ParaHandy
Active member
Every now and again somebody puts into words what us peeps find difficult to express and this article does so rather well, I thought, in illustrating the poverty of thought behind most if not all this government's actions. Here’s a snippet:
Obliquity is characteristic of systems that are complex, imperfectly understood, and change their nature as we engage with them. Forests have all these features. Fire is the greatest enemy of the forest. From the late 19th century, the policy of the US National Parks Service was of zero tolerance towards fire. Every outbreak, however small, would be extinguished. But the incidence of fire did not fall: it increased.
Computer simulation of fire control policies suggests the explanation. Most forest fires are small, and burn themselves out. In doing so, they remove combustible undergrowth, and create firebreaks that limit the spread of future fires. In 1972, the National Park Service determined a new policy: it would put out man-made fires, but allow natural ones to burn.
Sixteen years later, the largest fire known swept through Yellowstone National Park. In extremely dry conditions, several fires - some sparked by lightning, some by arsonists - joined together. The blaze was fought by 25,000 firefighters at a cost of $120 million; more than a third of the park's vegetation was destroyed.
Today's guidelines allow forest rangers to use their judgment in deciding which fires should be tackled and which left to burn. Experience has shown that too much effort devoted to fire extinction is counterproductive. Time demonstrates, but only slowly, whether policy has gone too far in one direction, or the other. Forest management illustrates obliquity: the preservation of the forest is not best pursued directly, but managed through a holistic approach that considers and balances multiple objectives.
Forests are not the only systems structured in this way. Obliquity is equally relevant to our businesses and our bodies, to the management of our lives and our national economies. We do not maximise shareholder value or the length of our lives, our happiness or the gross national product, for the simple but fundamental reason that we do not know how to and never will. No one will ever be buried with the epitaph "He maximised shareholder value". Not just because it is a less than inspiring objective, but because even with hindsight there is no way of recognising whether the objective has been achieved.
The article ought to be required reading for all the would-be regulators that surround us. Worth reading the rest of it here http://www.johnkay.com/strategy/317
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Obliquity is characteristic of systems that are complex, imperfectly understood, and change their nature as we engage with them. Forests have all these features. Fire is the greatest enemy of the forest. From the late 19th century, the policy of the US National Parks Service was of zero tolerance towards fire. Every outbreak, however small, would be extinguished. But the incidence of fire did not fall: it increased.
Computer simulation of fire control policies suggests the explanation. Most forest fires are small, and burn themselves out. In doing so, they remove combustible undergrowth, and create firebreaks that limit the spread of future fires. In 1972, the National Park Service determined a new policy: it would put out man-made fires, but allow natural ones to burn.
Sixteen years later, the largest fire known swept through Yellowstone National Park. In extremely dry conditions, several fires - some sparked by lightning, some by arsonists - joined together. The blaze was fought by 25,000 firefighters at a cost of $120 million; more than a third of the park's vegetation was destroyed.
Today's guidelines allow forest rangers to use their judgment in deciding which fires should be tackled and which left to burn. Experience has shown that too much effort devoted to fire extinction is counterproductive. Time demonstrates, but only slowly, whether policy has gone too far in one direction, or the other. Forest management illustrates obliquity: the preservation of the forest is not best pursued directly, but managed through a holistic approach that considers and balances multiple objectives.
Forests are not the only systems structured in this way. Obliquity is equally relevant to our businesses and our bodies, to the management of our lives and our national economies. We do not maximise shareholder value or the length of our lives, our happiness or the gross national product, for the simple but fundamental reason that we do not know how to and never will. No one will ever be buried with the epitaph "He maximised shareholder value". Not just because it is a less than inspiring objective, but because even with hindsight there is no way of recognising whether the objective has been achieved.
The article ought to be required reading for all the would-be regulators that surround us. Worth reading the rest of it here http://www.johnkay.com/strategy/317
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