Banning things is awesome

I wrote recently that I don't think banning things is a cost effective way for governments to solve problems. The first reason for this is simple: supply and demand; the second reason is that it's rare that something bannable is actually the root cause of the problem; finally, banning things is a restriction of personal freedoms and those should never be given up lightly.

Supply and demand

If there is a demand for a thing, banning it has, historically, created a black market supply. Banning drugs is an awesome example of this, in 2010 it was reported that every bank note in the UK was contaminated with cocaine within weeks of issue. The cost of drug prohibition enforcement in the UK is estimated at £16 Billion. I'm not suggesting that the government wouldn't squander that cash on something equally useless if drugs were legalised, just that banning things doesn't seem to work. Here's a list of other things that have been banned at one time or another:

• Christianity
• Drugs
• Alcohol
• Guns
• Homosexuality
• Books
• Furbies
• Video games (Greece)

Now here's a list of things which (to my knowledge) have been banned effectively:

• Time travel (China)

Solving the wrong problem

It's easy to see why some people don't like guns, drugs or Christianity, but if banning them is expensive and seemingly ineffective, why is it such a popular choice? My guess is that it's a lot easier to ban something than it is to solve the actual issue. For example, where would you rather live, in a place where everyone had guns but no-one got shot, or a place where no-one had guns, but your neighbour dreamt every night of shooting you using your own ass as a silencer? It's quite possible that solving the issue of people wanting to kill each other might give better results than simply taking away one of the more effective ways of doing it. However, that's a difficult problem to solve, it's hard enough catching murderers after they've killed someone, let along before...

It's often easier to be seen to be doing something than it is to actually do something. Like when a friend wants to tell you about their problems. You could sit, listen, perhaps make some insightful comments, help them get their heads into a better place. But that's an evening you are never getting back, plus it sets a dangerous precedent. So, you take them out and get them drunk instead, it's way more fun for you and much less work. I think it's the same with drugs, it's much easier to be seen to create jobs for drug enforcement officers and pledge someone else's money to a cause than to actually try to reduce the demand for narcotics. Especially in the instances where drugs are not taken recreationally, but as an escape from appalling social conditions.

Liberty

In addition to not working, banning things is a reduction in personal freedom. There would have to be a lot of evidence of the efficiency of such a move to warrant it in my eyes. This is true regardless of whether I want to make use of that particular freedom or not. I didn't own a gun when they were legal in the U.K. nor do I base my sexuality on the legality of homosexuality. The point is the loss of personal freedoms to a government that is doing the political equivalent of sweeping mental health issues under the rug of gun control and shoving the mess of social problems into the closet of drug prohibition.

Don't worry, I'm not going to go into the tired old chat about banning one thing being a slippery slope to a totalitarian state. It just irritates me because it's lazy and not the fun type of lazy like someone getting their food delivered from a restaurant so close I can shout my order to them. It's the evil sort of lazy that encourages stupidity by pandering to it. It's easier to ban someone from t.v. for the words they use than explain that it's the meaning behind words that matters. It's easier to ban websites than to monitor your child's internet activity. It's easier to ban jam on aeroplanes than to make them safer. It's easier to ban certain breeds of dogs than to ensure the owners aren't idiots. It's easier, it's ineffective and it makes the world just a little duller.

Are some things too complex for sound bites?

Like most people I love a good sound bite or a witty one liner. Distilling a complex issue down to a few words is a very complex task and takes a keen mind, for me, H.L. Mencken was a master of this:

I believe in only one thing: liberty; but I do not believe in liberty enough to want to force it upon anyone.

It's short, memorable and very much to the point. For these reasons, the idea is super portable, posting something like this on twitter could see your idea entering a vast number of other people's heads and finding a resting place. There is, of course, a draw back to this, ably condensed by Mr. Mencken:

For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.

While Mencken's pithy quotes are short, memorable and well thought through, it is only the first two factors that make them repeatable and "sticky". Therein lies the rub...

If god meant for people to talk into cellphones, he would've put our mouths on the side of our heads...

Just because something is pithy doesn't mean it has value above and beyond amusement. Sometimes, that's the point of a quote, we're dealing with those times when it's not. Fortunately, some are easy to deal with, for example if they are simply factually incorrect:

The chance that higher life forms might have emerged in this way (natural selection) is comparable with the chance that a tornado sweeping through a junk-yard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein.

No, it's not.

Others, however, require a bit more thought. I saw this little nugget of wisdom today, it's not an Mencken quote and I doubt it would convince anyone to swap sides in an argument, but it seems to have the effect of cementing together people of the same view. It's tweet provoked a very focused discussion on gun control.

We keep having shootings because there aren’t enough guns yet.

It's short and memorable - so it gets a tick for being portable. But what idea does it bring to the point? The idea that guns cause shootings? That people only want to harm other people because they have access to guns? If you put a normal, healthy individual in a room full of guns will they transform into a murderer? Or are there more complex reasons why shootings occur?

Get to the point

I chose H.L. Mencken's quotes because they are great examples of the power of short, memorable phrases; they sum up a large idea correctly without room for error in interpretation. It's pretty obvious that saying things that are just blatantly wrong is to be avoided in short, memorable phrases as in long, unmemorable ones. The reason for this post is the final example, where the phrase is ambiguous. It's hardly worth a blog post to explain that people should say what they mean and try not to be ambiguous or wrong, but this is where short, memorable phrases tend to be different. They entice us with a witty, highly repeatable phrase which supports our view on a subject. It's flattering to think that others agree with us and the tendency is to repeat these things without thinking too much about them. However, if they are not exact, if they don't focus on saying only what they mean, other ideas can slip in unnoticed.

Most people would agree that shootings are a bad thing and the fact that there are so many shootings is a form of evidence that the wrong people have the guns. The passenger idea here is that banning guns would solve the problem. I could be persuaded to agree with the comment "I don't feel comfortable with the general public having guns because they need to be told to wash their hands after using a public toilet". But I see no evidence to suggest that banning things is a reasonable way to solve the problem.

The reason Mencken wrote so many quality little quotes is that he took the time to say exactly what he meant, not sacrificing precision for brevity. When his topic was more complex, he was less brief. However, in short phrases lacking that exactness there is the danger of introducing passenger ideas, either intentionally or by accident.

The fact that I have no remedy for all the sorrows of the world is no reason for my accepting yours. It simply supports the strong probability that yours is a fake.

Is it possible you might be responsible for your own misfortunes?

I'll start with a tale from real life that I feel illustrates my point. It does this so comically perfectly that it just has to be true (although these are not perhaps entirely accurate quotes).

I brutally and obviously cheated on my wife and now she's divorcing me. I love her completely and the fact that she won't give me another chance has ruined my life. Why is she doing this to me? I refuse to accept that this is just and right and will now devote my life to misery.

Hang on, wait... you're the wronged party in this tale? I don't want to come across as unsupportive, but you realise that you are refusing to accept the consequences of your actions here? That's not normally something that makes you the hero of the story or even a particularly likeable character.

On another memorable occasion a work colleague decided to regale me with a list of poor life choices which had lead him to become unhappy. I asked him if he thought that perhaps a large part of his woes might be due to poor decision making? For example, if he'd have chosen, at random, another member of staff to unburden himself to, he would, most likely, have received the sympathy he obviously required. I was genuinely interested in seeing what thought process had started with "I'm sad and need solace" and had ended with "Ah! There's Julie, she's really kind and compassionate, maybe I could tell her my problems... No, wait, here's Ant, I remember, one time, he told me that I would be the first person in the office he would sacrifice to save himself in the event of a zombie apocalypse, I'll tell him instead".

On an almost daily basis I seem to see incidents in which people are utterly unaware of the role of their actions in their own fate.

"I can't believe I got ANOTHER parking ticket - I got one yesterday as well, this is bullshit!"

"Were you parked in the same place as you were yesterday?"

"Yea."

"In the disabled bay next to the main doors?"

"Yea, I had a box to bring in..."

Imagine my joy to find that this isn't a new thing. That many plots of the most famous novels follow this pattern of obliviousness.

Frankenstein

So, Frankenstein is smart enough to create new life, but then abandons it into the world because it's ugly. Then makes a bargain with the monster under threat of having those he loves murdered. A bargain he subsequently breaks and is stupid enough to be woefully unprepared for what follows.

The monster itself turns out to be utterly wretched. "Oh woe is me, I am lonely! I am stronger and faster than normal people, I am almost impervious to the weather and require little sustenance, but those are small comfort to someone who is lonely and it's someone else's job to fix that for me".

Wuthering Heights

The entire plot here is driven by people failing to act in the face of brutal provocation. If Ellen Dean had been shot in the face at the start of the book and someone competent brought in to replace her, this would probably have been a very different novel. Of course, it's unfair to lay all of the blame on Nelly. If Edgar Linton hadn't taken so calmly to a man breaking into his house regularly to spend time with his wife things might have turned out differently too.

Heathcliff, of course, is responsible for his own misdeeds, but it's the inaction / acquiescence of others that allows them to be so devastating. If Edgar had taken action by confronting his wife's obvious love of another man, or by accepting that he had an enemy bent on his destruction and preparing for it he wouldn't have had to live his life in fear and seen his ward and eventually his daughter taken from him. Telling your child she's not allowed out of the garden isn't keeping her safe in the same way that having a fence between the tiger enclosure and the nursery isn't.

Solution

My point here is that's there's way too much boo hooing in the world and not enough taking responsibility. It's that lack of responsibility that leads to inaction. It's entirely possible to solve all of the problems discussed here in two monosyllabic words: "man up". We all have a responsibility to lead by example, great literature doubly so, so here are some amendments to our plot lines.

• "So you see Dr. Frankenstein, you must make me a bride, you are completely in my power!"
• "Not at all simple creature, did you really think I, the genius who created you from nothing, would chase you all this way unarmed? I have poisoned your tea and now I intend to shoot you like the dog you are. Then I shall return to my beloved Elizabeth and marry her in safety."

• "But I've met 10 people in my life and none of them liked me, I am so lonely. It's not my fault I murdered people, I'm lonely."
• "So super strength is not enough of an advantage for you, you need someone to solve your loneliness problem for you don't you? Well, here's how to solve it - GROW A PAIR! Now stop whining and sort your own problems out instead of placing them at my doorstep - my brother's dead for god's sake you thoughtless dick!"

• "Ah, Heathcliff, I see you are in my wife's bedroom. I can't say I'm pleased about this, but I'll give you the chance to leave and never come back."
• "You shall never force me to leave her be. There's no way you can stop me!"
• "Wilson, shoot this man in the face and have his body dragged to the moors, then stop by the constabulary and explain how this mad man broken into my home and tried to assault me with the poker."
• "Now, Catherine, perhaps you and I should discuss the future of our relationship."
• "Oh and Ellen, you deceived me and brought this man into my wife's bedroom, you're fired."

Sorted.