The Trouble with Causes... is that they're rarely causes

Lily Allen cries on screen and apologises for 'her country's' refusal to take in enough migrants. As if emptying the Jungle would solve the reason why impoverished desperate people fight their way to be there.

I've no problem with highlighting the suffering of individuals or communities. Indeed it's important we don't ignore suffering. I've also no problem with people and states doing something to relieve that suffering. Of course we should. What I do have a problem with is the naivety that assumes solving the symptom sorts out the cause. Causes are rarely the causes of the problem, they're symptoms. It's an odd misnomer.

Voting for Brexit (sorry) is another example of the dangers of focussing on symptoms without understanding underlying causes of issues - or, in the case of Brexit, of not understanding the consequences of curing symptoms. Intriguingly by making the UK less attractive for immigrants by devaluing our currency, frightening off multinationals from building offices and factories here, making imports more expensive and ultimately hurting the jobs market - the Xenophobic British public will have helped to resolve their immigration issue. At a stroke they've made the country a less attractive opportunity to build a different life. No need to 'take control of our borders'. You've scared them off.

Clearly we should be supporting causes even if they are only curing symptoms of deeper problems (climate change, poverty, lack of education, water etc). But complacency about the root causes of these symptoms - or worse, refusal to accept expert judgements about why these symptoms exist - only leads to an escalation in the problem not a resolution, as Brexit (and Trump) voters will discover to their considerable cost in due course.

Comments

To kill or not to kill.

Had an interesting discussion with a Muslim friend today about the ethics of killing. Could it ever be morally justifiable? Abrahamic scriptures, especially the old testament, are awash with murders and killings, some sanctioned by the prophets and assorted mouthpieces for god. Some killing is even mandatory. For example all Jews are instructed in the old Testament to kill everyone belonging to the 7 Canaanite tribes for example - Deut 20:17 , or to slaughter Amaleks, especially their children - Deut 25:19 . So accepting for a moment that these draconian instructions were written in times when tribal leaders had fewer options available to them with respect to managing miscreants and maintaining some sort of law and order, I suspect that most people today would agree that killing people is a bad thing and should not be condoned except under extraordinary circumstances. My friend and I then proceeded to try to list those circumstances. We started with self-defence or perhaps protecti...

Phillips screws - yes I'm angry about them too

Don't get me wrong. They're a brilliant invention to assist automation and prevent screwdrivers from slipping off screw heads - damaging furniture, paintwork and fingers in the process. Interestingly they weren't invented by Mr Phillips at all, but by a John P Thompson who sold Mr P the idea after failing to commercialise it. Mr P, on the otherhand, quickly succeeded where Mr T had failed. Incredible isn't it. You don't just need a good idea, you need a great salesman and, more importantly, perfect timing to make a success out of something new. Actually, it would seem, he did two clever things (apart from buying the rights). He gave the invention to GM to trial. No-brainer #1. After it was adopted by the great GM, instead of trying to become their sole supplier of Phillips screws, he sold licenses to every other screw manufacturer in the world. A little of a lot is worth a great deal more than a lot of a little + vulnerability (watch out Apple!). My gromble is abo...

Successful Entrepreneurs Don't Aim to Make Money

Of course all entrepreneurs want to make lots of money. Who doesn't? But the difference between entrepreneurs who do make money and those who don't, is that successful ones don't focus on making money. They focus on building their businesses. And that relies on having an attitude of pouring any money their businesses do make, back into them, rather than rubbing their hands and taking it out as soon as they can. True entrepreneurs are gamblers and thrifty by nature. Given the choice of a holiday of a lifetime versus the chance to create a great business, they'll always choose the business - and take it for granted that if the business does eventually make surplus money, they can have that holiday - although entrepreneurs can become so hooked, holidays become a guilty wrench away from the businesses they need to protect. I didn't have a single days holiday, or off sick, for 10 years after I started my first business. I probably could have afforded it (in fact my wif...

Grombles

Search This Blog