Republicans & Conservatives: Archives

Jack,
It’s the Pareto Principle, the 80-20 rule. For anyone not already familiar with this, I’d suggest googling the topic. I believe the principle was originally developed for quality control, but it applies to almost anything.

For example, 20% of a database will produce 80% of the revenue; 20% of employees will use 80% of a manager’s time; 20% of a population will control 80% of the wealth, and so on.

It’s an extemely useful principle, but within a capitalist system the most effective economic solution is not necessarily the most desirable one.

In terms of quality control, a space shuttle which works, say, 80% or even 95% of the time might be the most effective economic solution. Whiile that might be economically ideal, it is an obviously undersirable solution. Hence, government regulation intervenes to increase the percentages despite economic disadvantage.

Whether it’s ‘good enough’ or the Pareto Principle, in nature or in economics, a useful rule-of-thumb is not necessarily ‘good enough’ when applied to human beings or to the national interest.

Phx8

Agreed that some things require more exact specifications. I was not referring to math or engineering, where a great degree of certainty is possible. But I didn’t make it clear. My fault.

What I was thinking of was simple everyday society decisions that we all make and some of the big society decision our leaders make. We should not be lured to seek security in certainty that doesn’t exist.

Society and politics are not like math and engineering. We make decisions in a climate of uncertainty and sometimes the cost of gathering more information is not worth it. Beyond that, at some point additional information might actually make the decision worse. It becomes more than the decision maker can handle.

The Pareto principle remains a good rule of thumb for many things. Don’t denigrate it. Most successful people use it, even if they don’t know what it is called.

Besides, you have to figure the possible costs versus benefits, as my title suggests. In my own decision-making, I figure out what the potential cost is. If it is less than the cost of gathering information to make the “optimal” decision, I just guess and move on to the next problem. Rock-paper-scissors is a good rule of thumb, if you don’t like guessing. Sometimes (often) the cost of a bad decision is less than the cost of no decision or of waiting.

I just hate it when people criticize decisions after the fact and after they know the outcomes. They almost always fail to account for the potential costs of other decision or no decision at all and usually give themselves the benefit of the doubt (i.e. they would have made the optimal solution).

I also know many people who obsess about decisions that really are not very important. They look for the best of the best and as a result get nothing. Life is too short to worry so much. My observation is that the worriers not only do not do better in life, they tend to do worse. It didn’t make sense to me. After all, they were careful and made very intelligent decisions. Then I began to understand that they were not participating in as many ventures. Being
second in enough lines, and pretty soon you are first in some of them. It is sort of like not putting all your eggs in one basket.

When you judge a decision maker, judge his “portfolio” of decisions and their outcomes. Compare them against other possible outcomes and the predictions his critics made at the time of the decision (not later, when they change their memories).

Re capitalism – I prefer the term free market, which implicitly includes non-private actors as well working in a market exchange system. Nothing works better than the free market over any reasonable period of time. It is not perfect, but better than anything else anyone has ever tried.

Another application for this is the abortion debate. It’s a lot easier for pro-lifers to push legislation for the 98% than it is to push for the 100%. My rationale is that you can always negotiate for the 2% later, so let’s settle for the 98% now so we can get something passed.

Other possible political applications: Green Peace and the environment (i.e. emission standards), social security reform (ah this will be a controversial one!), and dare I say, the “federal marriage ammendment” vs. Michael Schiavo.

Just wondering: is there a particular point to this?

Zeek

There is no political point, unless someone wants to find one. I just think that we spend too much time worrying about and being held accountable for things that don’t much matter and that our leaders are the victims of Monday morning quarterbacking.

A little recognition of the uncertainty surrounding all decisions would be healthy.

Jack, your right. Except it doesn’t apply when 60% of people tell you you’re doing the wrong thing, and you do it anyways - and by golly, those people were right and you were wrong. That just makes you stupid.

Gandhi said: “Another application for this is the abortion debate. It’s a lot easier for pro-lifers to push legislation for the 98% than it is to push for the 100%. My rationale is that you can always negotiate for the 2% later, so let’s settle for the 98% now so we can get something passed.”

This is precisely why Pro-Choicers see a slippery slope in every move Pro-lifers make and why they will not compromise one iota. They know full well small steps by idealogues today will grow into huge steps tomorrow if opposition relents.

Jack, your philosophy has merit for a host of activities, but, for a large number of others, it is wholly insufficient. How about NASA? How about going for 50 cent part O ring instead of $5 O-ring that won’t shrink in cold weather?

How about a doctor pushing 15 heart surgeries in a week and losing 4 patients compared to another who does only 9 per week and loses only 2 per month?

Your philosophy is insufficient to address issues where lives or massive amounts of public resources are on the line. Under those circumstances, only the best should be allowed, wouldn’t you agree?

Jack,

Perhaps I’m the only one that understands your article/comments (or perhaps dont).

I’ll go out on a limb and guess you’re either a business owner or a high level manager of one?

Why is it that the person that makes a poor desision or choice is always the one in charge, and the employees that work for them spend their time bitching about it?

More profound than that, why will those same types of people always wind up working for someone else?

Its just not fair damnit, that people with so much hindsight should be forced to work for them !

I think some of you are reading far too much in this. Obviously, there are areas where the best of options is the best choice. Often, though the predilection for the “best” is purely ego, or a shallow self-worth, or a fad follower lacking personal values.

heh… I think Jack is saying that we should let BushCo off the hook from the non-stop mistakes they have made.

Question is: When is “Good Enough” turn into “Not Good at All”? There are repercusions here that go far beyond today or tomorrow. Is it good enough that the problems you hold off today will be passed on to your children when they grow up? Is it good enough that your decision killed thousands of people but let you drive your SUVs?

Aldous

I believe Bush and Co have generally made good decisions. So I see no reason to excuse his decision-making abilities. Some of the assessment depends on your point of view and goals. For example, he greatly strengthened the Republican hold on government from 2001-now. I don’t suppose you are as enthusiastic as I am about the decisions that made that possible, but they were evidently good decisions.

Dee Lee

You are closer to what I was thinking about as I wrote. Some people are always trying to find the best. They want to attend the best schools, belong to the best clubs and have the best friends. It is ego, not results oriented. Worse yet, the quest for the best often provides an excuse for inaction on everything else.

Beagle

Your point about the complainers (maybe the perfectionists) always working for someone else is right. You can’t get rewards without risks and if you always wait for the best, you miss most opportunities.

David

I answered in the first post that I made a mistake of not making a big enough distinction between things that are engineering or mathematical (where uncertainty is low) and things that are business, politics or society (where uncertainty is high). It is possible for a machine to be engineered to the best (possible) specifications. A law or a policy never is because there is too much uncertainty of the standard.

I was also thinking of personal life. You are probably better off not trying always to get the best deal or the best of anything. The extra effort is not justified.

Let me give a simple tangential example. I buy things from vending machines. Occasionally, I put in my money and I don’t get anything back. On other occasions, I get too much change or I get something free. I don’t complain in the first case and I don’t give the money back in the second. You might say that I am stupid in the first case or dishonest in the second, but in my opinion it just is not worth the trouble.

Frugal is always good , demanding to wait for nothing but that, will always leave you working for someone that can make a decision about something.

Hindsight is kinda like hindend, basically it comes from the ass.

This last Christmas, WalMart proved you wrong. It seems their sales went down. Why? Because people had already purchased the basic systems, and were looking for something better.

I think Conservatives nowadays put too much of an emphasis on market forces that reduce costs. They forget that cheapness is not what brings people to purchase a good or a service. It’s value. Maybe you don’t just want the $50 dollar cutrate service. Maybe you’re willing to pay more for something that performs better, lasts longer, or looks better.

Or, maybe the person working can’t afford to do a job at fifty dollars a pop. maybe supplies would eat up that all by itself. Maybe that person who does good enough work uses inferior materials that you’ll have to replace much sooner, and workmanship that will result in other problems down the line.

Money isn’t everything in other words. The real market is the economic negotiation we make to get what we want out of an imperfect world.

What doesn’t sit well with me about your view of things, is that you make the criteria the provisional quality of the items or services in question. While I don’t argue with your rejection of the rat-race mentality, I think that effort should be made to seek out more satisfactory solutions than just the one that gets the basic job done.

The real world is complicated, and often decisions are a balancing act between different different values one wants to satisfy. But that means more than just unwanted compromise. It can also mean unforseen opportunities. Sometimes, if you simply accept a cut-rate solution, you miss the value that its possible to derive from a situation.

The price for this is that you have to gain some knowledge of the issue at hand. You can’t fly 100% by the seat of your pants. For some people that represents a loss of control. The more accurate sentiment, I would say, would be that one can always follow one’s instincts, This way, though, the instincts have more to go on.

America’s success was not bought through blind labor, but open-eyed innovation, and many times the research folks thought a waste of time and money proved useful. We beat up on the academics, but they’re only playing their role: doing research and thought free from the pressures of having to make the idea work practically.

As an amateur computer animator, I’ve come across several instances of a situation where research many would have deemed impractical have produced very profitable results. An example? Paul Debevec. This fellows work might seem a little esoteric, but if you’ve seen special effects work recently, you’ve seen some of the results of what he’s done. With his work, folks have learned to pull computer models out of images, create natural lighting schemes for characters, and put more emotion into infamously blank CG visages.

The trick here is learning the short cuts by exploring more. It may not be the ideal, perfectly efficient way of doing things one-hundred percent of the time, but then, efficiency is only worth what you’re capable of doing with it.

There are some favorites people have grown to love that had hellish productions, and others whose productions where disciplined and ship shape which producted movies that were boring or even unwatchable. This is not to say that disciplined productions can’t make good movies. That’s not the point. The point is that the best way of doing things, is not always predictable, nor obvious from a plan that just seeks to do the minimum.

Stephen

I generally don’t shop at WalMart because it is not good enough according to my standards. I am not advocating the cheapest or the least acceptable and what you consider good enough will change over time. I am making two related points:

· Sometimes that best is not really better than a good alternative; especially if you count in the time and energy you spend searching for it.

· Often people use the search for the best as an excuse for not doing something to solve their needs already.

Somebody else made a good point that the search for the best is often more an ego thing than a practical search.

My sister in law searched out the best swim teacher for her kids and drove them many miles across town to learn from the best. I taught my kids to swim at the local pool. My kids swim better. I think that might be because her kids spent so much time in the car they never got to swim. A lot of people I know seek out the best personal trainers. They still have potbellies. People who search too long for the best investment usually end up poor. People who won’t settle for anything but their dream home often end up renting for their entire lives. Those who wait for the ideal job, often remain unemployed. The list goes on.

We are all taught by our society and media to be the best. I remember someone telling a friend of mine who wanted to be a nurse that she should be a doctor instead. It was a nice thought, but she didn’t have the grades or intellectual ability to pull it off.

There is an additional permutation. What we think is best changes. Sometimes when we manage to get the best, we learn it isn’t what we wanted. It is someone else’s idea of the best. I read in the paper about a student who gave up admission to Harvard in order to attend a state university. He had dreamed of Harvard his whole life, but when he really got there, he didn’t like it. It was the best, but not good enough.

Don’t just love being around perfectionist?
If I tried for perfection on everything I still be tring to make my first dollar.
The most practiacl solution is usally the one that does the job the best and the most perfect usually ends up being the one that is least useable. At least that’s the way it seems to work for me.

This whole argument is a perfect example of how we have come to grossly undervalue common sense. On one hand you have people paralyzed by indecision and inertia because they are scared to death of making any mistake no matter how insignificant. Every decision involves a certain risk since we can never know all the effects of any action we take. In day to day business life we have to make the best decisions we can with the information we have at the moment, all the while knowing that we aren’t going to hit a homerun 100% of the time. On the other hand we have practical business people making life and death decisions about medical care. These are clearly decisions that should be made by physicans. The 80/20 rule obviously doesn’t work when human life is at stake. Common sense.

Except it doesn’t apply when 60% of people tell you you’re doing the wrong thing, and you do it anyways - and by golly, those people were right and you were wrong.

Some people would find a political argument in a bowl of pudding. And Lord knows, they’d be right, wouldn’t they! There’s just no debating a fanatic. Good day!