Thursday 25 October 2007

A five year plan for fun and happiness

I’m organising a soiree, and it has unfortunately clashed with a rival event organised by one of my friends. He has asked that I check with him in future to ensure that his diary is free before I go casually booking events without a care in the world.

This has made me realise that there is something terribly lacking in our society. A huge amount of potential fun and merriment is being lost through the random, inefficient manner in which we enjoy ourselves. And, in the process, all sorts of unintended and harmful side-effects are resulting, that have negative effects on society.

Perhaps what we need is some universal social plan. Surely the world's social life would be significantly better if somebody just sat down and planned it all out. We could employ some clever boffins from university towork out in advance what the best way to achieve maximum merriment would be.

They could allocate the amount of drink that each party needed, what music should be laid on and the exact quantity of canapés required - thus avoiding the terrible waste of vol–au–vents that so comonly occurs. And these parties could be scheduled so that they all occurred at the optimum time to ensure that the maximum utility was gained by the revellers.

And publicans could lobby the officials to ensure that their profits were maximised. And employers could seek to influence them so that the events were never on a work nights.

Why, this planned society of ours would be perfect. I can’t imagine why we’ve never tried it before!

1 comment:

Haribo said...

Tom, I'm glad you're taking my complaint seriously. If these liberals had their way the chances of you and I meeting for that pint I owe you would be virtually nil. I think you should also link to Hegel's essay "Elements of Vol–au–Vents Obscurantism".