Rob's Blog

I saw something quite disturbing in the park today.

Care for people with mental disabilities is something I mostly prefer not to think about. I imagine it is done by people with saintly qualities of compassion and patience. Anyone who would take a group of people with Down’s syndrome and similar problems to the park on a sunny day to enjoy ice creams must rank pretty highly in the pillar-of-the-community stakes, one might think.

As I sat reading my book at the cafe in the park, intruding into my consciousness was what at first seemed to be what might be termed “bad parenting”. You know the sort of thing. Barked orders: “Get here now!! If you don’t behave this instant we’re going home!” Looking up, I saw the group of people with Down’s syndrome and similar, all in their 40s and 50s, being supervised by a boy and girl of about twenty years old. I observed them for about twenty minutes.

Never did they display any kindness or compassion. One of their charges must have misbehaved and was getting a lecture about how he had “violated” his “contract”. When he protested, not particularly loudly, he was told not to raise his voice. The whole group was repeatedly threatened with being sent home, in much the same way that bad parents make empty threats, but this clearly upset the rest of the group. One of the women got up and started walking away, and she was shouted at and told to “get here” and “sit down”. When she did sit down on the bench she was repeatedly told to “turn round and face the table” under threat of not getting any ice cream.

The chastisement never seemed to stop. Instead of a kindly, “don’t eat food off the table, dear, it’s dirty” I heard barked retributions of, “that’s disgusting; do you know what’s on this table? Do you? Pigeons poo on this table; do you know what people have been here before you? Do you know what they have done? Do you? Well do you? No? So don’t eat off the table then!”

There were endless ultimatums. “You can do as you’re told or you can go home, it’s your choice.” Every aspect of behaviour was controlled. “Sit there. Stop rubbing your arm. Sit still. Turn around.”

At first I had thought they were volunteers, but then I heard the boy saying, “I’m on shift tomorrow, and I’m going to make sure you can’t join the rest of the group. Why? Because of your behaviour, that’s why. You’ve taken other people’s stuff, and been moaning and groaning.”

At which point I was on the verge of pointing out that I would be moaning and groaning if I’d had to put up with the endless, pointless chastisement and, frankly, bullying all day long. But being out with a pregnant wife changes your priorities somewhat; today was not a day for getting into an altercation with someone I seriously doubted would be open to a reasoned debate on approaches to caring for the mentally handicapped.

I get the distinct impression that the “carers” got a thrill from the power they had over these poor unfortunates. They enjoyed making the threats, being mean, asking what the supposedly delinquent man was going to do tomorrow and then telling him he wouldn’t be able to because he’d been naughty. He probably didn’t understand; they were being mean to punish him. Finally they sent him away. “Go on then, you can go off on your own if you want.”

I feel somewhat weak for not — as the group departed and the “carers” were taunting the old man with jibes of “who are you?”;”you’re not with us any more”;”why are you following us?” — getting up and giving someone a punch.

I have no idea what organisation they were working or volunteering for. As they were so bad at their jobs I can only surmise that this is the kind of state “care” that children are so often subjected to. Presumably it is such an undesirable job that it’s very hard to find people willing to do it well. So it’s predictable, but disturbing nonetheless to see, and here I am writing about it, but not doing anything about it, from my comfortable middle class life.

But there are those who *say* they care about disadvantaged people and that the state is the solution and then condemn these people to such miserable institutions and such indifferent “care”. I strongly suspect that the state muscles out private charity and those who genuinely care — after all, they might not have the right qualifications.

The closest I’ve got to traditional publishing is getting my articles in the company internal newsletter. This happened today.

Being edited is a weird experience. I’m reading my own words, but occasionally I see something I would never write. I haven’t been done any kind of disservice, this time round at least. But for some reason the newsletter is laid out like a paper newsletter even though it’s only distributed as a PDF. Which means space constraints. There may even be some kind of editorial style imposed. Anyway, I am reading my supposed own words, and occasionally exclaim something like, “I’ve *never* used the word ‘tremendous’!”. It’s not necessarily a bad word, it’s just not one I ever say or write. So seeing it under my byline is…weird.

There are word count limits that I know about in advance, so I find myself unable to elaborate, or having elaborated, have to cut out whole swathes of my arguments to get the word count down. And then there is editorial feedback. “Could you remove the bit about eliminating project managers?” Well, I suppose I could tone it down a bit, but I want to be a bit controversial, otherwise what’s the point of saying anything?

Here’s something I could immediately tell I hadn’t written, without being able to put my finger on why:

Raymond argues that the role of project managers as resource allocators becomes obsolete in the bazaar because personal motivation becomes the key instigator in ensuring that the best possible code is produced.

I think “key instigator” is a phrase I would never use. “Best possible code” doesn’t sound like me either. Here’s what I actually wrote:

Raymond argues that project managers are not needed in the bazaar because motivation comes for free and marshalling of resources happens automatically in its free market in reputation.

To be honest, I think the edited version is probably better. I think I am sometimes so concerned about not talking down to my audience that I don’t explain myself properly, and end up using turns of phrase that leave them going, “huh?” But it is also a failure because the “free market” aspect of allowing developers to choose which problems to work on has been lost in the translation. I really need another couple of hundred words to explain it.

So it’s a huge difference from blogging, where I can say what I want, how I want to say it. Presumably real writers for real publications have the same sorts of experience.

Does the editing make the article better? Perhaps it does. Perhaps it makes for a more readable, bite-sized, less rambly article. Perhaps it is good that I was prevented from writing, “we should throw away project management” and alienating all the project managers I work with…

Perhaps all this is also true of the differences between radio, with its producers and scripts, and podcasting.

That’s what a colleague asked me today, starting an interesting conversation. I jotted notes thinking it would be a good blog post. But I think I will save time and just post the notes:

Have computers made things cheaper in the last 40 years? How I would put it: have computers made us richer?

What about cars? Yes. CAD/CAM. Are cars cheaper? Yes – no-one had two cars 40 years ago. Your car now is as well specified as a 40-year-old Rolls Royce (if not better (safer (simulation)/more efficient(engine design and management)/more features – air conditioning/sat nav)). Not as pretigious but better.

What about food? Yes. Logistics, globalisation, better agriculture (research done using computers?, better/cheaper farming tools). No-one ate food from as many exotic countries 40 years ago. Food was probably a higher proportion of household budget. People eat out more now. Green revolution: people in poor countries starve less than they would have done otherwise.

What about homes? Everyone has double glazing and central heating now. Less money spent elsewhere makes this possible. Systems are cheaper. Chinese manufacturing made possible by logistics. Materials used in windows- materials research uses computers.

Do people earn more? Wrong question. Impossible to measure. What is the right measure of inflation? Basket of goods is useless when discussion goods that haven’t been invented. Right question is: what do people have now that they didn’t have then?

Increase in technology in general makes us richer. Computers are used for research and developing new technology, and running businesses more efficiently to help pay for research and development. Cheap goods from China rely on cheap Chinese labour = abundant Chinese labour. But this relies on moving stuff around more cheaply. Logistics = containerization; computer programs to load ships; computers to monitor ships’ engines to make them more efficient; computers to design ships; computers to manage inventory and reduce waste; just in time manufacture and delivery. CAD/CAM = new products to market faster and cheaper.

Computers free up time which gets used to do other things, like innovate or relax. BUT – computers make bureacrats more effective. Hmm.

Lifestyle is different now: if born 30 years before you were, would you have cozy office job? Less robots = more (physical) factory jobs. Fewer JCBs = more labouring outside? Working inside instead of out in the weather means longer, healthier life?

You will find computers involved in most things that make you feel rich. And computers are used to improve computers and other technology so the process accelerates. Computers for communication makes doing business in general cheaper (more efficient). Related thought: that measure of progress beloved by the left, inequality, has also decreased over last 40 years. See: central heating, double glazing, two cars with sat-nav and air conditioning, foreign holidays: everyone has these things. All having more money buys you is fancier homes, cars and holidays. A Rolls-Royce and a large house in Westminster and a holiday in a 5 star resort in the Maldives is more expensive than but functionally equivalent to a Ford Mondeo and a flat in Essex and a holiday in a budget resort in Spain. Technology is an equaliser.

Computers in particular and technology in general have played a part in making all those things cheaper.

I listen to Radio One in the morning. Chris Moyles and a bunch of other celebrities walked up Kilamanjaro to raise money for charity. Now Moyles has just got back from a trip to Uganda to give out malaria nets with the money raised.

He said that two things surprised him about Uganda. It’s very green and lush; and everyone has mobile phones.

I think part of the reason everyone thinks Africa is brown and dry is Live Aid. “Where nothing ever grows; no rain or rivers flow.” Never mind forced relocation. Looking around on loc.alize.us, Uganda is a bit greener than Ethiopia.

Uganda:

Ethiopia:

Mobile phones, of course, are a triumph of capitalism. On the radio, Aled correctly pointed out that they have been so successful because they don’t require the massive infrastructure of land lines, so that stage was skipped.

A listener asked a good question: if people can afford mobile phones, why can’t they afford malaria nets? Part of the problem is probably education: the charity workers are also having to teach people why and how to use the nets, so perhaps there is currently little demand for them. But if businesses don’t spring up to meet such a demand I’d want to know why.

Another question: would using more insecticides in agriculture reduce malaria?

Update: Michael Jennings commented on this post with a long article about mobile phones in Africa. As for why they might be more common than mosquito nets:

I would suggest that it is because mobile phones are cheaper. Such are the benefits of mass production and massive economies of scale. Also, second hand phones from the rich world end up in the poor countries in huge numbers – no such markets exist in mosquito nets. Also, I suspect that more people actually do have mosquito nets than Chris Moyles thinks – it’s just that nets provided by informal networks do not show up in his sort of statistics.

My suggestion about education originated in Moyles’ comment that many of those receiving the free nets didn’t know what they were for; and that the charity workers were planning to visit everyone and make sure they were using them correctly. I suspect people would figure it out (and are) without charity workers, one way or another.