William A. Shurcliff Discovers Parkinson's Principle Of Pyramiding Pride

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For one, he's the guy who puts together a constantly updated and revised (Bill is now up to something like Edition No. 9 or 10) guide entitled, SolarHeated Buildings: A Brief Survey. This overview of the field now lists approximately 120 sun-warmed and -cooled structures currently being constructed or already in operation here in North America. The book lists the address, type of heating and/or air conditioning system, and percent of total warming and cooling energy provided by the sun for each building and-for less than $10.00-is one of the absolutely most valuable references a solar freak can have.

And the second reason that Bill Shurcliff is an interesting guy is summed up in a "top secret" paper which he recently sent to MOTHER's offices. That paper, which for the first time reveals exactly how Parkinson's Principle of Pyramiding Pride applies to the development of solar heating systems, is reprinted below in its entirety. At last the truth can be revealed!

SOLAR-HEATING-SYSTEM DEVELOPMENT, AND PARKINSON'S PRINCIPLE OF PYRAMIDING PRIDE

Every lone-wolf inventor—but no big-corporation executive—knows that when the U.S. Government hands over $500,0()0 to a big corporation to develop a reliable and cheap solar heating system, the corporation struggles valiantly and produces a system that is hopelessly complicated and expensive.

Contrariwise, if a lone-wolf inventor, using his own savings, starts to design and build a solar heating system for his own house, he has a good chance of ending up with a system that does the job and costs little.

Bewildered by this paradox, I consulted economists, engineers, and corporation heads. But to no avai l.

Finally, I consulted the famous Parkinson-the man who discovered that, nine times out of ten, when you enter a crowded post office and carefully choose the shortest line to wait in, any other choice would have been preferable.

Parkinson listened to my question, gazed at the ceiling for a minute or two, and said:

The explanation is simple enough. When you pay a corporation $500,000 to invent a solar heating system, the corporation officials have no choice at all: there is no way that they can escape making a complicated, much-too-expensive system. They are 100% trapped by the Principle of Pyramiding Pride.

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