« Dicembre 2003 | Main | Febbraio 2004 »
29.01.04
The EU Common Agricultural Policy
Maybe I'm missing something but isn't giving 45,000,000,000 (45 Billion) Euros a year to subsidise EU farmers totally crazy?
There are 2 completely separate problems here.
1. Why can't farmers just get another job. If there isn't enough money in farming then change profession. The politicians talk as though a Farmer is something fixed in stone. But how do you define a farmer? Could I call myself a farmer and get paid for doing nothing, or for growing something nobody needs? Even if you decide that they do need subsidising, paying them money to work when we don't need their products is doubly crazy because it would be much cheaper to pay them to do nothing. Not only that, they get paid more, the more they grow, so they can not only subsist but get rich on making things people don't need. Imagine if we decided to subsidise tech professionals who couldn't make money? Even if this was a good idea, wouldn't it make more sense to give them unemployment benefit than to pay them to make software we don't need?
It all seems to be based on a false conception that farming is this immovable thing that just has to be done and those people engaged in it can't do anything else. And now they're saying - well we admit it's crazy but we have to phase it out gradually. Why? If something is crazy, why can't you stop doing it straight away???
2. The commission has a tiny staff working on supervising the 45 bn euros, hence a lot of it just lines the pockets of the rich. See http://www.fahayek.org/index.php?article=269 and this
Posted by Giles at 13:38 | Comments (0)
19.01.04
Maybe someone can be bothered
Transfunctional household objects. A fridge made from a TV. It looks exactly like a TV but you can open it and pull a cold beer out of it. A TV which looks like a microwave etc....
Asymettric clothes. Why have asymettric clothes never been in fashion? I went out wearing an odd pair of shoes the other day and it struck me that I had never seen anyone doing that before. Even the sort of people who try to do things that nobody has ever done before.
Flashmob government. If the internet can make Dean more money than Bill Clinton, couldn't we move politics entirely to the internet. Why obey a national government other than because they have an army and a police force which would lock you up if you didn't (and because anarchy is VERY BAD NEWS). But in theory you could abdicate from national control and subscribe to a worldwide internet government say. I've always thought it was shite that just because I was born somewhere, I have to agree with what Tony Blair wants me to do.
Programming: a program that will tell you exactly all the cookies that are used by an entire domain by spidering it.
Google of things. I put an RFID tag on all the things I normally lose. Then when I want to find my keys, my wallet, my shoes, my passport etc...., I just type it into a computer with an RFID sensor on it and the RFID attached to the object I'm looking for beeps.
How about an anti-science movement. It seems fairly apparent to me that science for the most part doesn't make people any happier. Washing clothes by hand is probably better for your state of mind than watching violent movies for example. But nobody seems to question the need for putting lots of money into science.
Wouldn't it be great if you could go skiing down an infinitely long slope. Really great. So if it were possible to create a realistic enough virtual ski slope this would solve a lot of problems for a lot of people. No need to drive into the mountains. No need for expensive ski lifts or the pollution they entail. The problem is gravity as far as I can see it. It is very difficult to simulate acceleration. But here are some thoughts. First of all you can do it in space with the coreolis force (you can do this on earth but then it is always added to gravity which would disturb the illusion) - so if you lived in a space craft, a virtual ski machine with infinitely long slopes would be quite possible. Second, when skiing, the main sensations are the up and down of the bumps under you (easy to simulate) and the wind (also easy to simulate). So maybe all that's needed is that and an ever increasing effect to simulate acceleration (or have I missed something?)
Posted by Giles at 13:39 | Comments (0)