Interesting Links for 31-01-2023

1. The inevitability of the tragedy of the commons is a false and dangerous myth - people are actually pretty good at cooperating

(tags:economics psychology cooperation )

2. BBC Inquiry finds that its journalists lack an understanding of basics enconomics, and are led too strongly by Westminster narratives

(tags:economics bbc fail )

3. Who are the 'Citizens of the Reich'? (Far right German conspiracy theorists who want to overthrow the government and bring back the monarchy)

(tags:Germany terrorism monarchy )

My farewell email

Context: It's traditional to send an email around the department when you leave the business, saying goodbye. There have been a lot of those recently, what with all of the redundancies, and I wasn't going to add to them with my own. Until the following came to me on the way home from nursery pickup last night, and I swore, because I knew I'd have to write it on my last day (which is today):

My dear developers, managers, testers, ops people, analysts.

Today, is my Seven thousand four hundredth day in the company.

Alas, twenty years and a month or three is far too short a time to work among such excellent and admirable people.

I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.

It's been a long, long time since I joined the company. Much longer than I originally intended, having only spent a year or two at my various jobs before coming here. But once I found somewhere comfortable, where the people were so nice, it was terribly hard to leave.

Now, however, time have stretched on, and in ways that aren't entirely comfortable. Things have come to feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread.

I regret to announce — this is The End. I am going now. I bid you all a very fond farewell.

(I already have a collection of you on Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn/Tumblr/Mastodon and other various social networks. And a few of you who Don't Do That Kind Of Thing on WhatsApp, Signal, or phone/email. If you'd like to keep in touch then I'm terribly easy to track down.)

All the best, as ever,

Andy

I've got a new job lined up, by the way. Starting in a couple of weeks, doing more IT things. I'm looking forward to it, nervously. Twenty years ia a long time between inductions. But hopefully they'll find a use for me, I'll get on with them, and I'll be there for a good long while too! (Although not 20 years - I'm *really* hoping to retire before I'm 70!)