo bureaucraticus isn’t prepared to take risks under any but the most compelling circumstances. If it ain’t worth it don’t do it – that’s the bureaucraticus mantra.

Doing isn’t the whole story though because doing includes thinking and saying and telling. In other words bureaucraticus doesn’t take risks with language either, not even with that covert language trickling through its head as it reads the report it told an expert how to write.

So it is no surprise that the rise of the precautionary principle has seen a parallel and very energetic promotion of risk-free language. Political correctness we call it. As usual the risk of not speaking plainly is bound to fall on the peasants – not on bureaucraticus.

Ironically it could turn out to be a risky business not taking risks. 

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Energy Policy: Large-scale Unintended Consequences

Wherever you look, 21st century energy policy has been hatched by people who know far less than they need to about the subject in hand.

It's sometimes necessary to diagree with the 'experts'.  Prior to liberalisation of the energy markets, the experts - all wedded to the extremely comfortable monopoly model - declared with absolute certainty that gas and electricity were inevitably and essentially matters for monopolies to control.  Not really commodities at all: something magical and different.  Competition ?  Trading ?  No, these were simply impossible.  Trust us.  We are as efficient as it is possible to be. (© Denis Rooke, 1985)

On that, the experts were utterly wrong.

But that doesn't give a licence to greenish, or green-appeasing politicians and civil servants, to announce that electricity grids can be run on windfarms and wishful thinking for zero CO2 emissions, when people who genuinely know better can prove otherwise.  Sadly this is not enough to stop them giving it a try, armed with vast amounts of our money.  But it ain't gonna work: and the harder they try, the more bizarre will be the unintended consequences.  To list a few that had already made themselves apparent a year or so back:

• Germany, which has gone further and faster than any country (and, some would say, with the least planning) has seen record levels of expenditure on renewables, record high power prices to residential customers, and, yes, rising CO2 emissions
• ... and, yes, rising CO2 emissions in the UK also
• ... and around 50% of 'renewable' energy in the EU coming, not from the antiseptic, sunlit windfarms / solar farms / hydro plants of the brochures, but filthy biofuels, whose only claim to reducing CO2 emissions comes from the fact that they are deemed to do so, irrespective of the truth (which is that in most cases they don't)

And now we have the UK 'capacity market' in the electricity sector, being introduced this year to rectify the problem that in an era when no-one moves without a subsidy, no-one seems willing to build unsubsidised power plants to relace the coal stations that are closing with each passing year.  I may write on the technicalities of this 'market' another time, but for now we need simply to look at the recently published details of who are bidding into the auction process for being awarded 3-year or even 15-year wads of 'capacity payments' (i.e. standing charge contracts) for the 'new capacity' they promise to bring onto the UK grid.  

A fair chunk (by volume) of the bids are made by would-be developers of new CCGTs (large gas turbines in their most efficient configuration).  This is what the government hoped for.  But new CCGTs are costly, and unlikely to win at auction, because even more capacity is on offer from other sources, e.g. bids from companies offering to put old, mothballed CCGTs back into service (again, anticipated and welcomed by DECC).

Then come the unintended consequences.

• one of the largest 'new build' CCGTs is in fact two-thirds already built, and starts up next year anyway, whether it gets a capacity contract or not!  (The capacity payments don't start until 2018)
• a large chunk of the bids comes from owners of existing coal plants, offering 'new capacity' by way of eking out extended and better performance from their ageing kit
• the biggest bidder is bloody EDF, hands out again, pretending that its long-announced life-extension projects for its existing UK nukes are also 'new capacity'.  Again, these are money-for-old-rope projects that will go ahead anyway

Needless to say, this is not what DECC or the greens initially expected from the capacity market, though the logic of it had begun to dawn on them over the summer.  The howls of outrage greeting the coal projects in particular are hilarious to hear.  Anyone could have told them: it's always cheaper to refurbish existing capacity than build new plant.


Looking back at several years' worth of energy postings, I find I have invoked reductio ad absurdum several times: and it is time to roll out this venerable tool of formal logic once again.  The absurdities are there for all to see.   The logicians' answer is that the original assumptions must be wrong.  That's the correct conclusion, and one we urgently need DECC to draw.

Nick Drew

This post first appeared on the Capitalists@Work blog 


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Plug ugly

(Japan Times)

 

"Created by Paul McCarthy, an American artist, as part of his exhibition Chocolate Factory, the installation is officially described as a Christmas tree. Social media wags, however, have suggested that it looks more like something rude (ask your mother)," says Ellen E Jones in the Independent on Sunday.

 

1. I don't know why it is your mother you'd have to ask. If Ms Jones can't tell the difference between a dildo and a butt plug she may not be as sophisticated as she pretends.

 

2. It's not a commentator's jest: the resemblance to the latter is entirely intended by the artist. Here he is in Le Monde:

 

"As the bright green plastic canvas "tree" is completing its installation beside the Vendôme column (the most phallic monument in Paris), we interviewed the artist, who specialises in disturbing and provocative works, about the nature of his piece.

 

""It all started with a joke: Originally, I thought that an anal plug had a shape similar to the sculptures of Brancusi. Afterwards, I realized that it looked like a Christmas tree. But it is an abstract work. People can be offended if they wish in relating to the plug, but for me it is more of an abstraction.""

 

Not entirely surprising, then that he got punched in the face and that the guy ropes were cut, so that the "artwork" had to be deflated. He had indeed "disturbed and provoked".

 

(Japan Times)

How much longer will we have to endure cheap stunts justified by highfalutin' nonsense and boosted by a louche and jaded commercial commentariat? Is there really no distinction between art and a smoking-room joke?


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Simon Harris on Catalonian independence

(Pic source: RT News)

Readers of George Orwell’s “Homage to Catalonia” (1938) will remember the author’s strength of feeling for the cause and for his fellows. Catalonia is that kind of place, even now, for there are a number of English people living there who see themselves simply as Catalans born abroad. In the wake of last month’s rallies, expatriates met to discuss the implications of secession from Spain.

 

(Pic via Brett Hetherington)

One of the participants was Simon Harris, who gives an account of the issues and feelings of Catalans in this email interview:

Please describe the October 1 expats meeting, and the fears and hope of attendees.

The October 1 meeting was held at the Antiga Fabrica Moritz and a couple of hundred foreign-born Catalan citizens attended (We don't really like “expat”. It certainly doesn't tally with my experience in Barcelona and smacks of people talking English and drinking G&T on the Costas. We live here and get on with our lives much like the locals despite having been born elsewhere.)

 

The four people on the panel talked of a more prosperous future with a greater degree of social justice.  

The main concern is a possible frontier effect causing a decrease in trade with Spain. But I believe the confrontational style of central government exaggerates this. 47% of Catalan exports go to Spain. Many of the commercial relationships go back decades and are often with multinationals so it’s actually quite difficult to tell where things have been produced. Even the boycott on Catalan cava of a few years ago didn't last long (the alternative was French champagne that doesn't taste the same and costs three times as much). Ultimately, consumers care about quality and value for money so after a period of instability the trade relations will settle at a slightly lower level but at the same time, Catalonia will find new foreign markets. (The area of the economy that will be worst affected is the Catalan banks, La Caixa and Sabadell. Once you've changed your account you don't go back.) 

Our other concern is the general lack of debate. This is partly a cultural problem but also because since the referendum isn't allowed, there's been no real campaigning on either side. People who are active, such as most of those who attended the meeting) tend to be pro-vote and pro-independence. 

What are the arguments for Catalonian independence? 

Firstly, cultural-historical: like Scotland, Catalonia used to be a separate country and was gradually taken over by its neighbour. It still has a strong sense of its identity, which is why the Spanish government has always tried to suppress Catalan language and culture. Catalan was illegal after 1714 under Felipe V and you could be arrested for speaking it under Franco. As recently as 2012, education minister José Ignacio Wert said that he wanted to 'españolizar' Catalan schoolchildren and has since introduce a new education law called the LOMCE which attempts to do so. Although the language of education is Catalan, all Catalan kids are bilingual and in PISA tests (independent EU university tests) Catalan schoolchildren always score above the national average in Castilian Spanish! So the LOMCE is a repressive rather than an educational measure. 

There are also economic arguments. To start with, Catalonia pays far more in taxes than it gets back in investment from Madrid. Yet central government obstructs development in our region and is prepared to accept national disadvantage in order to keep us down. For example, the European Corridor Freight Line which would run from Algeciras, Malaga, Cartagena, Valencia and Barcelona into northern Europe is constantly blocked because it doesn't go through Madrid. Even though it would benefit the whole country, it would benefit Barcelona/Catalonia most. 

Look also at access to airports. Madrid Airport's Terminal 4 has metro, train and new roads - and they plan to spend €16 billion on an AVE (high speed train) connection serving a handful of passengers a day. Meanwhile, connections to Barcelona airport's T1 terminal need improving and Iberia Airlines have just cancelled intercontinental flights from Barcelona. It’s mad. 

The fact that everything in Spain is run by national agencies disincentivises efficiency. For example the hugely profitable Port of Barcelona subsidises the unprofitable ports and hasn't money left to reinvest in its own infrastructure. And so on. 

How has the movement started and grown, and what is the degree of general support? 

Things came to a head when Catalonia's new Statute of Autonomy, which had been watered down and passed by Spanish Parliament and voted on in referendum with 75% in favour in Catalonia, was declared unconstitutional by the national Constitutional Court in July 2010. 

The first demonstration under the slogan 'We are a nation. We decide' took to the streets with more than a million people in Barcelona. Just prior to this informal ballots on independence were organised in villages and towns and the 'Barcelona Decides' ballot took place in the early summer of 2011 with a festive atmosphere and a massive vote in favour. 

The extreme right-wing Partido Popular (they say they're conservatives but the party was founded by former Franco ministers and current leaders have ties with the fascist Falange party) came to power in Spain in the autumn of 2011 and tension increased. In 2012 on La Diada, the Catalan National Day (September 11^th) more than 1.5 million took to the streets of Barcelona under the slogan 'Catalonia, New European State' and for the first time independence for Catalonia became a majority opinion. 

The 2013 Diada demonstration was the “Catalan Way” in which 1.5 million people joined hands from Catalonia's southern border to its northern border with France, and in this year's “V” 1.8 million people created a human mosaic in Barcelona. Both events were perfectly organised and there has been no violence of any kind. 

Current support for independence stands at roughly 50% in favour with 25% against and 25% undecided. These figures vary by 5% in either direction, depending on the poll. 

What is the attitude of the Spanish Government, the EU and supranational bodies? 

The Spanish government has refused to negotiate on the main issues.  

A few days after the 2012 Diada, Catalan President Artur Mas met with Spanish President Mariano Rajoy to discuss changes to tax policy. Catalonia currently pays €16 billion in taxes (net of inward investment) to central government; this is 8% of Catalan GDP, making it the most highly-taxed region in Europe. Rajoy refused to discuss the issue. 

The other complaint involves language and education. Under the Education Minister’s LOMCE plan to 'hispanicize' Catalan children, it will be possible for students to go through their whole school career without learning any Catalan. The Spanish Constitutional Court also obliges the Catalan government to pay for private education exclusively in the Spanish language to any parent that asks for it. Yet even in the atmosphere of tension only 40 families in a population of 7.5 million have requested this. Why? Because the Catalan education system is very good as it is and guarantees a high level of integration. 

In Autonomic elections in November 2012, 4 parties included a pledge to hold a referendum in their manifestoes, so now 86 members out of a Catalan parliament of 135 deputies are committed to this. The Catalan government presented a proposal to hold a referendum on November 9 in the Spanish congress, which was voted against by all the major Spanish parties and defeated.  

The Catalan parliament then drew up a law of 'Non Referenderary Consultation' (a non-binding question to find out how many people are in favour of independence and also allow debate from both sides); the Constitutional Court decided that too was unconstitutional and threatened to suspend for life any civil servant who engaged in any sort of organisational activity. 

As a result last Tuesday (14 October), President Mas announced a 'participative' vote would take place without using the census (voters will register using their ID card on voting day), volunteers rather than civil servants would be involved in the organisation and polling stations would be restricted to facilities owned by the Catalan government. 

The Partido Popular government in Madrid is considering taking it before the Constitutional Court as I write [15 October]. It should be noted that many see the Constitutional Court as biased in favour of the Spanish government: some of the judges are former Partido Popular activists and only gave up membership after being elected. 

The attitude of the EU and other supranational bodies is that it is an internal Spanish issue. 

Could you comment further on the November 9 “consultation”? 

Because the consultation is organised by the 'Yes' camp it is unlikely that many Noes will bother to vote, but if as expected 2 million Catalans vote 'Yes' this will be a very strong message to the world. Either way the Spanish government lose. If they ban even this watered-down consultation, they'll look like fascists. If they let it go ahead, the world will see a festive peaceful Catalan society make a powerful democratic statement. 

What are the movement’s chances of success, and what processes would be involved in legal and economic separation? Would Catalonia choose to remain in the Eurozone? 

I think there are high chances of success. Although the participative vote on November 9 isn’t a referendum, the message will be clear if there is a massive turnout. This will be a prelude to 'plebiscitary' elections in which pro-independence parties form a single candidacy with the promise that if they win, independence will be unilaterally declared the following day. 

The Catalan Commission for National Transition has been meeting for the last couple of years and has produced 18 reports on different aspects of the future state of Catalonia. They published a 1,000-page white paper 10 days ago so many things have been considered. 

As there won't be agreement with Spain there will be difficulties, principally in setting up a Treasury and collecting taxes and Social Security. 

Obviously, international recognition will be crucial but if everything is done in a clear and transparent democratic process there shouldn't be too many problems, apart from anything else because Catalonia has a large economy with international exports and is home to multinationals. 

How would you view Catalonia’s economic and social prospects afterwards? 

Obviously, there would be an unstable period before internal infrastructures are in place and international recognition comes. If we can get through that I'm highly optimistic. 

Catalonia has a strong economy centred on its vibrant capital Barcelona. Catalans are creative, gregarious and above all peace-loving. As the demonstration of only 38,000 people in favour of staying in Spain showed last weekend, the strength of feeling in the anti-independence camp, whilst it exists, is not as bitter as Spanish politicians would like us to believe. 

Originally from Nottingham in England, Simon Harris arrived in pre-Olympic Barcelona in 1988 and immediately fell in love with the language, culture and history. He has now lived half his life in Catalonia, where he first earned his living as a musician and then as a teacher of English at the British Council and Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and translator of Catalan and Spanish. He published his first book 'Going Native in Catalonia' in 2007 and since 2011 has run the tourism website Barcelonas.com. Simon is an active campaigner for Catalan independence. Find out more on Simon’s blog - http://independence.barcelonas.com

“Catalonia Is Not Spain: A Historical Perspective” by Simon Harris will be published by 4Cats Books in early November. Buy from:

4Cats Books

Carrer Mallorca, 299
Pral 2a
08037 Barcelona
books@barcelonas.com

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