One of the most interesting concepts I've taken from Scott Adams book God's Debris, is that laws are made for the common good of society as certain behaviour is detrimental to the community for a number of reasons.

Whilst on the surface this is a reasonably obvious statement, I've spent an increasing amount of time thinking about this. Things that don't work for society have punishments attached, and there's a whole hidden economy here - for simplicity's sake, I'll call it Naughty Tax.

If you're running late for an important business meeting, you might weigh up the cost of a speeding fine versus how important the meeting is (and what impact there is of being late). This is a fairly common example, and shows that most people might make this comparison every day. Taking this a little further, you might regularly speed through streets on the basis that the percentage of times you get caught and the penalties are worth it for the convenience gained by doing what you want to.

So I haven't posted for a while. Things have been far too busy to think about it, and I don't want all my posts on here to be completely self-obsessed rants - I'd like to think I'm better than that. Wait... I just went there, so I guess I'm just as bad as everyone else... :grin:

Also, on the awesome front (Harry Potter spoiler!)... I was so right about the RAB thing in Harry Potter.