mediocracy

2009-10-21T12:07:00.007+01:00

Due to lack of financial support, this blog is on sabbatical until December or January. In the meantime, why not browse the archives. Topics covered in 2009 include:• crazy equity markets; zero interest rates; Nouriel Roubini; gushing over Obama; Shazia Mirza; feminism; offensiveness; architecture; Norman Foster; Germany's clerics; Deutsche Bank • the myth of deregulation; black swans;

Sex and the singularity

2009-08-23T10:32:00.007+01:00

• New Speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow is said to have discovered the joys of socialism at the same time as, or perhaps as a result of, discovering the joys of sex. I had not in my own case observed an association between these two activities, but perhaps others are constituted differently from oneself? If there is a link between them, it might help to explain the otherwise mysterious

Trivialised does as trivialised is

2009-07-18T07:00:00.026+01:00

Now that the hoo-ha about MPs' expenses seems to have died down, can any useful lessons be said to have been learnt? Perhaps this: trying to restrict the salaries of public figures while being generous (but fuzzy) with expenses rules, for appearances' sake, can backfire since everyone starts to push the rules [1] as far as they will go. Of course, it may have been meant to backfire, for the

weekend notes #7

2009-06-19T08:00:00.016+01:00

• I note we have another convenient scapegoat for the collapse of a dumbed down banking system. To 'greed', 'lack of consultation' and 'insufficient training' we can now add 'too much testosterone'. The solution, apparently, is to have many more women in top management positions in the financial sector. The Financial Times is all for the idea.Many boards, especially in financial services, are in

weekend notes #6

2009-05-30T08:00:00.018+01:00

• Someone commented on last post's remarks about modern philosophy as follows:You blogged recently about Blade Runner and teaching, noting "I suspect this particular rot may have started with the 1999 movie The Matrix." Not so. During the 1980s TV and film regularly were discussed in philosophy tutorials classes at Manchester University (dependent upon lecturer). For example we talked about

weekend notes #5

2009-05-09T07:00:00.036+01:00

• Jacqui Smith’s Home Office is fast becoming the laughing stock of Europe. Germany’s premier TV news programme, Die Tagesschau, gleefully referred to the Quickgate affair as “Schlamperei” (one possible translation of the m-word?). The boobs and gaffes have become so regular that they seem to have inspired the creation of a website dedicated to chronicling them. Joanna Lumley may seem an odd

weekend notes #4

2009-02-22T08:28:00.017Z

• People may find it galling that the directors of banks at the heart of the garbage-finance crisis are still receiving eye-watering bonuses. But trying to tinker with the bonus culture, or calling it “disgusting”, seems a poor strategy if the point is to prevent a recurrence of the stupidity that led to a global meltdown.If bankers operate in an environment in which it pays to act first and

weekend notes #3

2009-02-01T09:06:00.011Z

• Postscript to the previous post and the idea of 'clever crazies'. In my experience, the exceptionally clever are not 'crazy' in any meaningful sense of that word, at least not the functional ones. They are just not particularly good at office politics, which is something you need to be brilliant at in modern academia to avoid being marginalised. To be good at something requires you to be

weekend notes #2

2009-01-11T13:53:00.006Z

• Recently I have been coming across articles in Oxford University Gazette's Magazine which make key points that are strangely familiar, but which then muddle these up with other, more dubious points. In the latest issue there is an article1 by Jerome Ravetz about the financial crisis. While Dr Ravetz correctly notes that over-reliance on models has led to trouble for various financial

weekend notes

2009-01-03T07:00:00.011Z

• What an extraordinary fourth quarter we have had. A year ago I thought there was trouble brewing, but if someone had told me that by December the US interest rate would be zero, and that two of the world's top five carmakers would be on the verge of going under, I would have found it difficult to believe. The equity markets were literally incredible for a while, with daily moves of 3-5% the

Midweek review

2008-10-07T18:00:00.010+01:00

• Why is Labour desperate to get more and more people to go to university? All kinds of phoney motivations are cited — e.g. a wish for a 'fairer' society, wanting everyone to have the chance to be creative. Of course, there is the standard leftist desire to keep rearranging the lego pieces of society — "you don't want to do it like that". Robbing Peter to help Paul, if only to reduce Paul's

Please: no more ‘no-brainers’

2008-10-04T17:00:00.002+01:00

I don't get angry about economics related things often, but I am right now (I could not have posted what I was really thinking). Congress needed to get something done. This is completely disfunctional [sic]. Disgusting. This shows no regard for people who might lose their jobs over this. I know a lot of you think we can get through this — you are nuts to take that chance, this is extraordinarily

Midweek review

2008-09-30T11:00:00.016+01:00

• Someone pejoratively referred to my Decline and Fall table from April — which was meant half-seriously/half-satirically and mentioned "crashes, insolvencies, credit system seizing up, market breakdown, all paper assets become suspect" — as "hysterical". Do they still maintain their scepticism after the Dow Jones index yesterday suffered its biggest-ever points drop? Actually, yesterday was not

Any colour you want, so long as it’s left

2008-09-28T14:00:00.015+01:00

The theory of democracy is that everyone’s view is given equal weight. In practice, if no genuine alternatives are offered, the weight of each voter’s view is zero. In a mediocracy, the political elite proceeds largely as it wishes, with the electorate’s contribution limited to derision. (Mediocracy, p.66)What do you do if an ideology, to which you do not subscribe, has become so dominant that

Midweek review

2008-09-23T21:00:00.006+01:00

• Celia Green has some thoughts about the Establishment, involving reminiscences about colonial governors, BBC departmental heads and Oxford college principals.• "Greed, Greed, Greed!" The papers last week were absolutely full of it — their preferred explanation for the financial crisis. Amazing how many columnists just happen to know what the psychological dynamics are like inside investment

Not even the smallest deviation

2008-09-21T18:19:00.011+01:00

“In a Party Member ... not even the smallest deviation of opinion on the most unimportant subject can be tolerated.”1984Professor Michael Reiss, former Director of Education at the Royal Society, has resigned following a talk given to the British Association, in which he suggested that science lessons in schools should permit discussions of creationism — rather than making the very mention of the

Midweek review

2008-09-17T07:00:00.007+01:00

• What lessons will be taken from the banking crisis? That the free market cannot be trusted? Or that allowing it to be distorted by egalitarian ideology is a recipe for disaster, particularly if market participants correctly guess that their follies will be protected from the normal penalties? There is little point arguing about it; the conclusion is more or less foregone. Too many members of

Stop, inequality, you're killing me!

2008-09-14T18:00:00.007+01:00

The World Health Organization, in its latest Report, seems to have come up with a shortcut method for the reduction of global illness. Stop concentrating on microorganisms or nutrition, and start blaming ‘injustice’, formerly known as economic inequality.Well, at least it’s honest. The WHO has come clean and admitted that it is basically predicated on a redistributionist ideology. As

Midweek review

2008-09-10T07:00:00.011+01:00

• Celia Green writes about movie representations of the Gospel of Thomas which, as might be expected, are highly lurid and inaccurate.• An academic has complained to Lucy Kellaway's agony column about vicious appraisals from one of his student groups. Ms Kellaway thinks that anonymous student feedback is "democracy gone mad", but most readers' comments are of the "get over it" variety. My own

Pod People

2008-09-07T10:06:00.007+01:00

Is the mediocracy concept just a catch-all for the things I dislike about modern society, as someone once suggested? Certainly not. (I shall elaborate in a future post.) And does the Mediocracy book have "an unfinished feel", as an otherwise complimentary reviewer on Amazon alleged? Possibly. It is an original theory, and in some ways I was still working through the ideas of it when I wrote the

In other news

2008-09-05T15:56:00.016+01:00

• Definition of ideological fanaticism? Being so desperate to change society that you write to the scripwriters of soaps to get them to tweak the worldview they purvey. That is what Cambridge University is doing to get more EastEnders viewers to apply for its undergraduate courses. You couldn't make it up — or could you? Perhaps some scripwriters will incorporate that into their plots, suitably

Lock the doors, character's bolted

2008-09-01T15:00:00.018+01:00

We sure live in a topsy-turvy political world at the moment. On the 'Right', we have The Party Formerly Known As The Conservatives, who are now (apparently) the party of poverty and fairness, and are busily trying to find new roles for the state (what, we don't have enough already?). On the other side, we have a 'liberal' intelligentsia sufficiently on the defensive about the Left's recent record

No connection

2008-08-23T08:00:00.004+01:00

* This definition excludes pseudo-intellectual activities, such as the television programme QI, and most university courses.

Summer reading - the top 10

2008-08-17T10:48:00.007+01:00

MemoFrom: Leader of the Antimediocracy PartyTo: all parliamentary candidatesDear Party membersI attach details of the first ten books on our summer reading list, as selected by the Intellectualisation Committee. Details of the other 128 titles will follow in due course.We know you will have neither the time nor the inclination this holiday to do more than glance briefly at one or two items on the

The Doctor is in (part 2)

2008-08-09T13:41:00.006+01:00

Gordon Brown’s premiershipWhy has Gordon Brown’s public standing deteriorated so badly? Tony Blair faced more serious problems, e.g. the Iraq fiasco, yet seemed to hold up better.Brown and Blair are probably similar in terms of innate abilities. Their different levels of success in the public arena can be attributed partly to the differences in their schooling. State comprehensive schools, like