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Wandering down the street a while ago, I was stopped by a young fellow who asked me for a few moments of my time. I'm a generous sort so I agreed and he told me that he was collecting signatures and support for a vitally important cause. I asked him what the cause was and he explained - in short - that he and his organisation were in favour of restricting trade in order to make the third world richer.
I wasn't convinced that this would work (due to plans like this having a nigh-100% failure rate), and said so, and he went off into a long rant about how he was right and Adam Smith was wrong.
I didn't hear much of what he said. Not because I stopped listening, but because my brain had started melting and dribbling out of my ears with the effort of thinking down to his level. I managed to get my ears cleaned out just in time to hear him tell me that if I wasn't part of the solution, then I was part of the problem.
I was about to wag an admonishing finger at him and explain that this was a logical fallacy when something stopped me. The realisation that if "If you're not part of the solution then you are part of the problem" were logically true, then it's reverse - "If you're not part of the problem, then you're part of the solution" - must also be true, and how much easier and more fun this would make life.
It struck me just how many problems there are out there which I'm not part of - so I must be part of the solution to them. For example, nobody in their right mind could claim I'm part of the problem of recent typhoid outbreaks in China and so I must be part of the solution, and all I've done is sit on my arse and watch the Simpsons on YouTube. I hear that the citizens of Szechuan province are to put up a statue to me.
This afternoon I plan on helping solve the ongoing problem of the extinction of the Pterodactyl by spinning round and round in my executive-style chair and eating Wagon Wheels. Which problems will you be solving?
I wasn't convinced that this would work (due to plans like this having a nigh-100% failure rate), and said so, and he went off into a long rant about how he was right and Adam Smith was wrong.
I didn't hear much of what he said. Not because I stopped listening, but because my brain had started melting and dribbling out of my ears with the effort of thinking down to his level. I managed to get my ears cleaned out just in time to hear him tell me that if I wasn't part of the solution, then I was part of the problem.
I was about to wag an admonishing finger at him and explain that this was a logical fallacy when something stopped me. The realisation that if "If you're not part of the solution then you are part of the problem" were logically true, then it's reverse - "If you're not part of the problem, then you're part of the solution" - must also be true, and how much easier and more fun this would make life.
It struck me just how many problems there are out there which I'm not part of - so I must be part of the solution to them. For example, nobody in their right mind could claim I'm part of the problem of recent typhoid outbreaks in China and so I must be part of the solution, and all I've done is sit on my arse and watch the Simpsons on YouTube. I hear that the citizens of Szechuan province are to put up a statue to me.
This afternoon I plan on helping solve the ongoing problem of the extinction of the Pterodactyl by spinning round and round in my executive-style chair and eating Wagon Wheels. Which problems will you be solving?
