Another heatwave in Europe and the UK this week, with the increasingly sad outrage and divide over whether to install air-conditioning or not. A problem that was solved a long time ago worldwide, and yet, due to our combination of puritanical beliefs and energy issues, is a political red line.
Domestically, we have more political shenanigans as Andy Burnham seems set to take power in the UK, with early talks over much greater devolution, but let’s wait and see what emerges.
This week, a new Substack discusses the Treasury and UK defence, Ed Conway on why A/C is so poor in the UK, and Dan Williams offers a thoughtful piece on our political realities.
- Jeegar Kakkad goes into detail about why the Treasury refuses to fund the UK’s defence, and the MoD’s own poor record of development and procurement.
- Right now, we are in a tough spot domestically. We’ve had stagnant growth for over 20 years, very high debt levels, and voters do not see the tangible benefit of higher defence spending vs other forms like welfare.
- However, internationally, we are more vulnerable than ever. As I explored previously, our three core pillars of foreign policy have changed, and hostile actors such as Russia and China are increasingly flexing on the global stage. We’ve also run down our military since the Cold War and in particular since 2008, and this will require a significant rebuild.
- Kakkad has a very interesting take on defence spending in economic terms. The Treasury (and the MoD) will not have the same level of information as any sellers, and so the advantage is with the sellers.
- Akerlof’s paper was never advice to buyers. His point was that lemons markets are not fixed by haggling; they are fixed by institutions. A buyer who responds to quality uncertainty by discounting harder and deferring the deal does not get a better one. Akerlof explained what happens next: wary buyers price down, good projects get stuck, the better sellers leave, and the market collapses. That’s exactly what’s happening in the UK defence market today.
- The way to solve this is through institutions – combining the MoD and Treasury into a team under Number 10, ensuring that sellers have skin in the game (losses and gains), and export the state’s lower cost of capital than private enterprise.
- We are in an extremely fortunate position of being relatively secure, but we are increasingly complacent. We need to get our defence sorted as a matter of urgency.
- Ed Conway looks into the British heating system (and how we chose the wrong one), and more pertinently this week, why our portable a/cs are maddeningly inefficient.
- We have what is called a “wet” system – we heat water with our boilers, whereas most of the rest of the world uses “dry” air systems instead.
- Air-based systems (HVAC as they’re sometimes called) aren’t perfect. The air they puff out can be stuffy and dry, though you can add filters and humidifiers if that bothers you. And you usually need a separate unit to heat your water. Even so, they have one enormously attractive advantage: connect them to a heat pump and they can both heat and cool your home.
- Naturally, this is increasingly useful in our warming world, although annoyingly Conway notes that the government is much less generous with these systems and does not mention air conditioning as a side benefit. At some point, this will change, but it seems a pointless headache for the public.
- Turning to portable aircons, I was staggered to learn this:
- The second problem with portable AC units is that – and I’m not making this up – they arrive without the right pipes. When you buy a portable AC in the UK, it will, almost without exception, come with a big hose at the back, which you need to stick out of a window.
- Historically, yes, we didn’t have that many hot days a year and hence demand for portable a/c was lower. This is not tenable now – I will be very interested to see which manufacturer moves first to two-pipe systems.
- As a depressing side note, check the comments in his piece. So much noise and energy about whether or not a/c is good or not, when the rest of the world has just moved on and adopted it fully.
- Dan Williams takes a look at how political tribes view reality differently, or indeed construct it differently. This goes beyond interpretation and goes towards understanding what the basic facts are behind political news and current events.
- Williams contrasts the Henry Nowak murder and the George Floyd murder in the USA, and in particular, at how on the right, Nowak’s murder was evidence of a two-tier system, whereas for the left, this was considered a single tragedy and not to be politicised.
- This was inverted in the George Floyd case. It was proof on the left of the systemic issues in American institutions and policing, whereas on the right, it was viewed as a one-off event.
- Williams examines this through Walter Lippmann’s book, Public Opinion, from 1922:
- Public Opinion’s central thesis is simple and, on reflection, obvious. In contrast to the relatively small-scale social worlds our species engaged with for most of its history, the modern world is far too big, complex, changing, and inaccessible for any individual to engage with directly or completely. Most events, trends, regularities, and public affairs are remote. They happen in places we have never been, involve people we have never met, are affected by complex systems and institutions we cannot fully understand, and turn on countless facts we cannot personally verify.
- The ‘problem’ now is that to deal with the above, we relied on gatekeepers – newspapers, journalists, politicians, etc., to explain the reality to us, as in most cases it was impossible to get the original ‘truth’ behind the event. But this no longer works and probably hasn’t since 2007 or so. Social media and smartphones have changed the game – everyone has a camera, and everyone’s opinion can be expressed and shared easily. It is easier than ever to find dissenting views that fit closer to your view, regardless of how grounded they are in reality.
- So, what to do now? Williams notes that Lippmann favoured a technocratic solution – experts and institutions would provide the rational explanation. However, Williams correctly notes that these institutions themselves are influenced by the wider environment, and can even be fully captured. Furthermore, these only have power if individuals trust them – if these places are perceived as biased, there is no chance that they can be considered independent mediators.
- Williams gives two obvious starting points to help:
- Most importantly, we should improve the reliability and impartiality of our epistemic institutions, which are too often politicised and advocacy-focused. Ideals of perfect objectivity and neutrality will never be fully achieved, but they are not simply a cover story for hidden interests either. The left’s growing institutional dominance in recent decades, combined with a prominent strand of left-wing thought that seeks to replace norms of objectivity with social justice activism, has had bad effects on these institutions’ quality and trustworthiness.
- Representatives of these institutions also need to be better at adapting to the constraints and incentives of the new media age. The days of relying on establishment gatekeeping and elite control of the public narrative are long gone. We now live in a more fragmented, more competitive attention economy, one which favours more direct, authentic modes of communication.
- A couple of disparate thoughts from this. Firstly, the UK, particularly under Labour at the moment seem to be directly trying to fight against this, i.e. doing exactly what Williams advises against – relying on establishment figures and elite control. See recent social media bans, attacks on ‘politicisation’ and ‘division’ from social media influencers, rather than addressing the fundamental issues at hand. Your message has failed and will continue to fail – appeals to authority are not enough at this point.
- When horrific events happen like Nowak’s murder, speed is of the essence. Release footage and information as soon as it is available, as I guarantee it’ll already (or a distorted version) be all over social media anyway.
- On a related note, any public-facing figure, such as police, NHS workers, etc, should almost certainly have cameras on them at all times for events precisely like this.
- Our debates over free speech need some serious revamping, considering the realities of social media platforms, messaging apps, and so on. Right now, we are attempting to police matters on an old framework. We still broadly treat speech on social media as if it were in a newspaper or other traditional media. Simply trying to suppress unwelcome realities and alternative points of v view, even if ugly, will only lead to corrosive effects on society.
