I have blogged about this point before, but now I want to put as finer point on it. Recall that I accused people of making decisions on the simple minded basis that some thing was "good" and thus should be done by our government? It is like most things where people have to make decisions. Take the whole "green" movement. If the car runs of battery power, that must be "good" so let's do it. If people will not do it on their own, then it would be "good" if the government passed a law and made them do it. Starting to see where this is going? You could apply this concept to almost anything and the results would be the same. A very stupid decision! I know this could get complicated so I have tried to boil it down to some very simple concepts. Here goes.
The three aspects that I want to use are (1) Performance, (2) Cost, (3) Brittle. I know that these seem strange, but I will flesh them out and you will see my point. To make my point, I am going to use an example, but don't lose sight of the basic concept. Let's take cars since that is where a lot of ink is being spilled these days.
First, Performance.
We all know that it would be "good" to have a car that had better performance. This better or "good" performance could be in any area. Speed, gas mileage or pollution. Currently, the thinking of most people is that this is as far as one would need to go to figure out what to do. They would not consider any other aspect in making their decision and further, there would be no limit to how far they would go to do what was "good". As I pointed out above, they would know what was "good" for you and get the government to make you do it. We are just talking about a car here, but it applies to almost every thing.
Second, Cost.
Now if this car costs a lot more for the added performance factors, like the Tessla, is it still "good" or do we need adjust the "good" factor? I think that a Tessla has a cost of about $100,000. I pointed out before that basic cost boils down to "energy". It takes a lot more energy to make a Tessla and that is why is has such a high cost. Simple isn't it. Now if it has all this up front cost, how can it ever save us anything? It could get 1,000 miles per gallon and it would still not be worth it. In the life of a normal car, you would never use that much gas. You could just as easily apply this to the cost of education and the answer would come up the same. More education is "good", but when you adjust improved performance for the cost, it does not come out so well.
Third, Brittle.
I have blogged on this point before too, but it also applies here. Brittle means that some thing has a very small safety factor. Who cares, you might say. This is one of the most important factors and is very often over looked. In the case of the Tessla, I don't think your average mechanic down the block could fix it if it broke down. Further, the fact that they are trying so hard to get as many miles as they can out of a charge, the battery plates are very thin. A very small defect could take the car out of service and you would be walking. The concept of "brittle" applies to almost all designs. As you try to get more and more out of a design, you start to compromise by giving up reliability and durability. A good example is a Russian fighter jet. They are not quite up to the performance of the USA fighters, but they are a lot simpler and cheaper to build and are much more durable and reliable. If that is the case, which one is the "Best".
This brings me to the conclusion. What is the objective? The "Best". Is "good" the "best"? I don't think so. To determine the "best", you have to take into account all three of the concepts above and that is "not" what the voters of the USA have been doing. They have only looked at "good". Isn't it interesting how few times you have heard the word "best" in relationship to a decision? In every decision we have "good", "bad", "cost", "Brittle", but where do we ever get to the final point of what is "BEST". Good parents know what is "Best" for their kids and don't just do what is "good". Where have all the "great" parents gone and where are the "great" kids that we used to produce? "Good" is not "Good" enough!
