Horse 3306 - February 30th

I hate today. Boo!

Today is the 29th of February, which is the 60th day of the year. Of itself that shouldn't be a problem but the fact that this is a extra-calculic day, in a month which three-quarters of the time only has 28 days, is maddening to me.

The Gregorian Calendar, with its corrections for leap years, and then uncorrections from leap years at the end of the century, and then uncorrections for uncorrections for leap years at the end of every fourth century, is a bodge on a bodge on a bodge. Why do we persist with this? Because although it is apparently easy to change from Imperial to Metric, of from PAL to Digital, changing the abstract fabric of the calendar is too hard. Predictably when England came late to the party in 1752, there were riots. 

It is one thing to complain about a thing but most of the time if you want to justify the complaint, you had better have a better fix for the same problem. As usual, I have a fix and it is a good fix.

There are very close to 365¼ days in the year. However, as humans do not want to mark the year to that degree of exactitude, then the idea of 365 days in a year is practically sensible. Since we also want to overlay smaller divisions of months and weeks, we find that 12 divisions does not work properly and neither does 7.

The answer therefore is to use that principle of arithmetic called the 'common multiple' and lo and behold we have a common multiple of 7 and 4 which is dangerously close to 365. 

364 = 7 multiplied by 52

364 = 4 multiplied by 91

And because multiplication is commutative and 52 is a multiple of 4, each of those four subdivisions divides into 13 sets of 7.

The very very obvious solution for the calendar, which retains months and weeks, is thus:

In every quarter there are 91 days. The first two months of the quarter both have 30 days and the last month of the quarter has 31; which acts as a reminder that the quarter has ended. 

You will also notice that at the bottom right hand corner of this table there is one Bonus Day which isn't part of any month or week. Functionally it would be part of December but as nothing ever gets done on New Year's Eve, then this is almost moot. All the rules for leap years would be applied by adding another extra-calculic Bonus Day after that

Since this solution solves the problem of weeks not matching up with the year, and since it also has the bonus of creating four identical quarters, then this would be a perpetual calendar. 

For those critics who would say that this mucks with the nature of the abstract fabric of the calendar, may I remind you that calendar reform has happened before and the most visible evidence of this is that the October Revolution in Russia is celebrated in November because the Russian Orthodox Church was even later to the party than the Church Of England, and 14 days were added to the calendar and not 11.

Granted that 2/7ths of the population will perpetually win as their birthday always falls on a weekend, while 5/7ths of the population loses because theirs do not, but seeing as this is really a minor concern and people will hold parties on the weekend anyway, although it matters a non-zero amount it is still not critical. As Easter is defined as a Sunday and based upon the moon which is no respecter of the calendar, that does not change. As a bonus, Christmas is now always on a Sunday; which ought to make the church happy. 

The beauty of this calendar is that as it begins on January 1 (or even April, July, or October 1), it can simply be adopted at the beginning of the year (or quarter). We lose no days. As it also retains the extra-calculic corrections and uncorrections, it never has to be adjusted once adopted. 

As it is, the accounting package that I use has a 20 month calendar with 40 days per month. This is so that you can process journal entries without disturbing any monthly figures. 40/20/2024 is already a valid date; which means that the idea of February 30th, or May 35th is not a foreign thing to me.

Today should be February 30th. The current calendar is bonkers hat-stand crazy making. 

Horse 3305 - Private Education Is A Veblen Good, So Why Must We As Taxpayers Pay For It?

https://www.heraldsun.com.au/victoria-education/student-background-the-big-difference-between-private-and-public-school-results/news-story/35f531679417cb03def4b571913b6035

Despite some charging almost $50,000 a year, a new study has found that education at private schools is nothing special in comparison to government and independent schools.

- Herald Sun, 9th Feb 2024

This isn't the first time that 'a new study' has found that education at private schools is not any better at delivering educational excellence and results than public education.

https://link.springer.com/epdf/10.1007/s13384-021-00498-w

No differences were evident after controlling for socioeconomic status and prior NAPLAN achievement. Using longitudinal modelling, we also found no sector differences in the rate of growth for reading and numeracy between Year 3 and Year 9. Results indicate that already higher achieving students are more likely to attend private schools, but private school attendance does not alter academic trajectories, thus undermining conceptions of private schools adding value to student outcomes.

- The Australian Association for Research in Education, Inc, 2nd Mar 2021

Okay, so maybe this is a recent phenomenon...

https://www.theage.com.au/education/fourth-study-this-year-confirms-private-schools-no-better-than-public-20141110-11jlgn.html

The fourth study this year has found Australian private schools produce no better results than public schools, when students' socio-economic backgrounds are taken into account.

Stéphane Mahuteau and Kostas Mavromaras, academics at the National Institute for Labour Studies at Flinders University, conducted the latest study, which found a strong and positive association between the socio-economic status of a student and their test scores. The core result of the paper is that, after controlling for a number of school and student characteristics, "school quality does not depend directly on the sector of the school". The main determinant of the higher raw test scores observed in private schools is the higher socio-economic status (SES) of students attending private schools, the report found.

- The Age, 10 Nov 2014

...no, it isn't.

I shan't bore you with repeated studies which happen again and again, which prove exactly the same thing because the further that we go back into the past, the less relevance they have to modern schooling. Suffice to say that in looking through newspaper archives, I have found roughly the same thing being reported roughly once ever three years going back all the way until 1974. That's fifty years of telling us exactly the same thing; namely that private education despite its expense, provides no actual educational benefit to the children who go there.

There is an old adage which says that 'Madness is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result'. When it comes to education in Australia not only do we have multiple studies which prove that private schools do not provide better educational outcomes but we also have decent modelling which demonstrates that private schools don't actually save taxpayers any money either:

https://www.sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2020/03/16/myth-busted--private-schools-don-t-save-taxpayers--dollars.html

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rnn0w1nWYreOMRSsDfzt4n8KXHaGbw2h/view

Given all of this, why do we do it? Why do we as a nation deliberately choose to spend public monies on private schooling, which is by nature exclusionary, when it produces no educational benefit and actually has negative financial benefit? Because politics is a demand driven system and parents demand that they get to send their kids to private schools which are subsidised by the taxpayer. If this was any sane commercial market, it would be quite rightly seen as open corruption and there would be a Royal Commission into it. 

The question then is, what do parents get out of private education? As private schools still charge private fees, parents obviously think that they derive some kind of benefit because as at least semi-rational beings, they want something to show for their many dollarpounds that they have parted with. If it is not better educational outcomes then they must be buying something else while claiming that they have the moral right to demand that we the good and fair people of the Commonwealth pay a second time when we already are obligated to provide public education.

What I think is going on, after having worked in legal and legal adjacent workplaces such as the law courts and an accounting firm, is that what parents are actually buying when it comes to private schooling for their children is in fact a Veblen good.

American economist Thorstein Veblen in his 1899 work "The Theory of the Leisure Class" noted that there were certain kinds of goods such as artwork, jewellery, watches, yachts, and the relatively new fangled invention of the motor car, actually had an increase in demand as the price went up. These things were purchased because the person who bought them, perceived an increase in displayed status. Quite literally these goods were 'status symbols' and the term that Veblen used to describe them was 'conspicuous consumption'. The whole class of goods in turn would eventually be come to be known as Veblen Goods as a result of his work.

The weird thing about Veblen goods is that they appear to violate the basic law of demand, which states that quantity demanded has an inverse relationship with price. That is, that as the price goes up, people want less. Imagine a Mars bar. If they are $2, you might only want 1. If they are $1, you can have 2. If they go up to $2.30, you might not want any. Veblen goods don't do that. If the price goes up, people actually want more of them. These are not normal things. In fact, Veblen likened the purchase and display of things for conspicuous consumption to that of the tail feathers of a peacock. These things were bought precisely because there was an emotional appeal of their exclusivity; which the majority of the population simply would not or could not purchase.

Human beings are otherwise semi-rational electro-mechanical meatbags who economics assumes are looking to maximise their happiness and/or utility with the things that they purchase. Veblen goods are less about satisfying raw utility and more about maximise people's happiness. In making someone more exclusive and important, the purchase of a Veblen good actually makes them believe that they have purchased something of high quality that is out of reach for others. In turn, they then believe this is worth the premium they pay.

Generally speaking, when a particular good or service has a higher price, consumers will assume it to be of better quality; including when that is untrue and simply not the case. As I have demonstrated a repeated interest in motor cars, then my prime example of this is BMW; which has a reputation for pushing out technology way too early and being notably unreliable. Likewise, people generall perceive that the Toyota Hilux is of better quality than the GWM Cannon; even though maintenance costs prove this to be untrue.

The exclusivity of Veblen goods is also useful because if something is perceived as difficult to purchase or expensive, and the majority of the population will not or cannot purchase them, then this might actually increase its attraction to those for whom status is important, because it is now even farther out of reach for the average consumer.

The thing about private schools is that precisely because they charge fees, this acts as a barrier to entry. School fees actively keep out those students whose parents can not afford to pay. Granted that there are occasionally a few scholarships and other conditions where some parents are exempted from paying either entirely or partially, but these are not the majority. Scholarships for private schools are generally only awarded to students on academic grounds where the presence of the student actively bolsters the school's academic standings in official reporting, or those legacy cases where a school might have been started as a ministry of a church and there are still some vestigial appendages which exist.

Private schools can and will eject a student for poor academic performance. Private schools can and will eject a student for behavioural reasons. This means that these students are placed back into the hands of the public school system; which also has the added benefit of bolstering a private school's academic standings in official reporting. 

It is true that some parents will buy private schooling for their children because of some perceived advantage in behaviour of the students. It is true that some parents will buy private schooling for their children because of some perceived advantage in extra-curricular activities such as a music program, a sports program, or other non-core program. However, there is not an insignificant proportion of parents buy private schooling for their children because of the imparted economic signal that going to a private school provides. A Higher School Certificate with the name of a private school on it, is an advantage when that child who is now 17, 18, or even 19 and 20, applies for a job. A Higher School Certificate with the name of a private school on it, is an advantage in professions like law, finance, banking, and other managerial positions. That Higher School Certificate with the name of a private school on it, is undeniably an economic signal that the person who has it, is not riff-raff.

Remember, Thorstein Veblen wrote about 'conspicuous consumption' of goods because the person who bought them, perceived an increase in displayed status. A 'status symbol' is not just an abstract concept but a physical embodiment that the person who has it, has been approved (or approved themselves) as having acquired status. Purchasing a Higher School Certificate with the name of a private school on it, is the purchase of status for one's child.

The moral question which practically nobody wants to answer because they have to confront the fact that this is ugly, is why the general public should be forced to subsidise the purchase of what amounts to status symbols and economic symbols for the privileged few? Moreover why should be forced to subsidise the purchase of what amounts to status symbols and economic symbols for the privileged few when those same privileged few have rejected public education, which the general public is already obligated to provide?

I find it utterly maddening that the excuse of 'choice' is used as a cudgel to beat the general public with, in order to justify perpetuating the public subsidy of a Veblen good. Admittedly it is very good business to show favoritism to rich people and look down on poor people but the commonwealth is not a business but a commonwealth. What is the point of a nation? Suppose there was someone in very expensive clothes and with valuable gold rings on his fingers, and at the same moment someone else comes in who is poor and dressed in threadbare clothes. If make a lot of fuss over the rich person and give them the best seat in the house but say to the poor man, "You can stand over there if you like or else sit on the floor" then this just looks like sycophancy. Why do we need to do this as nation when all it results in is further social stratification? 

"The accumulation of wealth at the upper end of the pecuniary scale implies privation at the lower end of the scale. The members of the leisure class planning events and parties does not actually help anyone in the long run. What results from this behavior, is a society characterized by the waste of time and money."

- Thorstein Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899)

Madness is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result... why do we do it? Moreover why must we pay for a thing when as a society, it benefits a few at the expense of the least well off?

Horse 3304 - An Open Letter To Toyota, re: XV80 Camry

Dear Toyota,

As little as a decade ago you were the car company which did all things for all people. As such, the Camry and Corolla went to No2 and No3 on the sales charts, only behind the Holden Commodore which by that stage already had its death warrant signed off on, by Treasurer Joe Hockey. You also made the Yaris, which as the smaller car was excellent.

Then when the SUVification of all things happened, you once again decided to become the car company which did all things for all people. As such, the Hilux and RAV4 went to No2 and No3 on the sales charts, only behind the Ford Ranger. However, you continued to make both the Camry and Corolla because in doing all things for all people you correctly realised that a lot of people still want a normal hatchback because they are inherently useful and excellent, and some people still want a family sedan because despite and in spite of them being boring in a lot of cases, boring is beautiful and people want to carry around their most precious cargo in the world in a car which is competent at doing the job. Boring but excellent: that could have been and should have been Toyota's motto for the past 60 years. In doing all things for all people you decided that being cool was impossible.

Recently though, you have decided that being the car company which did all things for all people is a rubbish idea. I note that you too have abandoned the bottom end of the market, as the COVID-19 pandemic gave all of the car makers licence to charge 33% more for everything. Yaris is now a $30K motor car and Corolla is now beyond the reach of the people, whom you no longer need to care about. 

Weirdly, the Camry has remained at about the same kinds of price level that it always sat at; presumably because although you have realised that 'da kidz' are no longer paid wages and no longer have money, there are a few mums and dads who still want a sedan instead of an SUV. To this end, I note that you have unveiled the next generation of the Camry, the XV80. 

I have concerns.

My specific concern with the XV80 Camry is that that although it looks like it is cool. It is not.

Why not?

Why isn't it cool?

Look, I totally get that Toyotas generally are built for people who want appliances and not fun things buy why tease us like this? I have driven the GR Corolla and while it is fine, its 3-cylinder engine makes it feel like it is a sensible warm hatch, when it pretends to be bonkers. Why isn't it bonkers? I like bonkers. Why can't we have bonkers? Likewise, the XV80 Camry looks like it is the kind of car which should be in knife fights in carparks but the only knife fight that it is ever going to get engaged in is when that knife is used to cut birthday cake.

Traditionally the Camry is driven by sad old gits who are the kinds people people who after they have a crash and have gone to hell, would still be oblivious to the world around them and will not realise that they have crashed. Traditionally, Camry is for people who have given up on life. That's okay. You are allowed to make a boring thing well. My concern is that XV80 Camry looks like it is for people who have not given up on life. XV80 Camry looks it should be cool but it is writing cheques that it can not cash. And who is writing cheques these days anyway? Camry drivers.

As is my want, I played about with the Toyota Configurator and it seems that Camry Dents and Tissue Boxes come standard. Why is this? 

What really makes is sad is that I know that the 2UR 5-Litre V8 will fit in the XV80 Camry because it already does fit in the Lexus IS500F which is exactly the same monocoque under the panels and light clusters. Both the Camry and the Lexus IS500F are built upon the Toyota New Global Architecture platform. This means that you could drop the 5L V8 in the Camry and pitch it for $35,000 and steal Mustang's lunch but you don't. Why is that?

I believe that it was the great department store proprietor Nunya Bisniss while in conversation with Anne Nonymoos in 18X5 who said "Give the people want they want and they will come". In Australia, Ford gave the people a V8 Falcon and ruled the roost from 1967-1997; Holden gave the people the V8 Commodore and ruled the roost from 1997-2016. Since then, both of them and you, have all picked up sticks, closed the factories and all have decided not to give the people what they want. Did any of us change what we want? No. The only reason why everyone is now driving a Blodpanzer Brodozer or a Nomoto Kinderbox is because they can't get a family car with a big engine any more. The formula is simple. Get a family car; with the biggest, horkiest, borkiest, engine that you can spork in there.

SS Commodore was cool. XR8 Falcon was cool. The Coyote V8 Mustang when it isn't out murdering pedestrians is cool. As you Toyota are along with Mazda the only automaker who look like they are even prepared to make a family sedan any more, you have practically an open goal here. You've seen how it is done. You've seen how absurdly successfully the strategy was because even now, the price of a used V8 Commodore or Falcon is skyrocketing as people can not get what they want any more. You even already have all of the necessary bits to make a V8 Camry and with a stroke, single handedly rule the roost. So why not? You've also come so tantalisingly close too.

The GR Yaris looks like it should be fun, except that the kinds of people who that car is meant to be for, simply can't afford it. GR Yaris is everything that AE86 wanted to be. GR Yaris actually could deliver tofu on precarious mountain roads on the wrong side of 200km/h. he GR Corolla also looks like it should be fun, except that it just isn't. GR Corolla is trying to play a magic trick where you want us to think that it is cool but underneath is likely CH-R. The GT-86 despite my objection that this is actually a modern Celica, is a genuinely fun car except that that's a Subaru boxer up front. That's not really your handiwork. It is still excellent nevertheless.

XV80 Camry, which allegedly races in NASCAR (it doesn't really, those are bespoke cars with stickers on), arrived in 'Murica and defied all expectations by looking like the coolest family sedan of the 2020s. The problem is, that although it looks cool, and we know that the 2UR 5-Litre V8 will fit in it, you won't put it in there? Why not?

We want bonkers. We want grumbly rumbles. GIVE US NEW THINGS TO FEEL!

Love,

Rollo

PS:

I have subsquently learned that the XV80 Camry is not going to be sold in Australia. There is an outside possibility that we will be getting the Toyota Crown; which is yet another boring SUV. Yawn. Crick. Ho. Hum.

Horse 3303 - Train good; Car bad; Plane worse

The world is complex. Humans are small. Humans are small things in a complex world. This means that in order to make sense of the world, humans have a need to classify everything and put things into groups. Statistically the number of beans which exist before you have a pile of beans, is in most people's eyes, about 23. Beyond that number, individual beans cease to exist. This is also true for class sizes of children as the optimal size for the number of kids in a class is 24. 

On a podcast that I like to listen to, one of the things that has by now fallen into trope is the statements: Train good; Car bad; Plane worse. Now you could just rank all of the various kinds of transport on a scale of best to worst but in this case I like the idea of an alignment chart better. The classic alignment chart which came from role-play games is inadvertently a useful tool for assigning an extra dimension to things. In that respect it is a bit like the political compass which maps state authoritarianism vs individual liberty at right angles to state ownership vs private ownership.

On the vertical axis is what you would expect from Good at the top to Evil as the bottom. In the middle is a Neural position. On the horizontal axis is a scale from Predictable or Lawful on the left to Chaotic on the right. In the middle is a Neural position. When combined, these form a 3 x 3 grid; which can describe literally anything and anyone in the world. Dudley Do-Right and Rojer Ramjet are Lawful Good. Muffin Heeler is Chaotic Neutral. Dr Claw is Lawful Evil. 

Lawful Good - Passenger Trains. 

A train is such that no matter where you lay the tracks, that is where they go. Apart from scheduling and maybe signal failure, passenger trains are as close as you can get to a Lawful Good position. Trains literally can not go where they are not supposed to be unless something catastrophic happens. 

Passenger Trains are a curious thing in that they were once the public display of wealth by very rich barons. The Railway Barons in an effort to display their wealth to the public, built great cathedrals to the train. Passenger Train service though, eventually became the domain of governments as a public good; transforming them from pure profit extraction machines for the rich and powerful, to more of an omnibus device which was for, by, and with everyone. When it became obvious that moving people across continents was faster by aeroplane, then governments began to step in, and it is curious that the fastest and best trains are almost always owned by government. Trains became for, by, and with the people.

Chaotic Good - Horse

What can you logically say about the Horse as a form of transport? Horse as animal? Okay. Horse as dinner? Delicious. Horse as racing device? Exploited. Horse as transport? Variable.

Horses are relatively high-strung animals, which is odd considering that they are quite big. Some horses are quite placid, some horses are nervous, some horses are nasty, some horses are lovely. A horse as a beast of burden which is pulling a cart or a wagon is likely to be reasonably calm most of the time but if something spooks it, then who knows what kind of fresh insanity has been unleashed. IN my part of the world, we have the tale of the wife of the Governor of New South Wales, who for whatever reason was riding on a Horse back from Parramatta to Government House when the Horse got spooked by something, reared up, and she was thrown from hit; wherein she was dashed against a tree and later found dead due to blunt force trauma. 

As a cereal/hay/carrot/pumpkin powered mode of transport, Horses produce an awful amount of poop. As a beast of burden which is asked to pull a cart or a wagon, they do not have as much horsepower as even a relatively small motor car. As a beast of burden which is asked to pull a carriage, they are left behind in the dust by any motor car which can do 20km/h, 30km/h, and 40km/h, all day long.

Horse is romantic but unpredictable. Horse is simultaneously friendly and unfriendly and fast and slow.

Chaotic Evil - Pickup Trucks and Pickup Trucks With Guns On Them.

Pickup Trucks should be a useful tool with which to do business. They might have been that if they weren't then bought by Cosplay Cowboys who never ever let their Pickup Trucks get dirty, and with which they never ever do a day's business with them. Some of these Pickup Trucks have been bought by the kind of people who would have bought Falcons and Commodores but have found that this is a tax deductible way to do hoonery.

An average tradie in a genuine work vehicle, is obvious that they are in fact going to work because they practically display the tools of the trade for all the world to see (or else keep them in lock boxes) but your standard urban cosplay cowbow with a Pickup Truck in 97% of cases (I checked the NSW Revenue Office's data) is owned by a business; which means that we subsidise them through taxation write-offs. They then repay us in the general community by driving like A-grade knaves and self-entitled jackdaws.

Lawful Evil - Plane

Aeroplanes as a form of transport are genuinely awesome, as the amount of awe that they generate is immense. The amount of shock and awe that they generate when it all goes horribly wrong, when rivets fall off, or when doors fall off, or when engines fall off, or when they crash into each other on the runway, or if they crash into buildings, is also immense. The very visible awe generated by flying aeroplanes into buildings, was enough to alter the course of the opening decade of the twenty-first century and the outlay of $2,400,000,000,000. 

From the fact that passengers are openly segregated by class, to the fact that they are forced to signal where they are from by nationality, in addition to being bombed out of their brains due to combinations of jet lag and/or being stuck at a place for tens of house, the whole experience as a passenger is capitalism writ large. The aeroplane is a transport technology that actively reminds you that the people to whom you pay rent to, are in fact better people and despite the fact that they actually do less work and don't actually provide anything meaningful to society, they somehow deserve better stuff. Money speaks for money; the devil for his own. 

Lawful Neutral - Bus

Omnibus comes from the Latin "omnibus" which means "for, by, and with, everyone"; which is actually an excellent way to describe the omnibus. Buses' number plates in New South Wales mostly start with MO for "Motor Omnibus", which is distinct from HO "Horse Bus" and SO "Steam Bus"; which I find interesting is that the electric buses which are now on the road also carry MO plates.

A bus as a device which is for, by, and with the people, occupies a smaller space than a train yet actually contributes to traffic by being one cell amidst a flowing river of them. As a bus occupies a smaller space than a train it also means that the worst of humanity, which includes rudeness, vomiting and the expulsion of other bodily fluids, can and does sometimes happen on a bus. The "Night Bus" or "NightRide" manages to compact the worst of humanity into a small space immediately after the imbibing of many fermented vegetable products and in addition to when the temperature has dropped into single digits.

Most of the time though, a bus is a neutral space which is not evil but not explicitly good. A bus service is a good thing to have but due to the nature of being delivered way out into the suburbs, often the stops are just a pole with a sign attached. The actual funness of a bus journey is mostly determined by the quality of the scenery it travels through. 

Neutral Good - Tram

I like trams. As a piece of infrastructure that move around a lot of people, trams are better than a bus and funner than a bus. As light rail vehicles they can be made to travel together with regular traffic, or via dedicated paths. Trams and their routes integrate themselves into the cultural overlay of the community far more readily than a bus does. People take a bus out of necessity but people will take a tram out of a sense of fun.

It was the tram by virtue of needing tracks to drive down and the fact that cars and horse carts and bicycles had skinny little wheels at the time, that gave us the Hook Turn. I find it a little crazy given that the flag of Hookturnistan is so iconic, that it hasn't made its way to being either the default or away kit of some Melbourne sporting team. I also find it odd given that the rules actually work so well, that we haven't yet adopted it in Sydney.

Chaotic Neutral - Car

The car is arguably the most ubiquitous piece of transport there is. As a piece of individual transport, they are just about the most individual mechanised transport of all. However that individual comes with both individual freedom as well as the root problem of the human condition that everyone without exception is individually selfish.

Isn't it funny that on a road posted with a speed limit of 60, that someone doing 55 is a moron and someone doing 70 is an idiot? However, if it is you or I doing 55 or 70, suddenly we demand that everyone else treats us nicely because we need to be careful or concentrate, or move out of the way because we are in a hurry.

A car allows someone to do the mundane things like going to work, going grocery shopping, or carting the family around to various activities; it also allows someone to do fun things like going on massive road trips, going to sport or to see family, or even a means to itself when all you want to do is drive. When everyone decides to do roughly the same thing at the same time, then all of those pieces of individual freedom are welded together to form the negative externality of traffic. Isn't it funny that on a road with lots and lots of cars all doing 15, that you and they are traffic and a hinderance and I am just going about my business? 

The fact that there are motor accidents and pedestrians occasionally being struck down, is testament to the fact that it didn't take very long for the street to turn from a place where people moved, to one where they were excluded. The word 'pedestrian' only exists in opposition to the car and the weird thing is that we are mostly fine with sacrificing the occasional person to these modern Molochs because individual freedom is the thing we have decided is what we value more than life itself.

Neutral Evil - Truck

Big trucks are one of the pillars of the economy. They are the conveyors of all the stuff there is to buy; which includes your dinner. Be it semi trailers that do heavy haulage, or the road trains which carry commodities, or the rigid lorries that take packaged goods to the grocery store, without trucks everyone comes to a stand still.

Trucks are a necessary evil in a civilised society. Granted that there are a few select people who are in awe of the bigness of the vehicles and there are some people who are drawn to become truck drivers because they like the fun that comes from being in control of such a big thing, but they are rarely fun for the drivers and even less fun for everyone else on the roads. Trucks are a necessary evil because work is a necessary evil. Work is heat and heat is work and work is a curse, and all the heat in the universe is going to cool down because that's entropy. 

Having said that, the standard of driving from truck drivers is simply amazing. I have no idea how these people are able to calculate physical space and have such spatial awareness that they can swing a big thing through traffic and often through spaces that never look like an 18-wheel box trailer will fit; buit they do with exceptional regularity. This isn't chaos but some kind of orchestrated waltz to an unheard tune.

True Neutral - Bicycle

Chaos? Yes. Just think about teenagers doing mad skids in the shopping centre, or doing jumps through a creek bed, or setting up ramps and bumps to jump off of. If you are between the ages of about 7 and 16, then a bicycle is almost licence to go out and commit unqualified chaos. If you want to chuck rocks at sign, ride over a full milk carton just to see it explode open and splash, or use it to make a quick getaway after doing ding-dong-dash, then the bicycle is the ultimate tool of choice.

Order? Yes. Think about the thousands of people who ride to work in the Netherlands, or China, or the few people who ride to work in my fair city. What of the kids who ride to school who are too young to drive? Sport? Yes. We have velodrome racing, BMX racing, mountain biking, long distance racing like Le Tour or the Giro. Work? Yes. We have couriers who can zip around the spaces inside the city where cars can not go. Litter? Yes. My city has rental bike services which nobody really uses but helpfully throw into the harbour.

The bicycle is true neutral because it occupies every other square; sometimes multiple squares at the same time.

Lawful Good - Passenger Trains

Lawful Good - Ferry

Neutral Good - Tram

Neutral Good - Running

Chaotic Good - Horse

Chaotic Good - Sailing Ship

Lawful Neutral - Bus

Lawful Neutral - Goods Trains

True Neutral - Bicycle

Chaotic Neutral - Car

Chaotic Neutral - Boat

Lawful Evil - Plane

Lawful Evil - Container Ships

Lawful Evil - Oil Tranker Ships

Lawful Evil - Private Yacht

Neutral Evil - Truck

Chaotic Evil - Pickup Trucks

Chaotic Evil - Pickup Trucks With Guns On Them

Horse 3302 - Football Is About Space Management

https://twitter.com/COMEONSYDNEY/status/1758772134875369681

Someone needs to write a few hundred words about this Sydney CB pairing. Is it years of playing together? Is it a better press? Some other change? Is it the complete group across the back?? I’m pretty happy with it for its short life so far.

- Come On Sydney, via Twitter, 18th Mar 2023

Very yes.

Someone needs to write a few hundred words about this; so here it goes.

People watching football tend to be subconsciously aware that what they are watching is not one game but two. The materiel of football is 22 players, green grass, and a football. That statement will tell you that 21 players do not have the ball at any given moment in time; this is where the second game reveals itself. The first game is an object manipulation game which involves kicking a football. The second game is a space management game.

Given my suspicion that free-will ultimately does not exist, I have a corollary that every game is also ultimately solvable. When the rules and materiel are highly limited, such as in tic-tac-toe, this becomes evident. For games like chess, where the rules are more complex and the materiel is fixed, it is possible to show by brute force that the game is solvable but not prove it mathematically. For games involving electro-mechanical meatbags with soul/spirit operating systems, it is way way way harder to show. I think that basketball is possibly the most obvious game to show that we have to show that highly complex games have a tendency to solvability, as evidenced by the fact that basketball is now dominated by 3-point shots. Football however, with more materiel and even more space to play in, is likely solvable but not by the electro-mechanical meatbags with soul/spirit operating systems who play it.

Given that the second game of football is a space management game, then the question posed by this tweet is acutely sensible. Why does the centre-back pairing of Girdwood-Reich and Matthews work so well? Again, this is about space management.

Australian football has for about the past 20 years, been slowly moving away from 4-4-2 as the default formation to 5-3-2. 4-4-2 can either be played as a flat-back 4, or a diamond 4 with the centre two staggered or even playing in front of each other. The reason why 4-4-2 fell out of favour across Europe, is that Real Madrid and Barcelona sides in an effort to not concede goals but still wanting to press forward, kind of defaulted to 5-3-2 with a flat-back 4 with that extra player in the centre of the back line either playing forwards or backwards of that line; to plug the hole at the centre of the park.

5-3-2 though, is not new. 5-3-2 is actually just a modern variation on the so called W-M "Magic Magyars" sides of the early 1950s; which very nearly won the 1954 World Cup with the great Ferenc Puskás as one of the two point players at the top of the front M. W-M gets its name by connecting the dots of the player formations and perhaps it should rightly be called 2-3-3-2.

5-3-2 retains that from M but flattens that back W in the hope to retain the advantage of a defensive sliding push of the back-4 in a 4-4-2 but with that extra player. The problem is that teams need absolute superstars up front to be able to overcome the inherent attacking deficit now being imposed on the formation by stacking that back line.

Australian football by virtue of it being relatively small and with potential superstars never playing the game thanks to Australia having two kinds of Rugby and Australian Rules football being played at professional level, must make do with what it has. If a team in Australia actually does get a superstar then they rebuild the formation accordingly but a lot of the time that simply does not happen. Sydney FC currently has no real obvious superstar. So what do they do about it? Committing 5 to the back while defensively sound, means a lack of firepower up front. 

Sydney FC's answer at the moment is to play a hybrid system. The team which was sent out against Adelaide United at the weekend for instance, set out with neither 4-4-2 but 4-3-2-1. 4-3-2-1 in defence assumes that the back 4 will be plugged by the not-quite defensive line of 3 in front of them playing almost as a zig-zag in front of them for a collective back-7. Pushing forwards, 4-3-2-1 breaks back into 4-3-3.

You can see this philosophy with the team sheet notation submitted to the match official before the match:

B: Courtney-Perkins, Girdwood-Reich, Mathews, Grant.

Perhaps more correctly that team sheet notation should read:

LB Courtney-Perkins, LCB Girdwood-Reich, RCB Mathews, RB Grant.

Note how I have deliberately not labelled Girdwood-Reich and Mathews as SW and CB. In the match neither of them reverted to those positions. Neither of them played as Stopper or Sweeper and neither of then played as a proper Centre-Back. Why? Because they didn't need to. In defence, the 3 in front slid back to plug the space in between the flat-back 4. 

This also shows in the match stats too. Javi Lopez scored for Adelaide in the 94th minute when Sydney was 2-nil up and any hope of Adelaide stealing a point had long since fizzled out of the game. Even then, this still wasn't a lapse in defensive judgment but a piece of attacking brilliance on the part of Lopez.

Adelaide's underlying stats for that one goal are:

Shots - 14

Shots on Target - 3

14 shots doesn't really tell the story that as Adelaide got more desperate, they set up more and more attacks. However as it was a hot night, a humid night, and one where had this been a horse race would have been described as 'heavy' and not 'firm', those attacks from Adelaide were mostly feeble. 

It is the one unpopular stat that really tells the story here:

Balls through - 0

"Balls through" is a stat which fell out of favour in the early 90s because in a perfect game, it should come in as 0. Balls through is that measure of the number of deliveries pushed or sent forward to some player in a nominally unmarked position and into space behind the defence. This was a more popular stat when Route 1 football and just thumping the ball up the pitch was more popular but that style of play fell out of favour. Today, anything other than 0 for 'Balls through' indicates a critical defensive failure. The fact that Sydney FC kept and maintained this, says is that Sydney's back-four really did put in a lot of work and were rewarded for it. However the stat doesn't tell you what kind of work was put in.

Girdwood-Reich and Mathews playing as Left Centre-Back and Right Centre-Back, by virtue of not playing as Stopper, Sweeper, or as a proper Centre-Back, both played right on that imaginary line which defines the back of the back four. Between them they could control the available space behind them by pushing the entire back-four up as a line, or by sliding it back in defence. The whole point of why a team wants a sole Stopper or Centre-Back is to appoint one player as the general manager of space at the back. Remember, that second game of football is a space management game. Really Courtney-Perkins on the left and Grant on the right, had nothing to do with the management of space and their job was to shut down anything on the wings.

Together, Girdwood-Reich and Mathews played as a pair; which because neither of them are markedly better than the other, meant that they played the role general manager of space at the back, together. Actually playing together, without ego, without the responsibility of having space management rest on one player, meant that that push forward and sliding back of the defence was more fluid. Courtney-Perkins and Grant played their part well but Girdwood-Reich and Mathews played their part excellently; together.

Horse 3301 - No, Henry Ford Did Not Pay His Workers More Because He Was "Generous"

On a motorsport forum which I am on, the claim was made yet again that minimum wage laws should be abolished and that capitalism will always sort out what is fair because "the market is more moral than the government". Firstly, I have no idea why an amoral mechanism that allots things that are sold on the basis of prices and volumes is "more moral" than anything. Secondly, I have no idea why an amoral mechanism that allots things can be "more moral" than the application of law, when literally everyone participating in the market is selfish.

I find it even stranger that the claim is made that "the market is more moral than the government" when talking about minimum wage laws, when the person making that claim lives in the United States. The United States as a nation was started as a result of the chain-reaction of events that started with the legal case Somerset v Stewart (1772) that held that Englishmen could not be held as chattel goods, consternation in the American colonies, punitive taxation that resulted, then a war to throw off that punitive taxation. The United States as a result of fighting a war, kept the right to retain slavery. 

Slavery is always done for profit. Slavery when viewed through the lens of capitalism also follows the same rules as other markets for labour. Of course if you can pay workers literally nothing, it is going to be profitable for the person in possession of control of that labour. Modern internships where people work for nothing and gain "experience" is also highly profitable for the person in possession of control of that labour; the reason why it is tolerated is because of voluntary contracts.

The truth is that labout has always had to fight for every concession ever made; this extends even back to the Roman Republic. It wasn't really until the modern industrial age, when the idea of combinations and unionism had to rise against factory owners who owned big machinery, that large scale industrial bargaining took place. Capitalism never sorts out what is fair because the premise that "the market is more moral than the government" is absurd. 

The classic example which is always put forward at this point (and was put forward here, yet again) is the now famous tale that Henry Ford increased the wages of the assembly line workers at his factories from $2.25/day to $5.00/day to make sure that his workers could afford to buy Ford cars. This is a lovely tale which is used to suggest that minimum wage laws should be abolished and/or that capitalism is somehow lovely and moral. However any examination of what actually happened reveals that the story while containing small iotas of truth, is mostly rat viscera.

The assertion that assembly line workers at his factories from $2.25/day to $5.00/day is in fact factually wrong. That $5/day payment was really only made as a set of bonuses if the factory happened to meet the appointed quota set for it. Even if you accept that lie as a truth, that $5/day payment still happened to come with conditions and caveats anyway.

The ugly and unspoken truth is that Henry Ford made workers who were recent immigrants, attend lessons on how to be American and American values. Beyond military training, I honestly can not think of any modern American workforce that would be even willing to accept that kind of indoctrination and paternalism;  in exchange for a 122% increase in wages. I have no idea what those "American values" were but if they were anything like Henry's, they were also anti-Semitic. As an aside, Henry Ford did receive awards from none other than Adolf Hitler himself because they saw eye to eye on the treatment of Jewish people and Ford kept the factories in Germany open, right through the establishment of the Third Reich and including the duration of the war.

Setting morality aside (because if were going to start with a faulty premise, we may as well ignore it), the most damning thing about putting forward the example of Henry Ford and his workers is that the pure maths simply doesn't support the premise.

There are 52 weeks in the year, and 5 days per week. 52 x 5 = 260 days

There were 14,000 workers in Ford's factories at the end of 1914. 

Just the rise in daily wages from $2.25 to $5 is:

260 x 14,000 x $2.75 = $10,010,000

However, we have a problem.

The price of a Model T in 1913 was $550.

The price of a Model T in 1914 was $550.

If all 14,000 workers bought a car in 1914, at $550, then the revenue collected from selling Ford cars to Ford employees is:

14,000 x $550 = $7,700,000

It doesn't take an idiot to work out that paying about $10m in wages so that they can buy $7.7m worth of product is not great at increasing company profits. It is however, an excellent way to lose $3m. Besides which, there is simply no guarantee that once you place $715 per year  into the hands of your workers, that every single one of them will then buy your product at retail rates.

The real reason why Henry Ford more than doubled the wages at his factories, was because the turnover rate was appalling, and he undertook a time and motion study to work out what level of wages were needed to avoid staff turnover. By cutting staff turnover, Ford could retain his workers. By cutting staff turnover, he could reduce training time of the labour force. Yes, in a few select circumstances, raising wages can reduce total labour costs but the suggestion that this was somehow moral or at  all to do with creating a workforce that could afford to buy the products, is more rat viscera.

To reiterate that, the real reason why Henry Ford more than doubled the wages at his factories had to do with increasing production due to marginal improvements in productivity and massive reductions in staff turnover. 

Here then, is the real underlying reason why Ford increased the wages of his workers. 

Ford car production in 1913: 170,000

Ford car production in 1914: 202,000

The price of a Model T in 1913 was $550.

The price of a Model T in 1914 was $550.

This means that the value of the sales increase was worth $550 x (202,000 - 170,000) = $17,600,000

The other really obvious thing which is immediately forgotten if the example of Henry Ford is brought up when talking about minimum wage laws, is that the case of Henry Ford and his workers has exactly nothing to do with minimum wage laws. The first minimum wage law in the United States didn't exist until the National Industry Recovery Act in 1933 under President Roosevelt; even then the minimum wage was set at 25c/hr. That works out to be $2.00/hr and wages at Ford's factories in 1913 before the famous increase were already $2.25/hr.

Citing Henry Ford and his factories as an example that minimum wage laws should be abolished is simply nonsensical. Worse than that, it conveniently sidesteps the issue that given the chance, there are employers who would pay as little as possible (including nothing) if they can get away with it. Furthermore, it actually says something about the character of the person who wants to make the claim that workers do not deserve their wages. Minimum wage laws because people do get exploited. Minimum wage laws exist because people are treated badly. Minimum wage laws, along with laws to do with things like fire escapes, working hours, needing breaks, protective equipment in dangerous conditions, working with chemicals, only exist because people had to fight for dignity and in some cases people died.  Granted that government often is as corrupt and as shifty as private enterprise but you would hope that government at least has the pretense of being accountable to the people. Private enterprise is not and does not have to be.

Horse 3300 - We Can't Have Nice Trains Because Nobody Wants To Pay For Them

A client of ours who had recently come back from a trip to France, made two comments within quick succession where you could say that one has begat the other. In the first instance she complained that France has lovely high-speed trains and that the government should step out of the way and let private enterprise build them here. In the second instance, she complained about having to pay "all this tax" despite the fact that a great deal of her income is taxed at the rate of 0% because of the superannuation rules; which means her effective tax rate is in fact lower than mine.

I do not know if you want to take the philosophical argument that taxation allows government spending, or that government spending happens and that taxation retires the debt which exists by virtue of the government having already spent the money (I do not care if you are Hayekian, Keyneisan, Friedmanish, or an MMT bro') but it seems to me that if private enterprise wanted to build high-speed rail in Australia that they would have bent the arm of government to do so, and given the fact that we now have toll-roads swiss-cheesing their way left, right, and criss-cross across Sydney, that government would have been happy to throw many billions of dollarpounds at them in order to do so. We have not high-speed rail in Australia because there is no political will to do so. We have not high-speed rail in Australia because there is no commericial enterprise which either has the ability to raise that kind of capital nor that sees the commerical benefits in building it. At best we have commerical freight rail which wants to freeload off of public-built rails, some highly effective suburban rail in the major cities, and mostly anaemic not-very-high-speed rail in Australia.

Let's be honest, transportation in Australia has always been a hilariously stupid joke, told by second-rate business people, to a third-rate electorate, resulting in fourth-rate infrastructure. We don't have high-speed rail to speak of. We don't really have anything resembling world-class motorways. We have a few airports which are all owned by merchant banking corporations. The vehicles which we run over those pieces of infrastructure are also the result of a hilariously stupid joke. Although we have a few custom coach builders who build buses, some trains and assemble trams, we have no automotive industry to speak of. We can't even build our own ships and/or submarines despite living on an island.

We are not allowed to have a lovely high-speed train network, not because government needs to step out of the way and let private enterprise built them here but rather, that government has been deliberately made mostly derelict and private enterprise simply refuses to build what is not profitable for them. Actually, this can be said with every single piece of major wide-scale infrastructure in Australia, where physical connections were necessary; be it road, rail, gas, electric, water, sewerage, telephony, internet, et cetera, that the only reason that any private enterprise has any of these things at all is because governments of the past built them and the current tories who now own them, have inherited them them after paying cents in the dollar (if that) for them.

Elsewhere in the world, other nations are obviously better at us than this. The TGV, or Train de Grand Vitesse, came about after the oil crisis of the 1970s and France set about building itself a high-speed rail network with the intent of future-proofing itself against other oil crises. SNCF is a government owned and operated rail company. France is pretty sharp when it comes to state owned companies, and it speaks volumes that the largest electricity provider in the UK is EDF which is Electricite Direct France. Even before Brexit, tory governments in Britain brexited the British Government from Britain.

As I write this in 2024, we mark the 60th anniversary of the Shinkansen in Japan. Generation-0 or Zero-ken, was built in preparation for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics; which were held as a way for Japan to show that it had reentered the civilised world after making an empire for itself, then losing the empire and symbolically being punished with two nuclear weapons dropped on it. In 1964, Zero-ken had regular operational speeds which touched 210km/h. To the best of my knowledge Australia has had exactly one train reach 210km/h and that was in Queensland and on a specific test run. I know not of any other train in Australia to ever go above 200km/h.

The obvious argument why Australia can not have high speed rail is that Australia is big. That bigness is an impediment to even bothering to try; so we don't. The problem with this argument is that Japan now has a high speed rail network which is vast and extensive, and long, and built over mountainous terrain, and built in a country prone to earthquakes. The actual reason why Australia can not have high speed rail is incompetence and stupidity. I note that the big nations across the Anglosphere all suffer from this impediment. Canada has no high speed rail to speak of. The United States is beholden to the motor car. Australia is just whatever our big brothers say we are.

The weird thing is that some Australians have seen nice trains. We know what nice trains are. I live in a city with double-deck suburban rail cars; which gunzels might not like but I think are pretty excellent. Even here in Sydney, when the electric train network was properly opened in 1926, it wasn't until 1988 that all the lines were fully electrified. Nevertheless and despite the fact that the way found for most of the railways in my fair city is now getting on for a hundred plus years old, the trains that we do have are nice.

Paradoxically it is people like this client of ours who thinks that the government should step out of the way and let private enterprise build nice trains here who through the ballot box, perpetually ensures that that will never be the case. These people are NIMBYs (Not In My BackYard) who object to YIMBYs (Yes, In My BackYard) while the PIMBYs (Please, In My BackYard) get to sit in traffic because railways aren't built. Meanwhile, they get to go on lovely holidays which are mostly funded by tax free incomes and still complain about having to pay "all this tax", where they will then ride on nice trains which other nations have deemed it a good idea to pay "all this tax" to have.

Horse 3299 - Trump Asserts That He Is More Than A King... And Fails

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-not-immune-prosecution-2020-election-case-federal-appeals-court-rules

Former President Trump is not immune from prosecution in the 2020 federal election case, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.

The U.S. Court of Appeals - D.C. Circuit considered Trump’s claim of presidential immunity from prosecution for his actions in office, including his alleged role in trying to overturn his 2020 election loss, ultimately saying it was "unpersuaded by his argument" and ruled a case against him can proceed.

- Fox News, 6th Feb 2024

Good.

I think that the idea that the actions of a President of the United States are immune from prosecution or that the President somehow enjoys immunity from prosecution from what they have done while they were in the White House, is quite frankly absurd.

Fox News is correct to point out that the question of whether or not former presidents can be prosecuted after they have left office remains untested at law, but not only because the courts haven't had to test this before and also they morally shouldn't have to. I note that Fox News remains silent on that issue. If you have a President who has done something so awful that they demand immunity from prosecution, then this pretty much tacitly admits that they are an awful person who should never be allowed to step back into the office. Of course we have been here before. Warren G Harding immediately after the Teapot Dome Scandal, avoided prosecution by helpfully dying. Richard M Nixon immediately after the Watergate Scandal, avoided prosecution by being awarded a Presidential Pardon by Gerald Ford; because Nixon knew that he was as guilty as the day is long but didn't want the scandal to drag through the courts for years. Donald J Trump in his mind, needs to demand immunity from prosecution because unlike Harding or Nixon, neither dying or admitting that he was guilty is desirable to him. 

I also find the statement put out the 2024 Trump Presidential Campaign spokesperson, as spurious as the original assertion that a former President should enjoy immunity from prosecution for what they have done while in office:

"If immunity is not granted to a President, every future President who leaves office will be immediately indicted by the opposing party. Without complete immunity, a President of the United States would not be able to properly function!

Deranged Jack Smith’s prosecution of President Trump for his Presidential, official acts is unconstitutional under the doctrine of Presidential Immunity and the Separation of Powers. Prosecuting a President for official acts violates the Constitution and threatens the bedrock of our Republic. President Trump respectfully disagrees with the DC Circuit’s decision and will appeal it in order to safeguard the Presidency and the Constitution."

- Steven Cheung, 2024 Trump Campaign spokesperson, 6th Feb 2024.

There are multiple things wrong with this statement. That first sentence is actually an admission that politics in the United States is so toxic, that immediate indictment is seen as a viable option. The second problem here is that that "the doctrine of Presidential Immunity" is not actually an established thing and merely stating that it is, does not make it so. The third problem is that the courts' prosecution of someone for what they have done, is an explicit exercise of the courts' function and purpose; and therefore is an active demonstration of the Separation of Powers. The fourth problem is that Mr Cheung thinks that he can tie a magical ribbon of "official acts" around what a President does and this somehow makes them untouchable. What rot! To that assertion, what exactly is "the bedrock of our Republic" if this is true? 

Furthermore, I find the tone and judgment released by the United States District Court for DC to be very very measured and understated:

https://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/internet/opinions.nsf/1AC5A0E7090A350785258ABB0052D942/$file/23-3228-2039001.pdf

We have balanced former President Trump’s asserted interests in executive immunity against the vital public interests that favor allowing this prosecution to proceed. We conclude that “concerns of public policy, especially as illuminated by our history and the structure of our government” compel the rejection of his claim of immunity in this case. See Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. at 747–48. We also have considered his contention that he is entitled to categorical immunity from criminal liability for any assertedly “official” action that he took as President — a contention that is unsupported by precedent, history or the text and structure of the Constitution. Finally, we are unpersuaded by his argument that this prosecution is barred by “double jeopardy principles.” Accordingly, the order of the district court is AFFIRMED

- United States v Donald J Trump, United States District Court for the District of Columbia, 6th Feb 2024 (No. 23-3228)

Let us consider that precedent and history of the text, or rather, what went on before it ever existed. Remember, the United States of America was the first nation to actually lay out the terms and conditions of the formation of the nation, and the replaceable rule set for making rules, by means of Constitution. I have no doubt that this was done due to reasons of mass suspiciousness amongst the various several states, and that the form of a written Constitution was used because that was the instrument which incorporated companies at law. It was business people who agitated for the war of Independence and they would have been very familiar with this form. From inception, the United States has been a buzzing nest of wasps which threatens to kill itself at the slightest provocation.

The second President of the United States, John Adams, in an effort to distance himself of the cult of personality which had surrounded his predecessor George Washington, famously stated that the United States was "a nation of laws". Part of the problem that Adam faced was that the Constitution itself, in both an effort to tear down the parliamentary system of government which was in Westminster, and partly because Alexander Hamilton wanted to make Washington a king in everything but name, made the office of the President absurdly powerful. Even so, the United States in the process of independence, still inherited that great corpus of existing case law from England and the United Kingdom; and there already was a massively massive case which had been tested and tried.

At the end of the English Civil War, Oliver Cromwell appointed the High Court at Westminster Hall to indict, charge, try and test Charles I on charges of tyranny and treason. Charles I was brought to trial on 20th January 1649, and the case caused so much controversy that there had to be a temporary wooden partition to keep the baying public out. Metal railings topped with sharpened spikes were installed and armed guards with pistols and swords stationed on the doors. Just like Mr Trump, the King challenged the court's authority and its right to try him and even though he appeared four times, the legal exchanges mostly followed the same form; with the King asserting that he was immune from prospection and even that the taking of a King to trial was illegitimate.

What makes R v Charles (1649) interesting is that the King who was on trial actually owned both the parliament and the court at law. What also makes R v Charles (1649) interesting is that the King quite rightly asserted that he had the right to trial by a properly constituted court acting on the basis of established law. The judges of the court also quite rightly had the right to call the King to account, even though they asserted that he was a tyrant who shed the blood of his own people in the Civil War. The fact both sides both wanted a trial by a properly constituted court acting on the basis of established law, is arguably one of the central and most crucial principles by which the law operates.

R v Charles (1649) quite rightly proved that R (that is The Crown) and Charles, were seperate people at law. Not only is the King not the Crown but the King is capable of being tried and tested. The King as individual, acts as temporary agent for The Crown which is corporation sole. The Crown actually owns itself. The Crown is an indivisible person, which is legally separate and distinct from the King. 

Admittedly, the court would ultimately find Charles I guilty of tyranny and treason, and the High Court proclaimed a death sentence 27th January 1649; with the axe falling on 31st January 1649. There may have been zero doubt about the outcome of the case beforehand but even the trial of a King still demonstrates that not even a King is immune from prosecution from what they have done while they were on the throne. Charles I was found guilty; he could be brought to trial; he was not immune from prosecution.

Had Trump been successful in United States v Donald J Trump (2024), then it would have been established that the office of a President is more than a King. If there is anything which "threatens the bedrock of our Republic" then surely that would be it. Elevating the office of the President to more than a King even makes a mockery of the imagined fantasy of the Declaration of Independence. No, seriously, read through that and you will find that practically everything laid against King George III was simply untrue. Actually, if Trump had been successful in United States v Donald J Trump (2024) then does that mean that the Declaration of Independence itself is invalid because you can not lay charges on a King?

Had this been me sitting on the court, I would have been far more blunt and named Mr Trump as a knave, a bounder and a cad, a liar, a cheat, and a fool. Of course a former President is not above the law. Of course a former President is not entitled to and should not enjoy immunity from prosecution from what they have done while they were in the White House. The assertion that a former President is entitled to and should enjoy immunity from prosecution for the period that they were in office, is stupid.

Aside:

There's also an problem of internal logic with this. Trump can not simultaneously claim that the actions of a President are immune from the law while at the exact same time claim that what Biden is doing to him is illegal. If we accept the lie that Biden has done anything to Trump (the courts and the DoJ are not actually Biden), then Trump is essentially arguing that Biden's actions are above the law anyway. This is so much of a layered onion of nonsense and jacknuttery that it defies any kind of sensible analysis. It is much better just to put the onion back on the shelf and let it rot.

Horse 3298 - Kakosynaisthima - Element I - Boredom

Sixteen months ago, I embarked upon a series of posts on the subject of Eudaimonia. That is the Aristotlean idea of a "good spirit" and what Aristotle thoiugh was the highest end of human existence.  Element I - Truth, can be found here:

https://rollo75.blogspot.com/2022/09/horse-3062-eudaimonia-element-i-truth.html

While it is good and proper to explore the best of humanity, the truth is that we simply do not live in a kosmos which it is even possible to live like this all the time. You do not have to believe the tenants of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hindusim, Buddhism, Taoism, Baha'i or even concepts which are not religious like economics, politics, behavioural science, et cetera, to realised that humanity is either selfish, broken, flawed, or just plain nasty and cruel. Some writers and philosophers such as Ludwig von Mises, Ayn Rand, or Friedrich Nietzsche, seem to think that selfishness is actually either rational and/or necessary in the kosmos.

I do not think that von Mises, Rand, or Nietzsche, provide anything useful in actually dealing with the problems of the human condition, nor do I think that selfishness is a thing which is good for the kosmos. However there are elements within the kosmos which are Not Great™ which are still worth interrogating to see if there is any useful telos to them. Also as before, I am going to name my terms; since I think that that is a useful starting place.

To this end, I shall borrow Plato's term συναισθημα, or synaisthima, meaning emotion. In Plato's "The Symposium", which has the framing device of what I think is a lot of drinky-drunky people chatting semi-rubbish and making speeches at a banquet. A synaisthima is a mental activity resulting from diverse simultaneous physical stimuli. It is the effect of stimulating the senses through an outside agent (that is not of something like stomach ache) of a person.

However people live far more interior lives than just chatting rubbish at the war table. Real people who live in a busted kosmos have to live with things that are Not Great™ which come from inside. To that end, I like the word κακός, kakos; which means "bad" or "evil".

Put them together and you get...

κακόσυναισθημα - Kakosynaisthima, from:

κακός - kakos, meaning bad or evil

συναισθημα - synaisthima, meaning emotion

Speaking as someone who works in an accountancy firm and as someone who has read a lot of economics, my view of the kosmos is very much viewed through the lens of trying to find the value of things. Value is one of those concepts which seems intuitively obvious but upon even the barest of inspections, vanishes below the surface of the ocean like a proverbial sea monster. I think that the best method of approaching a description of what Value is, is to think about that other economic concept of Opportunity Cost; which is what you have forgone in order to get this current thing. Herein lies the atomic basis of practically all of economics. Even a dollarpound is just the token system which acts as a set of counters which measures Opportunity Cost in discrete units.

However, when it comes to the nebulous problem of trying to work out the value of things that can not be bought or sold, our sea monster once again disappears. Opportunity Cost is handy because it tackles the problem of what one would have given up in order to get something but of itself it doesn't describe that almost subatomic problem of human nature; that is, that humans are semi-rational electro-mechanical meatbags, with some thinking muscles, and some kind of spirit/software which drives them. As semi-rational electro-mechanical meatbags, humans have some basic needs in order to remain alive, and beyond that a range of wants which can be unlimited.

I think that this point that we can take it as moot that religion, psychology, economics, politics, and even theatre, have in various ways described the irrational part of a human being, which is that part of the beast which shouts "I" at the heart of the kosmos. It is only a very small leap to go from "I", to "I need", and "I want". "I want" itself, is actually itself one of the drivers which ultimately arrives at the Opportunity Cost of something. Yes, "I want" is probably not much more than a sophisticated version of "yummy, yummy, yummy" versus "not yummy" and so I probably can leave that part of the equation alone, but what of the other side? 

Once again I return to the problem of Value. Is there any Value in the things that are "not yummy" of the kosmos? Moreover, do they have anything to teach us? What happens if those wants can not be fulfilled? A semi-rational electro-mechanical meatbag can yell and kick and scream about it but that's not exactly productive. 

Synaisthima - Element I - Boredom.

The fact that you are reading this on a computer of some sort and the fact that I am writing this on a computer of some sort, is evidence of the fact that we live a long way in the future. I think that it's really difficult to forget the world that my great-grandparents were born into in 1874, looks very little like world of today but very similar to the world of the same period in the other direction, in 1724. In that 150 years, the arrival of mass literacy, radio, television, and the internet, has meant that the very thing of Boredom itself, can be scraped away at an instant. Perhaps one of the objects of the plan to put the world in your hand, was to try and banish Boredom to the pages, and then digital archives, and then deleted.

Certainly the killer of Boredom is Distraction. Distraction is lovely. Distraction is a "yummy, yummy, yummy" sweetie. The "I want" here can be more than adequately sated by instantly gratifying the "I want" of entertainment. There is so much Distraction available to us, that Boredom as a thing may as well be functionally eliminated. Boredom is one of the very few things which previously thought unsatisfiable, can now be sated. The "not yummy" of Boredom can be pacified.

If Boredom is therefore a temporary state which can be made to go away reasonably easily now, then what is the "not yummy" going on here? That part of the beast which shouts "I" at the heart of the kosmos, as part of the spirit/software has that "I want" for constant input that it likes. Boredom usually arrives when that input doesn't currently meet the irrational part of a human being; which may include tedium, a current sense of emptiness while anticipating something else, repetition of task, repetition of thought, or being pushed to do the "not yummy" thing.

Perhaps the most classic example of someone appearing to be bored, is the child who without having any specific thing to do is spooked at that same prospect. The complaint about being bored in this case is not so much an inability to invent their own pastime but a semi-weaponised demand for someone else to provide that gratification of the "I want" of entertainment. 

There is likely an overlap of the same kinds of people who appear to be bored without having any specific thing to do and those people who when tasked with a thing to do, shirk at the sudden responsibility. The child who objects to having to do sums at school, the apprentice who would rather not change that gas fitting, and the person in the office now tasked with doing that grunt work, would all rather be doing something else "yummy" and not the "not yummy" thing in front of them. 

I should at this point make the distinction between boredom and ennui, as well as boredom and that quiet stillness which happens in a place when people can transcend the here and how and float off into the liminal kosmos of daydreaming. I have heard this space called "the Nothing Box"; which comes about with the suggestion that men in particular with think about something in discrete boxes, open that box and think about nothing else. "The Nothing Box" is a box which actually contains nothing in particular and when visited, is different to a place of boredom in that opening the nothing box is actually a place of rest, recovery, and a place which one is free to roam around inside of.

What is actually inside the nothing box? There is space; vast amounts of space. If you leave that child without having any specific thing to do, and allow them to be bored without giving them that gratification of the "I want" of entertainment, then they are forced to invent their own. A mind that has been left with space and time to do nothing other than invent its own silent and invisible space in the kosmos, will eventually be forced to pull the nothing box off of the shelf and start to pull things out of it. I have heard it said that of a cigar box guitar, which is a guitar built of the lowest quality of technology and usually very badly made, that the box actually contains many many songs and that the player just has to pull them out. If you leave a mind without having any specific thing to do in the world, then it will be forced to eventually imagine and create a world for itself.

I can not speak for anyone else but I possess a mind which just constantly wants to play with everything. I can not speak for anyone else but I find the idea of meditation intellectually interesting but actually pointless in action for me. If you leave me by myself with nothing but blank cloth to work with, then I will be  goofing off in a world of my own invention. I think that I would be one of the few people mentioned in nineteenth and twentieth century texts, who were placed into solitary confinement as a punishment, who come out the other side having suffered almost nothing as a result. I think of the story of the lady who went into an underground cave with no contact with the outside world save for a text terminal upon which she could let some scientists know that she was okay; and what happened for her while she had no outside stimuli, was a kind of slowing down of time and weirdly a negation of boredom as she invented a cast of characters.

Likewise, when I get to the railway station in the mornings, I typically have about seven minutes before the train arrives. At my end of the train station platform, I see the same cast of characters every day. Bruce is the mechanic who works at Mazda in Parramatta, who has a wife and two kids and cars that are laid up in his backyard; which he will get around to 'eventually'. Beatrice is the short lady with the Saturn Hat who has three cats and who produces prize-winning tulips. Xi is the student who is studying to become a doctor; not because he wants to but because he is trying to make his parents happy. Julia works in an office which she hates and is counting down the days when she can triumphantly quit and walk out which will embarass her boss. I have no idea what the actual names of these people are, apart from the mechanic who works at a Mazda dealership, I have no idea what they actually do. However within those seven minutes I have been left to run around inside of, I have created a world. Indeed the answer to that classic question posed to prose writers, song writers, comedy writers et cetera, of where they get their ideas from, actually has a simple answer. Ideas come from inside the nothing box.

For many people, the act of meditation is quite rewarding. I have heard of many stories where through the art of meditation, people achieve states of heightened peace and comfort. Perhaps this is just a lack of understanding on my part and maybe it does take deliberate action on the part of people to find their own Nothing Box, to find that place of rest and recovery. However all of this looks like semantics of sorts. Meditation involves a deliberate removal of stimuli in order to achieve a desired state. The person involved in the process of meditation is still actively engaged in something. Boredom is not a state which people necessarily try to cultivate. 

With nothing but the passage of time to play with, and with the constraints of no material to work with, Boredom is the vast infinite canvas upon which a mind without having any specific thing to do, will eventually paint upon. It is interesting that in the twenty-first century, when people can scrape away Boredom at an instant, that people will readily choose to do so. The desire to fill up available space with the "yummy, yummy, yummy" sweetie of Distraction is likely so attractive for people because when people are left to themselves, they have no material to work with, and that prospect might very well be terrifying.

Left with nothing else, the only person inside my internal monologue, left inside the life of my interior, is me; and I can't get myself to go away. I can understand that that could very well be terrifying for someone who left in that situation, turns their own metaphorical knives inwards. With no outside targets, a mind with no material to work with and which is bent on hurting itself, can be both a prison and an torture device. There is a very good reason why prisons in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries used solitary confinement as a punishment. That is effectively a metaphorical extra gaol, within extra gaol, within a gaol. 

I think that this is what people find to utterly terrifying. Boredom is essentially a call of the void, with the infinite horror of a space in time which unless filled with internal play, meditation, an appreciation for the kosmos, religion, or distraction, is an inescapable solitary confinement inside one's self. At some point, people have to come face to face with themselves. Perhaps the most stark reason why people do not like being vulnerable in front of other people is that you might not like me, and this is all I have; however when that is turned inwards, what then? If boredom as a thing is "not yummy", has a purpose, then it seems to me that it is a space for the self to decide if it likes itself, to play games with itself, to open the nothing box, to find that place of rest and comfort, to find one's place in the kosmos, and to stare full face into infinite horror of the void.

If being bored means wanting to be engaged when you can’t, which is an uncomfortable feeling, then what do we do about it? This is what I can not answer for you. The problem with boredom is that while it tells us something is wrong, it does not tell us what to do about it. Ultimately the bad thing about boredom, as with everything else in this short series is that nobody can help us to navigate through it and finding useful, productive, healthy, sensible ways through boredom is still up to us.