Death by Complexity.

I often think back to 2001 and Grandpa  Croucho finding his first tool. He loved that bone. Never happier than having a good whack he was. And Uncle Erectus inventing round, that was a game changer alright. Ah simpler days. And now we’ve got Screwfix. I mean there’s a lot to be said for being able to get a five kilogram hammer drill for under a hundred quid but do I do click and collect, drive there or have it delivered when I’m out? B&Q do a 5% off on Wednesdays for the over sixties though Wickes are cheaper and Homebase are nearer, but you can’t get out of there without buying a 3ft electric barbeque set that’ll go rusty before you’ve used it twice. It’s all got a bit more complicated. I mean how come my pensions guy turns up for his yearly chat about his football knees in an Audi when I’m still driving a Renault Scenic? And don’t talk to me about discounts. How come in a 50% sale with an extra 10% discount for being born on a Tuesday comes out the same price as what it was last week? By that reckoning my storm proof Everglaze windows would have originally cost the same as a moderately sized maisonette. So how about you supply all the walls and roof etc for free and I’ll provide the windows myself? And all this is nothing compared with high finance. How is it a space big enough for a PC conveniently placed 50 meters from some internet node costs  $1,000,000 pa to rent? Because you can make $2,000,000 pa profit from being a millisecond faster than the other guys. Some guy’s created a trading floor with a ‘bump in the road’ that introduces a 2 millisecond delay that does something, I forget what. So that’s really really complicated. Basically it’s smart people make the most money. Human evolution has come down to dealing with complexity. Remember the super long necked giraffe that could reach the tallest branches but died out because it kept falling over? Well OK probably not because I just made it up but it illustrates the point. Our capacity for creating the ever more complex might just make us all fall over.