Wednesday, June 15, 2011

David Mamet - The Secret Knowledge

Ok, I'm 37 pages into this book, and I can unhesitatingly recommend reading it.  It's not that expensive.

It's written by a writer -- and by that I mean a non-academic, non-technical writer.  It's written by someone who writes books that people want to read and perhaps turn into movies.

But he's also clearly thought a lot about it, and read a lot about it, and ... it's clear, it's easy to read, and it is spot on.

Check this out:
If a country, a region, a race is in difficulty because of a lack of funds, any new or recurrent failure subsequent to any subvention [help, aid, support] in aid may be attributed to insufficient aid, and provide the rationale for that funding's increase.  But it may only do so given the acceptance of the nondemonstrable, indeed disprovable theory that government intervention increases wealth.
Hell, apply that to any do-gooder project the government "takes on" (or more properly, people use the coercive power of the government to "take on").   If you don't do it, you're not doing enough. If doing it doesn't fix the problem, you're not doing enough.  There is no limit to how much more people will use the government to "ask" for for any cause.  And everybody has a cause.  There are a lot of causes.  That's a lot of bottomless pits.

Better to let the people who want to help actually struggle with the whats and hows of tackling the problem, and what works, and what doesn't and why and what's efficient and effective ... you know, like people do when it's their own time and money.

And better because the money and time and effort comes from the people who care, and not from people who care more about other causes.

Anyway, the above quote and the ones from my previous post from last night .... just a taste.  This guy has great insight and knows how to use language to communicate his thoughts effectively.

Which is something we can use.

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