| Author |
Message |
mjp
Username: mjp
Registered: 10-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 17, 2008 - 4:05 pm: | |
It's either a storm in a very large teacup or it's the end of civilisation as we never knew it. |
dan
Username: dan
Registered: 10-2006
| | Posted on Thursday, September 18, 2008 - 2:01 pm: | |
Or the end of civlisation in a very large teacup?
Smaller teacups from now then. |
mjp
Username: mjp
Registered: 10-2006
| | Posted on Friday, September 19, 2008 - 12:31 pm: | |
Strange situation we are in.
It could hurt people badly. You read these pundits who say: This might happen; that will never happen. That is impossible. It might happen. So might happen but the x of happenings is out of the question. Don't be ridiculous. How could it happen? It couldn't happen. Not in a million years. A trillion! The situation is clear. No one knows what will happen. We are being dictated to by fear. Don't listen to the pessimists. The optimists are wrong ... I am a certified optipest. Pestiopts are out of touch with the facts. What is happening on the ground ... What is mostly in the air. In the water ...
It could very well be the end of civilisation in a very large teacup.
Presumably, just before the great depression you had pundits saying exactly the same. Not that it will happen of course. How could it?! |
iotar
Username: iotar
Registered: 6-2006
| | Posted on Friday, September 19, 2008 - 3:18 pm: | |
I think we're in as bad a situation as we've ever been. The only difference is that a few more people, who were previous very certain of themselves, have become aware how precarious our position is.
Whether the teacup is located on the edge of the coffee table or not any sort of spasm from a dozen sources could ruin teatime.
The notions of security, insurance, damage limitation or "The Future" were flimsy charms at best. |
dan
Username: dan
Registered: 10-2006
| | Posted on Tuesday, September 23, 2008 - 3:13 pm: | |
Funnily (?) enough, all of this happened as I was halfway through reading "The Black Swan", by Nassim Nicholas Taleb - http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/ - which is precisely about how easy it is for this sort of thing to happen (or rather, how this sort of thing is bound to happen sooner or later), how people (academics, traders, academic traders) discount the possibility of this sort of thing happening simply because it has never happened before (lots of things have never happened before, but that doesn't stop them from happening), and, generally speaking, how traders and academics are the lowest of the low.
The book, written around 18 months ago, also has a surprisingly prophetic passage on the (then) current state of the merchant banking industry and how it is (was) due for an unprecedentedly large fall. I may dig out a few choice lines later.
He also talks about the (im)probability of all of the molecules in his his coffee cup simultaneously conspiring to move in the same direction and send the cup spasming off the table. Spooky! |
iotar
Username: iotar
Registered: 6-2006
| | Posted on Tuesday, September 23, 2008 - 3:45 pm: | |
Yeah but Dan, my coffee is always spasming off the table for one reason or another. I usually drink tea now. |
mjp
Username: mjp
Registered: 10-2006
| | Posted on Tuesday, September 23, 2008 - 3:53 pm: | |
This may not be connected but at Eat my coffee is free so often I wonder how they make ends meet, at Eat. Meat? How do Eat Make Ends Meat? I should take up tea for clarity I think. Not for charity. |
iotar
Username: iotar
Registered: 6-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 24, 2008 - 8:59 am: | |
Or perhaps beef tea? |
mjp
Username: mjp
Registered: 10-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 24, 2008 - 9:05 am: | |
Dandilion tea is a very good cleanser for the kidneys. Spiced liquorice tea which I also drink, a brand called Yogi, is an Ayuvedic infusion drunk by Egyptians. Fennel tea also works wonders, tastes like liquorice or aniseed, I am not clear. |
dan
Username: dan
Registered: 10-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 24, 2008 - 11:43 am: | |
Nettle tea for me.
drink is free at Eat? If only they had a shop called Drink next door, you could get the whole lot for free.
Zali: according to Taleb, you'd have to wait a few universes' lifetimes for your coffee cup to do that by chance. Perhaps you're just uncommonly unlucky. |
mjp
Username: mjp
Registered: 10-2006
| | Posted on Thursday, September 25, 2008 - 8:55 am: | |
Storm in a tea cup. What I don't understand is why so many journalists are so negative about Brown. What most characterises him for me is his inofensiveness. It is as if they are all annoyed with him for not giving them anything to talk about - an animus that seems contrived the result. |
mjp
Username: mjp
Registered: 10-2006
| | Posted on Friday, September 26, 2008 - 12:35 pm: | |
At this online table drinking tea imaginary on an exquiste black tablecloth the scent drifting through the static of electronic sand being of a liquorice infusion candles and camel dung we appear to be watching George Bush become bosom companion to Chavez right at the point where the American economy goes down the pan. There is an irony somewhere but there's sand in my sandwiches and I can't concentrate any more. |