The Death Of Precision

Only very occasionally do I soapbox on my own blog. I have always preferred to platform and cascade news and analysis from people who are, quite frankly, better and more articulate at it than me. Some of them even do it for a living. But I have had a  kind of epiphany recently - so here goes. The concept of 'precision'  no longer has any meaning in the modern world. Look at Fukushima. Nuclear technicians and experts without a clue what to do. The engineering pundits and nuclear gurus who appear on the media can't agree on any of it either. Why should we trust any of them? The days of deference to authority and expertise have died a slow death since the claptrap about 'precision guided weapons' in Iraq and Afghanistan. Civilians are killed just about every day in Afghanistan by incompetent, badly-trained and poorly disciplined boneheads. They have started to ply their anarchic trade in Libya now. I won't even start about the banks. We were in safe hands with the expert knowledge and training of the bankers allright, eh? And wasn't it lucky that the western politicians were keeping a vigilant, precise eye on matters while our national economies went to hell in a breadbasket. So what's the best strategy in the light of the demise of precision and expertise? Trust nobody other than people who also trust nobody. Victory to the sceptics.