... is a book from 1980 written by Thomas Sowell. One of Dr. Sowell's many gifts is his ability to think and write clearly. He's also a fountain of common sense. These are combined with sophistication in Knowledge and Decisions. It speaks to so much of what I've tried to do on this blog over the last couple of years. That is, to answer the question, "Why are we seeing what we're seeing?"
A crude summary of the first section of the book is to separate decision-making into motivations, knowledge and information. To use Justin Trudeau's mystifying recent decisions as an example, I've not been able to figure out his motive. What does he gain from fighting the truckers and forcing them to show vaccine passports at various traffic chokepoints? Canada already has an ~89% vaccination rate. Is it worth all the chaos and conflict to get to 90%?
What if the problem isn't Justin's motivation, but it's his lack of knowledge instead?
Way back when, I got tired of going to meetings where there didn't seem to be a purpose. We'd talk and talk and talk for an hour and by the time we'd left, we had nothing to show for it. I took to starting every meeting by asking, "At the end of this meeting, we will have ... what?" I had never seen anyone else do it, it just seemed like a useful thing to do. It was always appreciated and it clarified our purpose. It almost always bore fruit.
That's not to pat myself on the back, it's to say that the knowledge of how to run a meeting with purpose isn't a given. Perhaps Justin doesn't understand how to use cost-benefits tradeoffs. That's a learned skill, at least in a bureaucratic setting. It's not hard to imagine any meeting going off the rails and producing bad decisions because no one there has a good grasp of practical decision-making methodologies.
Finally, Justin might not know that the tow truck companies and the banks are reluctant to enforce his decrees. He's given some pretty bold orders lately, does he know if they will be executed? Will his minions and his citizens practice Irish democracy and simply ignore his edicts?
Dr. Sowell focuses a lot on feedback loops. When we make a decision, how do we know if it had the desired effect? How does Justin Trudeau know? Does he have a well-defined desired effect? If it's simply to clear the streets, he could do that by ditching the mandates. Is it clear the streets and maintain the mandates? Several Canadian provinces have given up on the mandates already, so how will they work nationally now?
I've read plenty of people say the Trudeau has been backed into a corner and will have to relent, but that only works if he knows he's in a corner. If he doesn't know or can't recognize a corner when he's in one, then all bets are off.
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| Whatever happens in Canada, I highly recommend Knowledge and Decisions. |
5 comments:
He does not know he's in a corner. But neither do the Truckers or Canadian citizens (including the ones that approve of Trucker Fudeau).
The police are arresting the Truckers in Ottawa. They have said that if there is an animal in a truck with the owner arrested, they will take the animal into custody, and charge the trucker for the care. Then if the trucker doesn't claim the animal within 7 days they will kill the animals. Will those truckers be able to get out and/or pay the costs with their bank accounts frozen within the time limit? Note that Trucker Fudeau is the head of the Liberals. I would bet that most liberals consider themselves as someone who wants proper protection and care of pets. How will mass executions of pets (or even just the threat of it) play to his base? I can't see it as going well. Of course this assumes the main stream media tells those folks - since they won't believe it otherwise.
Then there is the optics of police arresting peaceful protestors and refusing to give their badge numbers during arrests. That's what police do in dictatorships. It has become clear to me that Canada is no longer a democracy. We are seeing, in real time, the transition of Canada to a dictatorship. The events of the last few days carry an uncomfortable parallel to what happened in 1933 in Germany. Will that be allowed to take hold or will the masses and sufficient numbers of police and military see the problem and act forcefully soon enough. And, yes, it almost can't be peaceful - unless a miracle occurs and Parliament votes down the Emergency Act powers and/or passes a vote of no confidence.
How far are we here in America from something similar happening? I don't know. I do know that here in San Diego (California) there are still mask requirements for school kids. Recently, several school kids have been forced outside for not wearing masks, and their parents have been called and told to come get them or they will call Child Protective Services. This is a very troubling step towards the schools having parents lose their kids and have the government take possession of them. I find this terrifying to contemplate.
"but it's his lack of knowledge instead?"
That could be. But then, that goes both ways. I am reluctant to weigh in on what is going on in Canada, because I lack knowledge about what is going on. Trudeau is about 750 miles away from me and in another country, where I'd have to drive at least 5 hours to get to anywhere that anyone has to care what he says. I don't have any contacts with people who are actually in Canada. Any information I get is filtered through at least two or three intermediaries, and as far as I can tell the only people in the US who are saying anything about Canada have an axe to grind. They are likely not telling me the whole story, and are probably twisting the facts to tryin to make a better story.
Maybe Trudeau is in fact uninformed and a bit of an idiot. Maybe it's the truckers that are the uninformed idiots. Maybe they both are. Maybe neither are, but the "news" about what is going on is so slanted that it only has a tangential relationship to reality. I have no grounds for deciding what is really happening in Canada, or saying anything useful about who is actually in the wrong and what they should do about it.
Do you?
^ There's the Tim Eisele we all know and expect.
To me, the solution, as it is here in the US, is to leave people alone. If you dropped the mandates, this all goes away. That's the whole crux of my confusion. You're at 89% vaccinated, what's the point of the mandates?
Why is it that Justin Trudeau can't leave Canadian citizens alone? It makes no sense to me, hence the noodling about it on the blog.
Tim,
Well... I can't say that I have any first-hand knowledge of what is going on, but I am claiming to have semi-first-hand, and second hand as well.
It turns out that Mrs Ohioan and I own a small trailer out in Arizona (we be white trailer trash!). Most of the other folks in that particular trailer park are Canadians who winter in AZ. We also happened to be there as the truckers Freedom Convoy were parked during the first week in February. The Canadians that I talked with were very interested in what was happening (and got me interested as well). They mostly use Canadian satellite TV, so they are essentially in Canada from that point of view. I can say with confidence that based on this (very non-random) sample, Canadians do not support the current vaccine mandates or the current Covid restrictions. They have come to the same conclusion that anyone who actually looks at the data/Science has come to: We are in the post pandemic endemic stage, and thankfully the virus has mutated to a substantially less virulent form. Given this the mandates and restrictions no longer make sense and they want what the Truckers want.
Secondly, once these neighbors from the great white north got me interested I started really following the Freedom Convoy. Being retired I have the time to actually look around and not just settle for the first page of the Google results. I found a particular Canadian blog where the lawyer who posts it lives in Quebec, but is close enough to get himself to Ottawa a couple of times each week. [To see them just do a YouTube search for "Viva Frei live in Ottawa". These are hours long. Sure he says his piece, but the images are essentially like being there.] I've seen nothing like anything that Trucker Frudeau has described. I've seen a peaceful protest. One with street hockey, bouncy castles, general friendliness, and an excessive tendency to sing Oh, Canada. Seriously, if it wasn't for the trucks, and the anthem you'd think it was a mid-winter street party. You'd certainly never think, or be willing to accept that, it was a gathering of racist misogynous folks that want to overthrow the government.
So that said, I can not say I know what is "really" happening there. But I can see and hear what I do see and hear. And from that I can conclude that I do not like what I see and hear. I can say that as Americans try to dox those Americans who willingly gave to the Freedom Convoy, I oppose it. I can say that I worry about the direction of a free country that is locked down, then forces its citizens to take an experimental drug to be allowed to keep their jobs. When one such country then declares some peaceful protesters to be enemies of the state, I wonder if my country will be next. That that first country is on our border I worry even more.
I also find it interesting that the PM of said country called the peaceful protesters "a fringe minority" and yet that same PM claims that the governments can't deal with them without 'Emergency powers'. Something is inconsistent here, and inconsistency smells just like bull sh*t.
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