Appeasing the gods

I spent over a year developing a Management Information System for a large insurance company based in East Anglia. I worked with the actuaries on the business processes of matching payment schedules to claim rates, and we created systems to allow dynamic exploration of the data to accurately identify the profitable and worthless market segments.

But from Marginal Revolution this week: some people buy insurance because they think it will prevent the bad thing from happening?

It was actually a reference to an excellent article in the NY Times by John Tierney: We may not slaughter animals anymore to ward off a plague, but we think buying health insurance will keep us from getting sick. Our brains may understand meteorology, but in our guts we still think that not carrying an umbrella will make it rain.

And one professor of psychology claims in the same article that "rationalists were just as likely as superstitious people to believe that insurance would ward off accidents".

Obviously I don't buy it.

The Life of Pi

Yesterday's senseless killing has been overtaken by a far more significant one.

Many years ago I read a prizewinning novel, and amongst the opening rambles before the story really got going was a general discussion about the ethics of keeping large animals in zoos. As the child of a zookeeper the narrator was obviously on the positive side, and the main point of that little justification is worth trying to remember...

If the gates of an enclosure are left open, the animal may go for a quick wander outside, but will invariably wander back. Why? Because the enclosure is its territory. It has well defended boundaries, plentiful food, shelter and protection. Unless searching for a mate, most animals could not ask for more.

Those are my recollections, but that was recalling a work of fiction that I last looked at many years ago. The narrator Pi might have been deluded anyway, he claimed to have been stuck on a small boat with a fully grown tiger. Was there any evidence for his story? And if there is none, what can we learn from his delusion? Could a delusion justify the killing?

A Prayer for the Living

Nothing original today. It seems that my thoughts have already been divinely revealed to the meme machine:

Let us take responsibility for our own actions, inactions, strengths and frailties and not project them onto ghosts, spirits, stars, portents and gods unseen.

Let us have the courage to accept that one person's faith is another person's bloody-minded pig-headed refusal to accept the obvious.

Let us have the courage to accept that the person at the front of all crowds, including this one, doesn't know all the answers.

Let us have the wisdom to accept that if our ancestors had fared differently in wars our communities would be holding different absurdities up as sacred truths, and the willingness to accept those absurdities would be seen as the badge of social trustworthiness or even the right to be allowed to draw breath.

Let us accept that the difference between a prophet and a madman is not what they say but whether the crowd accepts the story and tells their children to believe it.

Let us have the courage to accept that wanting to believe in something with every fibre of our being does not and cannot make it true.

Truth needs no help, no believers, no bowed heads and no amens.

But it does need thanks to Martin Willett.

Does a bee care?

As I briefly mentioned the United States yesterday, another quick word about US politics before the moralising gets too demoralising. Most of it is sickening. But one statement was almost funny. "It's scientifically impossible for the bumblebee to fly ... But the bumblebee, being unaware of these scientific facts, flies anyway."

Obviously it is not scientifically impossible, but equally obviously, nobody ever claimed that it was.

It would be easy to dismiss this proposition as a harmless urban myth, except that such statements are deliberately used by those who delight in defeatism, those who want to retreat from evidence-based development into a mythical fairytale bronze age theocracy.

Oh well. According to another idiot, Freedom Requires Religion, so I'd better convert to Islam, that's a religion, so that will increase my freedom.

Sorry Brian!

We could discuss the news. But I'll stay personal today.

I used to have a pet snail called Brian. Well, he was not really a pet, but I did see him a few times sliding across my patio.

Maybe giving him that name was a mistake. But I can honestly say that I named him after the main character of the Magic Roundabout and not after the supposed prophet. I appreciate that some people may believe that Brian was a divine messenger whose every word should be obeyed. I used to think those people were gullible fools, but I realise now that only they know the true meaning of life.

Apology done. Now I'm off to get lashed.

Should people be persecuted for what they write?

There have been riots in the city of my birth. According to the BBC, Wednesday's trouble in the state capital began after the predominantly Muslim All-India Minority Forum called for blockades on major roads in the city.

What triggered this? The Forum is angry about a "feminist writer". Critics say she called for the Koran to be changed to give women greater rights. Shocking isn't it.

The BBC seems to neither condemn nor condone the unruly behaviour. The article merely asks the question that titles this note.

I am not writing an answer. But if you suggest that certain thousand-year-old middle-eastern dictates should have no place in the modern world, then perhaps you should be persecuted too.

Touching the Cloth

Joe Simpson was the climber who shattered his legs when he was dropped down a crevasse descending a peak in the Peruvian Andes. His story was the subject of the film Touching the Void. It was a miracle that he survived the fall, a miracle that he dragged himself out of the ravine, a miracle that he crawled all the way down the mountain, a miracle that he was able to walk again. But there he was on TV this weekend, describing how he had resumed climbing and even ascended the Eiger.

A man of the cloth is a term used for someone who is considered to be close to God, or at least someone who helps the rest of us to get closer to Him.

Mr Simpson was invited onto Desert Island Discs recently. I listened. The interviewer grilled him about those times when he was very close to fading out, when he genuinely thought he was about to die - did he ever think of God or a possible afterlife at those times? No, he replied. Never. Even faced with imminent death, the idea of such a crazy Thing did not even cross his mind.

In addition to your chosen records, the programme lets you take a little reading material onto the desert island. It assumes that everyone will take the Bible, and so many people wanted the complete works of Shakespeare that they started allowing that too. So two hefty books for free, and one more of your choice. Joe took the Shakespeare, but politely declined to take the Bible. Even as toilet paper.

DNR

It would be too easy for me to take apart the leaders from the tabloid press, still easier for me to echo their populist outrage ... but maybe I can start from there to make a more sophisticated yet even more controversial suggestion.

A sick murderous cruel brute tried to kill himself in jail. And like most people I think we should have let him do it instead of spending a fortune on eternal "suicide watch". So does that make me like the red top editors?

In fact it's probably the sickest most vengeful members of the public who want him alive, just so they can drag out his torment.

Back to the villain of the piece, he was not even allowed to starve himself to death. Even though starvation is surely a horrible slow painful miserable tortuous way to die.

So why do we let our dying loved ones go that terrible way instead of hastening the end?

RICE

The doctor told me that rice is meant to be good for mild ruptures to the anterior talo-fibular ligaments, so when I got home today I had a traditional bengali lunch then put my feet up to wait for the basmati to take effect.

The human body is not well designed for running with rapid changes of direction on uneven ground. It's almost as if the supporting structures of the knee and ankle joints were fairly incidental adaptations associated with a more fundamental driver, for example if the benefits from freeing forelimbs from the requirement to transport the body were associated with corresponding costs in other areas. Because evolution cannot plan ahead, it sometimes appears to make some fairly dumb decisions.

Alternatively, it could be God telling us that He did not want us to play football.

The Edge of Thought

These links keep coming. That is link as in the old English meaning of "connection" rather than the new English meaning of "hyperlink page reference".

Just yesterday I pointed out the irony in the position of of the Northern Rock chairman, relating current troubles at the bank to his earlier writing. I still have not seen anyone else comment upon this. And I do have a lot more to say on the evolution of human nature - another time.

But who is featured in both the Times and the Guardian today? Professor Steven Pinker. I was unaware that his new book is being published in the UK just next week. I openly echoed his basic ideas about words and language only a few weeks ago. Yet his new book broadens scope precisely to the fundamentals of human nature that I talked about yesterday.

I bet he meets Matt Ridley for a drink while he's over here.

The Origins of Virtue

After yesterday's brief interlude for the cricket, back to the main news story of the week and the banking crisis - and to put my usual perspective, the intersection or otherwise of simple mathematics with normal human behaviour.

There is not room within this note's self-imposed limit to explain the implications of non-zero-sum game theory and economic moral hazard to the behaviour of Northern Rock customers, anyway we all know that decisions are sometimes individually sensible but collectively foolish. But what are the roots of this behaviour for human beings? And why do we sometimes act in ways that seem detrimental to our own interests?

The origins of virtue lie in the mechanisms of natural selection. Only the semi-ignorant think that long term natural selection is only about accumulated indivdual self-interest. The system of behaviour that is passed down through generations is related to a pattern of information - and if that pattern of information encourages co-operative or altruistic behaviour then it could help the pattern to propagate, even sometimes at the expense of the individual.

I've reached my limit, so no more about that subject for now. It was explained very well here. Full circle. Matt Ridley is today the chairman of Northern Rock! Can it really be the same person?

Scattergun

Match of the Day is showing the highlights of Spurs vs Arsenal. As usual, Arsenal created loads of chances but lack a clinical finisher. After spraying powerful shots in every possible direction, peppering the crowd behind the goal, the striker Adebayor finally connected absolutely perfectly and fired in a spectacular one.

Though he is possibly still a teenager, I think their midfielder Fabregas is a footballing genius. He never seems to whack the ball, but every touch seems to go straight to the feet of a colleague. Except for one time when he had a bit of space 20 yards out. Then he just stroked it into the goal.

But when they show the season's highlights or goal of the month, they will rave about Adebayor's.

It's like a tabloid editor trading rumours for week after week, randomly connecting with one, then splashing "exclusive - you read it here first". Or making loads of psychic predictions then seeing one come true.

ESP

Following on from last week's incident on the roof, today I heard from another psychic. I don't even know his name, he is some sort of expert on living underground, but this guy's extra-sensory abilities seem comparable to any celebrity psychic.

I need to put in context and give specific facts to prove the point. Today I had lunch at my parents' house with some old friends from Zambia. It was more than just lunch really, I picked them up from their home in East London, drove them down South, spent the afternoon there, then drove them back in the evening.

The psychic was on the radio. I don't normally listen to Radio Four at weekends, but the conclusion to the cricket provided interest and entertainment on the long drive back. Then, on conclusion of the match, it switched back to rejoin with the normal Sunday programming. And then I heard this guy waffling about going down a mine. And then he said the mine was in the copperbelt of Zambia.

And I had just spent the afternoon listening to old stories about Zambia. The probability must be so astronomical as to rule out coincidence. There was no way the guy on the radio could have known that. Sally Morgan eat your heart out!

Yogi

Faith in God through Jesus Christ may appear harmless or even beneficial, but it is encouraging people to think that there is a way to wholeness of body and mind through human techniques - whereas the only true way to wholeness is by yoga. No, that is just ridiculous.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article2358035.ece

Full House Team

Let's pull the recent strands together. The house detective had a team of three classic muses, it worked for him. It is too soon for me to talk about my current team.

But I have managed many in the past. What is the ideal composition for the small team?

I was one of five consultants managing a trade processing project for a global merchant bank. Five apparently random names. But remarkably, in order of seniority, the surnames of the five of us ended with the letters A (the managing partner), E (me), I (the lead technical analyst), O (the lead business analyst), and U (the lead programmer).

In my mind, it was the ideal management team for an IT project. What were the chances of five people having abilities that complemented so perfectly? What were the chances of our surnames ending with those letters in that particular order? Multiply up the probabilities and we get one in zillions. It can't be a coincidence that we all seemed to gel so well. It was pre-destiny that brought us all together. Same conditions apply.

Real House

God has spoken to me. It was barely 48 hours ago that I wrote:

Typical scam, point to a loose tile on the roof or a damp patch on the wall, warn about tremendous potential damage unless hundreds of pounds of remedial work is performed as soon as possible.

Today, after literally years of exchanging nothing more than an occasional "hello", the guy from the house opposite us knocked on our door, showed me outside, and pointed to my roof. I was shocked. I took a picture...





A couple of rows of tiles had somehow worked loose, and were only being stopped from falling onto my car (or anyone close to the house) by a bit of guttering. If they dropped and shattered then next door's windows would be smashed too. It was very dangerous. I agreed.

So I spent an hour trying to phone every local roofer in the book. Bank holiday weekend, all either busy or absent. So I eventually plucked up the courage, found a very long ladder that seemed far too light for the task, and slowly went up to fix it myself. Well it's not completely "fixed", but I lifted the broken tiles out of their precarious position and brought them down safely. They aren't half heavy when carried in one hand when you're hanging onto a ladder twenty feet up with the other hand. But I did it. It's safe now. At least until it rains.

But back to the start, I'd just written about this very event. It is too much of a coincidence. It would only need one more condition to prove that everything happens for a reason, that there is someone watching over us, that there is a god, that there is a purpose in life ...

House MD

Here in the UK, it was the season finale yesterday. Well done Channel Five.

I've indirectly referred to the protagonist a few times now. I don't aspire to be the guy, we know he is an asshole. We are so different. I can't imagine him striving for honesty and integrity. He has no life outside of work whereas most of my life is outside of work. I watched it for entertainment, not do draw parallels. But something resonates...

He is rational and sensible but seems incredibly radical. He is sometimes wrong, of course, but he is right more than anybody else. He is right partially because he has far more experience and much greater breadth and depth of knowledge than the rest of the team. But mainly because he seems to be the only one who can make the necessary decisions without prejudice or superstition. The only one who seems able to resolve the myriad conflict pressures without freezing. It is a demonstration of management decisionmaking under pressure.

Incidentally the doctor had a team of three. A gentle young lady who seemed pure niceness but she hid a turbulent past. And two very different young men, one of whom at first appeared to be a mini-clone of the boss, but actually turned out to be a very different character. But the team has broken up now ...

Rogue Traders

The Office of Fair Trading has many functions of the US Department of Justice, it exists to protect the consumer from anti-competitive or fraudulent behaviour.

On a smaller scale, there are plenty of televsion programmes in which fraudsters and con artists are exposed. Often it's a cross between extortion and theft, so a harsher term than hustler is probably needed. These people exploit victims who are confused and vulnerable.

Typical scam, point to a loose tile on the roof or a damp patch on the wall, warn about tremendous potential damage unless hundreds of pounds of remedial work is performed as soon as possible. The victim is initially scared, but the problem is fixed, the money is paid, and the victim feels better. We see even swifter results if the initial diagnosis was ridiculously overblown or maybe just a simple lie, then no real work at all needs to be done, but the victim can still pay their money and then be reassured that the house is structurally safe (again). The hustler gets his money and the victim feels better. Great?

But those cowboys practise theft and extortion. They should be locked up.

Swap victim's house for victim's health in this story. Would you care for some "alternative" medicine or "complementary" therapy?

The enemies of common sense

A few years ago I was speaking outside work with a senior manager in a large consulting firm and the subject somehow came round to organ donation after death. He genuinely said that he would not allow anyone in his family do it, even to save another life, because his religion had prohibited it. Was he pious or stupid?

Anyway, there are other kinds of madness...

Welcome to a dangerous new era - the Unlightenment - in which centuries of rational thought are overturned by idiots. Superstitious idiots. They're everywhere - reading horoscopes, buying homeopathic remedies, consulting psychics, babbling about "chakras" and "healing energies", praying to imaginary gods, and rejecting science in favour of soft-headed bunkum. But instead of slapping these people round the face till they behave like adults, we encourage them. We've got to respect their beliefs, apparently.

Well I don't. "Spirituality" is what cretins have in place of imagination. If you've ever described yourself as "quite spiritual", do civilisation a favour and punch yourself in the throat until you're incapable of speaking aloud ever again. Why should your outmoded codswallop be treated with anything other than the contemptuous mockery it deserves?

That was Charlie Brooker previewing tonight's TV. Hmmmm.

Democracy

Yesterday evening, I watched some TV.

Imagine that you are a normal schoolkid. Imagine that you and your family have lived in the same neighbourhood for hundreds of years, in the same house for generations. Your parents have jobs. Your friends live nearby. Maybe you were once in that position. Maybe you are now.

Then imagine that you are suddenly told that because you are part of a "minority" (even if that minority is many millions of people) you must leave immediately. You are not told in so many words, but your house is burnt down by a mob, and if you are lucky then you are not beaten to death. You cannot take anything with you, you have no money and no food, and you will have to walk hundreds of miles to reach relative safety. As you walk for week after week, many of those who escape mob attacks will die of exhaustion or starvation.

If you make it over the border to safety, then what's left of your family has to start again from nothing. It has to battle with a million others in the same position. No job. No land. No home. No money. No support. No history.

I also spoke with my parents yesterday.