Government - What's it good for?

Here's a fundamental question, especially in a country that has just gone through elections - what does the parliament do?
You can see that the title I used above is different. At first, that's what I was thinking - "government" - but then I realised very quickly that I didn't mean those that don't get elected. There are public servants, appointments, etc, who get on with the job they were expected to perform (to some degree) with interference only from those that we, the people, elect.

What has evolved as a parliament has a strange history from the two conflicting needs to counsel the monarch & to ensure that the monarch doesn't overstep the rights of the people. Here, of course, "the people" were those with property & money, with things at stake.
As soon as you have reviewing the monarch, you end up with a monarch who is always trying to test their limits, & thus parliament becomes a shaggy dog.
Essentially, we can't get rid of the one we've got. It's also grown since its inception to take over the roles of many other political functionaries.

Direct monarchy doesn't happen in Australia, & even the Vice-Regal has very fine teeth. Therefore, the parliament isn't counselling anyone - it seems to be a self-perpetuating process of navel gazing, that is, reviewing itself.
This is all well & good if it had well-defined functions on which to base its review. It seems to be there just "to rule".

Other things that happened to Australia is the true separation of Church & State, & a theoretically independent Judiciary.
The latter is not quite true, because the laws (the Queen's Law, in fact) come from the parliament.
The interpretation is left to judges, whose experience is relied on thereafter - unless the parliament decides to do something about them as individuals.

There is no Church. There are some left-overs from a once-Anglican dominance (we talk of parishes within an electoral boundary), but there are now so many churches that there seems no relationship between any one of them & a given parliament.
This, to me, means two things - there is no social cohesion on questions of morality & ethics (or even debate), & the parliament thinks that it should step into the gap (heaven forbid!).

I think gay marriage is a classic example here. Why does the parliament decide on the social representation of people's relationships?
Can a church not recognise & perform gay marriage within its separate articles? How can a parliament then say what marriages that church can perform (or will be "recognised")?
Australia is a special case where de facto relationships are already recognised by the parliament (& the government) as equivalent to marriage.
How can the parliament interfere with a church in that way?

If a bunch of ordinary people elected to create laws (or review them) is given the power to determine what a church can do - or the judiciary - then they have too much power, & surely we should have some kind of review on that process itself to ensure that the parliament doesn't overstep the rights of the people (not just those whose support got them there).

This seems to be going around in circles - meet the new boss: same as the old boss.

Not My Fault

Call me an arch-conservative (go on - be the first!), but I don't like whining liberals who complain about the world & how so many wrongs need to be righted.
This is, fundamentally, a revenge mentality - there is a wrong, someone needs to be punished, & then "we" will feel better.
It doesn't matter if we are talking about law, politics, or sport, people think they have a right to retribution in matters that don't actually concern them or directly affect them.

Let's do this with examples.

Law.

Although I'm all for victim impact statements & assessments, let's limit the range of victim defined. Perhaps I should say that we could leave it in the hands of professional victim assessors, rather than broadcasting "Hey, who wants to be a victim here?"
In a murder, there is generally one victim. They are dead. That's a big impact, but nothing can be done to change that.

No parent can get their child back. No parent should expect blood money. I say "expect" intentionally. Society may punish the perpetrator in such a way that it "profits", & these funds should then be pushed towards ameliorating the grief associated with the victim's loss, definitely.
However, buying a new house doesn't count.

The old Gaelic concept (& I'm sure it existed elsewhere) of blood money was to compensate a family for the loss of a worker - in the same way that you would compensate if you'd killed someone's cow. This is no longer relevant to our society, but we keep acting as though it is.

Don't even get me started on the precedence principles in the legal profession - where once judgement was by the King, then by his representatives, & now must look as consistent as if that was still the case.
I doubt if HM feels it is like that now.


Politics.

In a recent Australian election - & it's not the first time I've heard it - voters "punished" the government due to their unhappiness with various aspects of its organisation or its policies.
In what way did "punishing" a political party improve the lot of those voters?
Regardless of the opposition's policies, voting with revenge in mind is stupid.

I'm not even going to continue with how the new government then systematically removed any public servant or office with the taint of their predecessors.
Government is meant to be the stability that rules the country & keeps it from dissolving into anarchy & chaos.
I believe that seeking revenge on the temporarily unpopular former ruling tribe can lead only to further retribution down the track.


Sport.

This story seems to have legs for so many reasons. When one football team lost a game "because" the referees failed to notice an infringement by the other team, all hell broke loose.
Someone had to be held responsible for the tragedy - remember, this is football.
So, who perpetrated the "crime"? Obviously, the side that infringed, right?

I doubt that the infringement was intentional, but it also reflects on the reliance by that team on the referee to ensure that they didn't infringe - that is, they weren't clever enough to self-monitor.
The team that lost didn't notice until after the game, & only then protested that they had lost because of the unnoticed infringement, & that someone had to be held to account.

This is football! It's entertainment for the masses! Do we really need to "punish" someone for not imposing the rules perfectly? Does there need to be revenge?
Do we need to hold someone ultimately responsible for what is, at the base level, a small number of men trying to keep two teams of bigger angrier men from killing each other by pointing out the limits to which they can apply their aggression?

Schrodinger & the Numbers Game

A few things have popped into my head recently, & I've managed to put them together - diets, election platforms, & rugby league. Stay with me on this.

I believe that people (humanity) will focus on concrete things to try to corral the abstract. This is obvious pattern-matching behaviour which was wonderful when survival was a day-to-day struggle, but not so helpful now when we have a lot more structure in our existence - culturally & environmentally.

Case number 1: dieting.
Everyone "knows" that a lower calorie diet will help you lose weight. In general, this is true. For most people this is almost a given. For some, it just isn't.
Some seemingly low calorie foods just stop some people from losing weight due to biochemical interactions that make them store fat regardless, or don't let them burn it off - without going to extreme measures like starvation.
On the surface, this makes sense. However, if you play the numbers game - low calorie = weight loss - then you can quickly get to the point of "if I eat less meat, I can have a chocolate", which is probably not good, because the essential fats & proteins in meat is good for you (in small doses), but the chocolate isn't.
Same calories. Different outcome. No weight loss.
Don't play the calories. Look at the bigger (fatter) picture.

Case number 2: political campaigning.
Although it was riotously funny to hear Australia's Liberal Party claim that their platform was to "stop the boats" (boats of asylum seekers arriving via Indonesia) in a state election on the other side of the country (in NSW), having it echoed on a national level was no surprise - unless you noticed the opinion polls which suggested that almost no-one cared about that issue.
Because the Liberal Party had the platform, they made a case for it being on the agenda. You can't argue against something that doesn't exist. The policy stood. The party got kudos (without explaining how boats would be stopped).
Overall, nothing much changes.
The policy was irrelevant, but the electorate fell for it because the Liberal Party seemed so sure of themselves that it was important, therefore it must be. The Labor party did not make any such claims in their platform.
The Liberals played the numbers & won.

Case number 3: rugby league.
With finals afoot, every match becomes sudden death, & a bad refereeing decision can be a season-ender. Thus it has happened, unfortunately to a team two years in a row. The followed the rules - played the numbers - but the referee didn't. They should have won.
Rather, they should have been concentrating on the game, which they lost.
The referee is there to impose the rules. There is a common understanding of those rules between the teams & officials. It is for the officials to interpret them.
If they make a mistake, then it's between them & their higher powers - & no-one else.
Rules are there to minimise the chaos, & there is rarely divine retribution when a rule within a game is not followed - in fact, they have a whole set of rules around how to interpret breaking the rules - called penalties.
Look at the scoreboard. Suck it up, losers. Maybe next year.

Oops - the Schrodinger reference ... if you stop worrying about the cat, it won't enter into your head that it's probably dead. Get on with your life.

Let Me Get This Straight

I was already totally over the idea of voting a week ago, & wanted my old favourite ads back on TV, but as it came closer to the day I was expected to tramp up to the community centre to prove I hadn't died since the last such event, I got to thinking about democracy (as you do).

A certain proportion of the people (hopefully more than half, even if indirectly) will get their wish & the people they support will get the chance to have the policies of the political party they (not the voters) belong to be presented before a parliament which also contains representatives of the lesser portion of the population (those representatives also mostly belonging to a political party that their supporters do not).
The object of the game is that those who have the majority can simply say "this is what we'll do", & those who don't say "I wish you wouldn't, but there's nothing I can do about it", & this goes on for a few years, & then the roles might reverse.

Sure, there's a lot more bitching & moaning, kicking & screaming, & other pre-schooler-esque entertainments along the way, all being televised to the bemused or frustrated populace by those who are now simply reporters (there are so few journalists left), scrambling to be "first" with the news that everyone read on Twitter hours before.

Fortunately, this process (electioneering, at least), only consumes a month or two, & we can get back to complaining about all politicians, rather than trying to defend some favoured ones as simply being misunderstood.

Life goes on. Democracy drains the energy of the soul & the public purse. Nothing really changes (except for the relative position of caricatures in cartoons).

It's interesting how much you can glean about a process that you've lost interest in. The only alternative is a radical shake up of the system; & let's face it, if there's one thing the voters don't like, it's actual change.

Educating the Educators

There was a kerfuffle in this great brown land over changes to funding in education to allow for a leveling of the playing field in high schools (in particular) to build a better platform for our children's future. This is an admirable sentiment - if a little pointless. We don't really want to give more opportunities to those who would never take them, but rather should allow for those who would take opportunities to be exposed to a better education. This is a different thing.

But what exactly are we teaching kids these days? The same as we've ever taught them. Teaching the same stuff in a better way doesn't improve their future - it restricts it. If you look at employability (rather than further education at University because high school just doesn't prepare young adults enough), there are things that come up again & again that we often think of as attributes rather than skills. I differentiate these because most people seem to think that attributes can't be taught.

The things that I look for in an employee are:

• Ability to think - this is creative thinking, not critical, which is taught too often
• Adaptability - change is the future
• Multi-tasking - being used to handling multiple things, & this isn't a gender thing
• Team skills - working in a team, leading a team, not working alone
• Pressure - we leave this to students who want to do well in the HSC, but all types of non-University roles come under pressure
• Soft skills in general - emotional intelligence, for example

There are many other things that are teachable & useful, but they have one thing in common - they don't fall under the traditional subjects taught in high school, & the teachers that we have are not skilled or trained in these areas. We can't expect them to suddenly start teaching new curricula. There needs to be some planning to get us to the point where we can effectively introduce & deliver these topics & work towards our children's real future.

That way, we can become a much more cleverer country.

Give me Skin

I've just listened to Nassim Taleb talking about his theories of not bailing out failures in the financial services, but rather encouraging those who experiment on a small scale (with less likelihood of large losses). Similarly, those who fail massively should not be encouraged to continue doing what has been proven to not work - that is, traditional dollar-following behaviour. Those who take large corporations to the brink should suffer from their own misdeeds, directly - that is, should themselves be made bankrupt before the company is. The rule of Hammurabi - the architect of a house that collapses should be punished.

The same should be said of politicians. Small failures are seen as loss of face, & those who might otherwise try something new are discouraged from doing so because the people (or media) will lose faith in them - politicians are expected to be "always right". But those who fail spectacularly by not experimenting - by taking the tried & true course of the past into an unknowable future - are simply retired or shunted aside to do it again somewhere else, with sizable pensions & their dignity intact.

Surely, this is wrong. At the least, it is illogical. The theory of evolution is all about survival of the fittest - organisms experimenting until the most apt becomes dominant. Many inapt variations will not become dominant. The previously dominant - which did not adapt - will die out along with all of the others. This is why it is such a neat theory - people understand that, to progress, we must try different things to find the best way forward.

No-one believes in a straight-line evolution where a species changes over time from one form to another, by hitting on the one & only advantage that will cause successful evolution. Note, too, that evolution is a process that we usually only see as an historical progression from the distant past to now, forgetting all of the deviations that didn't make it this far. It would be arrogant to believe that we - the mankind of today - are the ultimate end of God's plan. If that's the case, then what's the point?

If we don't change our approach to new problems, then we are not evolving. We are engineering our own extinction. Political parties that rely on their past to formulate their future are the dinosaurs of today. Some unexpected event will see their rapid demise, due to their own lack of change. If they do not have the ability to adapt, then they will not be able to face change.

Politicians who will not evolve are holding back progress. Here, progress means making the world a better place. Politicians who will not adapt should not be allowed to stand in the way of those who can. Politicians who stand in the way of progress & manage to fail, should be chastised to the point where such non-evolutionary conduct is discouraged. That's having a direct consequence of non-productive behaviour. Those with the courage to stand up for trying new things & succeeding - for evolving - should be rewarded with greater support & responsibility.

Change is inevitable. What that change is, is unknowable. Good government is about leadership in times of crisis, contingency planning in times of flux, & good management in times of short-term predictability. Without all three, no politician or political party can be a part of good government in the long term.

The Family Unit

As loathe as I am to start an entry with a reference to the IT industry - one of the most important parts of delivering a solution to a problem is having a good model of the problem in the first place - one based on the real world or the business process. This seems obvious.

Yet, we often use a bad model in business processes & then promulgate that mode into the rest of society - or else keep a model that is so out-dated that it loses relevance.

A classic example of this is ownership of things. Traditionally, people who owned things were those in power - the ruler, the local lord, the man of the house. Everyone else was beholden to them. This has, I believe, changed. These days, anyone can own things. More to the point, some things aren't owned by one person alone.

In everyday life, we should change our concept of who "owns" things. In the case of big things, now that people can easily own their own homes, the "persons" who own the property have to be listed & are held responsible for the loan, etc. I have already used different nomenclature in describing this scenario - persons own a property, families live in homes. Why can't families own homes?

A child may not be held responsible for a mortgage, but a family is not parents & children. Up until recently, it was next to impossible for a single woman to take out a mortgage, or two people who weren't married, whether that was a de facto relationship, siblings, or parent & child. These are all perfectly good examples of family, from societies point of view, but not examples of collections of people that a bank would consider worthy of a mortgage.

In solution modelling, you would say that an important part of the system is a person. For a mortgage, you would allow for two people - with restrictions on who those people are. Why? A marriage these days is not a permanent thing. De facto relationships are so common & lasting that they are indifferentiable from marriage to, say, the tax department or social services - & this does not even come close to relationships which are not recognised by the state (gay marriages). This still limits non-traditional groups of people who have even stronger ties - siblings, for example.
We need to model the system that allows for a certain group of people (to be specified) to act as a unit in the same way that a lord was once thought of - as a possessor of things.

Even something as simple as a credit card or a car seems to be a problem in collective ownership. A car must have one & only one registered owner (or corporate entity). Yet, in my own case, we have one car in the family - it is shared amongst three drivers. I am now the only member of a motoring association.

A family unit is hard to put your finger on, socially. I know some families where each parent & their children have different surnames - & a family from one country where each individual gets their own surname, not a family name. How do you "name" that family unit? It's not the "Daffy" family because they share a surname. It might be "Daffy's" family to some people, or "Daisy's" family to someone else. Regardless, we should be able to register a group of people as a unit - a family unit - & treat it in the same way that we currently treat individuals & (only) some relationships.

People form their family units in any way that they want to - because there can be no laws to stop them (forming a group - there are laws over what they can do within that group). We should model the system - government - in such a way that it recognises these family units & treats them with the respect that they deserve.