Darkling Wood

Property, Property and the pursuit of Property

I never really saw the need for the third right -- Pursuit of Happiness. It always seemed to be embodied in the second -- Liberty. If I have Liberty, don't I get the right to pursue happiness anyway? For free, as it were. And then I got wondering about the first too -- Life. Isn't that similarly redundant?

And so in the spirit of a McKinsey-esque MECE, it looks like we can get away with a single right -- Liberty -- plus a Scope on that right. And the name we give to that scope is Property. In this sense, Property is not a Lockean "possessions", but simply the range of a person's liberty. For example, Life is Liberty applied to the most important scope of all - our bodies.

Everything else is then merely an argument about scope; about property. Everything else is about what lies within my scope, or yours, or both, or neither. That's why a theory of property is important -- it is essentially a theory of liberty. This is what Paul's philosophy teacher was on about.

I think this explains the apparently insatiable demand in the USA (witness, for example, the efforts of the RIAA and MPAA in defence of "intellectual" property), for property. It's understandable. The Land of the Free needs to be the Land of the Property. Property is what you get to be Free with.

UK/US Differences #1,743 - "Momentarily"

Karen recently wrote about some hazards of flying. She ended with a PS:

"P.S. I wish that as the plane is landing, the flight attendants wouldn’t say “we’re making our final approach”. It sounds so… well… final."

My fears tend to be raised on hearing another common final approach phrase in the USA:

"We will be landing momentarily"

Of course, the original, everyone-in-the-world-except-the-USA meaning of "momentarily" is "for a moment", and not the newer US meaning of "in a moment". Whenever I hear the cabin crew tell me about such landing intentions, I have a mental picture of the plane bouncing off the runway before climbing off to its next destination.

Point to the rest of the world.

UK 3, USA 2

And on a lighter note ...

UK/US Differences #0 - Liberty, or Hypocrisy.

I came to the US for two reasons. One was to establish a new office for my company, Verilab. But the other was because I am, in an important sense, an American. It's true I was born on that rugged, rainy, rock known as the UK (for me it will always be The Zeroth State of the Union). And I understand that to some native (small "n") Americans, that accident of birth coordinates makes me as unworthy a beast as a pre-15th Amendment black man, or a pre-19th Amendment woman of any colo(u)r (indigenous folks the world over, even white ones, are always prone to using violent means to deny "others" their basic human rights). But I am an American to the extent that I believe, and live by, and am prepared to die for -- for myself and for others -- what has been most successfully articulated by the Founding Fathers. I believe in the individual's right to liberty. And I believe that right doesn't come from governments (although they can violate it). No man gifted me my liberty (although he can subvert it). It Just Is. Axiomatic. Fundamental. Unalianable.

UK/US Differences #98 - Supermarket trolleys

Grant suggested that the difference approaches in service - for example in supermarkets - is worth a mention. It is, but I'll do it later. I was reminded today, instead, of another supermarket-related difference - trolleys.

The fundamental difference is the way the wheels are mounted. In the UK, we're kinda pushed for space. As a result, the aisles of our supermarkets are narrower than you'll find in the US (well, in Texas anyway). And so all four wheels on a UK supermarket trolley are mounted on 180 degree pivots. The theory is, having all four wheels free to move in any direction, it's easer to negotiate tight aisle turns. In the wider-aisled US, the two rear wheels are "fixed" - i.e. they point forwards. Only the front two are free to swivel.

The upshot of all this is that while UK trollies are theoretically easier to force round corners, they are also prone to a mind of their own - i.e. they often suffer from the bane of the trolley-driving shopper; the squint. One supermarket's answer to this was to provide card tags with which to label any squinty trolley you had the misfortune to grab. That way, at least they knew which ones needed repair. Regardless, Saturday morning shopping is frustrating enough without having wrist injuries induced by the torque from a wayward trolley. My experience with US trollies is that squinty behaviour is far less common than back home.

One other difference I noticed today, at Whole Foods. Our local branch of that bastion of whole-grain-and-by-the-taste-of-it-gravel-and-bark nutrition provides a moving slope thing to enter and exit the underground parking lot. On our way back to our car, I moved the trolley onto the slope, ready to take up the weight so it wouldn't trundle down over the people in front of is. However, to my surprise, the trolley seemed to lock in place. I spent the entire ride on the slope bending over and peering at the wheels to try to figure out exactly how the auto-braking would work. American ingenuity at its best! So, less squint, plus auto braking. Point to the US.

UK 2, USA 2

Tweenbots

Cute: http://www.tweenbots.com/

UK/US Differences #2 - Gushing

Why do US TV audiences of "The View" or "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" give the hosts a standing ovation before the shows even start? Why do many folks in the US say "Thank you SO much" (emphasis theirs) instead of just "Thank you" or at most "Thank you very much"? And why are thoroughly ordinary events in everyday America sometimes treated with "Awesome!". By contrast, praise in the UK is much less effusive. And in working-class Scotland, a simple lack of a slap on the head is considered a mark of great admiration.

I'm not sure I know why the difference exists, but the overall effect is to create a sort of "praise inflation" in the US. Presumably someone once decided that "Thank you very much" simply wasn't good enough, and so "Thank you SO much" was born. But talk is cheap, and so now a simple "Thanks" risks being seen as lukewarm by comparison. And that becomes even more pronounced when everyone around you in a theater gets on their feet at the end, and all you want to do is sit in your seat, arms folded, brow furrowed, with a polite but dismissive "Aye, OK, it wisnae completely rubbitch" kind of clap.

On the other hand, I think part of the reason is that people in the US are generally more positive, and more willing to expose that to others; about business, family, and life in general. (Granted that observation is not based on current market sentiments.) For example, I've never seen any indication that someone in the UK has a family member in the military. Whereas here in Texas, yellow ribbon bumper stickers about military dads (and mums) and sons (and daughters) are common. I even saw someone once with a sticker in their rear window saying: "My son-in-law is a US Marine". If one of your kids does well at school, you're supposed to put a sticker up about that (and you'll feel like a bad parent if you don't). If you have a PhD, you tell people. And so on. I like all of that. I'm still not completely comfortable with it - but I like it.

So, I think I'll call this one a draw.

UK 2, US 1