Look! A new blog post! Crickey, that’s been a while then…

The last 9 months has been a real whirlwind roller-coaster (is that possible?). It contained some of the lowest lows of my life so far (seeing the destruction left by the tsunami of 11/03/11) and some of the highest highs (meeting so many wonderful people as a direct result of my volunteering there). It also marked a significant shift towards a much happier and healthier self, which I won’t bore you with here, but suffice to say the Nell of Jan 2012 is much more satisfied with her self and with her life than the Nell of Jan 2011. I feel… whole

Anyhow, you aren’t interested in that! You want to know about arseholes!

I have long been a proponent of Bob Sutton’s no asshole rule, which says (and I’m putting my own spin on it here) that arseholes do huge damage to teams and business, and even talented arseholes do more damage than good on aggregate and are best avoided. However, this post on Bob’s blog has me reevaluating that position somewhat. Only a little bit though.

It seems that Steve Jobs was an arsehole of such supreme talent that it really did counteract the loss in productivity brought about by an unpleasant working environment and resulted in, not only a very successful company, but one of the most successful of all time.  But (and such a large arsehole come with a very big “but” indeed), was there anything in his methods that the rest of us could benefit from?

To define a successful business, you must first define “success”. That may seem easy, surely a successful business is a profitable one and the most successful is the most profitable? Perhaps; if money is the most important thing to you. But I’d wager that it isn’t true for most. For almost everyone in the world being happy is far more important than cold hard cash. Not that I’d be naive enough to suggest that financial security doesn’t help with happiness, but even the most acquisitive creature only collects possessions because doing so makes them feel better.

I define “success” slightly differently. To me, when measuring the success of a company, we should take into account all of its impact across every aspect of its functioning. You can restrict that view to just the economic (whether it respects its environment and provides its staff with a decent pension or than expects the public purse to pick up the tab for care and cleanup) or include the wider social impact (whether they add value to the community and its wellbeing), but you must take into account the cost/benefit to society as well as to the company itself if you want to judge absolute value.

I don’t think Steve Jobs evaluated success in terms of cold hard cash, but I don’t think he worried about the wider social impact of his company overly either (although Apple’s green credentials are comparatively ok, the company’s bullish attitude to IP litigation is well known, amongst many other examples of a less than caring attitude). Rather, I suspect Steve Jobs cared about making the best product possible and he cared very little whether others agreed with him, as long as he was happy with what they made. It so happens that most of the time enough people agreed enough to pay Apple’s prices and so the company was successful by the more standard metric of profitability also.

So. Steve Jobs was successful by the standard metric and by his own, but not necessarily by mine. What can we learn from this? I think an all round happier society is better served by the John Lewis model of shared ownership and non-arseholery. It may not be as big or as profitable as Tesco, but it gives much more to the communities in which it resides and is more stable in times of financial hardship – it is a safer place to be employed.

But what if you don’t care about the wider community? First, I’d say that means you are well on your way to being a sizeable arsehole, but I’d also suggest that if you’re going to be an arsehole in control of a company, then you’d better be a supremely talented one. Because if not, you are more likely to fail in your endeavours in the long run than your more kindly neighbours. Steve Jobs was successful because he wasn’t just an arsehole, he was a one in 8 billion arsehole. If you want to emulate his methods, you’d better be certain you are too!

American banks invented really dodgy credit products, which they sold to people they knew couldn’t afford to pay them back, and then sold the liability on to other banks, many of which were in other countries. When we discovered just how dodgy the products were a large part of the house of cards came tumbling down and, because so much of the debt was held overseas, the US problem spread globally.

But initially, they had thought this was a really good idea, so a deade ago they (Goldman Sachs) taught the trick to the Greek Government, who’d asked for financial advice. The Greek government parcelled up all their toxic debt and sold it on to the rest of Europe (and used the profit to fund massive public spending, which is why Greeks are happier than Americans, or were, until the Government tried to take it all away).

The rest of Europe was apparently savy enough to sell the debt on again, just in case, and, because it’s entirely unregulated, no one knows who it is who’s watching the Greeks riot with their fist in their mouth, their blanky on their knee and their therapist on speed dial while the country circles the default drain.

Round and round and round it goes, where will it end? Nobody knows!

The smart money, however, is on those same American banks who created the whole mess in the first place… which would be some sort of poetic justice if it wasn’t for the fact that they will hurt a lot of innocent people if (when?) they fall.

On the other hand, it was the so called “smart money” that created the problem in the first place, so perhaps we should just wait and see.

It is mostly settled that the majority of citizens of the UK view our society as a democracy, and wish for it to remain as one. If we want to be a democracy, it seems likely that we want to be the best democracy we can be, so the question up for debate here is which out of AV and FPTP is the most democratic? Before we can get into that, it seems we have to define “democracy” as both campaigns[1] have warped it almost to breaking point to fit their rhetoric, so here’s the answer from Google’s dictionary:

de·moc·ra·cy
noun /diˈmäkrəsē/
democracies, plural

1. A system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives

2. A state governed in such a way

3. Control of an organization or group by the majority of its members

4. The practice or principles of social equality

I’ll refine that for this discussion into “control of the state by the majority of its members, via elected representatives”.

But now we need another definition, because it seems that, although both camps largely agree over my definition of “democracy”, we have a problem when it comes to the word “majority”. Again, from Google:

ma·jor·i·ty
noun /məˈjôrətē/  /-ˈjär-/
majorities, plural

1. The greater number

2. The number by which votes for one candidate in an election are more than those for all other candidates combined

3. The number by which the votes for one party or candidate exceed those of the next in rank

4. A party or group receiving the greater number of votes

5. The age when a person is legally considered a full adult, in most contexts either 18 or 21

6. The rank or office of a major

The problem here lies with which definition you take; proponents of AV choose definition 2, but those who favour FPTP choose 1. This seems like a semantic debate, but it is fundamental to the whole question. All the other nitpicking, all the lies and misinformation, the rhetoric and the hyperbole, all of it is irrelevant until you have figured out which of these is the best definition for majority.

For me, the answer is definition 2. Going back to our Google definitions for democracy, social equality and giving a voice to the whole population are important factors. A voting system isn’t democratic if you pick a definition for “majority” that actually leaves most people with a representative they don’t want.

If you have two similar choices then, under FPTP, the vote can be split, allowing a third quite different and less favoured option to win. Think Kittens vs Cadbury’s vs Galaxy with the score 44% vs 37% vs 19% – it looks like a stonking victory for Kittens (as indeed it was when Maggie Thatcher got in with those numbers in 1979), but actually, the votes for chocolate (or, in our real world example, left leaning parties), are greater and the majority of voters are left disenfranchised. In 1979, given the extreme nature of many of her policies, it’s quite likely that majority (definition 1) of voters were actually quite strongly opposed to having Thatcher as PM, but because of the greater choice, they split and were silenced.

There is, and has been for a long time, a strong liberal/left lean in the British political landscape but, because of FPTP, the power has stayed mostly with conservatives. This is compounded because liberal policies tend to encourage free thought and rebellion, where conservative ones tend toward uniformity – the clue is in the name. It is demonstrable that innovative free thinking and choice are better for society in the long term, but by their very nature they are fluid and fall into factions, leaving them vulnerable to the more disciplined right. The solution to this problem is to let people transfer their vote to a lower choice party for whom they have some sympathy if their first choice is knocked out.

I’m going to tackle the lies and misinformation coming from both campaigns in a later post, but let’s get this straight once and for all, right here right now: this is NOT a second vote.

If you order Heineken and it’s off and so you choose Carling instead, you don’t have two pints in front of you at the end and you aren’t delighted that you got to have two goes at picking; nor are those around you who got their first choice jealous of your success. You will be happier than if you hadn’t got a beer at all, but that’s as far as it goes.

The only people for whom voting no on May 5th is the rational choice are Conservative voters who, and this is important, will vote Conservative at every opportunity for the rest of their lives, and parties with minority view-points who can scrape in with a very small proportion of the vote under FPTP[2].

Here’s this post in easily digestible form:

• A lot more than half of the people of the UK wish to live in a democracy
• It is highly likely that more than half of those people wish their democracy to be the best possible
• Democracy is “control of the state by the majority of its members, via elected representatives”
• Equality and a voice for every member are important factors in a functioning democracy
• Majority can mean either “the greater number” or “the number by which votes for one candidate in an election are more than those for all other candidates combined”.
• If the former definition is chosen, this often suppresses the voice of more than half the population
• Any voting system that suppresses the voice of its voters is less democratic than one that does not
• Therefor, FPTP is less democratic than AV

Here’s a chart to help you decide how to vote. This is all you really need to think about, the rest is peripheral noise:

If you are a Conservative voter, and you want to vote No, then that is your choice and it is a rational one, but be honest with yourself about your motivation; you aren’t doing it because FPTP is fairer, you’re doing it because you want to keep your party in power.

PS I think the blog may be out of the mothballs again for at least a little while. It seems there may be a significant Bearhunt around the corner and, if so, there will be stuff to share for at least a few more weeks.

1. I am no fan of the Yes campaign either.

2. Some Labour voters seem to think FPTP is benefiting their party, but that is a short-sighted view that only takes into account the last 15 years or so. If you look further back, it vastly favours Conservatives and is likely to do so again for the foreseeable future. Labour voters voting no really are turkeys voting for Christmas.

Here’s an interesting post from John Pilger on why it isn’t the clandestine world of USA “justice” that’s the biggest threat facing Julian Assange right now; it’s the liberals who were prepared to support him only until things got a bit messy and who then couldn’t back away fast enough. The clandestine world of USA justice is scary though…

Personally, I suspect Julian Assange of deliberately making himself a target to deflect attention from others more crucial to the running of the site. I don’t know whether he constructed his unusual persona to assist with that or merely accepted that it made him the best person for the job, but it’s what I would have done if I were in his position. I doubt he expected many of those who pledged undying allegiance in the good times to stick by him when the going got rough, but I bet it’s crossed his mind that it would have been nice if just a few more of them had.

If you want to create real change, it helps to be a bit of a masochist!

Perhaps the most appealing part of the story so far has been the organisation of the protesters in Egypt – this interactive BBC map shows just how well a large spontaneous group of people can get it together and it hasn’t even marked all the facilities that were in place, including a school. It is this level of organisation that I think will have repercussions beyond the obvious and beyond the Middle East.

I stumbled across this blog post today, discussing the increasing dissatisfaction students feel for Aaron Porter, the NUS President. My own experience of the NUS was always that it is an incubator and hot-house for the worst type of career politician, so I’m not surprised to find the current head straight from that mould[1]. But that isn’t what I want to highlight here, what caught my attention was this phrase:

The Egyptians are getting angry and want a real President of the National Union of Students who will stand up for them.

At first I was irritated by it as I felt comparing the struggles of an entire nation to shed the shackles of a 30 year long repressive dictatorship to the wish of a few well educated and free people to oust one middle class muppet from a job he is manifestly not doing well was a bit… well…

But then it occurred to me that, until this happened, there was a general feeling that any attempt to protest was futile: we protested against the Iraq war in unprecedented numbers, but the government took us to war; we protested against the raise in tuition fees, but they’ll still go through[2]; we dislike the entire political structure in this country and show as much by staying away from the polling booths in droves on election days, but still the broken machine rumbles on and don’t get me started on bankers and their bonuses. But if the Egyptian people can organise so effectively as to oust their limpet of a president and do so peacefully and still get the recycling collected, then surely we can manage something as small as dislodging the head of the NUS or reforming our voting system?

The message Egypt has given to the whole world is that the people can win against those with all the power if they are sufficiently determined and organised and, crucially, if they use the internet to get the truth out there, and perhaps applying that lesson to the head of the NUS, or a million other tiny insignificant struggles, isn’t so… well… after all?

1. That was initially a typo, but it seemed apt, so I kept it.

2. Although I should note I’m not actually against the new tuition fees structure as it does actually benefit poorer students and it’s just that the Government have done a shockingly poor job at getting that fact across to people.

Meanwhile, Large numbers of police have been deployed ahead of prodemocracy marches in Algiers tomorrow and police in Yemen have fired on protesters. And let’s not forget Jordan where we don’t know much of what’s happening because events have been largely over shadowed by the news from Egypt. 

I am pleased Mubarak has gone, but the bunting stays in the box for now and my thoughts are with the families of those who have died and will yet die while we wait to see just how far this will spread and to find out what will happen afterwards for the countries involved. 

You may not think that is a bad thing, after all, if fewer than 40% of the population think there is enough of a problem to even bother turning out, then surely we don’t need to bother changing anything. Except…

This is a two way election between alternative vote and the current system, first past the post. That means a vote “no” to AV is actually a vote “yes” to FPTP. If the vote was binding regardless of turn-out, that would be fine: it would be a straight fight between those who want reform and those who don’t, and everyone else would sit it out. However, by making it dependant on passing a threshold, any vote not cast is now also a “yes” to the status quo.  This means all the “no” campaign have to do to win is keep enough people at home.

One of the things this reform is supposed to be tackling is the problem of poor voter engagement and one of the things that poor voter engagement does is depress turnout. In other words, this vote has now been made deliberately susceptible to the very problem it is designed to fix.

40% is a low threshold, and for that I am grateful; there had previously been talk of setting it much higher. However, any referendum where one side has motivation to try and stop people voting is automatically suspect in my view.

According to the Guardian, the German papers are today full of speculation that Hosni Mubarak may be given medical treatment and shelter in Germany. The government say they would take him in, the opposition are in, well, opposition.

A lot of people (outside as well as inside Egypt) would like to see Mubarak brought to justice for his various human rights violations over the last 30 years; but if he is afraid for his life and sees clinging to power as his only hope, then he will never step down. Furthermore, if the promise of sanctuary is not made, or, worse, it is made and then broken, other dictators will become harder than ever for their people to dislodge.

It is distasteful to me to set such people up with comfortable lives in new countries, but perhaps this is an occasion when letting the bad guy go free would be for the greater good.

Oh, and beyond giving an odious man a safe place to spend the remaining years of his life so that the Egyptian people can get on with fixing their country, we should butt out and look at getting our own house in order.

I have signed up to many of their campaigns, but they do tend to be a bit reactionary on environmental matters. Their anti-GM petition got me quite riled when they clearly demonstrated no attempt to understand the science or the potential benefits, and instead just accused everyone who disagreed with them of being corrupt. I wrote them a letter, but they ignored it (probably chalking me up as in the pay of “big agro” or some such) and the petition went on to become one of their most successful to date.

Consequently, when I received their latest petition, blaming the very worrying colony collapse disorder (CCD) in honey bees on a new type of insecticide and calling for its immediate ban, I did not immediately add my name.

I have spent a bit of time searching the literature and it seems CCD is a complex problem that is likely to be caused by a number of factors. Avaaz claim this is not so and blame the confusion as to the causes of CCD on powerful lobbyists for the chemical companies; but I found papers from all over the world, and not one of them pointed to a strong link between these new neonicotinoid pesticides and CCD.

If there’s one thing I know, it’s that however tempting it might be to accuse us of it, most scientists are not in thrall to powerful industries. I find it highly unlikely that evidence of a strong link would not have appeared somewhere in the literature by now if it existed[2]. Scientists studying bees care about them a great deal; they study them precisely because they find them engaging and fascinating animals. Bee researchers wouldn’t keep something as damaging as this under wraps if they knew about it.

Avaaz do give several sources for their conclusions, but they are almost all news articles with no primary references. The main exception being a bee briefing from the soil association, but that doesn’t have any references at all. Much is made of a leaked memo from the US Environmental Protection Agency supposedly showing they “knew about the pesticide’s dangers, but ignored them”, but the only part of the memo I could find is this quote:

information from standard tests and field studies, as well as incident reports involving other neonicotinoids insecticides … suggest the potential for long term toxic risk to honey bees and other beneficial insects.

Given the “…” in the middle, the lack of context and news agencies’ previous record for quote mining, this is hardly a smoking gun.

I’m spreading the word about this campaign, but I am a bit ambivalent about signing. There is evidence of a link and, given the fact that the over reliance on insecticides in general together with synergistic reactions as they accumulate in bee populations are also implicated, perhaps it is better to be safe than sorry and ban this class of chemicals for now; we can always repeal the ban should it later be shown they are not harmful.

I want to sign this petition: I think that, on balance, it would be better to ban these chemicals sooner rather than later; but I have lost my faith in Avaaz. Instead of giving people the whole truth and allowing them to make up their own minds about this complex issue, they have opted to spread simplistic propaganda.

These are tactics I have seen before. It is easier to believe the comforting lie than the difficult truth, and that is a fact that those in the anti-global warming, pro-tobacco and, I am sure, many other lobbies use with ruthless efficiency to further their disreputable causes.

I have learned that, when battling those who do not care about the truth, it is imperative that you stick to absolute honesty. Their dishonesty may make gains at first, but the truth will always win out eventually. If people cannot trust you, however, no amount of pointing to the truth will work, they see only two sides that are equally dishonest and they are liable to pick the one that they find most appealing – invariably this is the wrong choice.

So, I have a quandary. I think that, having gathered a full and balanced view of the situation, it is probably best to ban neonicotinoid insecticides. Had Avaaz have presented me with the whole truth, I would most likely have signed up willingly. But they didn’t, and I cannot condone this form of campaigning because I believe it negatively impacts upon our ability to fight for other challenging causes.

So which principal do I sacrifice? If I sign the petition, I am knowingly supporting a cause that has used misinformation to get its way, and if I don’t I am failing to lobby for the banning of an insecticide that I do believe we should stop using.

I will have to ponder this a bit further before I make a decision, but at least you now have all the information and you too can make an informed decision about whether or not to join Avaaz’s cause.

1. I know, I hate it too, but it does seem to have filled a gap in the language.

2. And, indeed, there is a link, just not a strong one.

The problem with scientific research is that we can extrapolate trends moderately well, but we aren’t very good at specifics. We can confidently state that the world is getting hotter, on average, year by year and that it’s because of us, but we can’t accurately predict what form that warming will take: sometimes there are surprises.

In this case, some predicted the Gulf Stream would be diverted and that would plunge the UK into freezing cold winters: they were wrong. It now looks very unlikely that the Gulf Stream will be “switched off” but, instead, cold air displaced from the pole has… plunged the UK into freezing cold winters. That doesn’t change the fact that the average temperature has gone up, because those cold spots are more than cancelled out by unusually hot spots elsewhere.

The failure of scientists to accurately predict this particular effect doesn’t disprove global warming. Even when we’re surprised by an effect, we can still observe it and find the explanation, and every time we do, it always comes back to global warming caused by CO2.

The most worrying thing is that, every time something like this happens, we find out that, not only is our polluting to blame, but that’s it’s happening faster and more significantly than we predicted.

Frightened? You should be.

We may not like it, but this isn’t going anywhere and the sooner we get used to making the myriad small changes that add up to a big impact, the less painful it will be when the crunch comes and we no longer have the choice.

Here are some small things you can do to make a difference:

• Stop drinking bottled drinks, especially water. The bottled water industry is a huge polluter and you only think you want it because they’ve told you you do!
• Turn down the radiator and put on a jumper and some wooly socks.
• Choose products with less packaging.
• Turn off the lights when you aren’t in the room and switch the TV and video off at the wall (that digital clock and the standby mode may not cost as much as we were once told, but it costs something, and every little helps)
• Don’t leave your phone charger plugged in if it isn’t charging – some transformers (anything with a very bulky plug or some sort of bulky box somewhere along the cable) continue to draw power even when they aren’t in use, if yours feels warm when it isn’t in use, it’s a culprit.
• If you’re buying new white goods, buy energy efficient ones.
• Sign this petition right now and save our forests. Now more than ever we need to protect our trees!