August4
In signal processing theory there’s this thing called the Shannon Theorem or Nyquist rate. It basically says that to sample a fast signal you need to be twice as fast as the thing you’re sampling. If you’re a little slow on your observations then the observed object looks too fast or too slow. This is why a wheel on a car can look like it’s going backwards.
I’ve often wondered whether a similar theory applies to measuring the intelligence of others. i.e. you need to be at least twice as smart as Marx to know whether he’s talking bollocks or not.
And if it IS true, how likely is it that anyone is twice as intelligent as somebody else? And even if you have Mr Double Intellect on the planet, he can only tell you that he’s twice as smart as you because you’re not clever enough to know if he’s lying.
AND even Mr 10-x-normal-brain is only guessing if the thing he’s trying to fathom is much more complex than he can comprehend. If my cat and your cat are playing chess and your cat has knocked over his king because it looked a little bit like a mouse, does that make my cat good at chess? Does my cat even know he’s playing chess.
Answers on a postcard.
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October26
In the style of Tim Worstall, I thought I’d take a pop at some of Polly Toynbee’s economic logic.
In this article,
Polly Toynbee wrote…
“Who will do the cleaning, caring and catering in expensive places once low earners are cleared away?”
Oh, Polly. You’re so close to understanding it. Can you see how the rental subsidy actually subsidises the business owners who pay those workers? Nope. I thought not. I’ll give you a hint - people will still require cleaners, food will still be cooked and people will still require carers and therefore… you can do the rest I know you can. Work that brain, lady!! You can do it!
Polly, if you’re still struggling, go buy an economics textbook or even simpler go to youtube and brush up on the following:
- Opportunity costs.
- Unintended consequences.
- Broken window fallacy.
- Price theory.
As a prominent journalist in a major UK newspaper, I think Polly Toynbee has a “social responsibility” to learn some basic economics.
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June13
Some bloke was being questioned about how he became such an expert sculptor with so little experience. After masterfully creating a perfectly sculpted rabbit, he was asked, “How did you do it?”. He replies, “Simple, I just removed everything that didn’t look like a rabbit.”
Made me laugh.
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May13
This:
“A job such as leading the International Monetary Fund might attract Brown, who has made many impassioned speeches about restructuring the world’s financial architecture.”
from this.
Where’s that buggy eyed shocked emoticon??
Oh here it is
Some children learning about inter-generational lending
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May12
I have some hope that this new Con-Lib coalition may well end up being one of the most classically liberal governments we’ve had in a long time. But not a lot of hope.
What I suspect will happen is that the government will have to make some very unpopular decisions. Lefty Lib Dem members will tear up their membership cards and those who voted Lib Dem to keep the Tories out will start voting Labour. The coalition will collapse by next year and we’ll have a voting system where an ignorant tyrannical majority elects centre-left governments from here to eternity.
I’m a 30 year old entrepreneur. I’m about to get married and start a family. I want my children to grow up in a society that understands the virtues of liberty. I’m thinking of my exit strategy.
This is a genuine and serious question: Where should I be heading?
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May11
I don’t know where I stand on PR. It sounds good but then you ask what the effect would be on parties like the the BNP. I did some fag packet accounting and based upon the BNP’s shocking 1.9% of the vote I figured that they would have perhaps 12 MPs under a PR system. I decided to go check this out and found the following recent blog post
http://www.vote-no-to-bnp.org.uk/2010/05/proportional-representation-pr-and-the-bnp.html
They’ve done their homework and discovered what actually happens in those countries that have already adopted a PR system.
In reality this really isn’t the case, most countries that operate a PR System of voting have a percentage cut off, this cut off is typically 5 or 10%, meaning a prospective MP would first have to achieve either 5 or 10% of the popular vote in order to progress through the PR system of selection.
In the case of the BNP they would based on the 2010 General Election results only have 3 candidates that could have progressed through the PR selection process if we applied the 10% cap (which seems from my research to be the most popular), so at best the BNP would have 1 and at an outside the BNP would have 2 MPs.
So the BNP wouldn’t get their share of the pie. Great! Good riddance. But if you’re argument is that PR is representative then you have to ask yourself if you’re just fixing the rules to suit your own situation. Where does this leave parties like the Greens?
What the 10 or 5% system seems to propose is a system in which every party is equal but some parties are more equal than others. The result is messy ethical knot spaghetti. Isn’t it simpler to recognise that the democratic process has some serious failings whichever way you cut it? My concern would be that PR would create an environment where centre-left liberals would flourish for the simple reason that the majority of the UK is economically illiterate and historically ignorant. Do I want a system that ignores the wishes of the ignorant? You bet ya! and so do you.
So what’s the answer? I don’t know. Transferable Vote?
Democracy is a reasonable way to throw out a complete bastard and pretty useless for everything else. The democratic process seems like the tyranny of a numerical majority to me. Another option would be competing governments and Scottish independence would be a good start towards that.
I suppose my ideal would be a strong constitution where democracy was reduced to a simple administrative task of selecting guardians.
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May8
Just as you thought libertarianism couldn’t get any geekier…
I went and created a UK Libertarian Chatroom.
The stuff you need to join in:
- A way to access the chat: Try http://webchat.freenode.net/
or Try the Firefox plugin Chatzilla or a desktop application like mIRC for Windows or Colloquy for Mac.
- The server name is irc.freenode.net
- The channel name is #uklibertarian
Have fun!
EDIT - It’s even easier than that! - Just go to http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=uklibertarian. Type in a username and start chatting!
BLOG AND WEB ADMINS - Perhaps try putting an image link in your sidebar that links to the chatroom.
Come join the party.
Help promote the #uklibertarian chat room on your own blog with the following button which opens the chat room in a dedicated pop up window:
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May8
I don’t think anything could sum up my attitude to the recent UK elections better than this quote from C.S. Lewis’ “God in the Dock”:
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
And whilst we’re at it - a picture speaks a thousand words. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such an eloquent argument for the right to bear arms as this one:
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May3
“He’s definitely a utilitarian libertarian, which is acceptable in some academic circles. If the evidence showed coercive government action was a net social gain, he would be all for it.”
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April22
I like my job. It’s very complex and demanding but sometimes it just screws my brain. I need to learn stuff like
this…
It’s an old post but all credit to him. It’s an important lesson for anyone involved with the Ruby language.
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