Erroring

I found that so many of the questions that are so fiercely debated in our country seem to come down to the same simple question. If you're going to make a mistake, how should you error? If we're going to make a mistake which mistake would cause the most damage and harm. Some examples.....

Is it better to spend too much on education or not enough?

If we're going to make a mistake, would you rather feed a lazy person who doesn't need the help or would you rather let a legitimately need person starve?

Is it better to put an innocent person in jail, or let a guilty person go free?

What if they're a terrorist? Better to bomb them and find out they were just innocent women and children, or better to let them go only to find out they were real terrorists?

So many questions we have in this country are either highly subjective or they are impossible to perfect. Knowing exactly who needs welfare, and who could probably fend for themselves if we made them is incredibly difficult to figure out precicely. If you ask conservatives they would almost certainly deny help to more than we currenly do. If you ask liberals they would almost certainly provide help to more than we currently do. We'll probably never nail that decision right on the head, and either way we'll probably be wrong. So which mistake is better?

If you ask conservatives they would almost certainly tell us we're spending too much on education and that lazy union protected teachers are just wasting the money. If you ask liberals they'll tell you we're not spending enough, and that teachers are significanly under paid and often end up spending their own personal money on supplies. What is the exact amount of money that a teacher deserves? Probably isn't a correct answer to that question, but which side should we error on?

If you ask conservatives they'll tell you we need to be kicking more immigrants out of this country. If you ask liberals they'll tell you that way more of them are good people who benefit the country and should stay. Knowing exactly which immigrants are good people who would benefit the country and which ones are bad guys that will cause harm is very difficult. Should we assume they are good until proven bad or bad until proven good? What would be the American thing to do here?

Excellent question.

I feel that too many of us expect a government that is nearly "perfect," and of course these individuals feel entitled to define what that "perfection" means. This level of arrogance aside, in the real world perfection is impossible. Cars will break down. A student will do poorly on a test. A work report that needed to be in your hands by a certain time didn't reach your desk by then. Aircraft engines will lose their covers.

How do we deal with all of these risks? There are no straight answers. All we can commit to are best practices of risk management, using science, math, and history as our guides. For instance, when it comes to education, I would rather overspend a little, as this would just mean imperfect spending practices (there's that lack of perfection again), instead of understand a little, which would put a squeeze on the future of our society.

This all sounds good, but unfortunately we live in a world of special interests and alternative facts. How can we stand a chance at properly answering these questions if too many people refuse to educate themselves on basic facts? Iraq does not have weapons of mass destruction. Evolution is real. Cutting taxes on the wealthy increases deficits. And therein lies the problem--way too many people in power in America choose not to respect these basic facts, let alone the nuances, that would give us even a basic level of risk aversion. So, here we are. Vulnerable as ever to an incremental decay of the American Empire--yes, empire. Yay, America!