House of Eratosthenes

A great and potent source of recent misery is that we seem to have accumulated a great deal of skill and talent, over a rather narrow stretch of time, at saying no without saying no. We have all sorts of methods for this. Prerequisites, like first we have to do some studies, we’ll have to run it through legal, I need a cost-benefit analysis, you have to get permission from that guy over there…and, excuses, like we don’t have time, if I go after that degree I’ll be so-old when I finally get it, it’s too hot, my ass itches, and how come that other person/group doesn’t have to??

The problem that comes up is: It is in the nature of the living of life, to desire things that are not had yet. There’s nothing wrong with that. I’m quite in favor of it — contentment is the opposite of progress, necessity is the mother of invention, and all that stuff. There are those who will pick a fight with me over this, and my conflict with them is not what I seek to call out here. The point is, when you go after something you do not yet have, there is a suite of obstacles between you and that thing, and you have to eliminate these. Since some of these are going to be easy and others are going to be difficult, it is a natural unfolding of events for you to eliminate the easy ones first. The effort will proceed like any other complex human endeavor that demands completion of a set of simpler tasks: The low-hanging fruit goes first. Because it “goes,” it is eliminated, which means, by process of attrition, our natural and undisciplined situation is going to be one of confronting hard things, that demand sacrifice, while in our rear-view mirror is going to be a plethora of completed, easier things, that did not.

Enter the destructive power of this lately-developed “saying no without saying no” societal talent. You see it over and over: People, agencies, firms, divisions, foundations, and other organizations put themselves on record wanting something. A job. More jobs. An agreement. A loan guarantee. A memorandum-of-understanding. A new law. The repeal of a stupid law. People to fill the jobs. And then they blow their own feet off, at the neck, with their own “friendly fire.”

The pattern I see happening is: The pursuit of the stated goal is a complex effort, breaking down into simpler tasks; some of the tasks that are difficult and demand sacrifice, are vital; the vital simpler task goes undone because…some requirement that is arbitrary, idiotic and nonsensical. All of this framework is required. If an equally-detrimental, but at least honest and direct, “no” were to be applied to this vital and simple task, the person applying it would have to confess that which cannot be confessed: I’m abandoning this effort. Or, if he were to stick to the cowardly and indirect “but first we need to conduct some studies” and apply it to the overall objective rather than to this simple but vital task, again, that which cannot be directly confessed would have to be confessed. But if the complex thing relies on a simpler thing, and it is the simpler thing that is obstructed, in this craven and cowardly way, there is no confession necessary. We are human beings, the only species on the planet smart enough to fool ourselves, so we can toil onward indefinitely…pretending to be laboring long and hard toward a go, when our actual efforts are toward a stop.

The Chief Financial Officer of a company for which I once worked, which was a government contractor, said something insightful about this: In government, it often seems nobody has, or can get hold of, the authority needed to make something go. But the lowliest clerk in the mail room can stop something, anytime and for any reason.

One of my Facebook friends pointed out something equally insightful, also about government: When & if the proposal would involve a contraction or excision of freedom, the promulgated narrative that goes with it is always that we MUST!! ACT!! NOW!!! But on those very rare occasions when we seriously discuss the possible repeal of a dumb requirement, or anything else that would expand freedom, it is first necessary to do a bunch of studies…

Again, that which must never be confessed, is not. When’s the last time you heard of a candidate for political office, at any level, vowing to stop something? Other than ObamaCare. Or, vowing to curtail freedom? Freedom, freedom, everybody loves freedom, nobody ever pledges to get rid of it. But of course that’s because they don’t mention it at all. We listen to our so-called “leaders” speak, and they drone on and on about fairness, equality, fair share, millionaires and billionaires, corporate jets…not freedom.

The millionaire-billionaire thing is a particularly egregious example of our lately developed talent at saying no without saying no. Nobody wants our anemic economy to continue languishing the way it is. Certainly, nobody wants to hurt it any further. We all want the economy to be stronger. B-U-U-U-T…if the economy gets stronger, someone somewhere is going to have to get filthy rich. This is exactly what I was discussing earlier: The more elaborate objective, is met by among other things, the successful completion of this simpler, but absolutely vital, task. The economy getting stronger means someone has to get stinking rich, maybe even offensively rich. And so, reliable as rain, here comes the excuse: Fairness. Equality. Balanced approach. All just code words for not-doing…or, doing the opposite. Pretending to be laboring long and hard toward a go, when our actual efforts are toward a stop.

I don’t know what’s more tragic: The consistent failure to achieve objectives that involve any level of complexity; the slow and steady loss of freedom, without interleaving and compensatory expansions of it; or, the gigajoules of wasted energy. I’m leaning toward none-of-the-above: Our biggest loss is great and good planning. We can’t make wonderful super-duper mega-awesome plans with this shit going down everywhere. Think about it, even with the best possible outcome of eventually getting a “yes,” at the end of it we aren’t able to say we achieved as much. The plans are always whittled down, streamlined, made more compact — humble. They’re made that way, and even worse, they start out that way. To build up as much as possible, their chances of making through the brutal “no-without-no” headwind. Best we can expect to get done is, little music players and some phones that can play video games. And you know what? When we consider technological breakthroughs that can directly impact people’s lives on an everyday basis…that’s about all we’ve seen lately. Oh, we’ve got medical breakthroughs here and there that are quite meaningful to those who need them, and other breakthroughs behind the scenes. But sooner or later you have to admit it: We’re in a slump. Seen any real revolutions, accessible to the everyman, on par with bringing the computing power that would’ve taken up an entire warehouse just a couple decades earlier, into a den in your house and slapping it on a desk? Me neither. Folks, that’s a slump. Thing I Know #408. You can’t aspire toward success if you won’t spot the fails. This is fail. Self-induced fail. Mass-produced. That makes it a real problem.

Our brighter days are still ahead, I’m sure. But again, the deleterious behavior I have called out here, should be expected to continue into the foreseeable future, until people start calling it out, arresting it, acting against it. While that doesn’t happen, the stoppage will not stop.

[…] fighting each other for supremacy right now; This is fail. Self-induced fail. Mass-produced. That makes it a real problem; You become whoever you watch … […]
- Steynian 481rd | Free Canuckistan! | 07/21/2013 @ 16:20

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Saying No Without Saying NoFriday, July 12th, 2013

Saying No Without Saying No
Friday, July 12th, 2013