Speaking of raging political incompetence ...
Sorry to say, but I told you so
IMAGINE A FUTURE WHERE
PEOPLE CAN AFFORDABLY
LIVE, WORK AND PLAY IN ONE
CONNECTED PLACE. — SURMA
THE KEY QUESTION ISN’T WHETHER SOMETHING MIGHT FAIL BUT HOW.
The cyberattack on the Colonial Pipeline allows me a smarmy “I told you so.” And who doesn’t love a smart-alec? But in addition to last week’s point about politicians insisting on getting rid of fossil fuels forever then panicking over doing without for a week, it raises the far larger question of raging public-sector incompetence. On which, um, “I TOLD YOU SO.”
Alexandre Dumas preferred knaves to fools because knaves take vacations. Plus knaves can even have a change of heart and who doesn’t love a prodigal son (except that goody two-shoes older brother, obviously)? But what can you do with fools?
Place them in positions of authority, apparently. I mean, look at Tuesday’s National Post front page. Theresa Tam, our chief medical technocrat, said well yes, vaccines sort of work but who really knows? Uh, we hoped you did. Then there was “‘Everyone confused’ following flip-flops” about federal Bill C-10, whose purpose and content seem obscure even to the hapless minister trying to ram it through. And the cyberattack on the “main oil pipeline supplying the U.S. Eastern Seaboard.”
Putting aside idiots believing a solar panel can replace fossil fuels, can someone tell me who didn’t realize our energy infrastructure was spectacularly vulnerable? Alas, the surprisingly long list stems from a deeper and systematic, even wilful, ignorance of economics.
I don’t know who originated the line that beehives attract both beekeepers and bears. But you don’t, or shouldn’t, need specialized training to see that computers, the internet and related technology brought spectacular increases in vital infrastructure command and control at the expense of spectacular increases in their vulnerability.
Shutting down a pipeline in the 1980s required dynamite or, at the very least, control centre access. Now all you need is some fool clicking on the “resumé” of that nice gentleman from Moscow. And the fool shortage seems to be over.
Actually, you also need another kind of fool, one who doesn’t understand that “flat” networks, where access to part of the system gives access to all of it, are hives full of honey with stingless bees. And we evidently have a boatload of same everywhere from executive suites to government ministries. (Again, resist conspiracy theories involving people so clueless about their day jobs.)
If Darkside can do what it just did to Colonial, what do you suppose PLA Unit 61398 has up its sleeve in the event of war over Taiwan? More importantly, what do our political and bureaucratic leaders suppose? Other than somebody should Google “PLA Unit 61398.” Or not because Robson’s a right-wing crank spreading
hate over COVID or some such “woke” excuse for a thought.
See, according to the Post, “Experts say pipeline companies across North America as well as utility companies are likely to boost spending on cybersecurity measures in the coming months following the Colonial Pipeline outage.” And we live in the era of the tyranny of experts.
Every time you turn around, you’re told someone is following the science so shut up and get with the program because “experts say” some dang thing or another. Which obliges me to offer instead a fervent plea for the informed generalist as crucial to democracy.
Voters need sensible knowledge on everything from budgets to climate so we can elect people who have it too. Including realizing greater mobility created vast economic and cultural opportunities but also made the spread of diseases easier, so we prepared for a viral pandemic before it hit.
Instead we chose leaders whose knee-jerk reaction was to call closing borders racist. Then they panicked and locked us down brutally for a two-week month lasting over a year while insisting that there were no trade-offs worth mentioning.
These people are experts on microaggression and soothing vagueness. But apparently it leaves little room in their minds for more. I once got to ask Joe Clark about the anecdote of him having time to study French or economics but not both and he laughed in my face. So I asked for an economics reading list and he mocked me again. Was it still funny after Bill Morneau was stunned in 2017 that rich people exploit tax loopholes?
So here are several things I wish people understood on both sides of the ballot. First, of course, the crucial importance of trade-offs. Second, the engineering concept of “brittleness” where the key question isn’t whether something might fail but how. (Classically, a bridge that cracks today and crumbles tomorrow is much better than one that does both at once.) Third, people good at politics are liable to be bad at government but sadly the reverse is not true.
Help me out here, folks. Deprive me of another “told you so.” You don’t like them, and neither do I.