Why Am I Never Awake For Earthquakes?


(From Totally Absurd Inventions)

Actually it's not really a question of being awake but just missing them. There was one in Bristol in 1984 and I must have been in mid-air stepping across the threshold when it happened and then there was one in Manchester recently early in the morning when I was actually awake and I still missed it. This one didn't even wake me up though Martin was still up at 1 this morning wondering why the couch (his word) was shaking. Oh well, I suppose I should not wish for a bigger one just so I can say I felt it. I did feel one in about 1986 when my five-wheeled office chair moved several centimetres across the office. Either that or one of the account managers punched me for being the posh boy.

What follows is not complaint - it is a reasoned and beautifully structured argument regarding the complexities of modern life. The introduction is verbatim from the notebook.

"So many people with a breath-taking ignorance of the complexity of their own minds and the world around them, Is the complexity of the human mind just too much for our own good? Is this belief in complexity my biggest failing? The bottom line is that the net outcome of a complex system OR a simple one is the same in most cases. The complexity adds 'cost' however. Determine the black box inputs and outputs and the define the simplest way of translating the inputs to the outputs. Micro-management is bad. I was taught all this as part of my Systems Analysis degree and yet the mistakes are propagated over and over again. ( I was too young to get the most out of that course - I should go on it now.)"

I seem to have rediscovered the thing about the black box - it was always in my head but for a lot of the time, I did not see "input - black box - output" because I was too involved with the whole thing. It takes discipline to ignore what you know exists inside the black boxes and to focus on the simplest way of translating one thing into another. Business these days seems to be buried under a complex level of administration, the outcome of which should be the same. So many times, micro-management is excused because it supposed to reduce costs. To my simple mind, it very often does the opposite - it is a cost in itself.

For example, the tax system seems to be increasing in complexity all the time when the bottom line is a requirement for a certain amount of money. I suppose it would be impractical to do everything using one tax - far too much of a blunt instrument. However it would surely make sense to reduce tax to say 5 key components - Say Income Tax, Corporation Tax, Capital Gains tax, VAT and one other of your choice (How about a Tax on business complexity?). Obviously there would have to be various levels within those but I would say we should not introduce any more than 5 levels of tax within each main level - so that there are never more than 25 different components to the whole system. Any situation that could not be agreed upon my the Taxer and the Taxee would have to go to arbitration but the decisions would have to lie within the 25 components.

Tax is after all money and no tax component ever actually goes higher in complexity than addition-subtraction-multiplication and division - I do hope I am right in that - if any taxman is doing differentiation and integration to work out someone's tax then things are far worse than I thought. Actually any use of to-the-power-of would be a problem for me. Surely there is scope enough to fine tune the amount of tax take. The actual level of taxation is another matter - I am not going to get into a BBC Have Your Say type Argument about why we are being robbed blind and why do we actually need a "gumint" at all. I refer you to my previous argument regarding not complaining about things. It wasn't really a complaint was it?

The BBC HYS site is a wonderful diversion - for every reasoned argument and interesting comment there are at least ten simple statements of fact which add nothing to what is laughingly called a debate. The Earthquake replies are fantastic. They will prime the pump with a devastatingly inane opening question - "Did you feel the UK Quake" to which the obvious reply is "no" and many people can actually be bothered to send in that as their only comment. Would it not be more useful to just have one of their vote thingies to at least give some useful data about the actual affects of the quake -

Enter Postcode - .......

Enter severity -

1. Teacups tinkled
2. Bed Moved
3. Mirror fell on Cat
4. Saw Jeremy Paxman wheel across the floor on Newsnight
5. Whole house collapsed - my life is ruined - I still can't find the cat and I can smell gas

Sorry - that is facetious isn't it?