IT’S THE GOOD ADVICE THAT YOU JUST DIDN’T TAKE [484]

January 1987

Perception changes everything, so long as you move first. To that end, I propose that Sod’s Law be abolished in 2025, as far as I can manage.

To illustrate, on the one day last week that I needed to start work earlier, my bus didn’t appear, making me late. This was because the bus company decided to start the bus I was expecting, which was in the wrong place, at a later point on its route, so it would still reach its destination on time. I don’t like being made late for anything, and seeing the map on the bus company’s app that tracks the location of each bus played everything out in real time.

This is a perfect example of Murphy’s Law, as coined in 1948-49 by Edward Murphy Jr, an American engineer on experimental aircraft: “If there are two or more ways to do something and one of those results in a catastrophe, then someone will do it that way.” The further consequences of the decision also apply under Murphy’s Law: the bus I did catch had to pick up all the people that were also missed, slowing the bus down, while standing passengers made physically entering and leaving the bus more difficult, slowing things further. Seemingly more people also paid for their journey using cash over using their phone to hop on and off, and so on and so on.

The Oxford Dictionary may describe Sod’s Law as being the British name for Murphy’s Law - and there is no titular "sod" to speak of - but rather than my bus journey going wrong because anything can go wrong, the way it was exacerbated matches my understanding of Sod’s Law - if it goes wrong, it will happen at the worst possible time, and in the worst possible way.

As much as both Sod’s Law and Murphy’s Law can be delineated as laws of both probability and of expectation bias, I realised my perception was also being stretched by experience. After taking the same route hundreds of times, encountering all possible variations of that journey, I simply give myself the right amount of time to make that journey so I don’t have to expect, anticipate or consider anything at all - I will simply get to work on time, every time, and early enough to mean that I didn’t need to adjust my plans to start work earlier.

And yet, as my journey spiralled, I started bargaining with myself that, at least if nothing further happened, then at least I stood a chance of avoiding arriving late for work. I admitted defeat when I could see there was no way of avoiding the inevitable, and once I finally arrived at work, tired and sweating from the adrenaline of walking the last section of my journey as fast as I could, I turned on my computer and started work… three minutes late.

This is why I want to “abolish” Sod’s Law, at least for myself: not wanting to be late is one thing, and being unable to avoid that can still happen, but passively accommodating the possibility of the worst possible outcome turned out to be the same as fearing it. If something can go wrong, it will, but you can’t then hold yourself at fault for failing to adequately prepare - that creates a situation with no possible end point.

Adopting Murphy’s Law couldn’t come at a better time - in a couple of weeks’ time, the bus drivers will be on strike.

START SPREADING THE NEWS [403]

Jamestown LP / onetimessquare.com

After looking into the history of the building-cum-billboard located at One Times Square, I made a mental note to check on its current state, now it was certain I would walk past it again. 

 

What I was not expecting was for a lot of it to not be there, the structure having been stripped back to its metal frame and encased in netting, ahead of its second near-total rebuild, this time in glass and lights, anticipated to reopen in Autumn 2024. The rebuilding work had actually begun in June 2022, and while the New Year’s ball and the largest, north-facing billboard were removed for part of this time, they were both back by my visit in June 2023, remaining the building’s biggest money-spinners.

 

The plans are impressive, and are intended to make One Times Square the main visitor centre for New York City, according to co-owner Jamestown LP at onetimessquare.com, their website for the $500 million development. 

 

The shorter front section of the building, a natural place for an observation deck, will now host one, accessed by glass lifts placed on the outside of the structure, providing views across Times Square, and down to the TKTS booth and bleacher seats placed opposite it since 2008. 

 

With the building’s small footprint unsuitable for modern office requirements, only one floor is being retained as office space, most likely for the organisers of the New Year’s celebrations to return. Efforts to return the inside of the building to full use after decades of abandonment include six floors will become a museum for Times Square, and of the building itself, while space for a traditional shop remain at ground level, alongside an improved subway entrance.

 

The most interesting section of the development involves a Web 3.0 reinvention of the exposition spaces previous building owner Allied Chemical once provided, essentially allowing companies to advertise inside the structure as well as outside: “One Times Square will also connect visitors to their favorite brands through immersive, technology-enabled activations across 12 floors, including digital, virtual, and augmented reality experiences. For the first time in decades, the public can experience the home of the New Year's Eve Ball in a more meaningful way.”

 

While sounding like a version of the original Epcot Centre at Walt Disney World, with corporate-sponsored visions of the future, it will be extremely interesting to see if One Times Square can pull this off, because in reserving physical spaces for experiences while having an official place in the metaverse at Decentraland, a space I have only just found about, it has a head start against the decline in the office market affecting other buildings in New York, cementing its new use before one needs to be found for the others. With the Paramount Theatre in Times Square having been filled in by offices in the 1960s, perhaps it might be time to dig it back out and put on a show?

YOU GOTTA MAKE WAY FOR THE HOMO SUPERIOR [46]

We like to think we are “real,” or “authentic,” people, that we know what a good life is, and how it should be lead. Effectively, we know what a human being should be, but does that automatically mean we know what one is? I would worry if we could not answer that question.

What we need is a human “holotype,” the term for a single physical example of an organism, usually the one used when that organism was described for the first time. Of course, there are many flies, butterflies and bacteria for which we have the holotype – for dinosaurs, it will be a particular fossil. The Natural History Museum is full of these, but they don’t have one for the species looking at them.

Two “nominees” for the human holotype have previously appeared. The 18^th century Swedish botanist, zoologist and physicist Carl Linnaeus, but because he devised the system of “binomial nomenclature,” using Latin to delineate the genus and species of all living things, giving the title to the creator of the name “Homo sapiens” was too obvious. Meanwhile, the 19^thcentury American anthropologist Edward Drinker Cope nominated himself, but upon his death in 1897, his bones were found to be riddled with syphilis, disqualifying himself altogether.

People like Racquel Welch, Bob Hope and Arnold Schwarzenegger have also been thought of as a possible human holotype but, even if there has never been an official position to fill, there could be said to be a “situation vacant.”

For scientific purposes, we have intricate systems of classification, with two further sets, genotypes and phenotypes, describing the particular genetic makeup of a given organism, then the attributes and properties that organism displays. It is extremely easy to apply these classifications to other animals and plants because, even if it displays consciousness, it won’t answer back, or become indignant, or violent, if you put it into a group it doesn’t like.

This is the major indicator you have a human being on your hands – they are conscious, they are self-aware, and they will let you know when you are taking the piss out of them. We are the most social of animals, subject to the rules and manners we personally live by, those we agree among ourselves, and those we disagree with.

To choose one part of what makes a human, whether that be sex, gender, hair colour, skin colour, body shape, intellect or experience, and use it to evaluate whether one person is better than another, only leads to accusations of misogyny, sexism, racism, and/or fascism, because not only do we - from just between ourselves, to all of us - agree that’s what it is, we will tell someone if they are one of those, or all of them, when they do it. When even that doesn’t stop some people, it shows they are human too, no matter how bad that is, but the ability to change, and the ability to hope for that worthwhile change, is just as human too.