Jun 20

 Taking it slow. Mostly resting. Today the weather has been warm and horrendously humid, a ridiculous 84%. You can feel it in the air, an odd damp sensation. And somethings you touch feel a little... clammy. Whilst May was some record lows, June has been record highs. Officially the temperatures have been around 25C, but according to my car, and the local car servicing place that shows the time and temperature, that's bullshit. It has been 30C. In fact as I drove past the car place it showed a spike of 30.9C. The car roughly agreed. I don't know where the official weather gets its temperatures, but they don't tally with what my thermometers are telling me. And it certainly felt more like 30C than 25.

Anywho.

Today I booked up the accomodation for Oxford. I didn't bother paying the extra so I could cancel until the last minute. The ability to cancel given my flakiness is probably wise. But. I didn't bother. Because. I will force myself to do it. No escape plans. Do it, or lose the money. Like holding a gun to my head.

Uh huh.

So I've cut the visit shorter than originally intended. On reflection I probably don't need all that time, although extra time would have been good. But uh huh. Some of that is to do with the money aspect. Staying the week in Oxford gets to be kinda shit money wise. As it stands, 3 days, runs me £260, the very best price I could get. No meals, no nada. Add in the fuel costs. Hardware. Ignore the labour ! A costly endeavour.

It rankles a little. That people can profiteer from me doing something good. Charity work. Capitalism grinds on. That will be stupid amount of money please with a generous greedflation margin. It doesn't sit well with me. But I get it. That's the way of the world. And it's fine. "Fine". I suspect we're all going to burn in pursuit of profit margins. Whilst many of us can understand it's madness. A portion of us do not. And will drive all of us over the edge. Just for the final profit margin. It's the human way. We are a flawed bumbling life form that has a high opinion of itself... as it plunges over the cliff. Not half as smart as we like to think.

Went for a walk with Hazel. I seem to be in a simultaneous paradoxical state with Hazel at the moment. The whole discomfort at past abuses. Combined with a general zen, it's fine, just exist in the moment. Neither side seems inclined to push to a resolution. Each just sitting there. Two things at once. I think it's a conflict in my nature. A quiet hey, don't shit on me. And a louder, I just like to see people get on. Be happy. Help out.

She had her final interview for the new place, all went well, so, she's officially moving. And very happy about it. She's done really well getting her ducks in a row, sorted out difficult stupid conversations with the council and a range of people to get the bureaucracy sorted and everything ready to go. She's done super well in fact. Prompt, on time, sorted. I made sure to tell her she had done a good job. Sitting waiting indefinitely on council phone lines is no easy thing. Soul destroying. She was on hold for 40 minutes on one of the calls. In the scale of things, could be worse. Could be a damn sight better too.

So she's off to a new place. New neighbours. A new start. The new place seems a lot more supportive. They have given her a free paint pack to decorate the new place. And said that there is wellbeing support available to talk to her. Which is more than she has now. The difference is that the place she is in now is pure council run. The new place whilst it works with the council hand in hand, is a non profit housing association. Which. Just seems better setup - despite only being housing - all round and has a much more holistic approach to the people at the bottom end. Which. Is just sensible. The council should take notes. They wont. Of course.

I think if you look harder at it, this is the frontline war between left wing and right wing politics. Left wing would lean towards big government and a social net and everything being done by some form of the state. The ring wing would lean towards small government and everything being done by private business with suitable legislation to make them play nice and offer social schemes. In this case, the non profit, which is a spun off arm of a private developer company, is doing a better job than the council. So. Right wing getting better results than left wing. But I think at the end it's all just a shell game of responsibility. Who gets to have the responsibility. For my money politics as a whole - left or right is increasingly shirking of its responsibilities. It is I think a natural reaction to being held to account, sometimes fairly, sometimes unfairly for everything and the kitchen sink. Particularly with an exploitative sensationalist media - and current social zeitgeist - that loves to burn everything and everyone they can. Being judgemental and tearing people down is so very 21st century. Hence. Politicians. Government. Doesn't want to be held responsible for shit. Because they get complained at. And no one likes to be complained at. Particularly people in power, who have some sway about how much of that they can push away. So they do. And give it out to private companies and then wash their hands of it completely. Not our fault they can say. They can even jump on the witch burning bandwagon and shake their heads and tut at the failures. And promise to look into it. But really. They're just glad they don't have the responsibility anymore. For bright politicians it's delightful. You get to have your face in the media leading the charge against those responsible. All the while ignoring the fact it was their responsibility in the first place that at some point in the past they palmed off to someone else. Like a poisoned chalice. Win win for politician. Less responsibility. More photo opportunities of Doing The Right Thing.

I think in this case the housing association is doing a better job. But handing those social responsibilities - which should be the responsibility of all of us, society as a whole - to a for profit organisation ( albeit spun off into a non profit ) is rank stupidity that isn't sustainable. Sure as eggs are eggs, eventually it will be wangled for profit. For leverage. Exploited. Abused. And fucked over. Because those are the rules of capitalism. Maximise your money. There are no other rules.

For social aspects of welfare and care and future planning there has to be more rules in play than just make as much money as possible ( implicitly saying regardless of morals, sustainability, ecology etc ). Your ground rule has to be informed by some other metric than money. And the problem is, capitalism is just money. No matter how many bits of legislation you try to bodge onto it. You can't do this. You can't do that. It just comes down to money. And a whackamole of trying to fill in the holes that capitalism always exploits. This chemical not legislated for yet ? Nice. Dump it into the sea. It's not illegal is it ?? This is not a sane way to go about a crowded planet. Trying to be clever and exploiting shit so your excel spreadsheet has a bigger number at the end of the day. Whilst a worn out, underpaid and often outright bribed government attempts to keep up and legislate the worst evils away. Slavery is bad. Mmm kay ? But what about Second Slavery. Minimum wages. High debts. No choices.

And on.

Ultimately. If you have aims as a society. Let's say loftily ( yikes ), the welfare of your people. Fed. Sheltered. Watered. Healthcare. Then it's a societal level problem. The economy of scale alone demands you deal with it at a societal level. Not piecemeal. By whatever local company is in your area. Many right wingers would scoff at the idea. Stupid. Wasteful. Local companies competing gives you a better way to manage it. Except. You never hear those same types moan about things like defence. The eye watering amounts of money spent on a national level defence capability. You need joined up things and strategic planning for some things. Like power. Transport. Healthcare. Shelter. You can't piecemeal that shit. Well. You can. But it's really inefficient. And wasteful.

Imagine trying to do defence the same way. Well. Little Town here, the best they can afford is one wheel of a fighter jet. So they didn't bother. But here is Bob and Ted. We have given them a rifle. Ok. Next. Town On Sea. We've lumped together. And we can afford a fishing boat. With a light on it.

Economies of scale would mean in the UK, you'd probably end up with no aircraft, no tanks, definitely nothing like submarines or warships. Maybe London would have a small squadron of aircraft. But mostly. UK defence would be a patchwork of Home Guard. Dad's Army. 

Some shit doesn't work piecemeal. It has no scale. It has no economy of scale. It's repetitive and wasteful.

So is big government !

In theory this shouldn't be the case at all. Big government should get excellent economies of scale. Be able to put in place long term strategies. Capitalise on low costs taking up slack when there is excess and slowing down when there is shortages. Be adaptive in where you need to be. Again. Take defence. Norwich could not afford fighter cover. But the UK as a whole can. And it can skip over Norwich when needed. And be elsewhere when not. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

However.

In practice Big Government also ends up wasteful. Sure you can get those big ticket items or plans that you couldn't do piecemeal. But. It slumps into a Just Good Enough tick over. Underfunded. Undermotivated. No real accountability. People turn up, do the minimum, go home. For sure there are people that strive and care. But also. Human nature. People will often do the minimum required. Laziness is an evolutionary strategy that works. And it's part of our nature. And Big Government - so far at least - leans heavily into that flaw. Complacency. Take defence again. They piss vast quantities of money up the wall. Budget overruns. Shit end result. Over and over. No real accountability. Oh sure. There will be moans. And teeth gnashing. And people enduring uncomfortable meetings. But nothing tangible. Nothing that matters or has an impact. Same shit just goes on.

That's the thing that the right wing model can - but doesn't always - succeed at. Accountability. If you're shit. Your business dies. Goes away. You cease to exist. Something comes to take your place. There is always the fear there, that this may be your last roll of the dice. Someone better is going to come and take your place.

Left wing models have no such worry. No matter what they do. There's a job. So why worry. Read the newspaper. Have a snooze. Do that thing tomorrow. Maybe.

In my opinion there have been so far no really good models that solves all these problems. Your poisons are right wing profiteering that inevitably charges as much as it can for as little as it can get away with, and ends up creating a two tier society of the masses of poor - the proles - and the tiny number of the wealthy - the bourgeoisie.

Or. Left wing inefficiencies that deteriorate into lackluster services at high prices, intractable bureaucracy, no innovation, no motivation, lowest common denominator dross and epic failings that are normalized as The Way It Is. And possibly just end up collapsing because in reality, no one can really be arsed to do what's required to save it.

I don't think either work long term. Short term. When they are freshly setup. Both can work. Motivated. Hopeful. And no one has learned how to exploit them. Both decay into their shitty resting points however.

Choose your poison.

The other short sighted plan is the misguided notion that oh, the last thing was bad, therefore if we flip it, it will solve it. So you get a flip flop between left wing and right wing models. Privatise it ! Now renationalise it ! Now. Privatise it again ! I think the UK is on the cutting edge of this experience. Privatised. Then nationalised. Then privatised in the 80s and 90s. And now once again. We are coming back around to nationalising again. Railways. Power. Water. It seems we don't learn our lessons. And we crave the fix that the short term brings, before inevitably, it goes to shit in the mid to long term.

I tend to think the left wing model is way closer to where you want to be than the right wing one. The arch capitalist one is no holds barred exploitative. The left wing one just suffers from laziness and complacency. I'd rather be complacent than exploitative if I had to pick between those two evils. And I feel complacency is easier addressed than exploitative feedback loops that carry you towards some dystopian autocratic hell where you lose your choice in the matter.

I think not having stuff like power and water run at a national level, not for profit is utter insanity. And healthcare we don't even need to mention. If water and power are insanity to not have run as a societal concern, then not having healthcare the same way is tantamout to suicidal. You want to die ? Then make your healthcare for profit. Idiot.

What's the answer to all of it if no existing model works out well ? Good question.

Who knows.

I have a vague idea that you start with a left wing model. Societal problems needs joined up strategic thinking. Like ecology. You need national policies for this. In fact. You need global policies for this. National is not big enough. Otherwise you agree to recycle your plastic bags whilst meanwhile your neighbour builds 10 new coal power plants. Uh huh. No. ( Which is exactly the problem we currently have. Some nations are.. slowly.. maybe.. possibly.. trying to lower carbon footprint, meanwhile Brazil OKs the clearance of huge swathes of the Amazon. For the economy. Ecological concerns are someone elses problem mate . Meanwhile Turkmenistan is pumping an ungodly amount of methane into the atmosphere because they didn't want to get into trouble with burning them and thought no one would be able to tell. The methane alone dumps more shit into the atmosphere than the entire UK outputs. Methane is a problem, but remember kids, sort your plastics out when you stick it in the bin. I'm sure that will help with Turkmenistan, Brazil, and all the billionaires jetting around in their private jets no end )

Anyway. Start with the left wing model. Big societal strategic problems need to be tackled at that level. Local implementations you can if necessary leave to local setups.

Then. You need to absolutely enforce an innovation and assessment malarkey every so many years. Look at what you're doing and measure the metrics. Has it become exploited. Out dated. Has tech moved on. Can we do it more efficiently now. Etc. This is a hard ask because things don't like to change. Particularly companies, services, work practices that have a routine. They don't like routine being altered.

I'd even go so far as to say, rule of thumb, after 50 years of something being in place, it absolutely has to change. No ifs buts or maybes. Scrub it down. Start again. But. That is assuming the current rate of societal change in technology and advancements and shift in behaviour. Which is a big assumption. If this were say, the 14th century. Shit would not be changing at all. Then again. It's probably a reasonable assumption for the short forseeable future, say, the next century, that change is going to be very fast. 

So why change every 50 years ?

If I take two examples, UKs nationalised railways and the NHS. Both started well but then overtime deteriorated. They both fell behind the times. Incapable and unwilling to modernise. The railways got privatised off to "fix" the issues. Which it did. For a short space of time. Before they too went to shit - but in different ways. The service was better. But the prices were exploitative. We went to the most expensive railways on the planet. Good job. The NHS has somewhat resisted nationalisation. It has had an enormous amount of money spent on it. It is, by all international measures, not underfunded. It has many shiny glittering fancy buildings. And well appointed services. And is a monument to waste and backwards technology. It relies on processes and bullshit that are still grounded in the 1950s. It likes clipboards. And paper. And pens. When every single worker in the place is carrying around a small powerhouse computer in their pocket. That is connected to the internet. Can take pictures. Record audio. Keep calendars. Reminders. Tells them how many steps they've walked. Maybe if their blood pressure is high. But no. The edifice of the NHS relies on clipboards. And paper. And lever arch files.

Because it hasn't had to adapt. It has no effective boss. No accountability. It can squirm. And argue. And spin. And moan. Complain it's too hard. And ignore the shit it doesn't want to do.

And it slowly becomes a mess.

Government too suffers from this. Governments are setup with rules, good intentions. Over time they are exploited. Corrupt. Look at the US and the mess its political system is in. Exploited. Gummed up. In thrall to corps and power groups who have learned how to get what they need. To stay within the lines and corrupt.

I think everything corrupts over time. It's again human nature. We see a thing. We start to figure out ways to get round it. Make it work better for us. Exploit it. Homo Exploitus. That is who we are. Monkey figure out best way to get most coconuts. It's not the systems faults per se. It's us. We are - like all the things we think of and write stories about - reflections of the djinn who on giving you 3 wishes figure out the best way to warp your wish to something you didn't think of. A deal with the devil. I want to live forever ! Sure. That's fine. You find yourself stuck in a freezer cabinet, able to think but not move or talk or interact. Everything in our stories is actually us. By definition it has to be. We're writing from our own context. We know we can always wiggle out of promises. We know we have the capability to be devious and exploit stuff. We project it onto monsters or bad actors. But it's just us.

So. Any given system. Will I think eventually be exploited. Because it's nigh on impossible to create a water tight set of rules. And far easier to sit and think about a set of rules and how you can get round them. High effort to make a defence. Low effort to breach it.

I think. Rule of thumb. Back of cigarette packet. 50 years seems to be a Best Before Date for a given institution. It varies on what it's doing, how much power it has and yada. Some. Can go indefinitely if they are benign. Things that matter though. Levers of power. Services. They probably have a 50 to 100 year Use Before Date, after that point, they start to smell. Don't taste good. And are likely to give you the shits.

Anyway. One long tangential wander off into societal bushes.

Back to Hazel. In theory she can pick the keys up this week. She has however asked to delay for a while to line up her rent from one to rent to another dealio. Also. She wants a little leeway time to get into her new place whilst its empty so she can paint and do stuff. Making changes to a place when it's empty is so much easier than when it's full of crap. And Hazel has a lot of crap.