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When budget allows: Difference between revisions
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{{a|devil| | {{a|devil|{{image|Annie|png|Annie, get your gun}}}}{{quote| | ||
''The sun’ll come out tomorrow'' <br> | ''The sun’ll come out tomorrow'' <br> | ||
''Bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow there’ll be sun'' <br> | ''Bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow there’ll be sun'' <br> | ||
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“[[When budget allows]]” is a [[hypothetical]] time in the future that, like Little Orphan Annie’s ''Tomorrow'', is always there, dangling tantalisingly before us, as each day turns, getting no nearer. It is a sunlit dream-time in which there ''will'' be budget to hook up that feed, build out that [[API]] or invest in that show-stopping [[legaltech]], for which there is no budget ''now''. | “[[When budget allows]]” is a [[hypothetical]] time in the future that, like Little Orphan Annie’s ''Tomorrow'', is always there, dangling tantalisingly before us, as each day turns, getting no nearer. It is a sunlit dream-time in which there ''will'' be budget to hook up that feed, build out that [[API]] or invest in that show-stopping [[legaltech]], for which there is no budget ''now''. | ||
Logicians will immediately sense a [[paradox]]. If this grand expedition ''today'' | Logicians will immediately sense a [[paradox]]. If this grand expedition fails to pass muster ''today'', the [[present value]] of the promise to embark upon it at an unknowable point in the henceforth is, surely, smaller still. The aperture constricts the further out we push. What kind of contortion in [[Space-tedium continuum|spacetime]] must we therefore crawl through to reach that happy, iridescent upland? | ||
Minds will hardly be put at rest by that glint in the [[middle manager]]’s eye | Minds will hardly be put at rest by that glint in the [[middle manager]]’s eye — the unbidden ease with which he issues forth his wooly phrase. | ||
The root of the paradox is this: in a world where the conventional laws of physics hold — and, to be sure, there are more times in commerce than you would expect where they do not — if there is not enough interest to shell out for some expenditure ''now'', how will it get any closer to that threshold ''next'' month, ''next'' quarter, or by the time the ''next'' fiscal budgeting cycle rolls around? | Presented with some supplicant’s exhortations, he will, without pause, agree to sort it all out “''just as soon as budget allows''”. This he will volunteer with confidence, ''sans regret'', maintaining eye contact the whole time. He can assure her, in good conscience, that all will, when the appointed time comes, be well. For ''at that time'' — the notional point in the future ''when budget allows'' — is quite unknowable, in the literal sense that ''it will never be known''. | ||
The root of the [[paradox]] is this: in a world where the conventional laws of physics hold — and, to be sure, there are more times in commerce than you would expect where they do not — if there is not enough interest to shell out for some expenditure ''now'', how will it get any closer to that threshold ''next'' month, ''next'' quarter, or by the time the ''next'' fiscal budgeting cycle rolls around? | |||
Rhetorical question. | Rhetorical question. | ||