The Bewilderness

2009: heigh ho, silver lining

I understand that this will be one of the coldest New Year's celebrations for many a year and the first this century. As I look out at the blue skies, the sun and the heat, nothing persuades me to entertain a celebration at home when I can make my resolutions in a warmer and sunnier clime. That was my resolution a few years ago and I have managed to achieve this for a number of years.

My chosen venue this year is Miami South Beach, a set of mangrove swamps transformed by human capability and property bubbles into a charming city with the widest disparity in income within the United States. Does this matter? Not really. Inequality only matters if it is permanent and there is no way for those at the bottom to aspire. As we know, only socialists pull the ladder away .

I wish any readers who pass by an auspicious 2009, and remember like is harder, faster, better and more exciting the further we explore this new century. The darker the clouds, the better the silver lining.

Soon the news won't fit the print

Another milestone is reached as channels of distribution change:

2008 will be seen as a landmark year in global communications in the textbooks of 2100 – it was the year that the internet finally surpassed what was once considered an unassailable bastion of main media, newspapers, as the leading source of national and international news in America. The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press is an independent opinion research group that studies attitudes toward the press, politics and public policy issues. This year, for the first time in a Pew survey, more people said they relied mostly on the internet for news than those that cited newspapers (35%). Television retained top spot with 70% but it’s now clear that it’s when, rather than if, the internet will become the key news communications medium. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Textbook

This is not as radical as headlined, given that newspaper and television websites are important sources for online information. Yet the march online will intensify as the credit crunch accelerates change. Curiously, this could result in less news, as the institutions of mainstream reporting wither away.

Watch for the state to support and protect the coterie of reporters, newspapers and channels on the grounds that politicians are far too important not to be heard. After all, this is already done in the UK with the licence fee, public sector advertisements for the Guardian and various subsidies. As the market retreats, subsidies will become more overt, expensive and extensive.

No ear for the electorate

This will be the test for Labour: how far their performance is decoupled from the public perception of economic crisis and recession.

Britain is preparing for a bleak new year of spending cutbacks, job insecurity and prolonged recession, according to a Guardian/ICM poll published today. It shows consumer confidence has dropped sharply in the last month as the reality of the economic downturn hits home.The poll, carried out just before Christmas, finds near universal gloom about Britain's economic prospects: 86% say they plan to make cutbacks and live more cheaply in 2009 — only 13% expect to spend as much as they did last year.

If there is no decoupling, then Labour will fall in the polls. Gordon Brown's cheery insistence that he is the rock of stability on which the British people can depend may prove a turn-off: that he is, in fact, the last person they trust, since he is unable to state, in all honesty, that he is responsible for some of this damage.

Gordon Brown today calls on the British people to summon the same patriotic and optimistic spirit that guided them though second world war, as he warns that 2009 will be a year of grave "danger", uncertainty and "enormous economic challenge".

In a New Year message heavy with Churchillian echoes, the prime minister insists that he and his government will be the "rock of stability" upon which people can stand as the economy slides fast into the worst recession for a generation.

"Today, the issues may be different, more complex, more global," Brown says. "And yet the qualities we need to meet them the British people have demonstrated in abundance before."

He says he is confident that because the British have the "right character" they will one day be able to look back on the economic crisis facing them "as another great challenge that was thrown Britain's way, and that Britain met".

Having enjoyed a revival in the opinion polls since the downturn began - and he launched plans to rescue the country's biggest banks from collapse - Brown appears to relish leading the country through even more difficult times in 2009. "The scale of the challenges we face is matched by the strength of my optimism," he says.

This is a tin ear for the electorate, who will not view their sufferings as a national test.

Windows for submariners

Good news is that the Ministry of Defence, perhaps through financial constraints, has moved to off the shelf software, rather than building their own useless bespoke system that years of overspend to achieve nought. Bad news is that it is the vulnerable Windows for Submariners. I really do hope that GCHQ are not open to those well known hackmeisters, the Taliban.

Darwin gave us hope...

Darwin gave us hope, not God. We have an inbuilt Pandora's box that enables us to deceive not only others but ourselves. Deception is clearly linked to neural complexity and a positive perception of our environs is a deep-rooted drive. Without this, we cannot accomplish what we set out to do. Moreover, we have a tendency to deceive ourselves and deny the truth, since the alternative is depression and despair.

Evolutionary Psychiatrist Randolph Nesse of the University of Michigan is a great believer in hope as a evolutionary strategy.
    
According to Nesse, all emotions have an evolutionary basis, and for every negative emotion, there is a balancing positive one. Hope arrives on the coattails of despair, and without hope, we'd all be lost. Since everyone experiences bad stuff, and feels it deeply, our brains have adapted by also delivering hope. And without our inborn measure of hope, we fall into depression, where someone like psychiatrist Nesse has to remind us to be hopeful.

The rhetoric of hope adopted by Barack Obama and other politicians becomes more understandable as a strategy that draws upon deep seated biases within human societies. It is noteworthy that hope has formed a strong component of many religious messages: thus rendering the satirical embodiment of the Messiah in the President-elect more accurate in Darwinian terms.

Darwinian explanations add to the complex mix of our understanding of human action. They do not replace or simplify this complex cultural mosaic.

This small point does give us an insight into power: for those who truly love terror would deny hope to all. The true totalitarian states of the twentieth century tried to deny hope to all of their victims and even then, failed in their torture. Yet, the same horizons are also eroded and extinguished over the longer term by other systems, such as welfare. There is no comparison between the terror of the prison camps and the grey anomie of incapacity benefits. But both, I suspect, through different means, overturn this need for self-deception, acknowledging the primacy of politics and society over the weak orientation of our evolved psychology.

Boxing day quote

The Conservatives, as being by the law of their existence, the stupidest party, have much the greatest aims of this description to answer for, and it is a melancholy truth, that if any measure were proposed, on any subject, truly, largely, and far-sightedly conservative, even if liberals were willing to vote for it, the great bulk of the Conservative party would rush blindly in and prevent of from being carried.

                                                                

"On Representative Government", John Stuart Mill

Watchmen outfoxed

Watchmen may about to enter development hell ....again. Now, you would imagine that any company ensures copyright is owned before spending millions of dollars on a blockbuster. Seems that Warner has been outfoxed:

In a surprise ruling, a federal judge in Los Angeles said he intended to grant 20th Century Fox’s claim that it owns a copyright interest in the “Watchmen,” a movie shot by Warner Brothers and Legendary Pictures and set for release in March.

Hat-tip: Slashdot

Why whitehall failed the police

Roger de Graef, a noted commentator on the police, opposes their politicisation in an article for the Daily Telegraph. Despite some excellent work over the years showing how the police forces have become more directed by the state and whichever party is in power, de Graef argues that we still have the best system, balancing accountability to the centre through the Chief Constables with local concerns, Yet his history shows that there was a rise in political hyperactivity from 1980 and a pointed use of police to quash demonstrations, strikes or any other activities deemed inappropriate by the authorities. Many police authorities have not been averse to lobbying, acquiring and using these increased powers to curtail our liberties. This is not stated.

Given such a qualitative change, is reference to the status quo sufficient, or should we look at a need for reform? The police are already politicised as local needs are downplayed or overridden by the demands of the centre. Why is democratic accountability wrong, given that the instances cited (concerns for due process and problems for minorities) could just as easily, or already have been instituted without difficulty through Whitehall.

Despite my scepticism, he does twist the knife into Jacqui Smith, in an echo of Mark Antony's oration at Caesar's funeral:

That confusion was fed by the Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, insisting she knew nothing about the impending arrest of a MP. She, too, proclaimed her respect for police independence as her defence for not knowing. Miss Smith is an honourable woman, but in my 30 years of watching the police I find it hard to believe.

Could experienced senior officers accountable to her and ultimately to Parliament have failed to notify her office that such a contentious arrest was looming? Could two of the candidates for commissioner not have realised she would be pleased to be rid of a troublesome Opposition MP? If they didn't tell her, she should have been furious with them.

HFEA entertains uncertain waters in PGD

The HFEA shifted towards a more lenient view of parental power recently, by allowing pre-implantation genetic diagnosis to select embryos where there is a strong chance of developing cancer. This is a welcome move towards a liberal view of these matters, yet still maintains regulatory powers over what ought to be private decisions. The HFEA is forced to move as the grain of popular opinion is more willing to accept such choices and restrictions question the purpose of such morally transparent decisions.

But breast cancer is different because it does not inevitably affect a child from birth and may or may not develop later in life. There is also a chance it can be cured, if caught early enough.

Permission to carry out PGD for breast cancer had to be obtained from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority by the London clinic which performed the procedure.

The body, which licenses IVF clinics and embryo research, gave the go ahead after holding a public consultation.

Fertility expert Paul Serhal, who led the PGD team, said: "We have now entered a new era of being able to help people who have cancer genes. Not only can we liberate people from the guilt of passing a cancer gene onto their child, we can cut off transmission of the gene once and for all. These are families who have been plagued by this genetic curse for generations. With a wave of a magic wand the job is done, and this is fantastic."

Down a dirt track to the stars

New Mexico has obtained the licence for establishing a spaceport, where Virgin Glactic and other operators can launch their tourist space flights and rocket racing league. The downside is that the state will produce the majority of the budget and uncertainty rules all infrastructure projects in a time of constrained resources:

Initial plans called for the spaceport to be built at a cost of $225 million, and the Legislature required the spaceport authority to come up with a budget that didn't exceed that amount. The current budget is set at $198 million, with an estimated $140 million of that coming from the state and the balance coming from local tax revenue, said David Wilson, a spokesman for the spaceport authority.

Two counties, Sierra and Dona Ana, approved tax measures for the spaceport. However, Otero County voters rejected a spaceport tax in November. Wilson told msnbc.com that discussions were continuing with other counties about coming in on the project and making up for Otero's anticipated share.

"We've got 97 percent of the money that we need," Wilson said. If another entity can't be recruited for the spaceport tax district, the construction plans could conceivably be scaled back, he said.