The Pataky blog post reminded me of a remark by Franka (Bourne Identity) Potente: “Working in London is such a pain, because of the parking. Paris is so much better!” Full Metro interview here.
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I wrote about one of your videos today – excellent material. Ideas Matter
Phil – thanks for the link to your piece. A propos of spontaneous order, according to Wiki, it pre-dates Hayek by over 2000 years! Zhuangzi Chuang Tzu (born 369 BC) said, “Good order results spontaneously when things are let alone.” Dan Klein is excellent on the subject, though I prefer the metaphor of a skatebord park, where motion can be in any direction (on an ice-rink, the convention is anti-clockwise). I used the skateboard park in my Jan 08 Newsnight report, and mention it in a couple of blog posts, e.g. (Feb 09): My hunch has always been that natural flow maximises efficiency, whatever the restrictions on the network. The theory of spontaneous order states that the more complex the “ballet” of human movement, the less useful are attempts to control it. Think of a skateboard park, where teens of all stripes merge in harmony. If traffic is like liquid, it will find its optimum dispersal route by itself. Volume can be a drama, but volume + controls = crisis. A mathematician I met recently echoed some of this: he said that external control interrupts optimal flow, from traffic to telephony; and (June 10): As mentioned elsewhere, the theory of spontaneous order says that the more complex the ‘dance’ of human movement, the less useful are attempts to control it. Thus, any attempt to control a skateboard park would be pointless – it looks after itself, with teens of all stripes merging in harmony. Clearly this is applicable to the roads, yet the clueless authorities impose regulation that puts us at odds with each other and our surroundings. On the subject of the financial crash, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of The Black Swan, says: “Wherever you have a lot of interactions, you should avoid organisations that are too large … Mother nature knows best … Corporations take out the humanity and replace it with something ugly.” Similarly, using the roads could and should be sociable and fun.
Thanks, I enjoyed the skate park example, it’s not something that would typically come to my mind. I appreciate your response.