Month: September 2019

Referendumb

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On 2nd August 1934 the president of Germany, Paul von Hindenburg died. Seventeen days later Chancellor Adolf Hitler declared a referendum. The question to the people was…should the posts of president and chancellor be merged? According to Wikipedia there was intimidation of the public to obtain the vote Hitler wanted and got. It gave him absolute power and the rest as they say is history.

This is not to say that all referendums are bad. You could have one asking whether all kittens should wear pink or blue bows. I’m not suggesting you should, but you could. Switzerland for instance has four referendums a year. Direct democracy suits the Swiss, although I suspect in many countries, voters would fail to turn out on account of being ‘bored’ with referendums. This was a common complaint in the UK following the referendum in June 2016.

kittens with blue and pink bows

The fact that many politicians and civil servants distrust referendums as a route to policy decisions, is hinted at in the fact that they are only ‘advisory’. In the UK Brexit vote, the main parties promised to abide by the result in their manifestos, something they later probably regretted.

Socrates was against voting by uneducated people on the grounds that they could not possibly understand the issuesin the same way that you go to the Doctor for advice on your health, not the person sweeping the street. What we know, is different for each person and there is a concept called ‘the wisdom of the crowd’. In this the understanding comes not from the individual but the collective and on some matters it works. People en mass can get it right.

However, as the late Dr Hans Rosling has shown, even experts (15% correct) can perform worse than monkeys (30% correct) when asked questions about population growth.

Making complex decisions based on multiple variables, sources, probably outcomes, threats, subsequent strategic objectives etc can just be impossible. So hold in the back of your mind the idea that perhaps, Socrates was right.

Referendums have to follow an organised routine in order to be regarded as fair. This is why the rules of a referendum are vitally important. They must be agreed, practised precisely and officiated (the last being to make sure they are followed).

When children go to school, they are given the opportunity to play team sports. Let us take the example of cricket. The PE teacher will sit down the eager children, all dressed in their whites, and explain the rules of cricket. What will not happen for sure is that a small child at the back will lift a hand and ask, ‘why?’

The teacher will explain that these are the rules and have been for a very long time and that is just the way it is. A pretty poor answer in my view. The rules for games are, after all is considered, also only advisory and if you want to have four stumps at each end or play with a different shape bat or ball, run backwards…why not? Rules are arbitrary and exist only if they are followed.

So let us examine the rules that govern referendums.

I suggest that referendums fall into a similar category of ‘game’ with rules that are just ‘made up’. I can substantiate this proposition as follows.

1. The referendum issue can arise from a single issue party or individual with plenty of money to donate to party funds. For instance, Rupert Murdoch owns a string of UK newspapers such as the Daily Mail and the Sun, neither of which would win prizes for balanced reporting. Sir Clive Goldsmith donated to Conservative Party funds and was a keen anti-European. His influence, I believe, got the Brexit question into the Tory manifesto. This process was not particularly democratic but followed the rules.

2. The referendum rules need careful consideration and adjustment so that the result does not split a government and a nation down the middle. In other words, democracy is not held to ransom by a minority of ‘swing voters’. Similarly, a insignificant margin in favour of one side leaves a strong minority to contest. This minority is practically the same as a half way split as both sides are constantly at war. The spirit of democracy is only served when a substantial majority of voters want the same thing. In government this may occur as a coalition. In referendum rules, this is termed a super majority and it can be a minimum of 60% or higher. The UK is currently split almost down the middle over Brexit and the lack of a requirement for a super majority, meant the infighting in the parties and the people was not solved or quietened, even after the referendum.

3. Who votes? Generally the most motivated voters are those who have strong views. They might be misguided, ill informed or ignore the question, but what counts is that they will get themselves to the voting booths, no matter what. Those who expect the vote to go one way or the other and therefore they don’t need to vote, stay at home. These are called the silent majority. Some will vote because they value their vote as a democratic right fought for in two world wars. Some will not vote because they have lived outside the UK for over 15 years and are therefore not invited to vote. Others may post a vote which is either sent out too late to be returned in time or is lost in the post.

In all of these scenarios, the democracy that is held up to the high altar by the winners, has not functioned as a true reflection of the wishes of an overwhelming majority, but a function of unregulated and random and inhibitors and motivators. Is this democracy?

4. How do voters obtain their information? In the twenty first century, the availability of information on any subject, is something undreamed of thirty years ago. Because the internet (in it’s light and dark theatres) is largely unregulated and operates outside national boundaries and legal jurisdiction, anything can be claimed by anybody, as true. If you can make the same claims in multiple virtual places and repeatedly it seemingly becomes more true. Russia, allegedly, has rooms of computer operators who are filling chat rooms and newsfeeds and social media pages with misinformation.

As Mark Twain said, ‘when Truth is putting it’s boots on, the lie is half way around the world.

Adolf Hitler was an unashamed liar knowing that the majority don’t attempt to refute. A minority might but under the rules of democracy, their views can be ignored. Activists risk recrimination from the authorities. Witness the events in Hong Kong today.

The President of the United States is a regular liar, rarely reading books and just making things up, presumably to wrong foot those wishing to have an informed debate.

In the UK referendum in June 2016, Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, presented a collection of very dubious ‘facts’ to voters persuading them to vote to leave the European Union. This is corroborated in the recently published memoirs of the resigning Prime Minister, David Cameron. There were also campaigns using social media to spread unsourced information. This is not democracy

5. Why would you not vote?

The silent majority have a lot to answer for. They have the vital ability to challenge the highly motivated minority who do vote.

You will sometimes hear the view expressed that each citizen has a right vote and because this right was defended in two world wars, each person is honour bound to vote. This is a strong argument and yet the majority don’t think this way. Why not? Well here are some common ‘self justifications’.

If you believe the vote is one hundred per cent certain to go in a particular direction, you might justify not getting the car out of the garage and watch the TV instead on voting day. Certainly in the UK referendum of 2016, there was a general assumption that the Remain vote would win easily.

Some people in the UK express total distrust of politicians and the processes of parliament. They sight the expenses scandal where some MP’s were less than honest over their expenses. They say that this is the reason they don’t vote. Whether they would prefer a dictatorship, like the reinstatement of the Monarchy or a prime minister who closes down parliament, you have to ask them.

If you don’t need parliament you are cooked, you will have a dictatorship. That is what it will be

Margaret Atwood : Author

In a referendum a question is asked. Not surprisingly, considerable time is spent in deciding what this question should be. Statisticians know this is a cardinal rule of their science. Who writes the question is largely in control of what the answer will be. For instance, if the question is specifically on a lesser issue, the colour of kittens bows, the question is easier to understand and the answer specific. As the question becomes more general the scope for not understanding the issues grows. So a very general question such as whether the UK should leave the European Union is so broad that few will clearly understand the issues. The question could have been, for instance, should the UK reduce immigration? as that was the issue that many voters at the time had strong feelings and differences about.

What happened was many voted in a way that expressed their anti-establishment views. You therefore have a referendum result for one question which in a substantial number of voters minds, was another question. In school examinations pupils are reminded repeatedly to ‘answer the question’ because humans often lose track of the issues and move into emotionally driven concerns.

Referendums give irrational results for many reasons. Analysts and commentators know that on voting days when the weather is bad, fewer people will vote. Other practical reasons for not voting are not having transport, being ill, at work or living in another country. That last reason was ironically about a vote affecting those ex-pats living EU the most. If anyone should be allowed to vote it should be them, you might argue.

6. How many referendums?

There has been much debate on whether there should be another referendum following the first in the UK in June 2016. Those who argue against it say that the suggestion they did not understand the issues in full, is condescending. They are certain they did understand all the issues and they just want their wishes to be carried out. They also suggest that if there were a second referendum this would justify a third and a fourth and there is a principle that you should not keep asking a question until you get the answer you want.

On the first point, I would argue that no one really understood the issues and consequences of the question. Even politicians (who are paid to know) are divided in their views. So it is not condescending to suggest that the question was too broad.

On the second point, three parliamentary votes on the same issue, were employed by Teresa May in parliament to try to get her Withdrawal Agreement made into law. So no Tory can argue that repetition of the same question is wrong. She had three goes at this before the Speaker ruled she should change the question in some way.

A referendum is only a snapshot of public opinion on one day. The next day, the next year, the facts will have changed and opinions. To have a second referendum three and a half years after the first, with a different question is sensible. Elections are held at similar time intervals and each election replaces the government of the country in a way acceptable to most.

There is a strong argument that the terms and conditions of the question to leave, were never agreed with Europe before the vote and they should have been, as in previous referendums. For the same reason ‘thorny issues’ such as the border in Ireland should have been resolved before any referendum. These pitfalls in the method and application of the referendum have contributed hugely to the unsightly events in Parliament since.

Statisticians will be fully aware of the changes in the structure of the demography of the United Kingdom in those three years. If old people tended to vote leave, some of these good folk will have died. Their votes will be replaced by young first time voters who are estimated to be about 3 million. Most people can see that if there was a second referendum the result could swing in favour of remaining in Europe for this reason alone. Stopping these voters having their say on a matter affecting them more than the elders, is not democratic but strategic.

Finally, a second referendum would not ask the same question. It might give more options than yes or no. It might be based on national interest rather than UK interest as independence parties in Scotland and Northern Ireland have interpreted the first referendum in that way.

Overall, the above examples above describe the fact that little in the referendum process resembles democracy. This is a sad reflection on a country that prides itself on it’s unwritten constitution and parliamentary procedures as a ‘beacon of democracy’. Referendumbs have been the route to create chaos out of a kind of order.

The next step has to be ‘return to Go and collect £200’, or in other words, cancel Article 50. Then sort out the island of Ireland to make it ‘Brexit’ proof and any other issue that inhibits agreement with Europe, agree a new Agreement with Europe and then go to the people in a general election on and ask the question whether these terms of leaving are desirable.

Horse / Cart – Cart / Horse.

Space Wars

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Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is an enduring story of two bank robbers in the Wild West. In the film of the same name they are played by the good looking duo of Paul Newman and Robert Redford. They swagger through the film to a jolly accompaniment by Burt Bacharach (including Rain Drops Keep Falling on my Head) from one fruitful explosion to another. Inevitably the Federal authorities catch up with them and they manage to escape over the border into Mexico by the length of a horses tail. In Mexico they make a resolution never to rob a bank again, such has been the horror of their last experience. They realise they now have a clean slate to start their lives again. What happens next has always fascinated me. They start robbing banks in Mexico. A few bank robberies later, they die in a hail of Mexican army bullets.

butch_cassidy_and_the_sundance_kid1

The moral of this story in my view, explains a lot about the worst side of human nature. Remember that these are bad men even though they are played by a couple of smoothies. Humans find it very difficult to change their inner motivations, methods and objectives.

At present humans are plundering planet earth of her wealth. They have been doing it for a long time but now the scale and speed of the robbery is unprecedented. The villains have a plan;

‘Let’s start robbing again in space’.

China, Russia, the USA, Europe, even India have space programmes.

Why does India have a space programme when many of it’s rural villages don’t even have one flushing toilet and a sewer? The answer is complicated of course but one reason has to be the promise of new sources of raw materials; what in Klondike in the Wild West was nicknamed the ‘gold rush’. True to human greed for natural resources, these countries and others are not unaware of the promise of minerals ripe for harvesting from other planets and moons.

Without a World Government with an enforcement arm, it is hard to see how this rush into space and the allocation of unclaimed resources, will not turn into a laser gun fight.

On the 1st July 2019 the United States of America declared a new arm in it’s Defence Services; the Space Development Agency. Will the USA move itself into the role of World Government Peace Enforcement in space – like it has tried to enforce the non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction on Earth? Will the USA being armed in space be accepted by those being told they cannot do the same? Bear in mind the present difference of opinions between the USA and North Korea and Iran.

The USA may or has assumed a role of Sheriff or ‘protector’ of the valuable scientific, communications and defence satellites already in orbit around the earth. This role is enhanced by the prospect of the new 5G satellites being privately launched – over 2000 in number – to provide fast internet to rural communities around the globe. Who asked for 5G is a subject for another blog. In democracies, no one votes for what private enterprise decides needs doing for profit. Arms manufacturers usually lobby for war.

It just happens because science and technology get the smell of cordite and can’t stop themselves blowing a few banks, and a few more and a few more. Ethics committees don’t carry.

The hugely wealthy entrepreneurs, Elon Musk (BFR) and Jeff Bezos (Blue Origin) both have their own visions for space exploration and travel. Will they be taking pot shots at each other across the craters on the moon or work together?

The space exploration of the 1960’s was famously driven by bitter competition between the Soviet Union and the USA. The latter likes to think it won the race but in the end what came out of those missions was a desire to monitor the earth from space, not keep going to the moon. This mutual desire and pooling of resources and know-how, evolved into a co-operative project which is the International Space Station.

Not surprisingly today, Russian and China want to co-operate in space and ban space weapons and they both signed a treaty in 2008 on the Prevention of the Placement of Weapons in Outer Space.

On 21st October 2017, the first committee of the United Nations discussed the non-placement of weapons in space. 122 countries voted in favour of such a ban and five against, which included Georgia, Israel, the USA, Ukraine and France. 48 countries abstained, including the European Union.

The reasons for co-operation disarmament in space are obvious so let us consider reasons for having weapons in space.

There may be attempts by rogue states or state sponsored dissident groups, to interrupt or destroy or threaten to do this to civilian or military satellites.

positions of satellites at time of publishing were correct but may have moved now

satellites

The problem with this argument is that a rogue state, or state sponsored dissident group, is being lawful in it’s actions in one view and unlawful in another. Robin Hood was by some definitions, a terrorist. Black and white hats are for cowboy films. The hats in space wars are multi-coloured and nuanced.

For instance, a GPS satellite is used for civil purposes and military. So is the mobile phone network and satellites and direct satellite communications used in those areas where there is no mobile telephone network.

You can describe the action as good or bad depending on which facts you select to present. The criticism is that the ‘threat’ that the threat on which the military base their plans and actions, can be exaggerated for funding approval reasons and, or just plain politics. A government likely to declare war on false intelligence on earth is just as likely to do the same in space. Different place, same gunmen.

There is also a non-military threat; namely asteroids. These are objects that enter the earth’s solar system from outer space and may be on a collision course with earth. The possibility is that a weapon of some kind may be able to alter the course of the asteroid. Comparing the then with now, money would be better spent on protecting the earth from humans rather than asteroids in my view, that threat being more immediate.

The last Hollywood blockbuster myth is one that has appeared on cinema screens since movies were invented – alien invasion. I call this a myth since my belief is that any civilisation that has found and is watching us for malign reasons would have acted by now. Because they have not I conclude that they are benign and waiting for humans to become spiritually aware enough to stop wanting to destroy the planet and each other.

Little Blue Men (and perhaps some ladies)

kind aliens

This is Butch and Sundance story yet again. The question for governments and billionaire entrepreneurs in search resources and a life boat for planet earth is;

Should we spend our time and money on fighting each other in space, or on protecting the earth and building a sustainable future?

I know what my answer would be because I have seen the statistics about life on Mars and in my view, it’s a hell not worth visiting.

I hope and expect we will forget Mars as an objective in the next decade, as future space based telescopes spy out so called, exo-planets. Astronomers now believe it likely that most stars have a system of orbiting planets based on observations of light from those stars. The new generation of telescopes will find new exo-moons. With so many new places to visit that are in the ‘Goldilocks‘ range of environmental factors similar to earth, man in the future will be spoilt for choice for places to colonise.

Those who choose to live in such places will have one important choice above all others. Shall we take guns to these places? My advice,based on Butch and The Sundance, is don’t.

Not Dead Yet

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I have just come from my psychologist after a long and painful session. I was advised uninterrupted rest, in sympathy with my recent trauma.

It all started when I read the latest advice for 19 to 64 year olds. According to the BBC News website ‘strengthen muscles as well as heart to stay fit and healthy say top doctors’ – I am considered to have the same body as a 19 year old despite the fact that I am 64. This body requires the same amount of physical exercise as when I was young and they don’t hold their punches with their recommended exercise regime.

healthy heart

It starts badly. Each day I must be ‘physically active’. This means, presumably, that my normal day of lying in bed holding my breath, is not a good idea. Wow! I wish I had heard this advice before. OK. That was sarcastic I am sorry but really? Do we have to be told to move? Yes, we do so, I have spent the last month not only ‘active’ but taking exercise. Number one on the list of advice is to do ‘heavy gardening’ ‘carry heavy shopping’ or ‘resistance exercise’ at least twice a weak.

I am not sure what heavy gardening is. It sounds a bit like heavy petting and I don’t like the implications of that, so I skipped both.

Heavy shopping sounded appealing. Instead of my normal half trolley full, I filled up with chocolate, cakes, bread, beer – heavy items – so that walking to the car was going to provide my twice weekly exercise and maintain my nineteen year old body. I don’t think I have eaten so much chocolate and drunk so much beer in my life but I consoled myself with the fact that I was doing my muscles and heart a great deal of good.

As for joining the Resistance? Well I have never been much of a political activist preferring to totter to a polling booth and put an x (or is it a tick?) next to the party candidate who stands no hope of winning. It’s what being a Liberal is all about. But as for joining the Resistance? I can see that the average pimply nineteen year old who has had little chance to sort out what makes life tick or even tock – will find this appealing. Me, I have never felt I could wear a black beret with quite the tilt that Che Guervera managed. As for planting bombs on railway tracks. Well as someone who regularly writes to his MP complaining about my daily rail commute being delayed for unforeseen reasons – such complaints would become somewhat hypocritical. I couldn’t feel good, even if it was good for my muscles and heart.

Then comes the double whammy in the advice. Not only do you have to be ‘physically active’ – so breathing – but the advice hammers home a list of unrelenting and unnatural amount of activity. On offer is ‘brisk walking or cycling’. Now I have never liked walking ever since I first tried it as a baby – in fact my first few attempts were down right embarrassing. I guess I have the hang of it now but really it’s not much to write home about and raises little admiration and praise from family and friends. The idea of brisk cycling is more appealing.

I set out yesterday on a jaunt and gave myself twenty minutes to achieve it. After twenty minutes getting the electric bike ready, due to flat tires, rust etc…I realised that if I was going to be sincere to my task like a true Resistance fighter, then I should use my ordinary push bike. That took another twenty minutes to prepare but finally I was ready. I balanced the recycling bag on the back and headed uphill towards the recycling bins. I mused for the first hundred metres about the irony of cycling with recycling and thought it would make a good joke sometime – then I spied Jim filling up my neighbour’s swimming pool and I stopped for a chat. I explained what I was doing and how the last hundred metres had been a challenge. He suggested I sit down and he had some cold beers in the car – all of which I accepted.

Well, the next hour passed very amicably and I thanked him but said I needed to do some more muscle and heart exercise. I explained how I had to do 150 minutes every week, and he asked how much this was each day. A simple question and maybe the beers hadn’t done much for my brain but I had to pause and then ask if he had a pencil and paper.

If it was 140 minutes a week then 20 minutes a day. Easy.

But these ‘top doctors’ had thrown in another ten minutes, seven times a week. Eventually Jim found a calculator on his phone and read out in full – 21.4285714286 minutes.

‘How many seconds is that?’ I asked. Well, even with a calculator he couldn’t work it out. We settled for twenty one and a half seconds each day so as not to offend the top doctors.

Jim asked what the hell was a top doctor and I said I had never met one. They must be like ordinary doctors but much much cleverer…which in human terms these days is probably not very clever. Anyone who thinks 21 and a half minutes is easy to calculate is either dim on theory and dim in practice or unbelievably clever on theory and dim in practice.

I reached the recycling bins about an hour later since most of my cycle ride became a slow walk pushing the dam thing up hill. Coming back was a breeze though I resolved to spend more time going downhill than up in the future – the kind of wheeze a nineteen year old would think of.

I ignored the next top doctor suggestion on health grounds, which was 75 minutes of running each week. Surely the invention of the motor car means that no person has to be humiliated by running along the road in their mid sixties. I can see switch boards being blocked with calls for emergency services to attend this wreck of muscles and bones, every ten minutes.

old guys running

Lastly, the top doctors pulled out all the stops with their crowning piece of advice. ‘Minimise time spent being sedentary’. I was pleased to read this one as it is clearly the same as ‘be active’ but in reverse. Why, if you were so brainy to be a top doctor, would you advise; ‘don’t lie down too much’ and ‘stand up a lot’? It’s the same advice twice!

Never mind, it just means an easy tick in the achievements box.

What the top doctors did not reckon on was the massive guilt complex that developes in those challenged mentally and physically by this ‘do or die’ advice. How could an old wreck like me ever match the muscular and heart exertions of my nineteen year old doppelgänger? The guy doesn’t exist any longer and if you want the older version, he will be lounging in the hammock on the terrace at the back of the house for medical reasons.

And the medical advice I have been given by my psychiatrist, called Jim, is to wait until my next birthday before attempting physical activity. The reasoning is that on that day the exercising regime becomes considerably more lenient. All it says is that ‘some physical activity is better than none’.

Yes, over 65 years old the top doctors have a suggestion that frankly, a hospital porter on their first day at work could come up with. But I am not complaining.

Another activity befitting the muscular physique of a 65 year old is ‘bowls’ Fortunately I can ‘bowls’ is doable as I have a fine collection of ceramic bowls in my house; I presumably only need to look at them.

Then they advise ‘Tai Chi’ and I have always been keen on these oriental things. Whether there is room in the garden for a Tea House I am not sure. I might have to move the shed in which I store the sun loungers but never mind. The tea ceremony is very calming and promotes mental as well a physical inactivity. Very Zen.

But I am not so sure with the last piece of advice I am going to have to follow. ‘Break up long periods of being sedentary with light activity when possible, at least with standing.’

The longest period of inactivity is a close call between watching Net Fix and sleeping, but I think sleeping tips the scales the most. How I can be expected to either sleep standing up or wake up at intervals in order to stand up and lie down again, I am not certain.

What I do know is that it is all good practice for the grave, in which there is no requirement to stand up.

Bring it on.