news of the week

The other day I finished reading The Black Swan. After two aborted attempts when I had to return the book to the library despite extending its stay on my shelf by a generous three weeks each time, the third try went altogether better. I'm not going to talk about charms again. Nevertheless, I find it reassuring that book practically read itself all of a sudden.

It was a bit of a ramble and conclusions are hard to draw, but the ride through it was highly enjoyable. The bottom line was, Don't be the sucker. The context? The world is full of unlikely events whose potential magnitude must not be underestimated. Don't build the castle of your life on the sands of unlikely events with potentially devastating consequences.

I'm not sure yet what to do with the book's central message. Do I view risks and opportunities through a lens warped by classical probability that has not much to do with most of reality? Will I change my behavior? Only if I see the light. Only if there is a light. I'm not sure of that.

So instead of grasping the big picture, I held on tightly to a few small ones. What struck me most and has already had a profound impact on me, was the observation that listening to or reading the news more than once a day (or possibly once a week) is a massive waste of time.

News is made and reported all the time, 24/7, and on the internet even al gusto. Yet most of what I read and hear when I follow the news will be superseded in quick succession by newer news, and most of my time was invested for nothing. I've always known this and always silently deplored that I follow the news too closely, checking the Economist or Der Spiegel hourly for updates. The Black Swan has somehow brought me to my senses and given me the strength to withdraw. Now I wake up to the Today Show on BBC4 and know all the news for the day. The time I've gained can be invested in the reading of more edifying materials or in the writing of such.

The curious thing is, even when news is not constant company, there's still a lot of it around, and a lot that causes me to shake my head. Enough, in fact, to fill another rant of the week. I had started using tags in this blog with the main purpose of keeping track of my rants, but this category of posts has languished since its inception. Here's another.

The UK is at war. Soldiers are fighting in Afghanistan and some might even still be in Iraq. Every week, casualties are reported, always in the hourly news on Radio 4. And every time the little newsbit that describes how the brave warrior lost his or her life ends, listeners are notified that "the victim's family have been informed". How is this news if that's how it always is? Presumably a casualty wouldn't be put on the news if they family hadn't been informed, so why bother telling?

Staying with the war effort, the big news today was the accusation of a British company of selling non-functioning bomb detectors to the Iraqi government. Over the years and to the tune of 50 million pounds. It wasn't that the devices malfunctioned – they simply had no function. The managing director of the company, Jim McCormick, who was arrested today on the suspicion of fraud, once told the BBC that "the theory behind dowsing and the theory behind how we actually detect explosives is very similar". To make this clear: Dowsing is the looking for underground water with a branched twig. The divining rod that was sold to Iraq consisted of flimsy pieces of plastic for substance and a rotating antenna for effect. There were no programmable electronics, no sensors, no batteries. Who made this purchase? Who arranged the contract? Who is responsible?

In another story of skirted responsibility, two brothers were sentenced in Sheffield today for attacking and torturing two other kids. Both victims suffered the gravest of injuries; one was left close to death. The perpetrators were ten and twelve. They were also living in foster care. The local authority that placed them in care has apologized for neglect. It's been all over the news. What wasn't reported was the reaction of the parents. Shouldn't they carry at least part of the responsibility? And yet, their existence, or that of the foster parents, wasn't mentioned once.

In other news, the UK terror threat has been raised to severe, but there is "no intelligence to suggest an attack is imminent". Two weeks ago, my reaction would have been a simple, So what? Now, after reading The Black Swan and thinking a bit about risk I'm more tempted to point out that the UK motor traffic threat remains critical (the highest level in the Home Office's system). Crossing the street might kill me. Driving to pick up furniture for my bedroom might. Ditto riding my bike to work. Two and a half thousand people are killed in car accidents every year in the UK, and I'd rather keep my eyes open for a stray car than for an unpredictable suicide bomber. If that's in keeping with the spirit of The Black Swan, I don't know.