Yeah enough thinky stuff.
Game review time!
This thing called DayZ came to my attention.
It's utterly geek friendly. By that I mean a bit of tech knowledge may help even before you launch it.
So what the hell is it?
It's a fairly brutal multi-player game. You're a "survivor" with incredibly basic equipment (depends on the server you log on to, but the standard issue is basic). You're in a world full of zombies. You need food, drink, warmth, and you need to survive, so you need bandages and weapons.
Why am I bothering to write about it? Well it's a "mod" a modification of a game called Arma 2. Arma 2 is a strange game in itself, aiming to be a very realistic modern military simulator. It manages on a lot points. A single bullet will kill you, pretty much instantly. Your storage space is based on your pockets, tool-belt and backpack. It's very limited. You can catch infections, or more rapidly just bleed to death if you can't bandage yourself up fast enough. Pain makes your vision blur and shake. Broken bones stop you moving. Blood loss slowly blurs the entire world in to grey as the pain pounds away. You can forget "I've got 40,000 hit points and a codpiece of non-damage" here.
There's your feel of the game. Now back to the tech bit. It's geek heaven. You can't even run it with just Arma 2 installed. You need a whole mission pack of extras to bolt on to Arma 2 first. Even then, you're best off downloading a further add on called "DayZ Commander" to browse the 6,000+ listed servers and find one right for you, and then download even more maps and variations to play. Once you're in the game the tech assault doesn't end. This isn't your standard GUI. It's not going to hold your hand and tell you what this does to that. It feels like the entire keyboard is configured to do something weird with any key at all, and what you do with your mouse to get things to happen is perplexing to begin with. Think steep learning curve. It makes sense once you get the hang of it, but initially it's a case of "I have no idea how to do anything".
It's worth adding in here that the graphics are up there in the "really very good" category. If anything it relies on blur filters and light contrasts a fair bit, but actually that doesn't harm it at all, and blends with the visual damage from bleeding and throbbing pain. At times it's almost artistic, but it's always very easy to feel you are there. The quality of daylight changes, night time is nicely gothic, the rain really does get you down, and you can see the sun glare slowly fade as you emerge from cover in to bright sunlight again. Lets just say that it's immersive enough. You can moan that you can't get in to more buildings, but that's about it. They still look nice from outside.
So what some genius did was plonk that sort of simulation, in to zombie apocalypse land. The result is fairly intense! To give you an idea, apparently the average life span of a "survivor" is slightly over one hour.
But ... around about your 5th or 6th life time in DayZ, you start to get a bit of a grip on how to survive, (the lessons are fairly brutal), and here's why it has a bit of a cult status. It's not actually the zombies that are the most dangerous things in DayZ. It's the other players. Here the game pings in to a new kind of multi-player environment. There is no dungeon to team up on. You can either fight together or against each other. The rewards for taking down a well equipped player are tempting. You can spend hours or even days scavenging for the same results. On the other hand, your survival rate as a duo at least are hugely enhanced. Blood transfusions can only be made by another player, and that can be a life line. Mentally though, you're still thinking it's another mouth to feed and they better pull some weight. There's not even any moral compass added by the game designers here. This is it. You're a survivor in a world full of zombies, there are other people around sometimes, how do you deal with it?
The whole basic need vs greed morality debate suddenly hits you right between the eyes. How nice are you actually? Given you have to survive in a world full of zombies. How much do you trust other people? Suddenly that "Where are you? Let's meet up." in conversation isn't as simple as it looked.
To add to that mental pressure, this is a game with one life. You start a game, you can log out and back in on the same character with the same equipment right back where you logged out ... until you die. Then you have to start again from zero. That doesn't sound so bad if you're only surviving an hour or so anyway. It becomes a major mental factor when you've managed to survive for a week.
I'm not sure I've managed to get it across in this little review, but this is one hell of a brutal strange little sub-genre of game in all kinds of ways. It seems to bring out the best and worst in people.
So there's your basic review. Insanely hard to get in to. But actually .. something quite special if you ever do. A total departure from immortal, hand holding, user friendly, "which guild are you in?" online games.
But wait up .. something else I noticed. I know many players just treat DayZ like any other game. But I noticed something that reminded me of William Gibson going on. I really do need to be in the right frame of mind to log in to DayZ. It grows when you are in the game. You pause, gather yourself and then plan ahead the next scavenge, open the doors and cautiously look around. Time to move on again... It's the game that finally has me "jacked" in to it. From log on to log out, I'm in DayZ, and that little realisation, is why I bothered to write this blog post.
5 Mar 2013
Why so glum?
More thoughts that don't fit in tweets.
This one to do with a certain sense of gloom. You see, many people have this optimistic view that things are improving. I'm not sure what to call it exactly, but it's a pervading wish in society. "America is over the worst", "Europe is fixed", "Next year growth will return". That sort of thing. I guess it's fair enough to wish for the best.
But the problem I see is that there's virtually no drive or will for anything to actually change, and the causes of the problems that are popular to blame are wildly wrong. The Occupy movement had basically the right idea, but that largely (for now at least) has been beaten back and stalled. Other than that, you're very hard pressed to find even an activist movement, let alone a political party willing to take on the real problems.
And what pray tell do I think they are?
I think the system of wealth and how it runs our entire lives is perhaps workable in theory, but horribly flawed in it's current state. One of the manifestations of the current problem is in a curve of opportunity that comes with wealth. Lets concentrate on this one for now, because I think it helps explain why we seem to be on a hockey stick curve of doom.
If you're in the lower, middle, even low high end salary brackets these days, your money is largely tracked, identified, taxed and there's little you can do about it. You're in the bracket that can't afford legal tax avoidance. Or. If you can to some small degree, you're talking about a few thousand saved, enough to give you a smile maybe, but not enough to materially alter your overall financial position. You also can't afford to speculate on the markets to any real degree. Again, it's possible, but because the amounts that can be risked are fairly small, the amounts that can be made are also fairly small, and because you can't afford off shore accountants and brokers, the gains are going to get noticed and taxed.
At a certain point though, you're out of the woods. You can afford to offload all your tax affairs to experts in the dark arts of tax avoidance, and you can afford to pay the sums involved in setting up such schemes as a small blip compared to the quantities saved. You can also afford to speculate on the markets, you don't have to do it. Your broker will happily take that on for you, and unless you've picked a duff broker and tax accountant, you're pretty much home and dry.
The point is, at a certain point, wealth has been allowed to snowball wealth. Not just for individuals, for corporations as well. In the UK and USA you can find large corporations paying zero tax despite good earnings for the year in question. You can even find them being paid by the tax man just for having the grace to be in business and having good accountants.
You can muddle along with that sort of thing going on up to a certain point, but after a while, you begin to notice that far too much of the profit in just about everything is getting sucked out by those who can afford to squirrel it away and avoid the tax, or invest it to make yet more money to help pay for the money that's tucked away off shore.
This is just one aspect. The ability past a certain point for wealth to magically become almost untaxable because you can afford all the dodges and cheats available to you, and the benefit out weighs the costs. There are more. The culture of gouging as much money as possible out of any public expenditure is another, but that's another story.
So when you're looking at the world and wondering where has all the money gone? It's up there folks. At the top. In huge quantities. And it ain't trickling down.
If anyone can point me at a potentially viable political party willing to tackle even this one basic problem? I'd love to hear about them. All the serious political parties that I know about are funded by those exact same rich corporations and individuals. If you think they are willingly going to give any of that up you're just plain crazy. It's easier to let a few thousand commit suicide from austerity measures than even admit there's a huge wealth distribution problem.
You think I'm exaggerating?
See if this helps you picture the problem more clearly...
When is that going to change?
Well. I'd say it'll take civil wars, even international wars, financial collapse, mass poverty, and a huge depression to even begin to redistribute the wealth. I don't particularly want any of that to happen. It's just that's the only way I can see any of the current system changing in any meaningful way. Until then? Get used to things getting slowly worse, because nobody in power or close to getting power wants to do anything about it at all.
Hey. It's only human lives that get messed up and considerably shortened in the meantime. Don't be so glum. Us humans seem to love taking what could be a perfectly enjoyable lifetime and screwing it up for as many people as possible. It's how we do business. It's normal.
This one to do with a certain sense of gloom. You see, many people have this optimistic view that things are improving. I'm not sure what to call it exactly, but it's a pervading wish in society. "America is over the worst", "Europe is fixed", "Next year growth will return". That sort of thing. I guess it's fair enough to wish for the best.
But the problem I see is that there's virtually no drive or will for anything to actually change, and the causes of the problems that are popular to blame are wildly wrong. The Occupy movement had basically the right idea, but that largely (for now at least) has been beaten back and stalled. Other than that, you're very hard pressed to find even an activist movement, let alone a political party willing to take on the real problems.
And what pray tell do I think they are?
I think the system of wealth and how it runs our entire lives is perhaps workable in theory, but horribly flawed in it's current state. One of the manifestations of the current problem is in a curve of opportunity that comes with wealth. Lets concentrate on this one for now, because I think it helps explain why we seem to be on a hockey stick curve of doom.
If you're in the lower, middle, even low high end salary brackets these days, your money is largely tracked, identified, taxed and there's little you can do about it. You're in the bracket that can't afford legal tax avoidance. Or. If you can to some small degree, you're talking about a few thousand saved, enough to give you a smile maybe, but not enough to materially alter your overall financial position. You also can't afford to speculate on the markets to any real degree. Again, it's possible, but because the amounts that can be risked are fairly small, the amounts that can be made are also fairly small, and because you can't afford off shore accountants and brokers, the gains are going to get noticed and taxed.
At a certain point though, you're out of the woods. You can afford to offload all your tax affairs to experts in the dark arts of tax avoidance, and you can afford to pay the sums involved in setting up such schemes as a small blip compared to the quantities saved. You can also afford to speculate on the markets, you don't have to do it. Your broker will happily take that on for you, and unless you've picked a duff broker and tax accountant, you're pretty much home and dry.
The point is, at a certain point, wealth has been allowed to snowball wealth. Not just for individuals, for corporations as well. In the UK and USA you can find large corporations paying zero tax despite good earnings for the year in question. You can even find them being paid by the tax man just for having the grace to be in business and having good accountants.
You can muddle along with that sort of thing going on up to a certain point, but after a while, you begin to notice that far too much of the profit in just about everything is getting sucked out by those who can afford to squirrel it away and avoid the tax, or invest it to make yet more money to help pay for the money that's tucked away off shore.
This is just one aspect. The ability past a certain point for wealth to magically become almost untaxable because you can afford all the dodges and cheats available to you, and the benefit out weighs the costs. There are more. The culture of gouging as much money as possible out of any public expenditure is another, but that's another story.
So when you're looking at the world and wondering where has all the money gone? It's up there folks. At the top. In huge quantities. And it ain't trickling down.
If anyone can point me at a potentially viable political party willing to tackle even this one basic problem? I'd love to hear about them. All the serious political parties that I know about are funded by those exact same rich corporations and individuals. If you think they are willingly going to give any of that up you're just plain crazy. It's easier to let a few thousand commit suicide from austerity measures than even admit there's a huge wealth distribution problem.
You think I'm exaggerating?
See if this helps you picture the problem more clearly...
When is that going to change?
Well. I'd say it'll take civil wars, even international wars, financial collapse, mass poverty, and a huge depression to even begin to redistribute the wealth. I don't particularly want any of that to happen. It's just that's the only way I can see any of the current system changing in any meaningful way. Until then? Get used to things getting slowly worse, because nobody in power or close to getting power wants to do anything about it at all.
Hey. It's only human lives that get messed up and considerably shortened in the meantime. Don't be so glum. Us humans seem to love taking what could be a perfectly enjoyable lifetime and screwing it up for as many people as possible. It's how we do business. It's normal.
26 Feb 2013
Negative Reality
Concerning alternatives to QE, this, from the Telegraph:
"Another concern is that the Bank’s £375bn Quantitative Easing scheme has pushed down the value of annuities - although the Bank has pointed out that the money printing programme has also bolstered the value of pension pots by boosting share prices, leaving people, ultimately, no worse off."
Makes my jaw drop.
QE has boosted the appearance of share prices. With printed money.
To make that balance out somehow, we have a government that's decided wages, workers rights, health care, education and services have to be slashed from public spending, and that taxes for just about everyone have to go up. At the same time .. hey? Guess what? Even if your printed money goes straight in to bonds, it's still inflationary!
It's just a blatant lie. "No worse off".
Oh hell in that case, why haven't we been printing billions every year since dot? I mean shit, everyone's better off or at least no worse for it right? ... Right? Why bother with Austerity at all if we could just print our way out of it with nobody any worse off whatsoever?
Sometimes something will leak out of the lofty halls of power that just stuns me with either it's intense stupidity or wilful ignorance. This is one of them.
Either the Bank of England is insanely delusional, or they think any old crap excuse will do because we're all a bunch of suckers.
"Another concern is that the Bank’s £375bn Quantitative Easing scheme has pushed down the value of annuities - although the Bank has pointed out that the money printing programme has also bolstered the value of pension pots by boosting share prices, leaving people, ultimately, no worse off."
Makes my jaw drop.
QE has boosted the appearance of share prices. With printed money.
To make that balance out somehow, we have a government that's decided wages, workers rights, health care, education and services have to be slashed from public spending, and that taxes for just about everyone have to go up. At the same time .. hey? Guess what? Even if your printed money goes straight in to bonds, it's still inflationary!
It's just a blatant lie. "No worse off".
Oh hell in that case, why haven't we been printing billions every year since dot? I mean shit, everyone's better off or at least no worse for it right? ... Right? Why bother with Austerity at all if we could just print our way out of it with nobody any worse off whatsoever?
Sometimes something will leak out of the lofty halls of power that just stuns me with either it's intense stupidity or wilful ignorance. This is one of them.
Either the Bank of England is insanely delusional, or they think any old crap excuse will do because we're all a bunch of suckers.
31 Jan 2013
Adjustment
Just going to home in on a gap in understanding for a few brief minutes.
Countless are the tweets declaring austerity as a war on the poor. However...
Walk with me in my twilight, unpopular thinking mode for a while.
It seems to me that what's happening is more of a readjustment. We understand now that money itself isn't behaving that well. It seems that those in wealthy positions of power tend to extort the system, often beyond the point of criminality to retain and gain wealth. It seems avenues of legal or potentially problematic but virtually untraceable tax avoidance are openly available for the £150k+ earning of the world, and often used.
That accounts for some of the individual abuses of the monetary system. Now lets layer on top corporate abuse. The scope is stunning. From insider & high frequency trading, to thousands of offshore tax havens. from the lowly picking up unpaid workers struggling to get off welfare, via the rent inflating landlords coining it in from the welfare state and blaming the soul that had to claim housing benefit, all the way up to government scale manipulation of currency markets, bond prices and lets not forget the power of political lobbying in cash for gain.
The vast array of abuses of money are laid out. So what's with this "War on the poor" thing? Well ... If only.
I see it more as the results of the system attempting to balance what a £ or $ is worth against the world but still within the terms of reference that nobody really cheats that much. It's a bogus assumption, but it's not a war on the poor in strict terms. It's a huge unsustainable cloud of debt and expectation for cash returns that hangs over all of us. At the moment it's adjustment time, and the huge hole in world finances is being adjusted by demolishing any and all support that was provided to the poor and ill. That all vanished. The heads full of money (breadheads?) will see it as simply unsustainable without question of why. The bottom line counts. Cut the deficits by cutting welfare. It's simple. But.
Yes ok, I can see that simplistic interpretation and why the money of the world protects it's interests that way, but it's simplistic and lives in a world of denial.
The system isn't working because it's being abused at any level you care to look at. Money in effect is being syphoned out towards large corporations and the rich list tax avoidance schemes faster than Mr & Ms Jones on the Clapham Omnibus can keep up. If you keep punishing Mr & Ms Jones for it ... disaster happens.
Ok. So I was wrong about expecting a market crash in 2010-11. I still think it would have happened i it wasn't for massive central bank / ECB intervention, but that's beside the point. We're here now. And here's what I'll cast out for now in my own limited sphere of knowledge.
The UK is going to be hit in April with cuts it didn't even know were coming. A huge number of people probably won't even realise where all the spare money has gone until June or July. Austerity cuts have been scheduled on a scale and depth beyond which even fairly switched on readers and observers will expect. I'm a cynical bugger, and even I'm caught out by finding new implications for the cuts about to start biting. Even smug little me is going to get a bigger bill or two come April, despite my best efforts.
So here's how I see it ...
The UK is in for a horrific 2013. The extent of which probably won't begin to bite home till late summer. By the time autumn swings around and official statistics have caught up, Britain will be already staring the kind of recession people have muttered about in the face. It won't just be a theoretical "As bad as the great depression" problem. It'll be here. Now. In pretty much everyone's face.
The British though are a docile race. It's fair to say the probability of civil disobedience on a massive scale will be much higher, but then again, the chances of the British getting of their arse's and doing anything about it are also reasonably slim. At this point though, we'll be diving back past "Poll Tax" riot potential in to new, uncharted realms.
The bad news is. Some of you will die as a result. I might be one of them. Cuts in healthcare will reduce life expectancy. The homeless can expect significantly shorter lifespans. Some of us will even commit suicide in the face of impossible odds. I'm afraid that all comes with the territory ... but .. while you die ..
Relax.
Smile.
It's not a war on the poor. It's simply a religious faith in money and it's protection taking precedence over life and humanity. The banks will be fine. Most the hedge funds will somehow survive. The core will survive. And .. that's all that matters ... right?
Countless are the tweets declaring austerity as a war on the poor. However...
Walk with me in my twilight, unpopular thinking mode for a while.
It seems to me that what's happening is more of a readjustment. We understand now that money itself isn't behaving that well. It seems that those in wealthy positions of power tend to extort the system, often beyond the point of criminality to retain and gain wealth. It seems avenues of legal or potentially problematic but virtually untraceable tax avoidance are openly available for the £150k+ earning of the world, and often used.
That accounts for some of the individual abuses of the monetary system. Now lets layer on top corporate abuse. The scope is stunning. From insider & high frequency trading, to thousands of offshore tax havens. from the lowly picking up unpaid workers struggling to get off welfare, via the rent inflating landlords coining it in from the welfare state and blaming the soul that had to claim housing benefit, all the way up to government scale manipulation of currency markets, bond prices and lets not forget the power of political lobbying in cash for gain.
The vast array of abuses of money are laid out. So what's with this "War on the poor" thing? Well ... If only.
I see it more as the results of the system attempting to balance what a £ or $ is worth against the world but still within the terms of reference that nobody really cheats that much. It's a bogus assumption, but it's not a war on the poor in strict terms. It's a huge unsustainable cloud of debt and expectation for cash returns that hangs over all of us. At the moment it's adjustment time, and the huge hole in world finances is being adjusted by demolishing any and all support that was provided to the poor and ill. That all vanished. The heads full of money (breadheads?) will see it as simply unsustainable without question of why. The bottom line counts. Cut the deficits by cutting welfare. It's simple. But.
Yes ok, I can see that simplistic interpretation and why the money of the world protects it's interests that way, but it's simplistic and lives in a world of denial.
The system isn't working because it's being abused at any level you care to look at. Money in effect is being syphoned out towards large corporations and the rich list tax avoidance schemes faster than Mr & Ms Jones on the Clapham Omnibus can keep up. If you keep punishing Mr & Ms Jones for it ... disaster happens.
Ok. So I was wrong about expecting a market crash in 2010-11. I still think it would have happened i it wasn't for massive central bank / ECB intervention, but that's beside the point. We're here now. And here's what I'll cast out for now in my own limited sphere of knowledge.
The UK is going to be hit in April with cuts it didn't even know were coming. A huge number of people probably won't even realise where all the spare money has gone until June or July. Austerity cuts have been scheduled on a scale and depth beyond which even fairly switched on readers and observers will expect. I'm a cynical bugger, and even I'm caught out by finding new implications for the cuts about to start biting. Even smug little me is going to get a bigger bill or two come April, despite my best efforts.
So here's how I see it ...
The UK is in for a horrific 2013. The extent of which probably won't begin to bite home till late summer. By the time autumn swings around and official statistics have caught up, Britain will be already staring the kind of recession people have muttered about in the face. It won't just be a theoretical "As bad as the great depression" problem. It'll be here. Now. In pretty much everyone's face.
The British though are a docile race. It's fair to say the probability of civil disobedience on a massive scale will be much higher, but then again, the chances of the British getting of their arse's and doing anything about it are also reasonably slim. At this point though, we'll be diving back past "Poll Tax" riot potential in to new, uncharted realms.
The bad news is. Some of you will die as a result. I might be one of them. Cuts in healthcare will reduce life expectancy. The homeless can expect significantly shorter lifespans. Some of us will even commit suicide in the face of impossible odds. I'm afraid that all comes with the territory ... but .. while you die ..
Relax.
Smile.
It's not a war on the poor. It's simply a religious faith in money and it's protection taking precedence over life and humanity. The banks will be fine. Most the hedge funds will somehow survive. The core will survive. And .. that's all that matters ... right?
24 Jan 2013
Ramble On
Today has had something rattling round my brain. It won't fit on twitter, so here, with my audience of zero, I'll log it instead.
Last night, Apple's share price fell around 10%, through the day there was no bounce at all, last I looked it was down around 12%. Everyone and his mothers brother has been ranting about $APPL on my slightly fiscal slanted twitter timeline for months. It's the saviour of America, responsible for a chunk of the GDP, a sure winner, tipped to reach over 1,000 share value. So I've heard. Well tonight it's around the 450-460 mark.
In theory, there should be a bunch of hedge funds and investors fantastically out of pocket. Confidence in America's entire stock market should have felt a bit of a tremor. But no. Something weird has happened. In general stocks have surged again. The dollar has barely felt any pain from it at all. It's almost as if nobody had any money in Apple at all, and nobody has suffered a loss.
It's nailed home to me the level of ... I don't whether to call it cognitive dissonance or double-think. In the world today. Lets call it double-think. Nicely Orwellian.
The markets are surging higher, finance ministers and politicians are proclaiming we are over the worst, that 2013 will see a return to expansion in Europe and America. Everything is fine. Europe is fixed. America doesn't have a debt problem. The world is fine.
Except it isn't. I only have my own perception of reality to go on, same as any of us. But I don't see the good times rolling. For the last 3 or 4 years in the UK, I've heard of countless employers laying off workers, the people I know are either trying to find better than temporary work (and failing), or stuck in low paid jobs with no hope of finding a better one. I also know of people who aren't technically unemployed, they either can't claim, or claiming and being forced in to a poverty job is less appealing than the cash in hand jobs they can get. I'm know I'm finding it harder to find new work to keep me going. I'm spending less than I was and caring more about finding a good deal than I was two or three years ago.
Town centres have slowly gained more vacant shops or pound stores where large chain stores used to be. I've suffered more crime against me in the last two years than I have for my entire lifespan before. People are talking about moving to much smaller housing because they can't afford where they are, one of them even to the point of only having bedrooms for the kids and sleeping on the sofa.
Of course some of this is my distorted perception. Maybe I've just been unlucky with the recent crime spree. But overall, I can't help get the feeling things are getting a lot worse on the ground ... from the plebs eye view.
Now I look back to the soaring stock markets and vast profits made by the banking sector ... and I ask ...
"From what?"
The system seems to be living in a dream. Like a cartoon coyote who doesn't realise it's run out of cliff yet. Today's schizophrenic reaction to Apple's loss in share price has really nailed it home to me. Either my perception of reality is horribly depressing and unfortunate, or the eventual crash is going to be totally horrific. Tonight I don't know which of those it is, but something is wrong somewhere.
Last night, Apple's share price fell around 10%, through the day there was no bounce at all, last I looked it was down around 12%. Everyone and his mothers brother has been ranting about $APPL on my slightly fiscal slanted twitter timeline for months. It's the saviour of America, responsible for a chunk of the GDP, a sure winner, tipped to reach over 1,000 share value. So I've heard. Well tonight it's around the 450-460 mark.
In theory, there should be a bunch of hedge funds and investors fantastically out of pocket. Confidence in America's entire stock market should have felt a bit of a tremor. But no. Something weird has happened. In general stocks have surged again. The dollar has barely felt any pain from it at all. It's almost as if nobody had any money in Apple at all, and nobody has suffered a loss.
It's nailed home to me the level of ... I don't whether to call it cognitive dissonance or double-think. In the world today. Lets call it double-think. Nicely Orwellian.
The markets are surging higher, finance ministers and politicians are proclaiming we are over the worst, that 2013 will see a return to expansion in Europe and America. Everything is fine. Europe is fixed. America doesn't have a debt problem. The world is fine.
Except it isn't. I only have my own perception of reality to go on, same as any of us. But I don't see the good times rolling. For the last 3 or 4 years in the UK, I've heard of countless employers laying off workers, the people I know are either trying to find better than temporary work (and failing), or stuck in low paid jobs with no hope of finding a better one. I also know of people who aren't technically unemployed, they either can't claim, or claiming and being forced in to a poverty job is less appealing than the cash in hand jobs they can get. I'm know I'm finding it harder to find new work to keep me going. I'm spending less than I was and caring more about finding a good deal than I was two or three years ago.
Town centres have slowly gained more vacant shops or pound stores where large chain stores used to be. I've suffered more crime against me in the last two years than I have for my entire lifespan before. People are talking about moving to much smaller housing because they can't afford where they are, one of them even to the point of only having bedrooms for the kids and sleeping on the sofa.
Of course some of this is my distorted perception. Maybe I've just been unlucky with the recent crime spree. But overall, I can't help get the feeling things are getting a lot worse on the ground ... from the plebs eye view.
Now I look back to the soaring stock markets and vast profits made by the banking sector ... and I ask ...
"From what?"
The system seems to be living in a dream. Like a cartoon coyote who doesn't realise it's run out of cliff yet. Today's schizophrenic reaction to Apple's loss in share price has really nailed it home to me. Either my perception of reality is horribly depressing and unfortunate, or the eventual crash is going to be totally horrific. Tonight I don't know which of those it is, but something is wrong somewhere.
21 Jan 2013
Games games games
A few quieter days have passed. A bit of time for reflection. This time thought experiments in game playing.
This one at least in part prompted by the few measures Obama did manage to implement regarding gun control. First lets appreciate the extremes of emotion and potential solutions.
On one extreme we have the "no guns at all" lobby, at the other is the "arm everyone" brigade, in between of course a myriad of combinations and choices including indifference. For once, lets not dwell on who's right and who's wrong. The first point worth considering is that any person selected at random across that entire spectrum will agree they don't want another massacre of children. That's a pretty major revelation if you can disengage from your own passionate viewpoint for long enough. All parties agree on a final desirable result, the problem is consensus on how to get there.
So there's your game set up. Common desire to prevent atrocities. Wide range of view points. So ... what happens? A compromise deal is produced by Obama. It doesn't satisfy those wanting much tighter gun control, and it doesn't satisfy those that want to arm everyone. This is a recurring pattern and is a leading cause of "kicking the can" on all sorts of problems.
In a pseudo game theory sense. The legislation produced is a result of multiple conflicting pressures for different solutions to a common problem. In game theory, this happens fairly often. Rather than an optimal outcome, a fudged or sometimes even worse possible outcome is the result.
Does this matter?
Well, in many instances. No. Humankind has been muddling along with fudged middle ground solutions for a long long time, and is likely to for the foreseeable future. In most cases, compromise solutions will sort of work for long enough for the next crisis to be averted a few years, then we can repeat the process once more.
The times when it does matter, are when the compromise solution is still harmful to a significant population.
All good clean fun, and it's a handy framework to have. Enables one to sit back and take a wider view of many issues in the world ... but just before that smug feeling takes hold...
There's a problem. Compromise is achieved due to conflicting pressures. It's not ideal, but that tends to be the result. Now if you sit back comfortable in the knowledge that another mediocre solution will appear, a source of pressure is removed and the end result will be skewed towards the side that shouted loudest.
Knowing all of the above doesn't remove the need to campaign, educate and shout for what you believe is right. It just makes it feel a little more like being a hamster stuck on a never ending treadmill. Keep running hamsters. It's frustrating, often pointless and the end result is almost never what you wanted ... but that's the way it works.
This one at least in part prompted by the few measures Obama did manage to implement regarding gun control. First lets appreciate the extremes of emotion and potential solutions.
On one extreme we have the "no guns at all" lobby, at the other is the "arm everyone" brigade, in between of course a myriad of combinations and choices including indifference. For once, lets not dwell on who's right and who's wrong. The first point worth considering is that any person selected at random across that entire spectrum will agree they don't want another massacre of children. That's a pretty major revelation if you can disengage from your own passionate viewpoint for long enough. All parties agree on a final desirable result, the problem is consensus on how to get there.
So there's your game set up. Common desire to prevent atrocities. Wide range of view points. So ... what happens? A compromise deal is produced by Obama. It doesn't satisfy those wanting much tighter gun control, and it doesn't satisfy those that want to arm everyone. This is a recurring pattern and is a leading cause of "kicking the can" on all sorts of problems.
In a pseudo game theory sense. The legislation produced is a result of multiple conflicting pressures for different solutions to a common problem. In game theory, this happens fairly often. Rather than an optimal outcome, a fudged or sometimes even worse possible outcome is the result.
Does this matter?
Well, in many instances. No. Humankind has been muddling along with fudged middle ground solutions for a long long time, and is likely to for the foreseeable future. In most cases, compromise solutions will sort of work for long enough for the next crisis to be averted a few years, then we can repeat the process once more.
The times when it does matter, are when the compromise solution is still harmful to a significant population.
All good clean fun, and it's a handy framework to have. Enables one to sit back and take a wider view of many issues in the world ... but just before that smug feeling takes hold...
There's a problem. Compromise is achieved due to conflicting pressures. It's not ideal, but that tends to be the result. Now if you sit back comfortable in the knowledge that another mediocre solution will appear, a source of pressure is removed and the end result will be skewed towards the side that shouted loudest.
Knowing all of the above doesn't remove the need to campaign, educate and shout for what you believe is right. It just makes it feel a little more like being a hamster stuck on a never ending treadmill. Keep running hamsters. It's frustrating, often pointless and the end result is almost never what you wanted ... but that's the way it works.
7 Jan 2013
Further down the sprial
Thoughts on crumbling empires.
This started from a bit of a thought experiment I've been tinkering with. I wondered if for a change, I'd have the guts to announce future predictions on what happens next in Europe and America. After batting the ideas around for a while, I realised I couldn't, but ... I could narrow it down.
I'm basing this on the concept of de-leveraging that's occurring in the world. It's not the banks rebalancing books to safe levels in particular, and the upper say 20% of America and Europe certainly aren't loosing much in the way of creature comforts. All the correction of unsustainable debt appears to be falling on the poorer end of society through tax hikes, food inflation, welfare and healthcare cuts. This is where the missing billions of correction to the system appear to be coming from.
Now I tried to guess how this would play out. A fair number of analysts are predicting a turn around for national finances in 2013. "We're through the worst" sort of thing. I don't buy that so much. In the UK cuts are only just starting to bite, in Spain and Greece lost tax revenue from the oceans of unemployed and an increasing unwillingness or inability to pay tax are undermining any recovery, and it's just beginning. As I see it, 2013 is the year when all the Austerity talked about in 2011 & 2012 is finally going to bite for millions.
There's a disconnect to contend with though. I'm not in the grand conspiracy theory set. I tend to think the elites, rich list, 1%, 10%, 20%, whatever you want to call them act more though two things. Greed and a lack of empathy. From earlier scribbles, you'll know I see greed as a human problem that covers the entire spectrum from those in poverty, right to the top. The lack of empathy is more of a kicker. The end result is that top say 15% of wealth in any country doesn't really have a clue what all the tax cuts and care cuts mean in real terms for millions of less well off people.
But... It's not only the 15% that will politically support and maintain any measures that preserve the status quo of the top, it's anyone who believes they are near that bracket (even when demonstrably the intended cuts will leave them or very close relatives worse off), and the lovely Mass Media. The likes of Fox News and the putrid Murdoch's of this world are in with the top percentile. Far too many uncritical thinkers just go along with the political spin, and at time down right lies from low grade media aimed at them. They won't even notice huge stories being skipped entirely by the press and media. When things get bad later, they'll blame Muslim's or the Polish or the Socialists, or the unemployed. Whatever Fox News and Co. aim the cross hairs at.
So we have a system of inequality that is trying very hard to maintain equilibrium, and *that's* why I can't predict much. Logically, you'd expect things to fall apart in to fiscal defaults, companies going bankrupt and social unrest. However, with the vast majority of money in the world selfishly protecting it's own interests, and a big chunk of the population blindly following the resulting rhetoric ...?
I see two options ... That's as good as I can get it.
Either the interests of the money effectively win. That is, the poor are ground further and further in to debt slavery and ill health. Inequality soars, but the state puts in place increasingly draconian policing and social control. Eventually it wouldn't matter if three major banks all did fail, or if every pension pot in the land got emptied. Once the oppression reaches a certain state, what's the public going to do about it even if the main stream media is kind enough to let them know about it?
Or! The more optimistic version. Things break before we find ourselves living as slaves in police states. Major losses are sustained by the financial sector and hit a big chunk of the 15% top end. I say optimistic. Actually it's almost as miserable as the other option. You could reasonably expect major social unrest and a period of huge political and financial uncertainty before things get any better.
Fun huh? Yup. That's how I see the two main potential outcomes of the current situation.
Oh wait.
Except...
War.
But who is brave enough to predict the next war in scale, location, involvement or scope?
Not me. But it is the other option.
This started from a bit of a thought experiment I've been tinkering with. I wondered if for a change, I'd have the guts to announce future predictions on what happens next in Europe and America. After batting the ideas around for a while, I realised I couldn't, but ... I could narrow it down.
I'm basing this on the concept of de-leveraging that's occurring in the world. It's not the banks rebalancing books to safe levels in particular, and the upper say 20% of America and Europe certainly aren't loosing much in the way of creature comforts. All the correction of unsustainable debt appears to be falling on the poorer end of society through tax hikes, food inflation, welfare and healthcare cuts. This is where the missing billions of correction to the system appear to be coming from.
Now I tried to guess how this would play out. A fair number of analysts are predicting a turn around for national finances in 2013. "We're through the worst" sort of thing. I don't buy that so much. In the UK cuts are only just starting to bite, in Spain and Greece lost tax revenue from the oceans of unemployed and an increasing unwillingness or inability to pay tax are undermining any recovery, and it's just beginning. As I see it, 2013 is the year when all the Austerity talked about in 2011 & 2012 is finally going to bite for millions.
There's a disconnect to contend with though. I'm not in the grand conspiracy theory set. I tend to think the elites, rich list, 1%, 10%, 20%, whatever you want to call them act more though two things. Greed and a lack of empathy. From earlier scribbles, you'll know I see greed as a human problem that covers the entire spectrum from those in poverty, right to the top. The lack of empathy is more of a kicker. The end result is that top say 15% of wealth in any country doesn't really have a clue what all the tax cuts and care cuts mean in real terms for millions of less well off people.
But... It's not only the 15% that will politically support and maintain any measures that preserve the status quo of the top, it's anyone who believes they are near that bracket (even when demonstrably the intended cuts will leave them or very close relatives worse off), and the lovely Mass Media. The likes of Fox News and the putrid Murdoch's of this world are in with the top percentile. Far too many uncritical thinkers just go along with the political spin, and at time down right lies from low grade media aimed at them. They won't even notice huge stories being skipped entirely by the press and media. When things get bad later, they'll blame Muslim's or the Polish or the Socialists, or the unemployed. Whatever Fox News and Co. aim the cross hairs at.
So we have a system of inequality that is trying very hard to maintain equilibrium, and *that's* why I can't predict much. Logically, you'd expect things to fall apart in to fiscal defaults, companies going bankrupt and social unrest. However, with the vast majority of money in the world selfishly protecting it's own interests, and a big chunk of the population blindly following the resulting rhetoric ...?
I see two options ... That's as good as I can get it.
Either the interests of the money effectively win. That is, the poor are ground further and further in to debt slavery and ill health. Inequality soars, but the state puts in place increasingly draconian policing and social control. Eventually it wouldn't matter if three major banks all did fail, or if every pension pot in the land got emptied. Once the oppression reaches a certain state, what's the public going to do about it even if the main stream media is kind enough to let them know about it?
Or! The more optimistic version. Things break before we find ourselves living as slaves in police states. Major losses are sustained by the financial sector and hit a big chunk of the 15% top end. I say optimistic. Actually it's almost as miserable as the other option. You could reasonably expect major social unrest and a period of huge political and financial uncertainty before things get any better.
Fun huh? Yup. That's how I see the two main potential outcomes of the current situation.
Oh wait.
Except...
War.
But who is brave enough to predict the next war in scale, location, involvement or scope?
Not me. But it is the other option.
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