Author’s apology: Joan’s health took another dip this week, and I wasn’t able to get my mind around solving world problems. Instead, here’s a lighter piece I’ve had on hand for a while.
In high school, we were taught that there were two immutable laws in nature -- the Law of Conservation of Matter, and the Law of Conservation of Energy.
Then the atomic bomb blew both laws into anywhere. They had to be combined: the total of matter and energy remains constant -- even if bits of each could be swapped. (Although I don’t think anyone has yet attempted to turn energy back into matter. )
That got me thinking about a variety of other so-called Laws.
For example, the Peter Principle, devised by author Lawrence J. Peter with Raymond Hull. It said, in essence, that institutions promote people to their level of incompetence.
Perhaps you went into accounting because you hated high school English. You’re good at it. You get promoted to supervise other accountants. Then promoted again to department head. Where you have to oversee all the reports that get fed to upper management, or out to the public. You spend all your time dealing with words -- which you wanted to avoid.
The Dilbert Principle -- Dilbert, a harassed engineer in a syndicated comic strip -- maintains that incompetent people are promoted to management so they can do less damage. The reason is different; the effect is the same.
Parkinson’s Law, devised by British sociologist C. Northcote Parkinson, explained how bureaucracies always expand, even if the need for them declines. Its central them was “Work expands to fill the time available for its completion.”
It never takes less time, because that would mean the agency could do its work with fewer staff. Or less money. And managers are measured by the size of their staff and budget.
A corollary is the Triviality Law. The bigger the decision, Parkinson explained, the fewer people understand it. Therefore a municipal council will approve a $20 million sewer plant in minutes; but everyone has opinions about a $200 bike shed for staff; and so many councillors have wisdom about buying a $20 broom for the janitor that the decision gets sent back to the chief operating officer to hire a consultant to examine the issue and report back.
Moore’s Law started off as a simple observation about computer processing power. Iin the 1960s, Gordon Moore, then CEO of transistor-chip maker Intel, noted that computers tended to double in processing power every two years; while the cost dropped by half.
Thus your current smart phone contains more computing power than early mainframe computers which cost millions and had to live in specially air-conditioned rooms the size of a school gym.
Moore’s Law itself has evolved into a principle of exponential growth, applicable to everything from rising expectations to global warming.
Ray Kurzweil took Moore’s Law to an extreme. His Law of Accelerating Returns theorized that exponential growth would let machine intelligence surpass human intelligence, leading to what he called a “singularity” -- technological change “so rapid and profound that it represents a rupture in human history.”
That would be a scientific revolution. Thomas Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions established its own law -- that new concepts like relativity and quantum mechanics would be fought tooth and nail until the last holdouts died. Kuhn gave us the term “paradigm shift.”
Kuhn’s law seems to apply equally to politics (which is anything but scientific) except that paradigm shift takes a lot longer. The Republican mindset will not die out with Mitch McConnell.
Murphy’s Law is well known -- if anything can go wrong, it will. Boeing’s 737-Max 8 incarnates that law. So do the accusations Tesla cars experience sudden and uncontrollable acceleration.
Murphy’s first corollary is “… and it will choose the worst possible moment to do it.” Iran’s Guardian Council might concur.
Godwin’s Law was never originally intended to be taken seriously. Attorney and author Mike Godwin declared that in any heated and long-drawn-out discussion, someone will inevitably draw an analogy with Hitler or the Nazis. His first corollary asserts that the one who invokes Hitler automatically loses.
I offer my own corollary to Godwin’s Law. Anyone who cites a text from the Bible to clinch an argument automatically loses. A biblical reference may well illustrate a point. It may show that an idea has been around for a long time. But it doesn’t settle anything.
And I’ll add a further Law -- almost a summation of all of the above Laws -- whatever you believe today to be absolute, certain, and unchangeable, you will have to reconsider. Maybe sooner than you think.
*******************************************************
Copyright © 2020 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups encouraged; links from other blogs welcomed; all other rights reserved.
To send comments, to subscribe, or to unsubscribe, write jimt@quixotic.ca
********************************************************
YOUR TURN
In last week’s column, I wrote about the “novel corona-virus” epidemic. Among other things, I offered some faint praise for the Chinese government, for quarantining an entire region, to reduce the spread of the new virus.
Doug Martindale told me I might expect some negative feedback from people who could see nothing good in an authoritarian government. “I don’t see how that’s any different from the Nova Scotia government making vaccinations mandatory. The right to life transcends parents’ rights to decide what should happen to their children.”
David Gilchrist commented, “The other side of the coin has been on my mind: the people who now cannot escape from the source of the outbreak, and are therefore the more exposed to infection even if they go out to buy food -- if there is any food allowed into the city. Are they automatically doomed to eventual infection? From a world perspective, this was probably the wisest move; but I feel sorry for those who feel imprisoned.”
Steve Roney knows Wuhan personally, having taught there. He wrote, “It is diabolical that the virus popped up there, because Wuhan is the crossroads of China. It is the most efficient possible point from which a virus could spread.”
But, he continued, “I think you are wrong to congratulate the Chinese government for taking swift and decisive action. My contacts on the ground feel the opposite -- that the government was too slow to act, and is still not admitting the gravity of the situation. Had they shut things down a few days earlier, it might have done something to stop the spread. Instead, they called the quarantine once people were already in transit for the [Chinese New Year] holiday. They also announced the quarantine hours in advance, giving anyone a chance to get out before it was imposed. And up to the point that they called quarantine, they were still refusing to cancel mass events, despite the virus outbreak.
“The people I am hearing from say they feel sure the infection and death toll in Wuhan is far higher than we have been told. They say people are collapsing on the streets.
“In short, they think the government tried to cover it up until they realized they could not, then they took dramatic action only for show, in hopes they might avoid blame by appearing to have done ‘everything possible.’ But at this point it is ineffective.”
Bob Rollwagen, as usual, takes a broad perspective:: “China is a country with a recorded history of over 5,000 years. [It was] a hard and cruel life for millions but also a very disciplined society governed by traditions far beyond those of the west.
“In recent years, China has been a commercial trader that could not be trusted, with a Communist governing society ruling over hundreds of regional cultures, but they are a hard working adaptive race. [The leaders] have been forcing cultures to adapt to what the central government believes is best for the whole geographic region.
“In 2008 they had a huge earthquake in the southwest region. The positive response by public support and military was unprecedented. The internal coverage and analysis was very transparent. The support for the devastated region far surpassed any such response witnessed in the free world at the time. I was there and amazed. At that time, the U.S. was still limping through its response to New Orleans flooding in North America.
“We can be sure of one thing, the current Chinese government can and will do anything to keep its citizens responsive to their leadership. They have no interest in the rest of civilization beyond what is good for China. As a result, it is or soon will be the largest economy in the world.”
My comment that my mother treated colds and flu with “Vicks Vaporub (or some stronger concoction)” stimulated Tom Watson’s memory:. “I too remember Vicks Vaporub, but also the stronger concoction; it was called Castor Oil, and no matter what ailed us we got Castor Oil. After a few times of using it, all my parents had to do was wave the bottle at me and I got better real quick. Not suggesting that it would do anything for the current corona virus, but nobody could say it didn't work back then.”
Actually, I had been thinking of mustard plasters…
******************************************
TECHNICAL STUFF
If you want to comment on something, write me at jimt@quixotic.ca. Or just hit the ‘Reply’ button.
To subscribe or unsubscribe, send me an e-mail message at the address above. Or subscribe electronically by sending a blank e-mail (no message) to sharpedges-subscribe@lists.quixotic.ca. Similarly, you can un-subscribe at sharpedges-unsubscribe@lists.quixotic.ca.
You can now access current columns and seven years of archives at http://quixotic.ca
I write a second column each Wednesday, called Soft Edges, which deals somewhat more gently with issues of life and faith. To sign up for Soft Edges, write to me directly at the address above, or send a blank e-mail to softedges-subscribe@lists.quixotic.ca
And for those of you who like poetry, you might check my webpage https://quixotic.ca/My-Poetry. Recently I posted a handful of haiku, something I was experimenting with. If you’d like to receive notifications about new poems, write me at jimt@quixotic.ca, or subscribe yourself to the list by sending a blank email (no message) to poetry-subscribe@lists.quixotic.ca (If it doesn’t work, please let me know.)
********************************************
PROMOTION STUFF…
To use the links in this section, you’ll have to insert the necessary symbols. (This is to circumvent filters that think some of these links are spam.)
Wayne Irwin's “Churchweb Canada,” is an inexpensive service for any congregation wanting to develop a web presence, with free consultation. http://wwwDOTchurchwebcanadaDOTca. He set up my webpage, and he doesn’t charge enough.
I recommend Isabel Gibson’s thoughtful and well-written blog, wwwDOTtraditionaliconoclastDOTcom. She also runs beautiful pictures. Her Thanksgiving presentation on the old hymn, For the Beauty of the Earth, Is, well, beautiful -- https://www.traditionaliconoclast.com/2019/10/13/for/
Tom Watson writes a weekly blog called “The View from Grandpa Tom’s Balcony” -- ruminations on various subjects, and feedback from Tom’s readers. Write him at tomwatsoATgmailDOTcom (NB that’s “watso” not “watson”)
ALVA WOOD ARCHIVE
The late Alva Wood’s collection of satiric and sometimes wildly funny columns about a mythical village’s misadventures now have an archive (don’t ask how this happened) on my website: http://quixotic.ca/Alva-Wood-Archive. Feel free to browse all 550 columns.