Did Obelix get it right after all?

Did Obelix get it right after all?

Always was and still am a fan of the Asterix books – right from when I was a tiny tot and could barely read!  They have been a large part of my early reading life – to this day! So many colorful characters.

In the story about Cleopatra – at some stage Obelix is tasked in cutting the (poisoned cake) into 3 pieces to be shared with his other two friends. - Which he did.
If you pay close attention  - he’s been asked to cut three pieces......

Ask any child – they have an innate understanding of what is fair or equal.
Let me set the scene:
Imagine two (early school years) siblings living at home – being tasked by their parents (to work together) and mow the lawn and do the lawn-edging on a weekly basis.  In reward they get (earn) a bar of chocolate. They are told to share the spoils of their earnings.  

Now you know how this plays out.  The older sibling (being deemed more mature or wiser or just by being older) will usually do the task of splitting the bar of chocolate up and do the handouts! You KNOW and can always see it on the (usually younger) sibling’s face if they think they have been swindled or robbed of their “fair share”.  (as a sideline – educationally this works by saying one does the dividing up and the other gets to choose first, which share/half they pick!!!)
Assuming they both worked hard and equally on the task at hand, you would expect a 50/50 split?!

Now lets assume that one sibling is not doing its task or only doing a half task or none at all or is perhaps handicapped and thus not able to pull equal weight  - how should the bar of chocolate be broken up – still at 50/50???  75/25??? 
60/40??

Further – lets assume that the older sibling is of an enterprising nature and goes and canvas’s the neighbors and after some time and with a lot of hard work gets to mow 6 lawns of other peoples properties (thus earning 6 or more bars of chocolate) – while the other sibling sits at home and is not involved in this enterprise at all.  How should the enterprising sibling share in the spoils of her hard work (if at all)????  

Will there be an incentive for the non-working sibling to be involved in mowing the neighbors lawns,  I F  they get half of the spoils regardless???  How about the motivation off the other sibling to go out and be enterprising, if there is an expectation to give away most of that “income”.  Where is the fairness in that?  (We see this playing out in China with the ‘laying at work” attitude and of course saw it in old Soviet Union where the attitude was – ‘We pretend to work as long as they pretend to pay us’!! )

You will notice the original direction from the parents – there is an expectation of ‘Sharing’, but no qualification on how.  The discussion here really is:  fair vs equal.  Equal is (as per Obelix) always straight forward.  I often say to my wife: “May I have the bigger half” and the standard reply always is: “There is no such thing as a ‘bigger half’ “  Obelix was just told to cut three slices – no qualifying on how big the three should be, and of course there were only three pieces! Job done.

Recently the NZ Government commissioned a report on who pays how much (income) tax – focusing on 311 ‘rich’ families and predictably it has created a lot of discussion.  
My takeaway on that is, unless you say “equal” tax (eg. a flat rate of 10 % or whatever number you want to use and is paid by EVERYONE)  you end up in a discussion on what is “Fair”!

Everyone's understanding of what is ‘Fair’ differs greatly.  We need to settle on what is ‘FAIR’ soon, or there will always be a part of our population that will be envious of the other few enterprising folks. (which by the way is listed in the Ten Commandments and deemed to be not a good idea – to be envious of your neighbors cattle/sheep/wife/land etc etc etc)

 

 

Will the sibling be envious of the other, who gets to eat 6 bars by itself without sharing??     You bet.
Will it get inspired to go out and be just as enterprising as the other sibling???                      Perhaps 

How much will the enterprising sibling be motivated to be successful, if the other demands a ‘share’ regardless on how much contribution happened?? 

What will influence that decision?  A social conscious / love/concern for the sibling and its willingness or abilities – or lack thereof??  
 

Food for thought.

Now please – let me have my share of lunch . . . .



Have fun!

Down under being a banana republic - who would have thought?????

  

Yeah - this is going to be a very frustrating rant!

Let me break down the images - although they speak volumes in their own right!!! 

So I had ordered a product from a firm in Australia - our next nearest country neighbor and with modern planes etc - how long would you think delivery should take???  2-4 business days??? Maybe a few more??? I mean - a flight from Melbourne to Auckland is about 3hours and 25 minutes - or close to it - winds depending!!!

So - lets break this down by days

Thursday 13 April 5.14pm

• Item was sold / wrapped up and issued an order for to be picked up by a courier on Thursday 13 April 5.14pm

Saturday 15 April 2.09am / 2.10am

•  Item is at Melbourne international airport - guess it took  33 hours to pick up / drive across town to deliver to airport in order to fly out

Monday 17 April 8:30am

• Item has shifted warehouse in Melbourne airport - awaiting a flight.  Funny I was sure they had a DAILY if not more then one a day flight from Melbourne to Auckland. Turns out - it was picked up by an airline on the following day

Tuesday 18 April 8.11am

• Did it miss the previous days flight????? Anyway according to the Shippit tracking site - it is airborne!! Wohoooooo 
• So to re-cap - from hitting the sold sign to being Airborne (leaving Melbourne/Australia) - has taken 5 days! We shall make an assumption and guess that the postal agencies do NOT work on weekends (they may well do - who would know?) - so that is then a reasonable timeline - yes?!
  

 Lets switch over to the NZ post site - which ultimately ought to deliver this! It would indicate that the actual flight took place on 17 April.  There is a 2 hour time difference so that is understandable - BUT a whole day?????

Anyhow lets assume that it has indeed left on the 18th (lets give credit here) - it would seem it has arrived in Auckland on 20 April 12:48pm (noon)! That just asks the question - a two or three day flight that usually takes only about 3.25 hours?!?!?!?!  What the hell . . .  OR more likely - it has been sitting in a depot and not been scanned in - probably still sitting on the tarmac.

Thursday 20 April 12.48pm 

• 
  As you can see - it claims to be "unloading" (eg some random dude has to take it out of the cargo hold and put it on a trolley for it to be wheeled to the Customs warehouse/hall/office)  by Customs - and is pending a border clearance! That was nearly a week ago - I know we had an Anzac holiday yesterday - still - they work round the clock so the weekend days are also "working" days - so that is already FIVE working days and still counting for it to be "Pending border clearance"!!   
• To recap - from leaving Melbourne and arriving in an Auckland customs hall it has taken 2 or 3 days - depending on when the actual flight took place!  So how long would it take to UNLOAD the cargo?? More to the point:
  

•  What on earth are they doing there??  Dissecting it??  Drowning it in ant/spider/ snake -- venom for 6 weeks????   Reading it? Are we so short staffed from the Pandemic two years back, that we have just ONE able body-worker trying to process a mountain of parcels??? Has it fallen below a crack onto the back of a book case floor - mysteriously vanishing from earth?  Gobbled up by mail eating aliens???

 Worst thing - NO-one can  be contacted or asked or any communication on this.

        Then it gets worse - the Shippit info when first logged in said delivery to be expected by Thursday 20 April (that would have been a week - a reasonable timeline given it goes over a weekend ?!?!) - it now reads as Saturday 13th May!!! 

1 3th M A Y ! ! 

That is still 18 Days or more then 2.5 Weeks (3 days short of three weeks) away!!   I'd be quicker cycling up to Auckland and claiming it in person!!! 

        So lets do some Maths here, and count the days - from the day the internet confirmed the Sale of the product, to anticipated delivery day is - - - wait for it - - - 

- 31 DAYS or a full MONTH.

You can row on a paddle board quicker across the Tasman Sea . . . . .

        I know we live at the bottom of the earth (from a European perspective) and are technically a Pacific Island nation. This however - is almost worse then being in a banana republic!! At least it will eventually be delivered and does not require some form of bribe . . .

Sighs

Lord - please give me a healthy dose of Patience - I am very much in need of it!!

Have fun!

The merits of having faith

 

 

Many years back - I had to write an essay that was centered around the topic of Faith - who had it - or not and what is it! - I do not remember it all.  It is of course an annual hot topic around Easter - well - for those of Christian persuasion anyhow!

However it is also a topic beyond simple religion. 

 

I contend there are three types of Faith:

•  Blind Faith
•  Skeptic Faith
•  No Faith

    Blind Faith - pretty obvious here - you just believe whatever your higher ups dish up - so for religion it is undying faith into the cause. This can equally be applied to Politics (think faith into "the Party doctrine") or Science (faith into Health advancements or Climate change or Evolution etc). Or indeed you trust blindingly your older sibling who tells you that this course of action (for example -- touch / pee on the electric fence and will not hurt one tiny bit) - is all right?!  Simply no questions allowed - be quiet and belief!

    Skeptic Faith of course is the one where you turn round (like Thomas) and say: "unless I can put my hands into the wounds of our Crucified Lords hands - only then will I belief that he is risen"!  Essentially it is an evidence based faith - and it applies to all institutions.  Show me the Money / Proof / Evidence before I invest something of myself into whatever you proclaim to be truth!

    No Faith is actually a misnomer - as essentially there is no such thing - in its essence!Even an agnostic person is a person of faith - who isbelieving in  - well nothing! Not that they will ever admit to that in itself. No faith is often used and expressed within/by the religious communities - describing people who do not accept the religious doctrines (Christian/Muslim/Jewish/Hindu etc). Of course the Climate dogma people will also use this if you even dare to question their particular "dogma"!

Cue Gallileo ---> One of the most famous examples of the clash between religion
and science is the trial of Galileo. He supported Copernicus' view that the Earth orbited the sun, a "heliocentric" theory which the church declared contrary to Scripture. Galileo was warned to abandon his support for this theory and instead embrace the traditional "geocentric" notion that the Earth was an unmovable point around which the universe revolved.

Naturally, a Blind Faith (ying / yang here)  can be seen as a strength if used in a "correct" setting - or seen as a hindrance to any future progress!! Your way of life - your reality, will depend and change with whichever side you tend to adhere to.  Of course it is possible to have all three happening at some stage in your life - or even concurrent!

As I am a "realist" I tend to question things more often then not - particularly when it comes to "have faith in future outcomes" - such as climate predictions! I know I lost some folks here at this point - and if you still with me bear with me and lets change some words and consider this:

If you have a neighbor/friend/relative who has for the last 50 years faithfully come to you every Saturday - or at least once a month and said: "We have all the data in - the horse is fit - the track is hard and fast and dry and the weather is looking great - no rain forecast, the Horse is injury free and in the form of its life and all the scientific evidence from our various Track Experts points to this particular horse in this particular race on that day to be a winner with the odds being 1500 - 1 - you need to trust me and put some of your hard earned cash on this bet!! "

Now - you can have blind faith and say "yup - ok here is half of my monthly income"  or you can sit back and say - ok when was the last time you had an actual winner??  What -- in the last 50 years NONE of your "predictions" have come true - then would you still be prepared to put your $$$$ into that bet - put the house on as its a "surefire" bet and risk everything???  

Would you?????  And if you did - what will that say about you??

Have fun!