Tuesday, February 04, 2020



Britain needs to rediscover failure if it wants to prosper

Britain needs to rediscover trial and error, serendipity, speed, and innovation

Viscount Ridley

What was Brexit for? After finally taking Britain out of the European Union, the Prime Minister can now start to give us his answer — and the opportunity in front of him is pretty clear. He could speed up, perhaps double, the rate of economic growth by unleashing innovation. After leaving the slow steaming European convoy, Britain must not chug along but go full speed ahead. That means rediscovering trial and error, serendipity and swiftness — the mechanisms by which the market finds out what the consumer wants next.

The stifling of innovation by vested interests in the corridors of Brussels has held Britain back for too long — but it is not the only reason for our sluggish innovation capacity. We can also blame creaky infrastructure, neglect of the north, a glacial-speed planning system, the temptations of a speculative property market, low research and development spending, and a chronic inability to turn good ideas into big businesses.

But compared with the continent, at least, we have an enviable ecosystem of innovation in some sectors. London is one of the best places to start a company in fintech, artificial intelligence or genomics. In the past five years, helped by enterprise investment schemes, Britain has spawned twice as many billion-dollar tech companies as the next best European country (Germany), and last year attracted a third of all European tech investments.

But that’s mostly digital. As the tech investor Peter Thiel is fond of saying, most innovation is now about bytes, not atoms, because we’ve made it so hard to develop new drugs and new machines. Far from living in age of rampant change, innovation has slowed in the West. It is half a century since jet aeroplanes got faster. Drug development has ground almost to a halt. The turnover of firms in the stock market is falling.

The problem lies in translating ideas into practical products people actually want to buy. Britain’s been bad at this for decades, and most policy-makers underestimate the difficulty — and the value — of turning an idea into a product. Thomas Edison, who worked through 6,000 different plant materials before settling on Japanese bamboo as the best material for light-bulb filaments, famously said that innovation is 1 per cent inspiration and 99 per cent perspiration.

The answer does not lie in spin-outs from universities. As long ago as 1958 the economist John Jewkes in an influential book warned governments against investing in pure science as the main way of stimulating economic growth. Science is just as often the fruit of technology as it is the seed (though fruits contain seeds). Boosting science spending is a good thing, but it won’t turn Britain into Silicon Valley on its own.

Richard Jones of Sheffield University recently caught the attention of Dominic Cummings with an essay about the need for better innovation policies, especially ones that work up north. Many of his suggestions are valuable, but his focus is on how to use the government to boost innovation, and that way lies danger. Except when setting standards, government has a habit of picking technologies it thinks we should want, rather than the ones we actually do want. As Oxford’s Professor Dieter Helm has put it with respect to energy policy, governments love picking winners, but losers are good at picking governments.

Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver met a chap in the Grand Academy of Lagado who had ‘been eight years upon a project for extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers… He told me, he did not doubt, that, in eight years more, he should be able to supply the governor’s gardens with sunshine, at a reasonable rate: but he complained that his stock was low, and entreated me “to give him something as an encouragement to ingenuity”.’

History shows that the way innovators make ideas into practical and affordable products or processes is trial and error. Edison understood that, as does Jeff Bezos, who made plenty of mistakes on his way to huge success. Says Bezos: ‘Our success at Amazon is a function of how many experiments we do per year, per month, per week.’ Among Silicon Valley’s best features is a forgiveness of going bust at least once. Capital there is patient and takes risks.

Paradoxically, one thing Britain needs is more failure, or rather the courage to take risks. In a high-cost economy it’s rational to be timid; in a low-cost economy, you can afford to fail in order to learn. We are currently a high-cost economy, which makes people risk-averse. Government has to make risk-taking less economically dangerous, and that means a liberal fiscal policy and speeding up the decisions of regulators: Brussels took more than two years to decide even whether to regulate genome editing in plants, while America and China forged ahead. Cutting costs and delays will be popular with households as well as innovators, so it really shouldn’t be too difficult.

Vast vested interests are ranged against innovation, especially in Brussels, where big business and big pressure groups swarm all over the Commission and parliament. For example, the green movement raised a lot of money by opposing agricultural biotechnology and fracking; big pharma tried hard to kill vaping to protect its nicotine patches and gums through an EU directive. The extreme version of the precautionary principle in the Lisbon Treaty is killing innovation: instead of ‘better safe than sorry’, it scores any future hazard, however small, but ignores any future benefit, however large. The principle demands that if a product is not known to be safe then it must be deemed dangerous, even if it is far safer than the existing technology it replaces. Thus the EU threatens to ban glyphosate herbicide on precautionary grounds even though the EU’s own food safety authority says it is less likely to be carcinogenic than coffee. And coffee is actually drunk, which herbicide is not — but the EU has formally switched to measuring ‘hazard’ not ‘risk’, which is hazard taking into account actual exposure. Reform need not be a race to the bottom, because existing technologies entrench existing hazards.

We should not abandon the precautionary principle altogether, because it is right to consider unknown risks, but we should abandon the EU’s extreme version and balance it with an innovation principle that requires government to take into account the impact of rules on stifling beneficial innovation. Innovation has always faced opposition: coffee was fiercely opposed by the alcohol industry and umbrellas by the hansom cab industry, but in the old days governments were more inclined to side with the consumer and against the Luddites.

If the British innovation engine starts purring again, we could rediscover the joys of rapid economic growth, with more money for schools, hospitals and improving the environment. Having a global financial centre, a great scientific reputation, the common law, the English language and an open trading system, Britain is as well placed as anywhere on earth to attract innovators. Give it a go, Boris.

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Minnesota Catholic Priest Apologizes for Saying Islam Is the 'Greatest Threat in the World'

The world is so crazy these days that if you enunciate unpopular truths, people who are supposed to be moral authorities will pressure you to retract and apologize. A Roman Catholic priest in Ilhan Omar’s Minnesota, the Rev. Nick VanDenBroeke, has been compelled by Catholic authorities to apologize “for saying in a sermon that Islam was ‘the greatest threat in the world’ to the United States and Christianity.” This is rather like making a man apologize for saying that water is wet, but that’s where we are these days.

The whole episode, which unfolded this week, encapsulates a great deal of what is wrong with the contemporary Catholic Church and the imperative of “interfaith dialogue,” and illustrates the apparently impenetrable confusion people have today between criticizing ideas and discriminating against human beings. The implications are also much larger than just Rev. Nick VanDenBroeke and the Catholic diocese of St. Paul, Minnesota. This incident illustrates a deep sickness in American society: when telling the truth earns you rebukes and condemnations, we’re all in trouble.

VanDenBroeke landed in hot water “for saying in a sermon that Islam was ‘the greatest threat in the world’ to the United States and Christianity.” Let’s see. There have been over 36,000 jihad attacks around the world since 9/11, each committed in the name of Islam and in accord with its teachings. Jihad groups routinely call for jihad massacres in the United States and of Americans.

As for Christianity, in 2019, Christians faced “extreme, very high or high levels of persecution” in 73 countries, affecting 245 million Christians. In the Middle East, the Christian share of the population has shrunk to about 5 percent (if that), down from more than 20 percent at the turn of the last century. The decline attests to a century of ruthless persecution — bookended by the Greek, Armenian, and Assyrian genocides committed by Turkey a century ago and the recent one attempted by ISIS. The ten worst countries in the world today for Christians, with the worst ranked first, are North Korea, Afghanistan, Somalia, Sudan, Pakistan, Eritrea, Libya, Iraq, Yemen, and Iran — eight Muslim countries, one with nearly fifty percent Muslim population, and North Korea.

So is Islam a threat to the United States and Christianity? That is obvious. But when VanDenBroeke noted this, those earnest patriots at the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) complained, and no one involved seems to have pointed out that CAIR has ties to Hamas, and has opposed virtually every counterterror initiative that has ever been proposed or implemented.

Instead, Roman Catholic leaders immediately forced VanDenBroeke to apologize. Note carefully the statement of Archbishop Bernard Hebda: he “quoted Pope Benedict XVI as saying that the church looks with esteem to Muslims, who worship God through prayer, fasting and the giving of alms,” and said: “If all of us who believe in God desire to promote reconciliation, justice and peace, we must work together to banish every form of discrimination, intolerance and religious fundamentalism,” Hebda said. “He added that Pope Francis also has stressed the importance of dialogue between Catholics and Muslims and has urged all Christians and Muslims to be ‘true promoters of mutual respect and friendship, in particular through education.’”

All right. But none of what Hebda said actually speaks to the point VanDenBroeke was making. To note that Islam is a threat does not mean that one does not esteem Muslims as human beings. This point is constantly confused nowadays, often by people who want to discredit those who raise awareness of the jihad threat by claiming that they hate Muslims as people. In reality, however, to criticize an ideology is not to hate anyone. To note that Nazism was a threat did not mean that one hated Germans, or did not esteem them as human beings.

Nor did VanDenBroeke promote any form of “discrimination, intolerance and religious fundamentalism.” He simply noted a threat, which is a real threat. He said: “I believe it is essential to consider the religion and worldview of the immigrants or refugees.” Well, isn’t it? Wouldn’t it be reckless not to do so?

One thing is certain: VanDenBroeke is right, at least regarding today’s Catholic Church, when he said: “I realize that my comments were not fully reflective of the Catholic Church’s teaching on Islam.” All too many in the Catholic hierarchy behave as if it really is a dogma of the Church that Islam is not and cannot be a threat. They are, of course, ignorant of their Church’s own history, as The History of Jihad demonstrates in detail.

“Leave them; they are blind guides. And if a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit.” (Matthew 15:14).

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Actual vs. Counterfeit Intolerance
  
One of the most revealing things about the leftist mindset is the usual leftist’s lack of self-awareness about his own intolerance, hatefulness and inclusiveness — unless you distort all those terms to whitewash the reality.

I will never forget reading (and writing about) the unfortunate experience of Professor Janice Price, an education instructor at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana. The school suspended Price and cut her salary for subjecting her students to a “hostile environment.” Her sin was placing issues of Teachers in Focus magazine on the table in the back of her classroom that contained articles written from a Christian viewpoint. One of the articles offered suggestions on how teachers should approach the issue of homosexuality in public schools.

Price told the students they could read the magazines if they wanted to but were not required to and would not be given assignments on them. The article on homosexuality offended one student, who filed a complaint with the administration. The vice president of academic affairs sent Price a letter of reprimand, saying her “reprehensible” action of providing students with “intolerant” material “served to create a hostile environment” in violation of school policy. This administrator said that the university “cannot tolerate the intolerable.” Savor that!

Price’s fellow professor and friend Dr. Mary English aptly described the university’s attitude. “We have to be tolerant and politically correct in all other areas except Christianity,” said English. “So it’s okay to be intolerant of Christians as long as Christians are tolerant of everybody else.” Interestingly, DePauw was — and still is — affiliated with the United Methodist Church. And, no, I’m not kidding.

In the nearly 20 years since this unfortunate incident, the double standard and intolerance against Christians has only intensified. Leftists have grown increasingly intolerant of an expanding universe of things they find intolerable. They are just as lacking in self-awareness as they were then, and even less capable of self-reflection. Their intolerance has, in many cases, turned to hostility and, in some cases, hate.

Now turn with me, if you will, to present-day America, where Sen. Elizabeth Warren seeks the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination. Warren tweeted a link to a HuffPost article about a U.S. Supreme Court case involving a challenge to a Montana law that provides tax credits for donations to school scholarship organizations that use those donations to fund private schools, both religious and secular. A provision of Montana’s constitution (the Blaine Amendment) prohibits the expenditure of public funds for religious purposes, and the Montana Supreme Court struck down the tax credit program, even though the use of these funds isn’t technically an expenditure of public funds and even though secular schools benefit along with religious schools.

The U.S. Supreme Court will consider whether the Montana Supreme Court infringed on the people’s free exercise of religion under the First Amendment by invalidating the program. The court is being asked to follow its precedent that states can’t discriminate against religious organizations by allowing secular organizations to benefit and not religious ones.

Warren, of course, stands with the Montana Supreme Court. She is against school choice programs and doesn’t want any private schools to benefit. But she’s especially against Christian schools benefitting, because in her view, they teach hate.

“States should focus on funding public schools, not private ones — especially not ones that maintain anti-LGBTQ+ policies,” Warren tweeted. “We must ensure every kid — especially LGBTQ+ kids — can get a high-quality education.”

How does allowing people tax credits for donations to private Christian and secular schools jeopardize LGBTQ+ kids’ education? Warren knows that’s nonsense. Her complaint is that some of the Christian schools that will benefit from the donations use a Christian-based curriculum. She’s upset that their student handbooks teach that God created each person as male or female, and that He created marriage to be between one man and one woman. She’s distressed that some of the schools require students and visitors to use restrooms and locker rooms that conform to their biological sex.

To have a snowball’s chance at the Democratic presidential nomination today, you have to push all the politically correct buttons and pander to the party’s leftist base. Sometimes this means you at least have to pretend that you believe certain scriptural passages constitute hate speech. It means you shouldn’t tolerate the opinions of those who follow these biblical teachings.

Sadly, there is a growing hostility from the left toward certain biblical teachings and those who subscribe to them — an insistence on demonizing them for their beliefs. Pretending this isn’t true won’t make it go away. Calling your attention to it should not be controversial. Pointing out intolerance and hate is not exhibiting intolerance and hate. Rolling over and surrendering one’s principles to conform to society’s ever-changing norms is not courageous. Pray for wisdom, understanding, peace and harmony.

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Joe Hildebrand on Australia’s strengths

A week ago I was in Mexico City, a vast sprawling metropolis of crumbling concrete and silver skyscrapers that is home to some 22 million souls – almost the entire population of the Australian continent.

A few of these souls are sickeningly rich; the vast majority are sickeningly poor.

It is a place of staggering beauty and dynamism and staggering atrophy and decay. Culture, wealth, paucity and poverty sit cheek to jowl, separated only by invisible class barriers and ten-foot walls.

I was there to see an old friend, and accompany him and his two sons back home to Australia. For the few days I was there, as he packed up his life and said goodbye to his brotherhood, we were bombarded with wellwishers.

And they weren’t just wishing him well, but the whole of Australia. News of the ferocious flames that had consumed so much of our bushland had spread there like, well, wildfire. His many Mexican friends offered our country their deepest condolences.

And, frankly, it made him sick.

It was not that he was ungrateful to them or unworried by his fire-ravaged home. It was simply that he could not accept sympathy from people who lived in a poverty almost no Australian could imagine. For all the grief and loss and sorrow that the fires have caused, he knew that our country, our lives, were so much more fortunate than theirs.

I was contemplating this the morning after we arrived home. It happened to be Australia Day and, like most Australia Days, I had barely even noticed.

I am not exactly the flag-waving kind, nor do I need any encouragement from a calendar to get drunk and laugh with friends. But I am accidentally reminded on January 26, like most other days of the year, just how lucky we are to live in this country.

It certainly doesn’t mean that we are free from problems, nor that everyone in this country shares that luck.

But even among all the tragedy, violence and mistakes both well-meaning and malevolent, Australia remains, by almost any measure, the luckiest nation on earth.

This is not because of race or the patterns on a flag. There is no pride in being born in a certain place any more than there is being born in a certain skin. It is because of a series of stands taken by lawmakers and community leaders that have crosshatched into the most stable, generous and prosperous foundations of any liberal democracy.

The delicate balance of our political institutions protects us from the volatility of the UK’s first-past-the-post approach and the US’s incongruous electoral college vote. Our preferential voting system means we don’t always get the best government but we do get the least worst.

Within that framework we have woven into the national fabric social bulwarks like free education, free healthcare and a welfare safety net – many not entirely free but more free than most.

And we have strong workplace laws and a minimum wage, a justice system almost entirely untainted by corruption. And a political culture where elections are free and fair and come with a sausage at the end.

Plus we have an economy that even in its moments of weakness, has withstood the global turbulence of the last quarter century, forces which have plunged other nations into levels of recession and unemployment that our young Australians would scarcely recognise.

Again, none of these things is perfect – just as nothing in the world is perfect – but it is almost impossible to live in or even consider any other nation and not conclude that Australia is a remarkable triumph of good luck and good will.

Of course we must eternally strive to make it better. We must close the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, we must work to stop wages flatlining and give people the dignity and security of having their own home, and we must do everything at all times to get people out of poverty – paradoxically both by jobs growth and a liveable dole.

But you have to wonder when you see some of the more hysterical laments of the commentariat if there is any real sense of just how lucky we are. Indeed, it often seems like the luckier they are the more they lament.

Australia, as it stands now, is a land beset by fire and flood and killer flu. You could be forgiven for thinking the end of days really is upon us.

And yet we are also a land beset by decency and kindness and common sense – in our laws, our culture and our nature. We are less perfect than imagined nirvanas but as good as any real nation on earth.

And I still believe that these strengths will overcome all disasters – be they natural or human – because our whole nation is built on the scandalous assumption that we are natural and human ourselves.

SOURCE  

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here

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