Is western civilisation in terminal decline?

Post by **kenneal - lagger** » 24 Nov 2015, 03:36

Our "gas" varies between £1.05 and £1.10 per litre at the pumps here which is better than the £1.35 - £1.40 it went up to. But most of that is tax.

vtsnowedin · Post by **vtsnowedin** » 24 Nov 2015, 10:31

kenneal - lagger wrote:Our "gas" varies between £1.05 and £1.10 per litre at the pumps here which is better than the £1.35 - £1.40 it went up to. But most of that is tax.

Well that comes to $6.00 per US gallon so you are already paying a $4.00 per gallon "Carbon tax".

There would be riots in the US if they did that here.
That must generate a bundle of cash for the government so the rest of your tax rates can be low.

PS_RalphW · Post by **PS_RalphW** » 24 Nov 2015, 10:55

We also have free, good quality universal health care. Swings and roundabouts.

vtsnowedin · Post by **vtsnowedin** » 25 Nov 2015, 00:49

PS_RalphW wrote:We also have free, good quality universal health care. Swings and roundabouts.

I have to quibble about that "Free" part. I'm sure you are paying the full freight for it somewhere.
I don't know exactly what you mean by swings but roundabouts are all the rage here with DOTs building them at a frantic pace sometimes so close together that a driver gets dizzy switching from one cog to the other.

PS_RalphW · Post by **PS_RalphW** » 25 Nov 2015, 07:52

I knew that one would floor you.

It refers to traditional fairground equipment, and basically says what you win in one area you lose in another. Like tax.

http://interestingliterature.com/2015/0 ... undabouts/

vtsnowedin · Post by **vtsnowedin** » 25 Nov 2015, 10:44

PS_RalphW wrote: I knew that one would floor you.

It refers to traditional fairground equipment, and basically says what you win in one area you lose in another. Like tax.

http://interestingliterature.com/2015/0 ... undabouts/

Ah once again two peoples separated by a common language.

The poet did know how to turn a phrase.

‘E thumped upon the footboard an’ ‘e lumbered on again
To meet a gold-dust sunset down the owl-light in the lane;

emordnilap · Post by **emordnilap** » 25 Nov 2015, 10:47

vtsnowedin wrote:
PS_RalphW wrote:We also have free, good quality universal health care. Swings and roundabouts.
I have to quibble about that "Free" part. I'm sure you are paying the full freight for it somewhere.

Yes, it is paid for, by workers, more-or-less equally, as well as companies.

What has been largely missing from the 'full freight' is the profit margin, which is what is being added on piecemeal as the NHS is privatised.

That added layer of profit is ignored by folks who like to think that private enterprise is more efficient. Efficiency isn't everything and is the direct opposite of resilience.

vtsnowedin · Post by **vtsnowedin** » 25 Nov 2015, 11:37

emordnilap wrote: Efficiency isn't everything and is the direct opposite of resilience.

I don't follow you there.
You have a point about the profits. The Failure of Obama care in the USA can be traced to it's failure to curb the profits of the insurance and drug companies. Not all profits are bad though. You need a healthy profit potential to drive productivity and innovation. What you must find a way to curb is profiteering where say some old drug is sold to a captive clientele at four hundred percent over costs.
But at any rate efficiency and resilience are not opposites.

emordnilap · Post by **emordnilap** » 25 Nov 2015, 12:34

Course it is. There's thousands and thousands of examples.

PS_RalphW · Post by **PS_RalphW** » 25 Nov 2015, 14:05

I think it is reasonable to say that any process that is 100% efficient has zero resilience, as any change to the environment the process acts in will break the process with no margin for adaptation or even monitoring of process outside the predefined boundaries.

I have seen an awful lot of software written which was highly efficient. It is usually thrown away even before it goes into production.

Of course, the reverse is not necessarily true, ask Bill Gates.

vtsnowedin · Post by **vtsnowedin** » 25 Nov 2015, 15:57

I think you guys are caught up in programmer geek speak. Perhaps in a software program "efficiency" however you measure it precludes "resiliency"
However you measure that. But in other processes it is the quantity and quality of the final outcome that measures "efficiency" so a process that was not resilient enough to adapt to a changed condition and produced less because of it would not be considered efficient or at least less efficient than a more resilient process.

Post by **clv101** » 25 Nov 2015, 16:15

Depends on what one means by 'efficiency'. Just in time logistics systems in manufacturing where all the components are brought together 'just in time' is often cited for its efficiency benefits - however it's clearly less resilient. If any one of many delivery chains breaks down for whatever reason, the whole factory grinds to a halt with days if not hours. Compare that to the older, inefficient way of doing things where the factory would hold mountains for parts and raw materials.

Similar situation with electricity generation. In the past lots of spare capacity was maintained, at cost, but if there was unplanned outage there was spare generating capacity to maintain supply. This winter in the UK we have the lowest 'margin' ever. It's efficient, not resilient though.

PS_RalphW · Post by **PS_RalphW** » 25 Nov 2015, 16:16

True that Turing discovered that we can never understand ourselves.

Any program that comprehended it's own operation would need at least one more bit of data than the program itself contained. And if we can be defined as a set of quantum states that makes up our physical being, we can be replicated as a computer program with understands quantum interactions and has a large enough data space.

That's a bit OT. Neither resilience or efficiency are well defined, but if we are talking about a physical system, then adaptability always requires extra resources in reserve and extra energy expenditure in monitoring the environment in order to observe and react to unexpected changes in the operating environment, be they weather, climate, or geopolitical in nature.

Nature via evolution is extremely good at developing resilient systems in the medium term. Of course, not even life is resilient in the long term, and local solutions become extinct with monotonous frequency. The long term survivors are either the specialists who are lucky to occupy a stable ecological niche, or the generalists who can eke out a living almost anywhere.

emordnilap · Post by **emordnilap** » 25 Nov 2015, 16:37

Resilience v efficiency and 40 seconds thinking and typing:

A hand plane vs and electric planer.

A bowsaw vs a chainsaw.

A sailboat vs a motor boat.

Legs vs a bicycle.

A bicycle vs a car.

A car vs an aeroplane.

A card index vs a computer.

Oak window frames vs uPVC window frames.

A ferry vs a bridge.

A vegetarian vs a meat eater.

A knife vs an electric knife.

A toothbrush vs an electric toothbrush.

A dry toilet vs a flush toilet.

A for-compassion health service vs a for-profit health service.

PS_RalphW · Post by **PS_RalphW** » 25 Nov 2015, 16:59

A ferry vs a bridge.

Not sure about that one. Lower capital cost, but a well built bridge can last a very long time.