The Ministry for the Future, Kim Robinson

• In reference to the delegates and their clauses within the Paris Climate Agreement: “Words are gossamer (delicate) in a world of granite. There weren’t even any mechanisms for enforcement of these so carefully worded injunctions; they were notional only, the international order of governance being a matter of nations volunteering to do things. And when they didn’t do them…there were no sanctions at all.”
• Those involved in these agreements who carefully craft their sentences are doing their best to use words to avoid the inevitability of physical conflict. They are the gossamer net that holds the granite.
• People work for incentives. In the case of the navy, when the maximum wage is bounded at 8 times (200,000) that of the starting wage (25,000), those at the top are still normal, still at a level where they can see eye to eye with their subordinates, and somewhere their subordinates can see themselves attaining
• The typical wage ratio in the business world is over 1:100. 1:1500 isn’t uncommon. What are those making 1500 times more incentivized to do? Hide. Hide the fact they don’t do 1500x more work than each of their labourers.