June 23, 2007

Horse 772 - The Law of Maximum Inconvenience



Murphy's Law states that whatever can go wrong will. The IBM Polyanna Principle is that theory that machines should work and people should think; when the reverse happens then the point of the machine no longer exists. Bell's Discovery Law is that theorem that all of the world's greatest inventions like the light bulb, penicillin and the telephone, all are discovered by accident and that the time it takes to make that accident is inversely proportional to the amount of funding it has. Cole's Law is thinly sliced cabbage...

This brings us to the Law of Maximum Inconvenience which is the principle that people only complain when something bad directly affects them. The grass is greener on the other side, the other line always moves faster, trains are always running late. Nobody complains about things that actually work properly, on time and to function.

If you look at the world and especially this blog, you'll find that people generally do better when they're mildly annoyed. It is this answer to Chris' question tonight as to why the Great British nation is so good. I mean if you're Empire has been in decline for 60 years, if it's constantly raining in the summer, if you have to wait for a bus, and if your sporting teams are consistently beaten in every sport you invent, then that's a lot to complain about. The UK is a nation of complainers, and with right justification.

Australia on the other hand has very little to complain about, They've been World Champion in practically everything and the climate is pretty brilliant. Australia has stable government and an adequate justice system. So where's the inconvenience? The flip side to the law is that with all of this extra energy we have to find things that annoys us... we do; including other countries.

So let's start whinging and complaing, we need to; even if there's nothing to complain about... we don't want to break the law now do we?

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