Should there be compulsory voting?

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Libertarians no doubt abhor the idea of anything compulsory, and voting is a prime case. They would probably say that a vote denied is a vote in itself. You shouldn’t force people to take part in elections.

However, the fact is that the US has the lowest voting rates of any democracy, just when we need the highest participation to register dismay at the high-jacking of the legislatures (all of them). Australia, has mandatory voting. In their elections of 2013 the voter turnout for the lower house of parliament was 93.34%, and for the senate 94%. Compare these figures with 36% overall in 2014 for the US mid-term elections, despite control of Congress being up for grabs and the possibility of changes in state governors.

There are all sorts of reasons for this dismal turnout – disillusionment, the perception that whoever you vote for will work for rich people and corporations, the importance of money in the process, the seemingly inevitable general decline in so many aspects of life etc. But the counter-argument is that you get what you deserve, and by not voting, guess what, you get what you deserve – being totally ignored.

Epicurus lived at a similar time of disillusionment and violence, and advised distancing oneself from politics. On this point I strongly disagree with him. If you want axaraxia, a happy life left alone to enjoy a beautiful garden, friends and companionship, then ignoring the corruption and self-seeking around you is not a good idea. Aside from the concept of the citizen’s duty, one also has a duty to try and make sure that our rulers act on behalf of all the people, you and your friends included.

What the Pope said

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“Marriage ……..is a union possessing all the traits of a good friendship: concern for the good of the other, reciprocity, intimacy, warmth, stability and the resemblance born of a shared life”. (Pope Francis)

Beautifully said. But the Pope is still not powerful or influential enough to overturn artificial birth control (supported de facto by most Catholics), the rejection of IVF and gay marriage, and the total Church opposition to all abortion. I think our Epicurean hearts should go out to him, balancing as he is on a seemingly impossible tightrope. Well, that’s what irrational religions seem to make you do.

Join Epicurus! Humanism and moderation live!

Hydrolyzing our trash: a step forward

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Isn’t nature wonderful? In no time at all (70 years) a plastic-eating bacteria has appeared that is capable of breaking down the molecular bonds of polyester. The journal “Science” reports that the bacteria can polish off (it’s technically called hydrolyzing) polyethylene terephalthate in just six weeks, much faster than leaves are degraded by bacteria. In view of the millions of tonnes of garbage littering the world, this sounds like good news. I wonder when bacteria will learn to dismantle old fridges and the other junk we throw away and forget?

Good news: at last the US tackles the opioid painkiller epidemic

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In 2014, the overdose death rate from opioid addiction among white Americans aged 25 to 34 was five times higher than the equivalent figure in 1999.

In New York state all prescriptions for a medicine will now be sent by doctors via the internet directly to a person’s pharmacy of choice. Because doctors will no longer give people handwritten paper prescriptions, this should limit the chances for fraud or theft – for example, by altering the name on a prescription or the amount of opioid prescribed.

It isn’t clear how often such prescription fraud happens, but in 2010 7 million people in the US admitted to illegal use of prescription drugs. This is of particular concern in the case of opioids, which were responsible for almost 19,000 deaths by overdose in 2014. This is a step forward, but once people have had electronic prescriptions filled, they can still pass or sell the drugs on to others who do not have a prescription.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is taking another approach, urging doctors not to prescribe opioids for chronic pain. The organisation released a new set of guidelines for doctors last week, which also recommend that people who receive long-term opioid treatment be weaned off in tapering doses. (New Scientist April 2016)

Just a few years ago I was given opioids for pain after a major operation. They dealt with the pain, and the hallucinations were quite entertaining. But the side effects were dreadful and I got off the drug as fast as possible, in tapering doses. But doing so was difficult and I can see why people get hooked. Now we have a dreadful epidemic of addiction and death throughout the country, the poorer communities being worst affected. This is a scourge created by the very people supposed to guard our health. Fortunately, even politicians of both parties recognise the threat; it is a political as well as a health issue, and at last something is being done.

Business jargon and portentous speech

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“….These days everyone “talks a bit like a management consultant”: it’s symptomatic of the growing “professionalisation” of ordinary life. Thanks to blurring work-life boundaries and the rise of the “self-help” industry, we increasingly view our lives as “projects in which excellence needs to be achieved” – and can be, with “the right toolsets”. Hence the prevalence of management jargon in “unlikely quarters” such as the nursery: the sphere of “parenting” (itself a “verbification” of the sort so loved by business) has produced “baby-led weaning”, “co-sleeping” and “attachment-parenting”. Is management jargon necessarily a bad thing? Some words, such as “stakeholder”, are genuinely useful if the only alternative is a lengthy phrase. Moreover, jargon has uses beyond simple functionality. In a work context, it can “convey the impression of legitimacy, boost confidence and gain the attention of others”, argues André Spicer in his new book, Business Bullshit. Perhaps we hope the same is true of our increasingly professionalised social lives. (Rhymer Rigby, The Times)

The whole thing is bogus, an attempt to show off. The great linguistic skill in life is to use simple English and speak it grammatically, free of the verbal tics that are so irritating to others (in America the latest is to start every answer to a question with “So….”). Young women (in particular) still spatter their speech with “like” in every sentence.

It’s the thing nowadays to do business studies as a first degree. At the end of it students are well versed in business-speak, but really know nothing whatsoever about business. Unfortunately, the language they do learn seeps into the general culture. In the old days there was a crude phrase: “Bullshit baffles brains”. So, it, like, doesn’t baffle mine – I think it is pretentious and shows a lack of imagination and a poor command of the language. Am I being intolerant?