50 Shades of Grayson (Lighter)

Lab Leaks and Red Herrings

ethics, politics, society, stupidity Comments Off

May 202023

The pandemic lab leak story that just won't go away is a red herring

Since 2020, I, like everyone else in North America, have been treated to a regular though slowly diminishing force feeding of “news” about the “Lab Leak” source for the COVID pandemic. At first, when it was novel (like the Coronavirus underlying the pandemic), it made me wonder. Today, it makes me wonder—about the people obsessing about it.

The Novel Coronavirus and the Pandemic of the 2020s

To recap:

A novel coronavirus took hold near Wuhan, China.
It rapidly spread, globally, because of the way modern society transits the planet and the fact that our virginal constitutions, at least with regard to this pathogen, were most hospitable hosts.
The factors beneath this virus’s communicability and mortality led to it being declared a genuine pandemic of concern.
To combat it, humanity in various parts of the world took various measures from the idiotic through to the excessive (and sometimes both together). That these were novel and tentative measures for which efficacy was still to be proven made some sense given the novelty of the situation.
The biological problem turned into a political problem as the underlying virus issues gave way to the social issues surrounding combat measures. This, naturally led to tribal fault lines and the anti-vax movement.
The WHO declares the official pandemic health emergency over. Right or wrong, we’re moving past the emergency posture. But the tribal fault lines remain as does the questioning about the source of the entire episode.

Through this latter period, one vector of attack and mis/dis/genuine information was the source of the virus itself. Did it arise organically as the result of a racoon dog in a wet market in Wuhan or was it a lab leak or was it something more nefarious.

The Source of the Novel Coronavirus

We are an inquisitive species by nature. If we’re that determined to source the origin of the universe BILLIONS of years ago, could anybody expect that we wouldn’t collectively insist on knowing “How this happened?” And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. In some form, most of us know that if you want to prevent the same thing from happening again, if you want to not make the same mistake again, if you want to… it’s important to be clear about the real cause.

In this case, there seems to be at least one naive and two clearly purposeful reasons behind the inquiry. None of which is of particular value to any but those with very particular interests and obligations. Ultimately, the source of the pandemic is a novel coronavirus in the same way that the cause of an ebola outbreak is the ebola virus, of SARS in the early 21st-century, another coronavirus…

A virus, even by name, is not a sufficient root cause

This seems to be the broad-based response that perpetuates the interest in the “lab leak.” That ought to be true to officials of research and other containment labs, to public health officials, probably to wildlife officers and various other ecologists in remote parts of the globe—especially those that are now exposing their hidden treasures (more below).

The Pointless Constituency: The General Population

It ought to be mostly satisfactory to the broad population. The cause of our experience is a virus. What does it matter, beyond curiousity, to a house painter or an opinion columnist, what lays as a deeper root cause. Would this information, whether accurate or misguided, have any impact whatsoever on his or her daily life? And what does debating the merits of a theory about the source do for that person? Play out the two basic alternatives: it was or it wasn’t. Will that change the tilt of his or her life in any meaningful way? It is truly mere curiousity, probably combined with tribal weaponization of mis/dis/genuine information.

Alternatively, there are those for whom digging deeper could be more meaningful. The World Health Organization and other national public health administrators. Surely they have greater need for more insight. Probably. And, probably more importantly, they ought to also have more perspective on what that added insight means. That is, what value it contributes to the issue. But do they really?

Why Should They Care?

In the event that there were a similar outbreak and similar situation, would the method of combatting it be different based on knowing it’s origin? For bold relief clarity, if the source were a wet market in a Chinese industrial city v. a isolated tribal village in the centre of the Congo or the Amazon basin v. the top of Mt. McKinley or Mont Blanc? If the core uncertainty is that we’ve never seen this before and we have no further insight into it, does it matter where it came from?

Somewhat less facetiously, whether the novel virus came from a lab or from out of the deepest jungle is also irrelevant without further information. And, it is that further information upon which any kind of meaningful alteration in response action might be based.

The further information is whether the virus is indeed “novel.” Perhaps this usage does not conform with virological definition so let me specific that when I used the word novel, here, I mean have we seen this exact viral strain before and do we know anything about it. Ideally we know things about it that would leapfrog our experimental responses in the wild and allow the response to the pandemic to be more focused. And, ideally, more successful (and shorter).

Presumably, a lab leak of a virus would have this kind of added information load. So it would not be quite as novel. Let me go back to my painter. If this were known, what possible impact could this knowledge and understanding have? To him or her, who stands in as the vast majority of humanity not specifically in the public health (virology, specifically) world, it’s trivia.

Such information, that the source was a lab leak, ought to have significant impact for those public health officials as stated. But, logically, the value of that information does not persist. It diminishes as time passes. As the fight against the virus and the pandemic wears on, the underlying virus becomes less novel. It becomes less relevant where it came from because generations of evolution have turned it into something else. And (and this is the important part), we have more meaningful and valuable insight about the virus problem than any amount of understanding about it in December 2019 or March 2020 much provide. In short, at some point, even for those on the front line of virology and immunology, determining the origin of the virus is ancient history.

Today’s Value of the Lab Leak Determination

Not to diminish but simply to overlook and ignore the value of this inquiry from a tribal, political perspective, there are two constituency that has an ongoing need to know for sure whether there was a lab leak. My painter is nowhere close to either one. (By the way, dear reader, don’t get to fixated on the “painter” as a painter. As I’ll explain later, it’s a broad-based stand-in.)

The Primary Constituency: Public Health Administrators

The first constituency that should know that there was a lab leak is the community of administrators and operators of similar containment facilities. In this case it’s so-called level 4 virus containment laboratories, but it could be study spaces for bacteria or any other biological or non-biological pathogenic research. If what’s being studied is inherently dangerous to humanity if it is not engaged with through strict protection protocols, arguably it would qualify. So, atomic experimentation fits. But it seems the focus should be on pathogens that can be extremely destructive to humanity without human help. More or less, we’re talking about biological pathogens.

This constituency deserves to know if for no other reason that to understand and remedy similar conditions in their own facilities. Strengthening protocols to prevent leaks and so forth would be a good outcome—obviously, IF there were a leak. Good faith errors happen. When the consequences can be so extremely bad, it makes sense to ensure there are fail-safes, buffers, and other backstops. What if this were the first virus to develop the ability to evade all such defences in some “novel” way? Again, knowing and understanding—and sharing—this information is to the good of humanity, full stop.

The Secondary Constituency: Governments (Including Defence, Military, and Public Safety)

All this is good and well. It represents the valid ethical and humanitarian reasons for searching out the source or cause of the virus entering our human biosphere and doing its damage. And, as I’ve stated, there is at least one good reason why determining a lab leak was the cause—and hence a lab—was the source of the novel coronavirus. It is, of course, not nearly the end of the story.

One way or another, sometimes only whispered because saying it out loud is diplomatically charged at best and racist at worst, the real reason EVERYONE is so interested in whether a lab leak is behind this is not the “leak” part, but the “lab” part. The point of the lab leak hysteria is whether there was a Chinese lab involved. More specifically, was a Chinese lab purposefully holding this virus in the Wuhan lab (that the origin is Wuhan, at least, is beyond dispute)? And did the virus “leak” from that lab?

Leak is a funny word in this situation. It’s banal obvious meaning is that perhaps through error or for any other of a hundred reasons, the virus being contained simply “got away.” Kind of like a lion escaping from a zoo. Maybe a keeper left the gate unlocked; maybe years of rain and heat corroded some part of the enclosure. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that (a) there was a lion there and (b) it got out.

The constituents in the heading are interested first in confirmation that this otherwise unknown virus was or was not known to “the enemy.” Let’s assume that’s proven, which in that world can mean anything from it is a very strong rumour that everyone feels good about through to there is absolutely unimpeachable, conclusive proof.

Once that has been “established,” a number of further allegations can be supported in a way. First, they “had” and knew about a novel virus that they kept from “us.” Obviously (natch!) this can only mean that they were seeking to use it as a biological weapon directly or as a stepping stone to something more deadly.

Such labs are known to perform gain of function experimentation. We do it for obviously good reasons. But maybe they were doing it for obviously(!) nefarious reasons. Either way, we obviously didn’t know about it. So, if we can establish there was a lab leak, then we know they were doing something and can focus attention on where they might have been going.

Even if we can’t prove “they” were doing something nefarious, we know that (a) they were being secretive and (b) they’re sloppy. In either case, we have a Western feel-good narrative. But wait, what if the nefariousness were not merely in what was going on inside and a mistake? What if the “leak” (see, I told you “leak” is a great word in this situation.) were purposeful? What if the pathogen’s release were not accidental but meant? What if the zookeeper wasn’t actually a little doddering but, in fact, left the gate open to see how many children the lion would eat before it were caught?

Speculation. Leave It For The Speculators

Who knows? Who cares? The point I’ve been trying to make is that it doesn’t really matter to the vast majority of us that neither administer public health facilities such as containment labs nor tread in the international diplomatic/military waters.

Sure, maybe my painter (who could be a divorce lawyer, dentist, accountant, investment banker, car detailer….) has some kind of morbid fascination with such things because he or she doesn’t have enough to do, a good family life, or an interesting hobby. But to get riled up by politicians and media using this as something to further deepen the chasm between political tribes is a little silly.

This aging red herring is almost certainly being poked to stink as a distraction from what’s important and to lend urgency to what’s not.

Have a read of Zeynep Tufekci’s column in the May 12 New York Times. There is some insight there for those of us in the pointless constituency: “The Pandemic Threat That Hasn’t Gone Away”

Easily digestible conspiracy and pseudo-insight: strong misdirection?

ethics, politics, society Comments Off

May 052023

Magicians use misdirection to achieve the impossible or at least improbable.

Misdirection. A few days ago something exploded over the Kremlin. It was such an elaborate pantomime of an attack that only the willful, gullible, or compelled would not make common league with the conspiracists to consider the whole episode remarkable bullshit.

That Russia immediately took to its airwaves and any other channel that would sustain its message to say that it was a drone attack intended to kill Putin was the next proof point. One could argue that is a reasonable thing to allege in the circumstance. But, of course, it was conveniently—literally out of the blue—the doing of Ukraine apparently.

That kind of sealed the deal that it was likely a “false flag,” given that it had never even come close to happening in the past and that as the Ukrainian leader said, they don’t have enough ammunition to waste in defence of their territory. Why would they waste drones on an inevitably futile gesture? It beggars belief. Then, when that didn’t really stick the Russians took another tack: it was the United States (through Ukraine).

My usual response to ALL the idiotic allegations of “false flags” that have erupted in the past 6-years in the United States, is to roll my eyes. But in this case, it’s hard not to firmly believe that’s exactly what we’re witnessing.

But this is not my real point.

My point, as the title of the post would suggest, is that in all the shouting about false flags and injection of “false facts”, the simplest answer is to follow Occam and conclude there are a lot of idiots with the opportunity to spew their stupidity far and wide. And, when stupid meets up with stupid, it multiplies. It’s probably the right answer.

But what if it’s not the right answer. What if the answer is more sinister? What if there are, in this equation, some rational actors that are being “underhanded” (for lack of better word)? What if there’s a conspiracy about conspiracies?

“WTF are you talking about?” You might ask. Fair enough.

Misdirection

I could just as easily have focused this post on my second analog: magic. A false flag has a different intent and extent might be different, but ultimately these are of a kind. Let’s stick to magic and more particularly to illusion.

There is typically nothing “magical” about magic. It is nothing(!) but the rigorous and directed application of physical and psychological conditions, constraints, and phenomena to achieve goals that somehow seem miraculous or impossible or, at the very least, improbable. That’s it.

A magician will use our brains against us including how it process the stimulus of light (I.e., vision). Magicians play with perspective. Our brains will attribute importance to things seen recently, more frequently, for which they have been “primed,” or longer. Magicians “force” card choices in this way. Some magicians—commonly known as “mentalists—use the same and other techniques to convince you that they have extrasensory powers and such.

Magicians, mentalists, and so many other persuaders (like lawyers, priests, reporters, analysts, executives, etc., etc.) use one technique more frequently and often than others. That technique is misdirection. We are all such frequent targets of it that it’s a wonder it continues to escape us. (And, by the way, when I say “us,” I’m not being falsely inclusive. The fact of that matter is that EVERYONE, irrespective of experience, education, raw cognitive or emotional intelligence, is at one time or another, with greater or lesser credulity and frequency, a (willing) victim of misdirection.)

As it’s name would suggest, the point of misdirection is to get the target person to focus on something else. (It’s important to understand that when a human focuses on something, everything else goes out of focus—to the point of being ignoring or overlooking a guy in a gorilla suit walking right in front of you.) In the service of the magician, the point is to make sure you aren’t watching too closely when (s)he palms the coin or such contrivance that is decidedly NOT magical. Politicians and advocates will emphasis something to get you to ignore another (probably damning) thing.

This post is about conspiracy theories, false flags, alternative facts, and all the other forms of wasteful attention-sucking misdirection that is going on in the world—especially in social media. It’s actually not that far removed from the theme and plot of many sci-fi stories: how the dupes are tricked into focusing on something silly while the “overlords” have their way. Or, getting closer to home, maybe watch the movie Wag the Dog. The boldness of the relief used in art, however, usually makes the premise ridiculous.

But isn’t there something just a little too on-point about the concept?

Why is it that when, more often than once daily in the United States, people (children! in schools!) are killed or injured en masse with a firearm, the usual suspects from the NRA and the GOP appear to redirect everyone’s attention to the Constitutional right to bear arms? (Like somehow the right to have firearms is related to the right to pull the trigger and kill… and all the logic that leads from possession to death…)

Why is it that when a Hollywood icon is proven out as a racist, misogynist, paedophile, or what have you, suddenly (with rare exception) talk immediately shifts to the value of “the art”?

Why is it that politicians and political parties and hypocrites (but I repeat myself) are caught up in their own lies and reversals, the focus immediately turns to something else? Pro tip: if the issue is small, widen the focus; it it’s broad, focus on the particular. Or, in the words of advice given to every second year law student: “When the facts are with you, pound on the facts. When the law is with you, pound on the law. When neither is with you, pound on the table.

I don’t care about the answer to any one of these questions. They are merely representative of the larger question that we all ought to recognize and expose. And that question is not about the direct nefarious reason for it (“…false flag”) or its truth or falsity (“check the facts”).

The question to ask is what else is going on that this person/organization wants us to miss? Why are these events or arguments going on? Why are these idiotic “facts” or what-have-you being sprayed out into our perceptual field like attack countermeasures from the back of an airplane or submarine?

Because we can only focus on one thing at a time, what is it that we’re supposed to not see?

Maybe it’s just magic; a form of entertainment. And it will evaporate. But that’s the risk we have to take. Because it could just as easily be something serious.

Contributing to the cyber security conversation

Business, Canada, IT Security, politics Comments Off

Oct 162016

My firm, Institute X, responded and provided a paper to the Canadian Government’s Consultation on Cyber Security. It’s a considered white paper that assumes government should do what it’s supposed to do (public safety and security; and support Canadian industry). We suggest that an “unreasonably” high standard for cyber security and directed support toward the Canadian cyber security industry (e.g., national security-protected procurement) will benefit Canada on multiple fronts.

Download it here: institute-x-cyber-security-consultation-submission-oct-2016.

Innovation advice… really?

Business, Canada, politics Comments Off

Dec 042015

It’s incomprehensible why a serious broadsheet exposes a 1000-word space to the maundering of a senior bank executive except to recall that the business broadsheet is a forum for recitations of faith. When a high priest needs a pulpit, a serious broadsheet provides one. How else to understand Victor Dodig’s contribution to the “innovation” echo-chamber in the November 27^th edition of The Globe and Mail (“Canada must fill three gaps to reach its high-growth future”)?

“Innovation” is today’s incantation that serious people in management (and reporters) recite to prove their faith. So certain is its good, it is above question. That the talk of innovation suffocates all other sensible considerations, and lets (Canadian) executives off easily is beside the point. Mere invocation of innovation gets attention and, apparently, 1000 words in a serious broadsheet

In any case, Mr. Dodig’s ostensible objective is to reveal to the new Liberal government causes that inhibit Canada from achieving economic growth. His writers pick up Jim Balsillie’s tune and rehash au courant cocktail party clatter about the absolute national essentialness of innovation… as cover for another specific message. I choose to assume of Mr. Balsillie a pure-hearted intent, and so expect the larding of his noble clarion call with self-serving appropriations like a Bill working its way through Congress, weighs on him.

I ascribe unctuous malfeasance to the article if only because in 1000 words addressing three gaps, only about 150 address gap three: an innovation ecosystem, and a whopping 34 words speak to the second—something a banker would be credible with: innovation financing. The remainder of the essay (about 80% for those with post-secondary education yet remain innumerate) speaks to changing the public education system to alter the talent shortfall, and to innovative “emerging firms” being acquired by foreigners who take innovative Canadians elsewhere.

After laying out the harms visited upon Canada’s economy by failing public education, Dodig poses the question, “So what do we do [about students ‘choosing an educational path geared toward acquiring credentials rather than skills acquisition and what the labour market needs’]?”

Had he stopped there and proposed specific actions to counter insufficient interest in STEM fields, and the terrible literacy, numeracy and problem-solving skills in Canada, it would have been appropriate if not valuable. Mr. Dodig foreclosed that possibility by answering: “We need to promote education choices that match the needs of the job market.”

Like too many others, this commercial catechism appears sensible at first encounter and in certain narrow contexts. Its impotence as a broad response is usually dispatched quickly. An unnecessary act in this case because Dodig himself renders his recommendation pointless mere paragraphs later (without infringing at all on the space needed to argue for better financial support and an innovation ecosystem). As he transitions to raise—but not address—another innovation problem, Mr. Dodig seamlessly shifts our essential innovators from job market to entrepreneurial class. As such, the innovators he implicates won’t be employed by his or any other organization because they are those starting the “emerging firms” subsequently bought out for their developments and brain power then quickly whisked away to deprive the country of its economic future. Not that this isn’t a vexing problem, only that it is immaterial to job skills training (i.e., “meeting the needs of the job market”). Entrepreneurs not in the job market hardly need education to match the needs of the job market, you see.

A kernel of truth stabilizes Mr. Dodig’s recitation. But methinks the purpose is less about innovation than about redirecting public education toward a goal of finally, wholly eliminating the need for businesses to train for their own needs. The proposal is that Canadian society should fund employee education for (large) firms that employ—so they don’t have to.

Doubtlessly people should be employable, and a well-educated individual ought to be employable, which is to say literate, numerate, and able to solve problems by way of critical and creative thinking at one or both of theoretical and applied levels. But those qualities apply to software coders, managers, artists, entrepreneurs, electricians, and even hockey players. In other words: to everyone. Yet, rather than propose an overall higher national standard of such capacity, perhaps with incentives to pursue engineering instead of law, or cryptography rather than marketing, this counsel focuses on job-ready skills to benefit employers. What’s next: other factors of production underwritten by the public purse so they too are “ready” for business?

Mr. Dodig is right about the shortcomings he raises. Still, you can scratch deep and find no hint of the banks’ role in defunding manufacturing (i.e., finding Canadian manufacturing too risky to provide credit for operations or expansion or exporting…) or limiting cash for risky emerging firms. Mr. Dodig is silent on the notion of sharing risk with the innovators he’s so concerned about to help them create and then to keep them Canadian.

Finally, it would be cruel to ask the obvious question: If this bank(er) is so interested in numerate and literate and creative talent—of the STEM variety, particularly—rather than students who have merely “acquired credentials,” why continue demanding the MBA as an essential credential for its own innovative roles, such as they might be? To the extent these MBAs are scientists, technologists, engineers, or mathematicians with business finishing school certificates, fine. But we all know the majority have merely acquired the credential to make real money in consulting and banking, or to be marketers. (Oh, the irony.) And there is abundant evidence everywhere that they are not necessarily more numerate, literate, or able to genuinely solve problems critically let alone creatively. On these counts the bank fails. Before ostensibly providing counsel to the new government or even using that as cover to inject ideas into the public domain, Mr. Dodig’s bank ought to lead by example not faulty rhetoric… if he’s serious.

Asymmetric policy action: cars and drivers

Business, Canada, Management, politics, society Comments Off

Jan 072015

I would offer to write a brief piece for Policy Options, The Walrus, or some other such magazine but have no desire to spend the time documenting the self-evident, which will be obvious later, just to appear “well researched.” Instead, I’ll write here and content myself with distributing the link.

Here’s the premise. Governments of all sorts are incapable of rapidly deploying intelligent policy for a number of reasons, not the least of which is politics and the pressure to do big and meaningful things. It appears better to do nothing than to do something not publicity grabbing. So, trivial things get done for trivial political reasons, or overinflated mega-projects are launched only to crash into a mess of overspending and under-performing.

But, in the spirit of the unfortunately discredited Broken Windows theory (the idea that broken windows are an example of indicators that residents don’t care so further vandalism is more likely…), I have a couple of ideas for the provincial governments. These ideas have three key features. First, they are simple to implement, administer, and enforce if necessary. Second, they are or can be revenue neutral at worst. Third, their most significant benefit is indirect financial and social impact. The biggest drawback is that they will be resisted because both target the sacrosanct car and driver.

First idea: Outlaw blackened windows on all vehicles not in livery service.

I don’t know when manufacturer-installed and after-market window tinting became vogue. When I was young it was not done and may have been unlawful—at least in Manitoba. Only limousines had tinted windows, and only for the passenger compartment at that. Today, every other car on the road has completely opaque glass all the way around.

The problem here is pure social psychology. The window tinting enables an anonymity effect, which subtly encourages people to do things that they would not do if they knew people could see who they were. It’s common and goes a long way to explain increasing driver aggression, particularly from within cars with tinted windows. There is also the entitlement effect in play on the roads and in parking lots, but that typically affects only drivers of luxury vehicles.

The solution is to immediately ban the production and sale of vehicles with tinted windows. Vehicles with existing tinting and livery vehicles would have to be grandfathered. Admittedly, there are gaping holes for anybody with a pre-2015 vehicle to apply aftermarket films, which couldn’t be banned without affecting the ability to apply such films to house and commercial windows. But, inspection and registering of the vehicle for tinting could be made part of the emissions testing process.

The value is in the opportunity to negate the anonymity effect to shape more civilized behaviour on the roads. More civilized behaviour, less rage; less rage, fewer altercations; fewer altercations, lower insurance and other costs.

Second idea: Compel mandatory driver retesting every five years (at least).

Needless to say, acceptance with open arms is improbable. Despite my high school driver’s ed. teacher’s mantra that “driving is a privilege not a right,” common belief is exactly the opposite. That’s why people will drive, legally, well beyond their capacity to do so. It’s also why drivers get into intractable ruts of poor, potentially fatal driving habits like never signalling, weaving between lanes, tailing too close, running lights and stop signs, passing on double solid lines, and so on.

But the program is relatively small with asymmetric downstream impact. Retesting could be easily implemented: most of the processes exist. Licenses have to be renewed—that is, a new picture and so on, not just the fees paid—every five years typically. Only a testing component would need to be added. And even that process exists for new drivers. By increasing the renewal fee to cover the testing, the program could run cost neutrally if that were important.

The immediate benefits would be obvious. All those drivers that we see who should be participants on Canada’s Worst Driver would get cleared off the road. All those drivers who no longer have the physical or mental agility to be behind the wheel would be cleared off the road. For seniors and others who, allegedly, depend on driving their cars, there could be a grant of lifetime access to public transit. Once again, the level of highway civility ought to go up owing to a clear, shared understanding of the rules and what to expect of other drivers. Right now, it’s a crapshoot anticipating what other cars will do in any given situation.

The longer-term benefits are where fixing this particular broken window starts to change the neighbourhood. With more recently refreshed drivers behind the wheels (especially if you can see them through untinted windows), we could expect increased safety and thus the incidents of traffic accidents ought to go down. The effect of that one impact ripples outward. The most obvious and probably valuable effects are: policing could be directed toward other areas instead of highway traffic; use of ambulance and other emergency service for traffic accidents, including hospital-generated health care costs, would decline; and property damage and insurance costs would be reduced. (This last one adds up particularly in provinces where public insurance prevails.)

This is just fixing broken windows and shouldn’t demand extensive study, debate, and investment in (mega-)projects. But the asymmetric effects will well outweigh any insignificant political costs. It should not require loads of courage to command them into practice.

And if you like these, you should hear some of my other ideas for health care, information technologies, productivity, and innovation

The Safety Dance: one step forward; three steps back

Canada, ethics, politics, society, stupidity, Uncategorized Comments Off

Aug 242014

Today’s politically correct vogue is to wring one’s hands and fulminate about how dangerous the world is and how dire the need to protect one and all from its perils. Mental health disabilities and concussions are, among other human traumas, serious stuff. But it all seems a little overdone.

While the incidents of mental health claims and sport-related serious injuries are as high as ever in raw volume, a doubter might question its significance. Is there really more? Or are we just searching for, noting, and recording it now? This challenges the premise of greater danger, and the argument applies as readily to mental health injury as to cancer and allergy epidemics. It’s harder, I think, to argue that concussions went unrecognized and so could have been under-reported 30-years ago. That suggests greater danger. It does not mean it’s not ridiculous. Not the injuries; the circus of problem-solving.

The same day newspapers carried the story about Minister Clement’s pronouncement on mental health action, I saw a fellow on a bike wearing what looked like a 40-year old Cooper™ hockey helmet. It wasn’t a zippy cycling helmet, so it caught my attention and took my thoughts to the ongoing, very public finger wagging about concussions in hockey. I recalled that there was a time when that flimsy piece of plastic with an eighth inch of Styrofoam was the only wrapping on kids’ heads. Yet, so many of us live to reminisce about it.

What bothers me most about the well-meaning debates and pronouncements, be it about depression furloughs or kids’ cranial collisions, is that they are just so typically focused wrong. It is, of course, easier and more socially acceptable, never mind profitable, to push protection and palliatives than it is to deal with real problems. We leave uncomfortable stuff alone.

Regarding employee mental health issues untenably impacting labour costs, what we really don’t want to talk about is that we’ve done and keep doing it to ourselves. We avoid how mobile devices and PCs before them inconveniently changed what it means to be working. Not only are we all expected to be available within the hour if not actually responding in the moment, it doesn’t end at 5:00PM or Friday at the pub. That is fact.

Instead of acknowledging and debating the incompatibility of commercial efficiency and human frailty, we are treated to paeans to the “new reality” or some derivative. It’s liberating, they say. Not so much unless fetters factor into your definition of free. But it is an efficiency gainer, so it’s not going anywhere. That leaves the chattering classes to accept the root issue wholesale and babble on about the deleterious effects.

What about the hollowing out of the organization? It’s good for organizations because short-term productivity is high. It’s not good for people, because no machine runs at the yellow line for years on end without burning out. People in “management” are being overworked, the demands on their time extend well beyond what was traditionally work time, and they know that they are always one false move from not having to worry about it at all. Why would anyone be stressed or depressed?

Then there’s this business of sports injuries, with concussion trending right now. Of course being concussed is bad, especially for a brain still being formed. Then again, so is pushing a teenage body to meet the demands of an adult body. Speaking only of hockey, what we don’t want to talk about is that WE are the cause of the problem, one that we’re not eager to cure.

Back to the Cooper™ helmet. Hockey is a pretty rough sport. It was when I played as a kid. But it was rough within limits. Bad helmets and other variants of plastic, felt, and sponge left a lot of opportunity to feel pain, which took some spirit out of the boys. You didn’t try doing too much harm to others because, among other things, it was probably going to hurt you too.

Over the past forty years, we’ve outfitted our little gladiators with Kevlar and ballistic protection that makes them (feel) practically invincible. When over-protected, the most important organ in the body doesn’t work effectively. Because there is no pain escalation to indicate it’s time to back off, one can forget that one is, in fact, going to get hurt. And when it inevitably does happen, it won’t be just a little owey either! Add a persistent hockey season. Unlike the few boys that went to one-week, summer hockey camp in the 1970s, now every child has pre-season training and development prior to the try-outs that precede the season, which gets followed by a post-season work-down, etc… In other words, kids have the protection needed to detach them from the reality of being hurt, plus we train them to be stronger and more aggressive earlier. Never mind the parents who demand that little Mikey behaves like the NHL star that dad wishes he’d been, and then encourage aggression by behaving like lunatics in the stands.
Hockey today isn’t more dangerous, nor is cycling or skiing or any other sport. Work and life is not harder than a century ago. What we’ve done to ourselves in the name of progress, though, is create everything we need to push ourselves and our children up to and past the breaking point physically and mentally. Contrary to my first employer’s view, people are really not machines. You can’t merely grease them and replace worn parts.

They can’t work at their limit all the time. They can’t be expected to always self-heal from the inevitable injuries. But every employer knows that there is plenty of supply. So, ultimately, they can be replaced when worn out. It’s just costly; and not very pleasant salon conversation.

Meantime, we can all talk about how children are being physically injured and adults are being mentally tormented, and about what paternalistic safety equipment and palliative programs we can enforce. It makes us feel like we’re doing something valuable. And that’s good for our mental well-being.

* I wrote this a few months ago and submitted it for op-ed… nothing.

Foretelling decline by observing focus and attention

Canada, politics, society, stupidity Comments Off

Aug 212014

The National Post headline says, Canada’s language watchdog probing John Baird’s Twitter account over lack of French posts. Sadly, the headline says it all. There is, of course, a story that challenges the requirements for a “public” account to be in both official language. That is, as opposed to a “personal” account. Implicit, of course, is the recognition that Twitter has a growing and overwhelming institutional side equivalent to broadcast media. After all, that’s what the parallel would be.

That challenges the entire notion of Twitter, a question or dark secret that ought to come out into the open: Twitter has been co-opted by the corporatists (as is everything eventually). All you Libertarian technologists take note.

In any case, isn’t this situation (i.e., a federal government minister, elected in a riding in the nation’s capital, who ought to be communicating with constituents in both official languages as appropriate for this circumstance) something that “the market” should address. And here, of course, “the market” is the electorate which can determine whether he is offside or not. Do we really need a public office to tilt at this windmill?