One of the reasons this approach has been taken, is that if we look at for example a newspaper, such as The Evening Standard free paper found in London, and count the general news pages which comprise "stories" that shape our feelings and our emotions compared to "investigations" which define certain limited results with numbers and logic, there's a clear majority of the former to the latter and this is how we apprehend the world everyday as a matter of course.
The picture above is taken from the famous London bookshop Foyles and the European Union Politics section is curiously next to the Slavery section is a joke too good to miss! If you were interested in learning about the European Union, what it is and so on, you might come across this shelf, if you were serious. How would you choose from all these dozens and dozens of dense tombs on the subject? You might randomly pick a sample, find advice online from reviews. Then you break the problem down and work out what it is that is most useful to you to know and to what degree of detail per component.
If you persisted eventually you might come up with a full "map" of the subject (as per The Greatest Political Problem of Our Time) and understand how they all connect to each other to what degree as well as to what depth per subject "node". However practically you are short of time, you have a limited budget and even then if you are a complete neophyte reading the right book simply will be a limited though useful beginning to begin of this "intellectual framework" due to the full complexity of the subject. Incidentally there's only x1 actually useful and accurate book on that entire shelf and I recommend: Robert Ouldes : Everything you wanted to know about the EU - But were afraid to ask
There is a movie out in the cinemas that has just released by the author Andy Weir, called The Martian. I am very excited to watch this movie. However, having been aware of the novel for sometime and not having read it yet, I have a dilemma: Do I watch the movie then read the novel or do I try to read the novel and then watch the movie? This novel is really well written from some of the pages I've read in the bookshop.
What also makes it fascinating is that it's a novel which uses a lot of technical description precisely calculated and related to decision-making: It's quite challenging, not to mention it's set in space on Mars and hence is very "science-heavy" and unfamiliar. The visuals of the film will enable enormously for me to visualize and relate the theoretical calculations to the practical implementations as well as the emotionally-cool-headedness of the titular character, Mark Watney, played in the movie by the excellent actor Matt Damon. Here is a really solid combination of Literature and Science: We can relate the private experience of "The Martian" as well as the objective problems of his extraordinary environment, simultaneously.
Here's a contemporary and topical example of the dynamic between:-
- Expectation or Prediction
- Results vs Performance
- Analysis and interpretation
England Rugby World Cup stars past and present today said the team can triumph in their do-or-die clash with Australia with the help of their "amazing" fans.How different the above is to Will Carling's quote today backing up his previous in my opinion accurate inference previously:-
Johnny Wilkinson, who won the tournament in 2003 with his famous drop goal against the Wallabies, said he was "full of confidence" that England would progress tomorrow. Wilkinson, 36, added: "This weekend is going to be bigger and better. It is going to be a bigger and better England team, a bigger and better atmosphere, and it is going to be a bigger and better result."
His optimism echoed that of Prince Harry, who met the players after a training session at the team base at Pennyhill Park hotel in Surrey yesterday. The royal insisted England could win, saying: "Of course they can! Bring on this Saturday." And current fly-half Owen Farrell pledged that he and the rest of the players would give the fans something to cheer about."
"Something has to change in order to deliver better results,"
Let's look at this, many of the "professionals" were masquerading/mixing" expectation or "wish-fulfilment" "bigging-up both the tournament's appeal and giving the England team a "vote of Confidence" to help them feel upbeat and positive about the match.
Unfortunately the above is a huge issue for when things go wrong, people are full of consternation, disappointment and confusion: "How could this squad that promised so much go out of the World Cup at the pool stages, the first ever?!"
For that the ever-useful assessment of player's performance vs the Australian peformance is considered: Pocock played a blinder; Ford should have been in on instead of Farrell, England missed Vunipola through injury. We made mistakes at bad moments; the referee made some tight calls against us etc etc.
However looking at the actual data and analysis:-
How does all this relate to the EU and the Referendum?
What's very observable above is the reliance on "inference" and subjective feeling" before the Referendum and only with the benefit of "20/20 Hindsight" can we more narrowly use data to work out how things turned out: Whether or not our decision-making was a good result or a bad result - over time.
Let's look at some of the latest media stories about the EU Reform:- Cameron hit by double blow on EU ~ Sunday Times:-
Here the narrative is very much like the pre-match "mood music" for England before they were defeated by Australia. There's so little reported on the actual rules of the EU the Treaty Structures as the "arena" in which David Cameron has real choices. Instead we see the as per Aldous Huxley "crystallization" of literary mode of communication inferring nothing of value and aiding deliberate deception. Here "the professionals" as above are all applauding Cameron's chances vs Merkel in the same way as the England team.
To requote Dr. North again, EU Referendum: flawed understanding
Described as a member of Business for Britain, one of Matthew Elliott's business ventures, this woman would have it that the EU was turning out to be a "flawed concept" because it had monetary union without fiscal or political union.Business is being allowed to talk in a professional way just as the England ex-players were doing before the England match.
Seemingly a small detail, the EU cannot be regarded as a flawed concept for this reason. The very essence of the single currency was to launch an incomplete construct in the knowledge that the stresses would create political pressures which would drive further integration.
This is the mechanism of engrenage, at the core of the so-called Monnet Method, relying on the doctrine of the beneficial crisis. It is not, as they say, a bug, but a feature. The European Union was designed to act in this way.
Barbs traded as business weighs in on/in out vote - City AM (google-cache available also.)
BUSINESSES did battle over Britain’s potential EU exit yesterday, with a war of words erupting about the repercussions of a Brexit or staying put. Gina Miller, founding partner of SCM capital management, kicked off the exchange by warning that the City faces “disaster” if the UK is forced to renegotiate. She said: “It will take years of negotiations, during which Britain, and the City, will be stuck in a limbo.”What's so fascinating is that both Pro-EU and "eurosceptics" are using the same system of thought of inference and headline arguments that hold this quality and trading them. As it happens I would predict that the "eurosceptics" have the stronger memes and emotions to play, but that the prospect of defeat with such uncertainty then matched with a Cameron arrangement which allows us all to "avoid" such a high-stakes match, will see people vote to stay in the EU.
The event at Guildhall was hosted by Business for Britain, the City of London Corporation and Business for New Europe. Miller added: “One of one is weaker than one of 28. It’s a fallacy that we would be stronger on our own.” She also pointed to the skills shortage and said, speaking as a fintech business, Britain is “struggling to provide the skilled workers we need to remain at the centre of the financial world. The coders, the hackers. We rely on a mobile marketplace with Europe, and would be very much impacted by leaving.”
Serial entrepreneur Luke Johnson, of Risk Capital Management, was more upbeat about the effect of a Brexit, stating: “The City will remain great, no matter what.” While Johnson said that with significant negotiations he’d stay in the EU, he pointed to the “countless anti-City
measures” – from bonus-caps and short-selling regulations to the Common Agricultural Policy – as things he’d be happy to see left behind. He also pointed to “all the doom-and-gloom scare-mongering when we didn’t join the Euro… and it never happened.”
Tim Skeet, director of the International Capital Markets Association, warned that the French will “eat our croissants and the Germans will steal our sausage” in the event of Brexit. He also lauded the City for having been “pragmatic” in the face of EU regulations. Andrew Lilico from Europe Economics argued if the UK went it alone, the country could attract new trading partners, such as Switzerland, Norway and Denmark, and create a new partnership
But this comes back to Will Carling above: "Something has to change." Cameron in the role of Lancaster will likely step-down and we'll have a new coach in the hot seat of England Rugby manager. But like our football team and cricket team that also went out in their respective World Cup pools: Will we learn the mistakes presented from our past results and improve our decision-making performance?
For that we have to leave the News-Media, we have to look at that "wall of books" or find other mediums such as videos to convey information to us on the EU such as:-
By Robert Oulds if the book appears to be too far advanced a step. Whatever choice we as a people need to start making however relies on using not only qualitative inference but "deductive quantification" WHERE we can. It's not always possible, but where it is it will limit the excesses of our leaders as per The Goldfinch and the Gilded Cage
And that applies equally to Pro-EU advocates and to people who aspire to becoming genuine "Brexiteers". It's the simple reason why insisting on the relationship as UKIP under Farage do:-
- Immigration > EU > Democracy <= Media, UKIP, Establishment focus
- Democracy > EU > Immigration <= FLEXCIT (see side for video)
I believe it's the first step to success and for the people to leave this decision-making to the £professionals£ will lead to yet more cases of the amusing joke:-
"Britain invents a sport. Teaches others how to play the sport better than themselves. Invites the world around to compete in these sports and ends up losing in all of them."
