This story of a Belgian woman who drove 3000 km off track by relying on her GPS is a metaphor for government. She intended to travel 61 km to Brussels, but mindlessly followed the instructions of the GPS and ended up driving 1500 km before realising her mistake.
So too if we rely on government to take decisions on our behalf – brain atrophy is one risk, ending up at the wrong place is another. Government is like a big GPS device – from the outside it looks logical and well-functioning, but it is capable of taking you precisely to the wrong destination.
The Belgian woman eventually discovered her mistake. But many citizens take their mistaken belief in the omnipotence and omnibenevolence of government to their graves.
Interesting metaphor. Only thing is, a GPS is generally far more accurate than any government (I suspect user error here). Also, a GPS doesn’t force you to use its services by making maps and compasses illegal.
Papachango
16 Jan 13 at 7:01 pm
the oldies do wonder-off sometimes. she was 67.
Jim Rose
16 Jan 13 at 7:21 pm
Wayne Swan would just suggest that everybody’s got a hungry heart…
Steve D
16 Jan 13 at 7:27 pm
isn’t misdirection the purpose of government?
The Qld Swan can easily find US constituents to rant against yet he is part of one of the greatest ‘crony’ taxation thefts that has ever been undertaken in this country.
And who actually helped that kid put out the Whitehaven hoax? Or is that what they teach in university these days? How to manipulate and corrupt the capital system.
NoFixedAddress
16 Jan 13 at 7:34 pm
It’s the mindless belief that what ever the machine says must be true, which is exactly how the goose cooked his swann with all those extra zeros and no more digits to count them with but, what can you expect from the All Liars Party.
amcoz
16 Jan 13 at 7:34 pm
For a complete utter opposite here is an article I read earlier today.
Kibera may be the most entrepreneurial place on the planet
A place where there is no government, no unions, no taxes, an entrepreneurial spirit that would put Keynesians to shame (and make their heads explode). And yes, it is a real place, a million people live there.
Bruce
16 Jan 13 at 7:35 pm
Samuel, Samuel, Samuel…
Are you trying to make our trolls cry?
Mk50 of Brisbane
16 Jan 13 at 7:40 pm
Mk50: A Catallaxy Troll is generally of a higher class and deserves to be fed occassionally.
Samuel J
16 Jan 13 at 7:47 pm
The GPS situation is a very serious one that is probably the largest vulnerability in a country like Australia. Turn off the ATM and EFTPOS systems for a week and see what happens. We will look little different to a low income country not middle like say Thailand but low like say a poor province in India.
kelly liddle
16 Jan 13 at 7:52 pm
“omnipotence and omnibenevolence of government” reminds me of Stalin/Hitler/Mao etc. etc.
stackja
16 Jan 13 at 7:54 pm
Fortunately my petrol tank is smaller than hers.
Starting in Canberra and punching a Cooma address into the GPS I drove out the other side of the town to a fork in the road where the machine said “Take the right turn and drive for 103 km…”
A phone call was followed by a U turn.
Rafe
16 Jan 13 at 8:10 pm
The problem is obvious – Tony Abbott programmed her GPS.
Boy on a bike
16 Jan 13 at 8:11 pm
Oh dear Ive been banned
Alice
16 Jan 13 at 8:12 pm
Don’t despair…..she is a necessary food source in nature’s overall plan on the veldt.
Incompetence invites ‘supersedence’. Sorry.
Alfonso
16 Jan 13 at 8:25 pm
garbage in, garbage out. Hey, remember when the Vuvuzela Strapped to a Mallard™Carpe said the Rudd government (of which she was deputy) had lost it’s way? And then gillard decided to toss out that GPS for one of her own making?…and we’ve been mooooving backwards ever since.
Gab
16 Jan 13 at 8:36 pm
Related:
Banned Ultra Tune Australia Ad.
Illegal in Roxon’s Australia.
C.L.
16 Jan 13 at 8:45 pm
Its not 1 April is it? There are plenty of dumb people about, but I cannot believe anybody could be that stupid.
Jannie
16 Jan 13 at 9:06 pm
Exactly, Jannie. Unless they’re not telling us about some kind of dementia issue (since she’s 67), it’s not a very good advertisement for womanhood.
Tom
16 Jan 13 at 9:28 pm
I have been tracking UN documents related to The Learning Society and The Knowledge Society going back decades. There is unquestionably a deliberate move afoot to shut down that rational capacity to decide for yourself in favor of decision-making by majority consensus. With that majority having been deliberately weakened via educational institutions to be able to Be and Do but not know much.
Over and over in the documents are references to having a positive view of government. That government dominance and direction need not be totalitarian. That the tragedies of the 20th century were caused by the struggle between freedom and equality.
But. But. They are taking the policies side of the instigators of the 20th century tragedies and hoping no one reading knows any history or economics.
And this idea that ICT has so changed the world that nobody needs to know anything beyond the basics. They can just look it up gets automatons unable to turn around when their senses and brain should be overriding the machine.
Robin
16 Jan 13 at 9:36 pm
On the other hand no misadventures other than taking the scenic route. It must have taken a couple of days. Good drive grandma.
Pickles
16 Jan 13 at 9:48 pm
Bit generous aren’t you, Samuel?
JC
16 Jan 13 at 9:56 pm
Says more about the Belgians than GPS.
If you don’t have a sense of where you are and what is around you, then you deserve to be prey.
Most recently exemplified by wanting to have your photo taken right next to a several tonne bull rhino.
Lazlo
16 Jan 13 at 10:55 pm
She was doing the toute seul version of Thelma and Louise. Every woman deserves an excuse to run away sometime in her car, or just drift off while she is pondering something else.
I had a little drift early this evening at the traffic lights on my way to my first full-on jazz ballet class of the year – just been practicing at friends’ places so far. Thinking about a new routine. Someone scared hell out of me by honking that the lights were now green.
A man, natch. No sense of occasion.
Elizabeth (Lizzie) B.
16 Jan 13 at 11:13 pm
The Ride of the Sabine Woman, by TomTom.
James of the Glens
16 Jan 13 at 11:14 pm
Ah, Rhinos…
But, but she dina need to think no more ….a govt approved operator was protecting her…..he’d done the course, ticked the boxes, and knew how complicated shovels are and how most people need instructions to use them….
More regulation is the fix.
Alfonso
16 Jan 13 at 11:30 pm
Sounds like a good reason to reinstate border controls within the EU……
Sea Wolf
16 Jan 13 at 11:51 pm
One particular GPS I had put a Coles roadhouse 35 km north of the Nanutarra Roadhouse, the most expensive in the NW. Wasn’t there of course, and when I checked with the GPS wholesaler who their GIS supplier was, their reply caused no surprise at all.
In the case of the Belgian lady, and me being Dutch, well, all I can do is smile with bemusement and think of irish jokes, or polish ones, or other ones etc. Belgium is an historical accident – the northern half is Dutch, the south French, and come to think of it, what an apposite place for the EU as well, to be what would be the European equivalent of one of those nationalistic jokes.
Jokes aside, I discovered the latest Mine Safety audit regulations and guidelines for mineral exploration in WA today and it confirms the suspicion that these are being put in place to micromanage the masses via government down supervisory hierarchy – with me, the exploration manager, managing the deluge of safety and environmental audits designed in the prescribed manner according to the modern day risk fetish based on the precautionary principle.
So Robin, you are right on the money, sad to say.
Louis Hissink
17 Jan 13 at 12:23 am
Well, of course. They have fake boobs. And washed hair. What’s not to hate?
The Beer Whisperer
17 Jan 13 at 1:25 am
What happened to my reference?
“Illegal in Roxon’s Australia.” Now that I think of it, it’s not fucking hers! It’s my Australia – she just putrifies it with her presence until she gets a pretend job at the UN.
The Beer Whisperer
17 Jan 13 at 1:28 am
I operate a small motel in Vic. In the last twelve months it has become apparent that most visitors to the area never look at a map, it’s all GPS. The local pub is 600 metres further up the road. Guests come in and ask for the exact address for the pub for their GPS. I explain that they go out the drive, turn left and it’s 600m on their left. Many of them can’t use this information, I’m serious they don’t know how to travel anywhere unfamiliar without a voice telling them where to go. I have maps in reception and many of them are incapable of reading one. I sometimes wonder how they would get by if their electronic aids weren’t available. No wonder they want the government to run their lives, they’re incapable of doing it themselves. I guess if they had to the would but it’s easier to let someone else make the decisions.
sfw
17 Jan 13 at 7:38 am
Perhaps her son or grandchildren gave her the GPS and told her all she needed to do was do what it said and she’d be okay.
So she just followed instructions because they told her the computer is always right.
candy
17 Jan 13 at 9:05 am
Wonky GPS?
Wayne Swan took over an economy $78 billion in SURPLUS, and said that he could IMPROVE it!
He has so far driven it about $270 billion in the opposite direction and is still going like a bat out of hell.
We would all have been better off if we’d stuck with Costello’s ‘Melways’.
Up The Workers!
17 Jan 13 at 9:17 am
What does one have to do with the other? Anyway I remember society functioning perfectly well without any of these things.
rob
17 Jan 13 at 10:11 am
I’m convinced this story is apocryphal. Someone’s manufacturing an analogy – some typical right-wing deception.
hammygar
17 Jan 13 at 10:27 am
Kero
Knock it off. It’s getting well worn now.
JC
17 Jan 13 at 10:29 am
GPS in my new car has an irritating little man who keeps saying ‘you are over the speed limit’.
I asked Da Hairy Ape to kill him stone dead (there must be a code somewhere), but he won’t. He just says listen and learn, Lizzie. Ha – and this coming from Speedy Gonzales himself.
I will enrol in an electronics course just to find that little GPS guy and ace him. Or easier, maybe make eyes at the nice man at the dealer delivery place and he will fix him for me.
Someone should tamper with Gillard’s GPS. Put a restraining voice into it.
Elizabeth (Lizzie) B.
17 Jan 13 at 10:41 am
Well
As this is a thread that mentions Europe and government, I hope this is a good a place as any to post a link to one of Richard North’s interesting pieces this week.
The background is as follows.
British Eurosceptics are getting pounded around the head by the governing class with the assertion that, if Britain leaves the EU but stays in the European Economic Area trading bloc, they will suffer all the regulation but none of the inputs – supposedly like Norway ‘endures’.
North has finally fleshed out his counterargument that, as giant a regulation sausage machine as the EU is, it is often rolling out regulations agreed at higher international forums that nation states still retain input on.
It is a long piece ( = about 5 pages ) but well worth the read.
Here are just a handful of the international regulatory bodies he mentions – and to which Australia will obviously be aligning its regulations and legislation to as well:
WTO
UN FAO
IPPC
IPCC ( not a mis-type, read the article )
ILO
UNEP
and on and on and on.
Myrrdin Seren
17 Jan 13 at 11:00 am
Politicians are usually a bunch of university “educated”clowns who couldnt get a real job,but have a very exagerated opinion of their own ability,in other words smartarses,They feel they know everything and are full of”ideas”,when the great plans crash,as they always do,they blame everyone else.When they are thrown out of their cushy”job” ,they are mostly unemployable and have to existon thehandsome pensions they voted for themselves.Surelywe can find a better way? abolishing political partiescand funding(bribes) .
Borisgodunov
17 Jan 13 at 11:02 am
I think Voltaire said it – the best form of government is a benevolent dictatorship with frequent assassinations.
Louis Hissink
17 Jan 13 at 11:05 am
Beware – Lizzie drifts through intersections!
Steve D
17 Jan 13 at 11:16 am
Silly complaint. I bet he doesn’t fine you.
hammygar
17 Jan 13 at 11:30 am
We’d be broke if he did, Hammy.
Funnily enough, when I come to think of it, he sounds an awful lot like you.
A limited brain, monotone, and a severely restricted range of conversation.
Elizabeth (Lizzie) B.
17 Jan 13 at 11:37 am
Myrrdin, that article has a frightening list of regulations – some of them possibly necessary, but many I suspect not, made at EU level but with ‘input’ from other ‘international’ regulatory bodies. Norway seems to do alright, thus the argument is – could a more independent Britain do any worse than it does right now regarding EU directives? If the argument over the nature of the British sausage is any example the UK doesn’t seem to have big clout with the EU anyway, regardless of whether they ‘input’ or not.
Elizabeth (Lizzie) B.
17 Jan 13 at 12:04 pm
Useful metaphor, but I’ll bet the story is a myth.
It does not pass the sniff test.
ken n
17 Jan 13 at 12:28 pm
Hi Lizzie
No small question and a huge spectrum of opinion.
For example, there is this one in today’s Oz, where the author states:
Well, Britain has managed to stay out of the euro disaster AND provides a big tranche of the EU budget, so presumably has some influence.
But if you follow some of North’s other commentary about the loss of much British industry due to EU regulation – most especially the absurd energy policies – well. I would be taking French officials’ jaded view on Britain and the EC with a huge grain of salt.
North and his co-author Christopher Booker have pointed out that a lot of the original ‘movers’ on the EU were French and Germans from both sides of the Rhine around Lorraine and the Ruhr – who had seen the armies go stomping back-and-forth in 1870 and 1914, and wanted to find a way to prevent recurrence.
They got a huge boost in the post-WW2 reconstruction, as everyone danced around to ensure there would never be a Fourth Reich.
From the perspective of the anglophone sceptic, instead of hamstringing German ambition, it seems a lot of effort of the EUrocrats now involves taking Britain back down about four pegs, and emptying the Treasury for good measure.
Long memories, some folk seem to still have a chip on their shoulders about Horatio Nelson and the Duke of Wellington ?
The enthusiastic assent of most of the British political class to becoming mere regional administrators in the ever-rolling plan to abolish the European nation states is baffling.
Myrrdin Seren
17 Jan 13 at 12:38 pm
Lizzie
You have the wrong car. I have a very seductive Irish female telling me what to do.
JC
17 Jan 13 at 12:46 pm
I don’t have a GPS and couldn’t think of anything worse. At one stage, I had street directories for four states and used them all.
Plotting our your trip is nearly as much fun as the getting there.
It probably helps that I don’t suffer from FND* and seem to have a knack for maps.
*FND = Female Navigational Disorder.
nilk
17 Jan 13 at 1:03 pm
Hmmmm….
Can you imagine a GPS with Gillard’s voice?
“At the next indersekshun, turn left.”
“You have lost your way. Increase speed and keep moving forward.”
“There will be no Google Maps in a vehicle I lead.”
/shudders violently
BM
17 Jan 13 at 1:44 pm
JC, this pompous Hammy-type guy came with the package.
However, if you think I would let the Hairy Irish Ape have a ‘seductive Irish female’ whispering sweet directions in his ear (he does drive my car sometimes), then you know nothing of the green-eyed jealousy bug. Mrs. JC must be a true angel.
Without adequate reason, I suffer from that bug at times – the polite and ‘submissively womanly’ female (as the ideal that Japanese men desire) was the third voice in our Japanese hire car and sent HIA into enough of a spin for my liking. Fortunately, his car’s GPS has a briskly robust chappy instructing.
Pity me, Nilk, for I also suffer from FND. Guess I am just an oestrogenic mess.
Elizabeth (Lizzie) B.
17 Jan 13 at 2:00 pm
I want a crass American like the Sham-Wow! guy egging me on to advanced levels of road rage.
.
17 Jan 13 at 2:09 pm
Further to the above – a neat coincidence.
Daniel Hannan – who clearly is no fan of the EU, posts this little observation:
Perhaps the answer – is note to Belgium: ‘the next time some big power plans to use your country as a doormat invasion route – deal with it yourselves’ ??
Myrrdin Seren
17 Jan 13 at 3:20 pm
Its not ‘big power’ invasion that they are experiencing. The invaders are arrriving without weapons and are still being subsidised and nurtured by the erstwhile defenders. The occupation will become evident when they replace the Napoleonic legal tradition with Sharia.
Jannie
18 Jan 13 at 2:17 pm
Sniff test?
In recent years a couple of foreign tourists in Aus followed the instructions of their GPS (known in my family as “the Dash Lady”) and drove into the ocean (Moreton Bay).
They could SEE the sea, but they just followed the instructions.
kae
18 Jan 13 at 2:31 pm