Sounds crazy series summary #1

Well in a blink we have reached double figures in the Alloporus ‘Sounds Crazy’ series and, as the headlines suggest, we have covered wild craziness territory.

There is plenty of lunacy out there, especially in the unfathomable worlds of policy, planning and bureaucracy.

The series could run for many more episodes without the need to hire expensive Hollywood writers. This in itself is odd. It’s crazy that we are so crazy.

It got me thinking about why.

I get the human need to be busy and that this overrides any logic of what we are busy at. Add the need to be seen to be busy and we can explain away many a craziness. In the extreme we have the lap dog ‘being seen’ in a $300 Louis Vuitton collar as Monsieur Vuitton laughs all the way to the bank.

I also understand the fear that drives illogical policies that ensure there will be enough people to buy white goods [baby bonus, policy choice] and puts business opportunity above all else [Waiting for the road to dry out, Where to build a house]. The economic growth spiral is as consuming as a black hole and we will struggle to break free of its gravitational pull so long as we keep reproducing at 9,000 an hour.

Reluctantly I understand the fear that drives obsession with human safety [Hidden hazards in the back yard]. Survival is a base instinct after all.

I even accept ostrich behavior [Wild planet] because sometimes we need denial as a handy way to make things go away. We are far more courageous when we pretend there are no sharks in the water.

Then there is the inertia that emerges when we create institutions and the pedantry that they generate [Count your beans].

Only now my tolerance is stretched.

I get the logic of becoming stuck just because there are more than a handful of people involved. This makes sense for force of personality can only hold so much sway. It takes a big ego or considerable oratory skill to sway the crowd. But this constraint of and by the many should not be an excuse. Some of the craziness of institutions is the craziest of all.

It seems that craziness is in part inevitable [because we all have fear and cannot do without institutions] and in part our choice. We seem to want to be ‘a bit nuts’ — and not just for some light relief — for some part of us may want it.

The latest Alloporus website adventure is Ask Alloporus where environmental issues are explained [including some of the crazy ones]. Most pages on the site conclude with some ‘pragmatology’, our attempt to both invent a new word and provide some pragmatic understanding of the environmental issue.

Yet even this sounds crazy. Why should we expect that some pragmatism can help the craziness go away?

Here are the links to the Sounds Crazy series to date…