The end of loneliness

There's a video doing the rounds by Shimi Cohen, called the "Innovation of Loneliness". The thesis is that modern, internet-based social networking results in more loneliness. Impersonal communication displaces the intimacy of conversation. This, combined with the ability to tailor those communications to promote our self-image, results in us claiming "to have many friends while actually being lonely", while technology's promise of constant interconnectedness, causes us to constantly share our experiences in a desperate bid to not feel alone.

Not all of the claims stack up. For a start, sharing is not the only function of a social networking platform, the main one being, of course, to network. Connections are powerful resources that can fulfil a wide variety of ends - not just the selfish-sounding pursuits of "career, wealth, self-image, and consumerism" that Cohen emphasises, but also the intimate pursuits of friendship and romance. You might upload a selfie to Facebook or post on Twitter about your brand new shoes, but you might also use either of those social networks to arrange a drink with friends or, if you're lucky, even a date. Even then, some modern platforms like Skype facilitate the intimate conversations that Cohen fears we are losing. Rather than eroding social and familial connections, modern communication technology allows us to keep in touch with friends and loved ones when they are half-across the globe: there is now simply no excuse to never write home.

The truth is, we're usually well aware of which are our close or intimate friendships, and which are our wider connections. The benefit of having those connections though, is that they have the potential to turn into closer relationships, on a scale that is just totally unprecedented in human history.

Many of Cohen's claims are perhaps simply facts of human nature, rather than the fault of advancing communication technology. Was the age of letter-writing that preceded email much better when it came to wasting our time and energy "pursuing the optimal order of words in our next message"? Given the lengthy delay between replies and the added time and cost of writing and posting, letters were undoubtedly more stressful and time-consuming.

The internet for many people has freed them from the millennia-old tyranny of village gossip. It allows us to forge connections that then more intimate relationships with people who we actually like and agree with, wherever they may be, almost totally freeing us from geographical constraints. It even allows us to choose to whom we cater our self-image. Some of us may well spend hours agonising over our profiles, but it's a small price to pay to also spend far less time agonising about how Bert from next door, who never liked you, could seize upon any quirks and differences from the rest of the village, and make you a social pariah. You can now choose your own 'village' without actually having to move house, and it's no accident that social liberal attitudes are most prevalent among the most interconnected generation the world has ever seen.

Humans have always been lonely at times. The internet can make that fact more obvious, as we gain a remarkably open window into the everyday experiences of more and more people around us - but it is also the technological advance that has done more than anything else in human history to put an end to loneliness.

The BBC and the licence fee will be tackled when hell freezes over

In the light of the recent pay-off scandals at the BBC, one would expect there to be demands for the abolition of the licence fee and the excessive protection the BBC enjoys.  There have been some mutterings, but nothing serious.  Nor is it likely to.  Why is this?

Public Choice Theory, which explains human actions in terms of weighing the costs and benefits by each individual, offers a powerful explanation as to why the BBC continues to enjoy such widespread support.  It is important to keep in mind that the more an individual has to gain from a particular action, the harder he/she will fight for it.

The politician
Fighting the licence fee and the BBC:
                Cost: Very high. Death by BBC silence. Politicians live and breathe by media attention.
                Benefit: Low. A large part of the population believes in the BBC.
Standing up for the BBC:
                Cost: nil.  Will have political outlets to make his views known. The licence payer pays.
                Benefit: Very high. Becoming the Darling of the BBC. Re-elected.

The BBC employee
Fighting the licence fee and the BBC:
                Cost: Very high. Ostracised/unemployed/no leaving sweetener.
                Benefit: Nil. Unlikely to succeed – portrayed as disgruntled ex-employee.
Standing up for the BBC:
                Cost: Nil
                Benefit: Very high. Promotion?  High salary, cushy job, big sweetener when leaving.

The licence payer
Fighting the licence fee and the BBC:
                Cost: very high if one wants to make any impact at all, as virtually everybody has a reason to like the BBC (favourite nature programme, that soap, etc.).
                Benefit: £145.50 if the licence fee were to be abolished.

Standing up for the BBC:
                Cost: Little—join the club.
                Benefit: The BBC continues as before.

Observe that in all three cases the individuals involved have a personal vested interest in the continuation of the licence fee and the BBC as before.  Politicians and BBC employees have the strongest incentives and will therefore campaign extra hard.

So the BBC need not fear: neither the pay-off scandal, nor Jimmy Savile, nor BBC bias are likely to challenge the status quo.  The only chance of change is a Churchillian figure with a bee in his bonnet. Churchill famously abolished the BBC monopoly in favour of commercial TV.  He called the BBC tyrannical for having effectively banned him from the airwaves in the 1930s. John Reith, the BBC’s founding father, said that commercial television would be as disastrous for Britain as “dog racing, smallpox and bubonic plague”.  John Reith’s objection was probably the main reason why Churchill went for it.  One more Churchill might just do the trick tomorrow.

JP Floru is the author of What the Immigrant Saw and How to Create Mass Prosperity. On Saturday he will speak at the Conservative Renewal Conference about the abolition of the licence fee.

Holy Credit!

So Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby wants to make the Church of England’s property available for Credit Unions so they can wipe out those dastardly payday loan sharks. This is a brilliant idea with wide-ranging opportunities for both entrepreneurial clerics and banks.

Just consider the convenience for consumers of banking and praying at the same time. After the queue for communion, you simply shuffle over to the bank teller next to the altar to pick up your loan or maybe deposit whatever spare change you have after passing the collection box.

Meanwhile, over in the confessional, the priest can follow up an absolution prayer with a financial product pitch – “Have you considered insurance for seven years of drought?”

Recruitment of young folk into the priesthood has become a real problem for the Church but Credit Unions on site offer an added attraction in the area of branch security. Wearing body armour under cassocks, learning a martial art or designing bank vaults disguised as crypts will broaden the profession’s appeal.

Of course, established banks won’t be sitting still against this new competition on the High Street. Many branches surely have space available for any number of religious sects to set up shop.

What depositor with a bag full of cash could resist first lighting a candle in the hopes his deposits won’t attract the attentions of the taxman? Impatient couples could stop off at the on-site wedding chapel before opening a joint bank account.

Imam calling for midday prayers while you’re stuck in the queue behind the old lady counting out thousands of pennies? No problem – step aside to our prayer rug area and we’ll hold your place in the line.

And what customer wouldn’t appreciate an evangelical choir lifting the spirits before meeting  the bank manager about those persistent overdrafts?

Keep those ideas coming, Mr Welby!

Libertarian film screening of Brazil

Tom Stringer has arranged a really fun Saturday morning outing on Saturday August 3rd.  It's a showing of the movie "Brazil" in the Everyman theatre at 96-98 Baker Street.  There's a coffee bar for pre-movie snacks, and a real bar for those who can't wait for their gin and tonic.  Everyone's in for a treat, with most going along to local pubs afterwards for lunch with a pint.

"Brazil is set in a dystopian world in which there is an over-reliance on poorly maintained (and rather whimsical) machines. Brazil's bureaucratic, totalitarian government is reminiscent of the government depicted in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, except that it has a buffoonish, slapstick quality and lacks a Big Brother figure."

Sign up quickly for this on the facebook page.  You won't want to miss the movie and the camaraderie of like-minded  fans.

Globalization drives cultural diversity

Donald Boudreaux recently reposted this 2010 essay on the impact of globalization on culture. Globalization is not about 'just stuff', he says, it's about increasing diversity by allowing different parts of different cultures to mix:

A century ago, there were no internationally franchised restaurants in Paris, France or, for that matter, in Paris, Texas. A century ago, residents of neither Omaha, Nebraska nor Birmingham, England could find sushi restaurants near their homes; today, sushi restaurants are all over the Western world. A century ago, blue jeans were not the international fashion that they are today. A century ago, the typical man's business suit worn by New York lawyers and London bankers was not widely worn in Africa and Asia, as it is today. In many ways, global commerce has indeed made the world more homogeneous.

But look more closely. While the differences between Paris, France and Paris, Texas are fewer than they were in the past, the cultural richness of each of these places today is far greater than it was just a few years ago. For a resident of Paris, Texas, circa 2010, the richness of the cultural smorgasbord available to him or her right at home is vast. A Texan can stay in town and dine on Vietnamese, Italian, or Greek food—or on barbeque. A Texan can listen to German symphonic music or medieval chants or Irish dance music or Edith Piaf—or country and western. A Texan can buy French neckties, English raincoats, and Italian scarves—and cowboy boots. Likewise a Parisian can choose croissants or New-York-style bagels. A mere century ago—even thirty years ago—the cultural diversity of both places was much less than it is today.

It's easy to be annoyed at the 'touristification' of a place like Thailand, but what that really means is more people get to experience somewhere they would only be able to imagine visiting fifty years ago. Perhaps it's no coincidence that this complaint usually comes from the people who can most easily afford foreign holidays and expensive exotic meals in their home cities. I'm tempted to say that they should check their privilege.

Boudreaux's piece is worth reading in full.

Censorship is not the answer to the Woolwich attack

Tyranny does not come as a thief in the night, but openly. The killing, by two radicalised islamic extremists, of a British soldier on a London street has brought the usual calls to suspend the rule of law. A BBC interview with one radical preacher prompted Home Secretary Theresa May to ask what the state broadcaster thought it was doing by broadcasting such a thing, and Baroness Warsi, formerly a prominent Muslim minister, joined the chorus. The newspapers reported that a ban on radical clerics being covered on the airwaves is being actively discussed.

If so, it won't work. Those with long memories will remember how the UK government tried to prevent the broadcast media carrying interviews with radical politicians from Northern Ireland. That came about after a particularly sickening interview with Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams on the back of yet another Irish Republican Army murder. The law was duly passed, but the media simply used actors to dub the words of their interviewees, or put the text on screen and had the newsreader read it out.

Frankly, I don't want to hear extremists justifying murder on UK radio and television. It can be pretty revolting, not to mention deeply upsetting for bereaved relatives. But we have – or had – a rule that people should be free to express their opinions, no matter what the rest of us think about them. We have that rule because we believe that, although it may be abused on occasion, and although it may give air to views that might prove damaging, in the long run it is better to have ideas openly expressed and debated. If ideas are good, they will win that debate. If they are bad, they will not.

There is a limit, though, as the libertarian philosopher John Stuart Mill pointed out over a century ago. We do not allow people to say or do things that could cause real damage to others. We do not allow people to shout 'Fire!' in a crowded theatre, and we do not allow them to incite violence. The line between condoning a murder and inciting violence might be a thin one for the broadcasters to tread. But we owe it to the rule of law to try to maintain that line.

Eurovision song contest costs UK

Do you realise how much we pay for the thrill of watching dancing meatballs?

A couple of years back, Ewan Spence had the same question, and put in a Freedom of Information request to the BBC, Eurovision's sponsoring partner in the UK. They refused to disclose all their production costs for broadcasting the competition on BB1, BB3 and Radio 2. But they revealed that the payment the BBC makes to the European Broadcasting Union was £279,805 in 2009, and £283,190 in 2010.

Since then, journalists have been watching the Eurovision bill grow. Last year, the BBC spent £310,000 – the eqivalent of 2,130 licence fees – on broadcasting Britain's disastrous entry by 76-year-old singer Engelbert Humperdinck (which only four countries gave any points at all—not that we have had many points since the Eastern Europeans turned up and formed a pact to vote for each up).

BBC officials say that their EBU membership also buys it other things, like membership of a news exchange, rights to concert broadcasts and activities around the Olympics. But broadcasting the Song Contest also imposes other costs on the BBC, including travel, hotels and incidentals for its broadcast staff.

Last year, the contest cost €48m to stage in Baku, Azerbaijan. This year's, in Malmö, Sweden, the aim was to do it for much less. Anyone with a television (i.e. virtually everyone) is forced to pay for this embarrassing, political show, whether they watch it (and the BBC) or not. Can that be right?

An end to zombie politics 6: Broadcasting

The government needs revenues and holds too many assets on its books. In future blogs, I will return to its holdings in finance and healthcare. For the time being, let’s look at its involvement in media, specifically broadcasting.

Is it so very wrong to confess that the BBC has been getting on my nerves since the era of the “Boat that Rocked”? Indeed, contrary to Richard Curtis’ fairy-tale, it was no bewhiskered Tory, but the sainted Beeb which connived with the Musician’s Union and that old crook Harold Wilson to suppress the pirate radio stations, replacing them with the anodyne Radio 1.

The rationale for the BBC arose when spectrum was scarce—or more accurately monopolised by the military. But this hasn’t been the case for a generation. The public service obligation is unnecessary now that bandwidth is de facto unlimited – after all, the UK doesn’t have it for the press (despite the impact of Leveson). So why carry on with a poll tax on every household for a frankly undistinguished broadcasting service? Admittedly it keeps the chattering classes quiet-ish but at the price of giving them a platform and exposing the rest of us to decades of second-rate programming. Meanwhile its news values distort national debate, though to be fair the tendency of a profession to look at things from its own perspective means journalists are bound to (and should) be inclined to have at the powers-that-be, which today could engender a left-ish perspective.

Regardless, the BBC can readily be broken up into its constituent parts: entertainment, catalogue and commercial, content generation, news, radio, minorities, regional and so on. My figures show it would raise some £5.4bn, if sold in the market, or (where there is no market value) disposed of to other bodies like charities, universities and other NGOs, as well as local authorities. I estimate that Channel Four is worth another £1.6bn for a total of £7bn. Better than a kick in the teeth, and letting the public off the cost of the TV licence, so liberating the estimated 4,500 civil servants concerned for more gainful employment.

Power to the press

The Newspaper Society, representing a large wodge of UK newspapers, have rejected the Leveson Report plans to regulate them and are publishing their own proposals for self-regulation - backed by a Royal Charter. All power to them.

After the phone hacking scandal, which brought down the News Of The World, the government and the opposition in the UK came to endorse the idea of an official press regulator, set up by Royal Charter, with powers to fine newspapers and demand they print prominent apologies. Trouble was, these discussions deliberately excluded the newspaper industry.

They point out that phone hacking is a crime, and that there are perfectly good laws to deal with it, without having some lumbering press regulator. Indeed, we haven't had press regulation in the UK for three hundred years, and with good reason – once government officials are put in charge of the press, there is very little hope left for free speech, as a number of international media bodies have already pointed out. It might take time, but gradually the press would become agents of the prevailing government. Indeed, it would not even take specific interventions to do so. All the regulator has to do is raise an eyebrow - and a press that could be fined very heavily, or told what to print, would quickly take the hint.

The Newspaper Society's proposals would deny Parliament free rein to change newspaper regulation as it pleased – an important safeguard of free speech. Instead, the regulator and the media would have to agree. They also call for members of the regulation panel to be appointed by retired judges, with various interests (including the press) represented. Former editors could sit on the panel (the government's plan would ban them), which is important in order to have a proper discussion, after all. Media customers would have a say too – and let's face it, this is all about them. And there would be limits on what the regulator could demand newspapers to print by way of apologies. Which is good. One can think of a point in the future where some newspaper exposes government wrongdoing and is then forced to publish a two-page endorsement of everything the government does.

If anything, the Newspaper Society should have been tougher with these proposals. Their proposals would still allow for fines of up to £1m, and strong investigative powers from the regulator. And let's face it, there are already plenty of laws out there to protect people's privacy (where this whole thing began) and who break the law should be punished. But our newspapers have a vital role in exposing the shortcomings of the establishment: they need to be free to do so. We don't need a new regulator to do these things. The trouble with regulation, in any case, is that it usually has the opposite effect of that intended. Competition between different media is probably a surer way to keep them clean.

Allemannsrett in Britain?

Allemannsrett (literally 'All Man's Law') is an ancient custom, most clearly found in Norway, Sweden (Allemansrätten) and Finland (Jokamiehenoikeus), where it has been formally enshrined in law.

Currently, in Britain I am largely restricted in my freedom of movement, despite thousands of miles of footpaths, bridleways and other rights of access,. Furthermore, in England and Wales, I cannot camp in the 'wild' – instead I must pay to use a campsite.

Implementing Allemannsrett in Britain would change this: it allows everyone to use rural, uncultivated land for walking, camping, foraging and other outdoor activities, regardless of who owns it.

An objection might be that this infringes on the right to personal property, but I believe Allemannsrett is in accordance with J.S. Mill's harm principle. The laws of the Nordic countries clearly demand that those taking advantage of the Allemannsrett are respectful to the land they are using: there are rules concerning littering, the lighting of fires and so on. The saying 'take only pictures, leave only footprints' sums it up well. Therefore, those who use Allemannsrett properly are acting within the basic libertarian principle. The rules on foraging, and other more controversial aspects could be adapted as desired.

Another issue is that of privacy: landowners would not want hikers peering in through their windows. The Nordic laws cover this as well: any 'trespassers' must maintain a respectful distance from houses or cabins at all times (at least 150 metres in Norway).

A final objection is the claim that it would be pointless to introduce the Allemannsrett in Britain as it is in Scandinavia, since here we have a much higher population density. But the vast majority of the British population lives in urban areas, and the country has many places of natural beauty and sparse population where greater rights of access could allow much greater appreciation of them.

Allemannsrett in Britain would allow each individual to enjoy the countryside to its full extent. It would out us back in touch with our ancestors, by allowing us to camp 'wild', away from the mod-cons of everyday life. All this could be achieved without infringing on the basic principle of liberty, as clear rules would ensure respect for the land and its owner.