Someone today told me that the government has child adoption targets.
I never heard of such a thing. After a bit of digging it does seem to be the case. secret courts, legal aid collusion, I'm a bit shocked.
-
- cishanjia
- 2007-05-19 @ 15:30:27
-
-
semafu
- 2007-05-20 @ 23:52:44
John Nash.
Yea, I think targets are a waste of time tho. 'cos people just manipluate, as in The Trap.
I thought it was very good TV. Didn't agree with Adam Curtis' conclusions tho. Think Isaiah Berlin was probably correct and we need to keep society free from ideas featuring "+ve liberty". Also despite AC's saying the contrary, think most people DO take the action resulting in most financial gain to themselves most of the time, particularly when the stakes are high.
-
(So much for a full sabbatical from Blogland!)
There was an interesting series on Channel 4 (?) recently called "The Trap", which suggested that there is an obsession with targets and figures. The writer suggested that it stemmed from a synthesis of game theory devised in the cold war by, among others, the protagonist of the film "A Beautiful Mind" (whose name temporarily escapes me), and a movement in philosophy distinguishing "positive" and "negative" liberty. The former was devised by an at the time undiagnosed paranoid schizophrenic, and has as its basic assumption that we're all self-serving, devious, and coldly unemotional; rational. We only compete against one another for max. advantage. The latter says that any attempt at guaranteeing liberty will fail, and so we should let all the selfish buggers get on with doing whatever they want.
The series concluded that modern society engineered along these lines is best suited to economists and sociopaths (and presumably paranoid schizophrenics, as long as they remember to take their meds.)