I was thinking today about the question of drinking age laws. As I am an extremist when it comes to drug laws, arguing even against laws requiring prescriptions, it should come as no surprise that I would oppose even these "common sense" laws. (Actually liquor licenses themselves are a bigger issue, as they are often used as a means to threaten liquor sellers into complying with various government requests, as well as a means to both extort money from businesses, and to allow the government to manipulate the number of businesses they 'allow" in an area. Certainly all quite contrary to any conception of a free market.) However, I am not going to make what is certainly an unpopular argument now. Instead, I want to point out how our absurd approaches to the law create problems that should not exist, and the sale of liquor actually provides a pretty good example.

You see, when I suggest eliminating age restrictions, the first question is "so you would let X year olds get drunk? (or buy drugs, or whatever)". To which I usually reply, "No, their parents should stop them." After all, we don't have a law saying children can't play with lighters, or run out into traffic, or eat poison, and yet we don't think the lack of laws means we want them to do those things. Instead we rely on parents to keep them from doing such things. So, why would we think that if there was no law saying "You must be X years old to drink" it would mean parents would have to allow preteens to drink?

However, that is not where the point of my essay lies. Allow me another moment, and my point should be obvious.

You see, I am well aware, especially with older children, parents cannot constantly supervise them, and so there is often an opportunity for them to do things they shouldn't. Of course, again, there are no laws preventing them from doing any number of harmful things, and we count instead on upbringing and parental oversight to prevent those acts, but, for the sake of argument, let us pretend alcohol consumption is somehow "different", and ask, with older children, how do we prevent them from drinking?

Well, the way we did in the more distant past. Prior to prohibition, there were no national laws about drinking*, and states, even counties, had wildly different laws. Some banned drinking entirely, some had no laws at all, and others fell somewhere between those two extremes. However, even in those states where there were few or no laws, there was not a chronic plague of drunken elementary schoolers or even teens. Alcohol was sold, and often there was no legal prohibition on sales to youth, but youth did not buy it, or at least not in great numbers? Why not? Because store owners regularly refused to sell to them. Oh, in some cases they would sell to children who regularly picked up orders for their parents, or those whose families the store owners knew well, but for the most part, store owners simply exercised their ability to refuse to sell.

Sadly, our modern times make such simple solutions impossible. The right to contract is no longer sacrosanct, we can no longer say "I won't sell to you" and give no reason. We are likely to be sued for discrimination, or some other violation, modern laws in effect forcing stores to sell to all and sundry unless a law prevents them from doing so. And so, because of our lack of respect for the freedom of contract, we have effectively created a situation where stores must have laws to prevent them from selling, even when they don't want to sell. It is absurd, it is a problem we created for ourselves, but it is very much in keeping with our modern perspective, where imaginary rights tend to trump the very real rights, in this case, the "right" to purchase trumping the freedom of contract.

I know this is a peculiar example, but it was the one that came to mind today, and so it was what I chose to use. However, it is hardly the only case where our modern fictitious rights have created problems that should not exist. I have written on this topic before, and shall again, in fact I may write a bit more detailed analysis sometime soon, but for now, I will leave it at this single example.

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* I know, nominally the drinking age is a state decision, but when congress threatened to withhold highway funds for states which did not raise it to 21 back in the late 80's, it created a de facto, if not de jure, federal drinking age, just as the same threats created an effective federal mandatory seat belt law a few years later.

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POSTSCRIPT

It is off topic, but I am sure some would ask, if stores are counted upon to stop young buyers, what is to prevent some store owner from selling to youth? And the truth is, there is nothing legal. However, there are two solutions. First, those parents who find their children drinking can exercise more control, either by denying them funds or by restricting their freedom. And, in regard to the store owner, the parents of the area, who likely spend many times what the young do, could refuse to deal with such stores. A short period of such shunning would likely change the policy of most shops.

As I said, I doubt I will convince many of my position here, we have become too familiar with post-prohibition circumstances to believe any other solution would work. It is absurd, as we lived without such laws for centuries, even in the relatively modern and urban late 19th and early 20th centuries, yet I recognize the inertia of beliefs will make this argument a steeply uphill struggle. So I am not trying to persuade, just showing how limiting the right to refuse service has created a host of other problems which are worse than any supposed problems the restrictions supposedly resolve.

For reasons that are not important right now, I was looking at archive.org, specifically looking for old comments I had posted on the writing of various pundits. I was not intending to find anything that would inspire a post, but of course I did. It is not anything new or surprising, but it is a good example of the way that we can understand something in one context, and completely fail to get it in another, and how populist rhetoric can make even supposed conservative misunderstand that situation.

Specifically, I am going to look once more at CEO compensation, and the many ways populists malign CEOs and try to blame government driven economic collapse on CEOs, or the free market in general. (My earlier writing can be found in "Fairness and the Free Market", "A Little More On CEO Salaries", "A Really Foolish Idea", "Pointless or Destructive", "Living Large During the Good Times", "How To Blame the Free Market", "Government Quackery" and, as will be obvious shortly,  "Why Do They Earn So Much For Playing a Game?".)

Let us start with a few basic facts. Our recent economic woes, especially the subprime collapse and its consequences, is government created. ("Not Entirely to Blame") Our collapse in 2000-1, the so called "dot com bust", was also government created. ("Explaining Past Crashes", "Recipe For Disaster") In fact, outside of many local slumps, every collapse since about 1836 has been orchestrated by the government -- unintentionally, I admit -- through their efforts to manipulate the currency to either "avoid slumps" or "promote growth" or simply "keep the currency stable." ("Inflation and Uncertainty", "Bad Economics Part 7", "Bad Economics Part 8", "What Is Money? ", "What Is A Dollar?", "The Gold Question, Not "Why?" But "When?"", "Monetary Issues Made Simple Part I", "Monetary Issues Made Simple Part II", "Stupid Quote of the Day (January 7, 2012)") They rarely recognize this, blaming the crashes on this industry or that, whichever first feels the ill effects of monetary tinkering, or, at most, they will blame the private banks, ignoring their own role. ("Those Greedy Bankers", "Perverting Self Interest", "Slieght of Hand") However, for a crash tor each national, or even international, scope, it has to go beyond a single company. No single firm, no single bank, not even a single industry, has that power. Only the central banks, given monopoly power over currency can do that. And that is what lies at the root of all our economic woes of the past nearly two centuries.

Next, let us look at a topic that often figures prominently in populist rhetoric ("Beware Populist Deception"), and that is greed. ("Greed Versus Evil", "Greed", "Greed Part 2"). As I said many times before ("The Basics", "Employment A to Z"), it is a meaningless term, a pejorative designed to describe a common human attribute, something we could even call a survival trait. If you doubt we are all greedy, and we all need to be greedy, ask yourself this: What would happen if you gave away one thing for something you values less? What would happen if you did that consistently? The answer? You would starve to death or die of exposure.

In all aspects of life, we try to maximize benefit. It is not always monetary benefit, we may trade money for other advantages, but we always try to get something we want more for something we want less. We try to be paid as much as possible for our labor. We try to sell our production for as much as possible. We invest our wealth in those things offering the best combination of risk and return. In short, what is maligned by some as "greed" is simply the way we all behave.We only call it greed when it is done by someone we envy, by someone who does it better than we do, or who gets more for his efforts. In short, the use of the term greed tends to indicate the speaker is suffering from envy. ("Envy Kills II", "The "Lucky" Rich", "Envy Kills", "Envy And Analogy", "The Great "What If?" - Advertising, Gullibility, Education, Capitalism and Socialism") Either that, or has a political axe to grind.

I mention this because when discussing CEO compensation, we so often hear about their "greed", about the ways in which it destroyed their companies. However, we never hear about the greed of the UAW, or other unions, or the greed of the workers in a non-union factory. And yet their unwillingness to take pay cuts can do more to harm a company than any single CEO. Not that I blame them either*, but I wanted to point out, when it comes to wages, we all try to get as much as we can, and hold on to what we can. But any other behavior would make no sense. And that is my point. CEOs are behaving as everyone would in their position, and yet are being criticized for doing so.

There is one particular aspect of CEO compensation that tends to draw especial ire from critics, probably because it is so easy to criticize, being remote from the experience of most of us, and that is the "golden parachute". Most of us are familiar with wages, and even bonuses for performance, so those are hard to malign. Many of us even understand signing bonuses, if we have worked in a field that was ever short of skilled workers. But few of us have the experience of a buyout clause in a contract, and so, as a target for criticism, it makes a good choice.

However, I want to point out that we actually are more familiar with it than we think, and in another context we not only accept it, but find it a good idea. Which may help us understand why CEOs receive such contractual payments, and why it makes sense to do so.

As I have written before, the best analogy for a CEO of a large company is a professional athlete in a team sport, say a pro baseball player. In both cases, the skills required are relatively rare, a good hire can turn things around, each can provide a huge amount of revenue by hiring a single individual, and in both cases, even when the enterprise as a whole is failing, it makes sense to keep a star player, as they can often change things over time, and even if they don't, eliminating them may make things much worse, making their salary worthwhile, even while losing. And, most relevant here, they both drive hard bargains when negotiating a contract.

Let us look at a ball player. He is at a team where he is doing well, he is the team star, earns a good amount of money, and even during off years he knows he will be retained, as his record makes him a sound investment. Let us suppose another team wishes to steal him away. They offer him money, both a higher yearly wage and a signing bonus. However, he will not sign for that alone. He knows that changing teams often results in a poor fit. Perhaps he will have a bad year or two, and maybe let go. If so, then he might have a hard time finding another team, as a player with a recent losing streak is certainly worth less than one with a mixed or winning record. Unless the bonus is truly massive, or the wage outlandishly large, or he is very near the end of his career, he will likely demand that the contract not only provide a bonus and pay increase, but guarantee employment for a fixed number of years. In that way he will both be assured of an income for a fixed period, and also will have a chance to turn around any losing record. Of course, the team will not want to keep a losing player for a number of years, so likely they will allow a fixed number of years, but then ask that they be allowed to buy out the contract, in that way providing him with what amounts to a retirement fund, or money to subsidize him while seeking a new team (or to make up for the lower salary he might receive), while allowing them to eliminate a player who is not working out.

Most people understand this in professional sports. Oh, some may complain about the whole issue of those playing games receiving such amounts ( "Why Do They Earn So Much For Playing a Game?"), but other than those complaints, no one thinks it strange that players are given employment for fixed terms of years, or that buyout clauses are included. Even those who otherwise understand nothing in economics can grasp the reasoning behind these matters, and ind them unobjectionable.

Yet, they are almost identical tot he practices in hiring corporate officers which people claim to find so mystifying and objectionable. Again, a CEO at a given company is settled in, he knows the firm. He has a record on which he can stand, and even a bad year or two will be balanced against his overall performance. He is likely to keep his job for some time, and he is likely to do a better job there than elsewhere, as he knows the firm, the people and what is expected. The familiar is safe and comfortable. So, to hire him away, a competitor must offer a lot. Usually a signing bonus an wage increase, as well as a promise of profit sharing, usually through stock options. However, again, he knows that if the firm fails, he will not be retained long enough to exercise those options (or if he is, a failing company's options may not be worth exercising). He also knows that it may be hard to find comparable employment coming from a failing firm**.  And a CEO has a much longer span of years in which he is employable than a professional athlete, so he must look even farther ahead. And so firms tend to contract with CEOs in the way baseball teams do. Either they explicitly hire for a fixed period, with a buyout clause (not a very common solution), or they do not specify a term of years, but include a clause paying a set fee on involuntary separation. And that is the "golden parachute" so many do not understand. It is, in effect, nothing but the baseball player's buyout clause modified for the business world. It is a way for a firm to get rid of a CEO who either does not fit in or, or who fails to live up to expectations, without needing to let his contract run out. Or, if there is no fixed term, then it is a substitute for the same, a way to ensure the firm will not terminate him without reason, that they will only do so if they think it worth the cost, and thus ensuring him at least a certain minimal income.

What is interesting is that such payouts tend to be but a tiny fraction of the total payroll of such companies. For that matter, the amount of stock offered in incentive deals is usually a minute fraction of the total available as well. And yet, somehow, populist demagogues manage to sue these tiny fractions of the company's net worth to explain the failures we see around us. Rather than look at the government's monetary meddling, and the resulting misallocation of investments, they blame "greedy CEOs" and parade before us all their excessive spending as an excuse for why the economy failed. It is nonsense, and we should see it as nonsense, and yet, because of envy, envy and a lack of economic understanding, far too many, even among supposed conservatives, buy into such arguments.

It is sad, especially to see conservatives going along with such ploys. We should be the first to stand up and defend the companies and CEOs, to defend the free market and capitalism. But out of fear of bad press, we cave in and talk about "sensible regulations" and "necessary oversight" and "preventing excesses", and thus give the game to the other side.("How Conservatives Defeat Themselves", "The Single Greatest Weakness",  "What We Deserve", "Who Is To Blame?", "Don't Blame the Politicians", "You Lose When You Think You Win", "Tyranny Without Tyrants")

As in so many cases, we are our own worst enemies.

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* There is grounds for complaint when companies are forced by statute to engage in collective bargaining with unions, as that effectively allows unions to demand above market wage rates, which can be disastrous for both employers and non-union workers (and even junior union members). However, that is a matter for another essay. See "The Harm of Closed Shops and Collective Bargaining" and "Pro-Labor Cannibalism, A Look At The Union Food Chain".

** This is doubly true for CEOs brought in to turn around failing companies. As they are already coming into a risky situation, they are likely to demand much more, as the chance of the firm failing, requiring them to seek other employment, is much higher.

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POSTSCRIPT

For those curious about my inspiration, here is the comment which inspired this essay:

andrews writes:	Wednesday, January, 02, 2008 1:50 PM
Actually
Williams little joke at the end misled some people. Yes, sometimes it is worth paying CEOs to go away quietly, but most golden parachutes are not given for that reason. The real reason is simple: Most CEOs get stock options as part of their compensation. CEOs also know that through no fault of their own they may not be able to turn a company around. If the company still fails, their options will not be worth much, and their contract will likely be terminated earlier. In addition their future hiring prospects will be less rosy. Since most CEOs already have a good position, to lure them away companies need to offer them considerable pay. Part of that is the stock options to make them wealthy if things go well. But if things go badly, the CEOs still want some assurance they will not be unemployable and without income, so they negotiate gold parachutes for themselves. The only alternative to a golden parachute would be to ensure employment for a fixed term (say 5 or 100 years), the way athletes are hired. As that could be suicidal for a company which finds a given CEO a poor fit, they opt for a golden parachute, which is cheaper in the long run than getting stuck with a bad CEO for 5 or 10 years. Trust me, if the company did not expect the CEO to return many times what they are being paid, they would not be hiring them.

I am never quite sure what to make of pop culture mockery of cherished liberal beliefs. For example, when pop culture started to make fun of the excesses of political correctness, it was tempting to see it as a sign the majority had finally grown tired of PC verbiage and the nonsensical extremes to which the PC movement went. However, one could also take the opposite view, that PC attitudes had become so well accepted that they were open to gentle chiding and mockery. In some ways, both were true. The public was fed up with the excesses of PC movements. They were tired of the "name of the week" which gave us "African-American", "person of color", and a few other variants in quick succession. They were also tired of the more extreme symptoms, such as college speech codes. However, they were not so certain about the more basic tenets, such as the importance of using euphemisms to describe select groups, or the need to avoid any "hurtful" language. In many cases, they were in complete sympathy with the PC movement, happy to accept hurt feelings as a guide for actions and to twist language to avoid giving offense, even when it made little sense, they just required that the arguments have a justification they could understand. In other words, the mockery of the PC movement was a sign of acceptance, but it was also an indication of the limits beyond which the movement could not expect broad support.

So I am not quite sure what to make of some recent mentions I have noticed making fun of the "self esteem" focus of education. For example, in the cartoon Johnny Test, there is a scene where Johnny is attempting to avert a nuclear meltdown. While pushing buttons, the countdown changes from seven minutes to five minutes, and Johnny then delivers the punchline "But I tried. And that's what matters, right?" I am tempted to see this as a sign of the public's frustration with "outcome based education", and in all likelihood it is. However, the question I must then ask, is it a sign of total frustration, or, like the PC mockery above, is it frustration with the absurd extremes, such as the belief any effort is a good thing, while the public accepts the underlying premise?

Sadly, there is no easy answer. The topic itself has long been out of the public eye, no longer the subject of much media attention, even largely ignored in conservative circles. Yet, clearly, it still remains official policy, to one degree or another, in many school systems. And the public is aware of it, even if they no longer see any ongoing debate about the topic. Which makes me tempted, though I hate to say it, to believe this mockery is much like that of the PC movement, a sad sign that the "self-esteem at all costs" side has won, and the public is chiding only the most extreme expressions. I hope I am wrong, but I doubt it. Unfortunately, it seems once again a bad idea has won by default. By dropping out of the public eye, the argument has been won without being resolved.

POSTSCRIPT

For my take on the problems with even the most mild "self-esteem" movement, see "Children's Programming Versus Self-Improvement".

I have to say, if you want to feel bad about yourself, and simultaneously feel good, an online dating site is the best place to go.

I will warn my readers in advance, this is almost certainly going to be apolitical, so if you are waiting for my usual rants, please skip this one. This is mostly a few personal observations about the absurdities of dating.

As my readers know, if they have read for a while, my wife of 15 years left me about 2 years ago, leaving me with our son (now seven). Since then, she has asked the court for joint custody, and officially we split him 50-50, though in practice I still seem to have him most of the time. (Which is fine with me, I would prefer having him all the time.) In addition, I am ill, suffering from acute intermittent porphyria (or some variety of non-blistering intermittent porphyria, the tests were inconclusive as to exact type), as well as nerve damage in my limbs from the six years after it began to cause serious problems, when doctors failed to diagnose it properly (I finally did that myself), and often prescribed drugs which triggered almost non-stop attacks, leaving me sick, pained and confused. As a result, I take quite a few pain killers, don't drive and work from home. (For the full story, readers can read "Morbus non Gratus ".)

I tell all this, because I recently made an idle decision to check out one of those online dating sites. And, if I must be honest, it is depressing. First of all because I find the women anywhere close to my age have no interests outside of immediate marriage, or telling me about their careers. I have a good job, but it is still just that, a means to earn money. I do not live for it. Yet it seems at my age, most others do. Or else they have no interests at all, as you can tell when their list of recreations are simply everything possible.

The second, and more depressing part, are the requirements these women have. They may have dropped out of high school, be fifty pounds overweight, have four ex's and five kids, but they want a toned man, who earns $200K, with no kids who never married. It seems my profile is almost exactly what no one wants.

The only thing that makes this a little less depressing is that the profiles posted by the men are equally depressing.

Looking through all the choices, I realized a few things. Most of those who share my interests are too young for me to feel right about dating. (I went through my twenties already, I don't want to to go through them again vicariously. They were bad enough once. I leave cradle snatching to my cousin with his herd of children and string of child brides -- well, not all of them were married.) And those who are closer to my age seem to have almost nothing in common with me in terms of interests, perspectives or anything else that really matters.  So, I am left with the choice of absurdly young and (remotely) common interests, or closer in age with very little in common. I would look at older women, but they seem to be have problems similar to those my own age, at least until we go old enough that I am absurdly young for them to date. And then there is the fourth option "None of the above." Guess which seems to be the only really viable choice?

Aside from the lack of any viable choices, there were two thing that struck me, and are almost on topic for this blog.

First, if I am to judge by dating blogs, the women of my area have no political opinions whatsoever. I have never seen more people describing themselves as moderate or centrist. Now, I know this is because they don't want to alienate a potential suitor with strong political opinions, but you would think at least a few would place enough importance on politics, and the views of a potential mate, to be honest, or at least present a watered-down version of themselves. The closest I got was one who admitted to reading the Washington Post.

Second, I realized I am guilty of the one unforgivable sin of the modern world. I mentioned it before, but I smoke. I don't say this to elicit sympathy, or to portray myself as an outsider, I simply mention it because I have recently realized our culture, for reasons that puzzle me, have decided smoking is the single greatest sin. Think about it, we forgive drinkers, drug addicts, murderers, we even forgive child abusers, child molesters, even cannibals. Yet smokers are unforgivable. Hollywood, recall, was under fire to stop showing smoking, at the same time movies about serial killers, gangsters and torturers were getting high ratings! In other words, torturing, killing, even eating a person can be displayed, but smoking cannot. It might corrupt the young. Try to think through that logic. I know I can't.

In fact, I am worse than a sinner, as I am not even a slightly less horrific figure the "I can't quit" smoker, the one who claims to try to quit and fail. I freely and proudly admit, I like smoking and won't stop.I don't even try to hide it by masquerading as a cigar aficionado (the forgivable, sometimes fashionable type of smoker). I am a simple pariah, a man who commits the one, horrific, unforgivable sin of our age. And worse, who does not even apologize for it.

But, as I said, none of this is precisely on topic. It simply struck me tonight, and so I had to write about it. I haven't made any off topic digressions for some time, so I am sure this one can be forgiven.

And, having said that, I think it is safe to say, I will be avoiding online dating sites for the foreseeable future. Should I happen to stumble upon Ms. Right, or even someone in that neighborhood, perhaps I will date again. But for the time being, I think I will spend my energy on writing and programming and, most of all, spending time with my son.

ADDENDUM

I just realized what I wrote could be read two ways. When I say the profiles posted by the men are depressing, I do not mean to imply I am looking for a man, simply that when I looked at them (mostly to see if they uniformly fit these absurd requirements, and I was somehow inferior to most single men), I discovered they were as unrealistic as the women. I know it is traditional to malign men in their forties seeking teen bimbos, but it seems both sexes are unrealistic, just in different ways. Women in their forties may want men older than 25, but they are equally unrealistic in seeking a fit, rich prince charming who will earn a fortune, yet spend no time at work, be macho one minute and a chatty girlfriend the next. I grant, men tend to have more superficial needs in their fantasy mates, but women are, if anything, less realistic. So both sexes seem to suffer from delusions about their own appeal, as well as both having rather absurd fantasy mates.

Apologies for the rather quiet weekend. Normally weekends allow me quite a bit of free time, but this one was more busy than most. Last night I had to attend a function at my son's school, which left me little of the evening, and today, for reasons not quite clear, my physical condition deteriorated badly, leaving me rather uncomfortable, and certainly in no mood for writing. I am better now, but I am quite exhausted, and so I doubt I will write anything new for the rest of the night. Perhaps tomorrow I will put something on the blog, hopefully something from the list in "Upcoming Posts". Until then, my apologies for the unusual silence.

I realized that when I say "I did not have time to reply" in response to comments, while at the same time posting three or four essays, it may seem a bit incongruous, but in truth the two are quite different.

Replying to comments requires me to read them one or more times, and then take ten or more uninterrupted minutes to write a thorough reply, going back and making sure it truly answers the questions raised, and then, at last, paring it down to the rather rigid length requirements. And there is no way to save the results mid way.

Writing a post can be done differently. Since I have an outline in mind from the start, I can write it a line at a time, saving the results against crashes or computer failures, sometimes taking days to complete it. It is often done in two or three minute blocks over a few days.

Of the two, the second fits much better with my busy days. Often, I do have a few idle minutes here and there, but no guarantee I will get a considerable block of time without interruptions. And when times are particularly busy, I find it is just much easier to write essays than reply to posts, especially if such posts require detailed rebuttals.

And that is why I can often post essays while having to put off responses to comments.

I know, it isn't all that interesting, but I thought I should explain as it has happened before, as well as happening currently.

When discussing dubious environmental or health claims, one often hears the argument "But why not do it? If there is any risk, why not take the precaution. Better safe than sorry." And taken on a very superficial level, such arguments have appeal, at least enough to carry popular opinion. After all, it sounds so even handed, so temperate, that many think it must make sense. In fact, it sounds much like Obama's favorite rhetorical device, the "on the one hand" arguments, where he presents what he claims are both sides, and promises to reach some sensible compromise.

There is a problem with such "sensible" approaches, in that, when one side is valid, and the other is completely without foundation. Balancing costs and benefits is fine, when you are dealing with competing, valid concerns. but when one is a complete fiction, to take its interests into account even a little bit is to pay costs without receiving any benefit. And that is what is wrong with the "batter safe than sorry approach".

Let us look at the best historical example of this, the DDT fears of the 60's and 70's. During the 60's a lot of scare mongering data came out about DDT. By 1970 it was becoming evident to scientists* (though not to the public, due to media insistence onr eproting only the scare side) DDT was not responsible for the thinning of the shells of wild bird eggs (the number of wild birds showed no decline during the highest period of DDT), in many studies humans consumed simply absurd quantities without health consequences and all the other scares were simply unfounded. It did persist in the environment -- one of the arguments in its favor, as a small quantity provided benefits for a long time -- but other than the chemical becoming ubiquitous in the environment, there was no real change from the period before DDT was in use. Or, there were changes, but they were all positive. Malaria cases, for example, dropped in many nations from millions to hundreds per year. Other insect borne disease also showed decline, though not quite as dramatic.

However, as these scare stories were out there, and the chemical was becoming widespread in the environment, many sensible types argued "since it may be dangerous, and there are alternatives, why not do the smart thing? Why take the risk?" And the newly founded EPA, looking for a big case to flex its muscles and show it was serious (as the head later admitted), acted and stopped the use of DDT.

Sounds like a wise choice? After all, mosquito netting and other insecticides could be used, right? No harm done?

Except for those who lived in malarial zones, where cases rebounded from hundreds back to hundreds of thousands or millions in a few short years. Rebounded so badly that even today, almost forty years later, there are charities begging for funds for mosquito netting. THAT is the cost of "better safe than sorry", of balancing a real benefit against imaginary risks, we gain nothing, and lose millions to malaria.

Or let us look at Thimerosal. For years groups argued it was linked to an increase in autism. Of course, I have argued the "increase" was actually a statistical artifact, base don changing definitions, increased screening, and self-interest of groups seeking special ed funding. (See "Statistical Artifacts" and "Disease Incidence".) Still, even if there was a real increase, medical science showed that, first, the spike came AFTER Thimerosal was discontinued in many nations and second, that there was no medical proof of any link between the two. Yet, in a "better safe than sorry" move, it was discontinued.

And the cost?

Well, in rich countries not much. We don't often conduct mass inoculations, so being able to preserve large vials of medication is not that important. Thanks to health spending, we can afford individual vials of medicines. But in poorer lands? Well, when the cost of inoculation rises from $0.10 a person to $2.00 a person, it is a real problem for underfunded health programs. And so, while it was largely unnoticed in richer nations, in poorer lands, the ban caused a decrease in access to inoculations, and a loss of the ability to prevent disease outbreaks**.

And there is the other side of the coin, the lost benefits.

Irradiation, for example, offers a perfect way to sterilize foods and other items without changing them at all, without adding preservatives or other chemicals. You would think that would appeal to environmentalists who hate preservatives and often exaggerate their harm, right? No, they campaigned in the late 80's and early 90's to have the government list radiation as an "additive" on food, that must be listed on the ingredients. Never mind that it in no way changes the food, or leaves anything behind. And, recognizing this listing would make such food hard to sell, many companies have simply gave up on food irradiation.  And so, for any number of years, irradiation was lost as a possible solution for foods such as eggs which cannot be sterilized in conventional ways. And we were stuck with outbreaks of salmonella and other ailments which could have been easily and safely prevented because of a compromise between science and Luddites***.

And that is the cost of taking the "better safe than sorry" approach. We either lose benefits, or never realize them, because of the irrational worries of a few.

I have no problem with balancing costs and benefits. in fact, that is the only rational approach to most economic problems. But, to do so, one must recognize the actual costs, not imaginary fears or nonexistent costs. If we try to balance imaginary costs against real benefits, we end up giving up something to gain nothing. In other words, we suffer a net loss. And that doe snot make us safer, it just makes us sorry.

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* I know the public still believes there is a real risk to DDT, so many will doubt me, but consider this. The head of the fledgling EPA which banned DDT in 1970 admitted the science did not truly show a problem. If the man who banned it admits as much, then on what basis do we continue to argue there is a risk? I can cite dozens of reputable studies debunking egg shell thinning, human health risks and all the other press scares (dating back to as early as the 1960's), yet still, when DDT is mentioned, the popular impression is that it is dangerous. Bear that in mind whenever the topic of a biased media is pooh-poohed by someone.

** Don't worry, the anti vaccination campaigners are fighting to make sure the first world gets the same infectious disease incidence anti-Thimerosal campaigns brought to the third world. I am sure soon enough cholera and typhus will be reappearing in the west as regular events. All in the name of better health.

*** I realized as I wrote this that I had no idea what the current policy was. According to this page, the FDA still requires labeling, which explains the lack of much food irradiation in the US, but is "reevaluating" labeling for food that contains only some irradiated ingredients. It is still a bad decision, but better than the current solution.

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POSTSCRIPT

For an essay on a similar Luddite decision, very much akin to the FDA policy on food irradiation, see my essays on GMO food at "GMO? So What?" and "A Misleading "Right to Know"".

I was looking through my old unfinished essays when I saw one entitled, amusingly "Children Cause Promiscuity! Monogamy Causes Adultery!". And the body of the essay was every bit as amusing as the title:

I have decided, given the current state of the social sciences, to engage in a bit of scientific research of my own. I have conducted some field work, and have come up with some valuable insights into humanity and the causes of social problems.

First, I have discovered that children lead to promiscuity. I know it sounds odd, as we all have the image of loving and devoted parents who are faithful to one another, but it seems clear from my study that those who have children are more prone to promiscuity.

The logic is unassailable. Among those who have children, fully 100% have had sexual intercourse. Among those who have no children, fewer than 100% have. Thus, having children causes one to be more likely to have sexual intercourse. As promiscuity correlates with one's likelihood of sexual intercourse, it is clear that those with children must be more likely to become promiscuous.

Or let us look at adultery. Of adulterous relationships, at least one partner of every such relationship is in a monogamous marriage. But, in many, both parties are. Thus, there is a higher probability of adultery among those in monogamous relationships than among those who are not. Which makes clear the fact that monogamous relationships cause adultery.

Are these nonsensical arguments? Of course they are. But, sadly, the same logic is often offered up seriously by supposed scientists. There are countless "studies" I have seen which amount to nothing more than stating A and B occur together more often than not, and assuming that proves A causes B. Completely ignored are the possibilities that B causes A, or some third factor causes both A and B. Not to mention the possibility of coincidence.

Some of these are well known, even accepted as fact. For example,

Unfortunately, it stopped there, and without notes, I can't recall which specific arguments were intended to be the subject of this essay. So, I doubt I will ever finish it. I mean, I can think of a few candidates against which it would be possible to use this argument, but it would always feel a bit forced. So, rather than allow this essay to just disappear, I decided to share the bit that remains, as I find it amusing.

If nothing else, the title is as amusing as my previous essays "Fairy Population up 6%! Pixies Almost Double!" and "WSJ Discovers Miscount in Total of Fairies and Dragons!". Or perhaps "STOP BIG PORCELAIN NOW!".

For once I have actually managed to stick fairly well to a set of promised essays. Of the five listed in my post "Coming Soon", I managed to finish two, which is unusual for me. So, let us list the other three, and promise to finish those:

1. [Completed as "The Right to Die Revisited".]
2. My post on theft and kelptocratic states (as mentioned in "Coming Soon")
3. A discussion of greed and envy and the differences [Which will include material included in "Greed Versus Evil", "Fairness and the Free Market", "Greed", "Greed Part 2", "Planning For Imperfection", "The Triumph of Good", "Envy Kills II", "Envy And Analogy", "Organ Donation", "Envy Kills"]
4. [Completed as "Gay Two Ways".]
5. A look at positivism and its role in modern liberalism (also how it related to Romanticism, the other influence I identified before)

In addition, I have several other posts I have either promised, or decided to finish while reviewing old, incomplete essays:

1. A comprehensive review of all my essays on bureaucracy ("The Inevitability of Bureaucratic Management in Government Enterprises", "Organizations as Filters", "Bureaucracy and Arbitrary Power", "Grow or Die, The Inevitable Expansion of Everything", "Fear Driven Enterprises", "Adaptability and Government", "Best Practices and Resistance to Change, Bureaucracy and the Free Market", "Bureaucratic Management", "Killing the Railroads", "The Bureaucratic Mind", "The Wrong Solution to Bureaucracy", "Bureaucratic Management and Self-Policing", "Inflexibility and Bureaucracy", "Bureaucracy Revisited").
2. Finally, the last few chapters of "Liberalism, Its Origins and Consequences" (Actually, #3 in the previous list maybe become an addition to this work, as it is relevant. Or the two may at least be tied together if written separately.)
3. At long last, the essay on the rights of children mentioned in "The Right to Die Revisited".
4. A look at the concepts of compelling testimony, searches and privilege.
5. A review of all my essays on subjective valuation and its importance and implications
6. The comprehensive essay on money and inflation that "Monetary Issues Made Simple Part I" and "Monetary Issues Made Simple Part II" were supposed to be (Also incorporating "Inflation and Uncertainty", "Bad Economics Part 7", "Bad Economics Part 8", "What Is Money? ", "What Is A Dollar?", "The Gold Question, Not "Why?" But "When?"", "Those Greedy Bankers" and "Utopian Pipe Dream", along with a host of earlier essays on inflation too long to cite here.)
7. A thorough look at liability law and the problems with the form it currently takes
8. A more detailed look at contract laws, akin to "In Praise of Contracts"
9. A comprehensive essay on pragmatism, common sense and their shortcomings (based on "The Lunacy of "Common Sense"", ""Seems About Right", Another Lesson in Common Sense and Its Futility", "A Look at Common Sense", "Res Ipsa Loquitur", "The Shortcomings of Pragmatism", "Pragmatism Revisited", "Pragmatism Revistied, Again", "The Plural of Anecdote is Not Data", "Rules of Grammar and Pragmatism", "The Problem of the Small Picture", "Keyhole Thinking" and "Impractical Pragmatists")

There will probably be others as ideas come to me, but I have real hope that I will finish these.

I know, two of five doesn't seem impressive, but considering I usually get none, or at best, one of five, two seems a real triumph to me.

ADDENDUM (Later the same morning):

When I posted this, I knew I had forgotten one thing I wanted to include, but I actually forgot two, and here they are:

10. A summary of all my criticisms of Wikipedia and similar ventures, based upon "Why I Won't Be Contributing to Wikipedia", "The Taxonomy of Trivia", "The Tragedy of the Creative Commons", "Grind Those Axes, WikiEditors!", "I Found It" and many more.
11. A summary of my many discussion of libertarianism and neo-anarchism, as well as isolationism/non-interventionism and related matters. ("Why I Am Not A Libertarian", "Copyright as Politics",  ""Best Practices"", "More Examples From Another Field", "Fascist Bully Boys", "Rational National Defense","Rights Versus Laws", "Last Word on Defense", "Wait And See", "All Life in a Day, or, How Our Mistaken View of History Distorts Our Understanding of Events", "Catastrophic Thinking, The Political, Economic and Social Impact of Seeing History in the Superlative", "War As Last Resort", "O Tempora! O Mores!, or, The High Cost of Supposed Freedom", "Faulty Logic", "Some Libertarian Analogies", "Mumia, the DaVinci Code, Full Body Scans, and Loose Change - How Conspiracy Theories Arise", "Why Ron Paul Scares Me", "Politics as a Suicide Pact".)

I know, nothing original in these, just a compendium of old arguments, but, then again, as so few go back to read old arguments, it may be useful to gather them, update them a bit, and reprint the lot for benefit of new readers.

In addition, I am thinking of possibly revisiting the material in "The Benefits of Federalism" and "Minimal Reforms", writing an in depth look at federalism, its benefits, and how it differs from contemporary libertarians and many conservatives as well.

I have been quite critical in the past of those advertisements whereby liability lawyers fish for new clients. You know the ones: "If your family member used X and dropped dead, call us and we'll make you rich!" The sort of ads that might make John Edwards blush. (Well, maybe not. I have read a bit about his trial, and his claims of knowing nothing about money going to his mistress seem pretty shameless...)

However, today I saw what has to be the most nonsensical suit yet. The ad asks you to call if a family member used a specific blood thinner and then suffered from bleeding. Now, I understand that lawyers make pretty bizarre, far fetched claims, but isn't bleeding a pretty easily anticipated side effect of a blood thinner? So, how exactly are they claiming that bleeding from a blood thinner is an unanticipated side effect which can sustain a law suit? I admire the audacity, but this is akin to "If your family member started their car in a closed garage and suffered harm, call us!"

I hate to say it, it seems like I am just piling on lawyers, but this one is just unbelievable. Come on, lawyers. If you allow your profession to run such sleazy ads, especially with such absolutely nonsensical claims, what do you expect?

POSTSCRIPT

My earlier posts about such ads can be found at "Still More on Liability Law". And about liability in general, one can read "The Perversion of Liability Law", "The "Right To Sue" As Our Only Right", "The Problem With Tort Reform" and "Red Herring".

I am sure the title of this essay is familiar to at least a few of my readers, and if it is, they are probably married. My ex-wife used to love this quote, throwing it out whenever we would argue. Not only this quote, but another I found equally puzzling, the claim that I "always had to win arguments". Now, that second is a bit misleading, as it was not that i always had to win arguments, what upset her was, rather, that I always tried to win arguments. But, to me, that only makes sense. Arguments, as I see them, are attempts to convince others that your beliefs are true, and, at the same time, to test your own beliefs, to see if they can stand up to serious challenges. That being the point of argument, why wouldn't I always try to win? I am putting forth what I believe, why should I not put it forward forcefully? And as far as "always being right", should I want to be wrong? Or, if she really means "you always think you're right", then of course I do. if I don't know what I believe about something, if I have no strong beliefs, or if I am uncertain, then I would not argue. if I am arguing, it is because I believe I am right. So of course I always present my argument as correct.

Fortunately, or at least fortunately at one time, these arguments seemed limited to private family arguments. People did not feel the need to toss them out when debating politics or religion or any other serious matters. Unfortunately, that no longer seems to be the case. People now seem to regularly expect others to present their beliefs in a fuzzy manner, to blur the lines of their own certainty, so that they don't give the impression they are calling the beliefs of others wrong. At one time in the past, this sort of civility was achieved honestly, by banning discussion of religion and politics from polite gatherings. In that way, one could retain his beliefs, and present them honestly, while at the same time not disrupting social events with heated debate. Now, however, we have adopted two much less honest solutions. The first is to simply associate only with like minded souls. I know it sounds silly, but it really is an approach for many people. Just go into a bar or coffee house frequented by art students, strike up a friendly conversation and then mention you are conservative. See how shocked they appear, how much of a social faux pas it has become. They have adopted this solution, their world allows only on belief set, those who deviate are excluded.

The other solution is to insist upon compromising one's beliefs, on admitting the possibility that anyone could be correct, to deny one's own certainty, all in the name of "getting along." (Cf "Some Absurd Statements", "The Benefit of Society", "Clarifying My Earlier Argument") Perhaps thew best example of this would be the way we handle religious belief, or, to be more precise, the insistence that those who have religious faith avoid at all costs saying that one particular faith is correct.

If there is one fact uncomfortable for modern proponents of tolerance it is the realization that religious belief implies that one's faith is correct. Or, rather that the belief one's faith is correct means all others aren't. Modern minds, confusing disagreement with intolerance, simply cannot accept that someone might suggest another's beliefs are wrong. And so, though they must accept religious faith as part of their pluralistic vision, they insist that those who discuss religion avoid making the simple statement that one's own faith is the correct one, or, worse yet, is the only correct one.(See "Tolerance, Agnostic Prostelytizing and Liberal Activism")

Unfortunately, religions, at least the vast majority of religions, especially monotheistic faiths, are exclusive, their beliefs do not allow for another faith to be correct*. Even polytheistic faiths, which allow the admission of deities from other traditions, still have an underlying set of beliefs which are seen as true, and, those being true, all other choices must be false. Thus, when one subscribes to a faith, any faith, one is implicitly, and sometimes explicitly, declaring the falsehood of all other beliefs. Whether or not this is uncomfortable for those espousing tolerance, it remains the truth.

Then again, that is the nature of all beliefs, of all truths. Truth is singular. There can be but a single truth. Admittedly, some questions do not admit of a single answer, as they have no answer. For example, is it better to like eggs or beans? That is a question which has no answer, as it asks for something improper, a preference which is "right". But for all other questions which can have a proper answer, there is a single truth. And so, to have a belief, to have an answer, is to declare all other answers wrong.

Unfortunately, for the modern mind, that is unacceptable. To declare another wrong is to be intolerant. And thus we end us being asked, time and again, to muddy the waters, to pretend our answers are but one among many, that there is no correct response. In other words, in modern times, obfuscation of one's beliefs has become the new handshake, a sign of accepting another. You don't show you accept him by being willing to exchange ideas honestly, instead you show your acceptance by your willingness to hide your own beliefs to allow his to be true.

And we wonder why our intellectual discourse has dropped to such a low level? When expressing belief is viewed as insulting and unacceptable, how can one exchange ideas? Or determine the truth or falsehood of a given belief? When giving offense is seen as the most heinous offense, and "tolerance" is confused with a willingness to accept the truth of any statement, regardless of merit, we will find ourselves dropping to ever greater intellectual depths, I am afraid.

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* Even those mystical faiths, such as sufism, that postulates some germ of truth in all faiths, or that argues "there are as many paths to heaven as there are souls" must admit there is a single truth, and thus that which deviates from that truth is falsehood. But we shall discuss that in the essay proper a bit later.

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POSTSCRIPT

What strikes me most about this essay is the strange inversion of modern culture. Where there should be certainty, about facts, about matters with objective certainty, or when one declares his own beliefs, or defines his own ethical code, there is nothing but fuzziness and subjectivism, while where there is nothing but opinion and subjective valuations, such as economics, and where those should be allowed to rule, such as the free market, modern minds insist on forcing one "right" solution. ("Absolute Values",  "The Right Way", "The Life Coach Culture", "It Doesn't Matter to ME...", "Slippery Slopes", "The Inherent Disappointment of Authoritarianism", "The Limits of "Scientific" Management") In short, the modern perspective is precisely the inverse of the way things should be.

UPDATE (2012/04/16): While moving articles to my alternate blog site, I came across an old post which discussed the same topic. So, those who found this interesting may enjoy reading my old post "Why Argue ".

UPDATE (2012/04/17): Yet another relevant post came to my attention. See "Political Correctness and the Inversion of Precision". It is relevant for different reasons than the last one, but it does relate directly to matters discussed here. Specifically, the tendency for politically correct attitudes to result in loss of important distinctions. I also discovered my post "The Dubious Virtue of Denying Your Beliefs", which discusses the modern tendency to insist others deny their belief in order to show tolerance and acceptance, just as was discussed here. There are probably other essays n the same topic I am overlooking, and if I find them while copying my blog to its new home, or looking for links to use in other posts, I will reproduce them here.

I just realized why the past few years feel so familiar. We are living through the seventies again.

I have already spoken about Obama's similarity to Carter. His tendency to spend and inflate. His almost "malaise" speeches about how things will just get worse. Even his expansion of power are similar to Carter;s tendency to create large federal bureaucracies, like the Department of Education.

On top f that, we have an unpopular war that ius dragging on, just as we did in the early seventies. And it even appears our government's reluctance to pursue things with any energy is leading the enemy to seize upon a chance to turn loss into victory. (I know flower children hate to hear this, but Vietnam could easily have been won after Tet had we showed any determination.)

Even our pop culture reminds me of the seventies. We have a strange combination of nostalgia and futurism, arguing simultaneously all our best days are behind us or ahead. In the seventies it was a combination of nostalgia of the fifites, mixed with bicentennial period historical fetishism. In our era, it is the tendency to make a trend of every past decade, be it the eighties, the seventies or the sixties. And then we have the future. In the seventies, it was the space age, the promise of exploration of the universe. In ours, it is "technology" and anything electronic. Computers hold the promise of some vaguely defined bright new future, the way space did in the seventies.

Oh, there is a lot more, the environmentalist movement, the revival of sixties style protests, and more. But more than anything, it is just a vague feeling, something indescribable. But something about the past few years just brings to mind what I can recall of an early childhood that coincided pretty precisely with the seventies. I can't put a finger on it, but there is something that makes the two feel quite similar.
 
Update (2012/05/17): I forgot to link to my earlier post "The Return of Malaise", which seems quite relevant.

I was copying old posts to my (eventual) new home on Blogger, and I ran across one of those articles with which I was never quite satisfied. In many ways it reminds me of my recent post "Copyright, Patent and the IP Problem", an essay begun with something approaching certainty, which fell apart as I examined the topic in more detail, but which, despite the rather chaotic conclusion, contained enough interesting material I could not delete it. There haven't been as many in recent years, as I tend to be a bit harder on myself and delete articles which become too unfocused, but in the past I let a few more slip through, and this was one of them.

The post in question was "The Right to Die". It started off with a relatively strong premise, the many pitfalls to allowing assisted suicide. However, in the process of addressing that single, well defined topic, I realized I had to also address the question of suicide in general, and there the whole essay fell apart. I could see the argument for allowing individuals to take their own lives, but also recognized the legal principles behind making it a crime, and also the potential legal problems attendant upon allowing legal suicide, including the slippery slope leading to legalizing assisted suicide, which had been my original point in writing. And so, though I started off well, and managed to keep focused throughout much of the post, in the end I had to confess that I was left uncertain where I stood on many of the questions I had raised.

However, time and distance has brought a bit more clarity, and while looking over the older essay I realized what had been wrong with my original approach. I had accepted implicitly several assumptions I would not have explicitly accepted. Of course, when I explicitly state the positions upon which my argument rests, I expect that more than a few readers will have some difficulty with my premise, but that is to be expected. As I argued in "Of Wheat and Doctors", ""...Then Who Would Do it?"", "Government Quackery ",  "The Consumption Curve", "The Life Coach Culture" and elsewhere, we have accepted some bad ideas for so long that we no longer recognize the problems with them, and some of the arguments about suicide fall into the same category, interventionist, authoritarian concepts we no longer recognize as such.

But, perhaps, before I shoot myself in the foot by pointing out the potential objections to my argument it would be better to explain what that argument is, after which I can try to justify any positions others might find outlandish.

To start at the beginning, there are two related but separate issues covered by the rubric "Right to Die". The first is the right for an individual to take his or her own life without the necessity of fearing involuntary commitment or other loss of freedom. The second would be the right for one individual to assist another in taking his life, or, to be much more accurate, the right for one individual to commit homicide with fear of prosecution when the victim is a willing participant. The two are often treated as part of the same issue, but in reality, there are more differences than similarities between them.

The easiest issue is the second, assisted suicide. Though, even in this case, the term "assisted suicide" covers many issues which need to be distinguished from one another. For example, the term is sometimes used for acts as simple as providing enough medication for another to overdose, and  at other times for acts involving much more direct involvement, such as assisting in suffocating or shooting the would be suicide. As with the "right to die", encompassing both individual suicide and assisted suicide, assisted suicide contains two separate types of acts, which we need to split apart.

The less involved acts, such as providing means of committing suicide, are much more akin to individual suicide, and so we shall deal with them later. First, we shall look at the acts most similar to the traditional definition of homicide, those cases where assisted suicide involves one person actually directly participating in the death of another.

This act, despite the many arguments in its favor, can never be made legal, for very simple reasons.No, it is not the possibility of using such laws to commit murder with impunity, though that is a concern as well.  The reason is something much more innocent, yet much harder to prevent. An individual may want to die, may make a video stating as much, may provide infinite documentary evidence of his wishes, and yet we will never know if, at the last moment, he changed his mind, and yet was killed anyway. That is the most important difference between assisted suicide and individual suicide, a man who tries to kill himself can always back out¹, one who relies on another cannot. And, of course, there are all the additional fears, of abuse to conceal murder, of coercing relatives into suicide and so on², but even if we assume perfectly honest, honorable beings, there is simply no way for us to eliminate the possibility that assisted suicide might kill an innocent man. Those who oppose the death penalty always tell us it is enough to condemn the whole process if there is the chance of one innocent man being killed, so, if they feel that is true, should they not equally oppose assisted suicide, for the very same reasons?

Things are quite different when we deal with the other end of the assisted suicide spectrum. Those who provide the means for another to die are very different than those who actively help take a life. In fact, were it not for the laws regulating access to drugs and guns (both of which I find improper -- cf "Drug Legalization", "There Ought To Be a Law", "Medical Regulations" and "Medical Regulation II"), we would probably not worry about this at all. Oh, in a few cases where some family member had a problem with the individual who gave such assistance, we might have a case, but the only reason so many need help obtaining drugs to commit suicide is because of our prescription and criminal drug laws, without them, most who wished to commit suicide, all but the most incapacitated, would have no problem buying drugs for themselves.

But as this article is not about repealing prescription laws or decriminalizing drugs, we have to deal with the world as it is, and so we must ask about the role played by the one who provides the means used to commit suicide, and what the legal situation is for such people. Which, unfortunately, requires me to offer a most unsatisfactory answer, at least unsatisfactory for the moment. That answer being: It depends. No, it does not depend on circumstances, or on what aid was provided, what determines the criminal liability of such people is, very simply, how we view personal suicide. If we view it as a crime, or even as a mental health issue we call a crime to ease handling matters³, then the one offering assistance is clearly a conspirator or accomplice and quite liable. On the other hand, if suicide is viewed as an acceptable, appropriate choice, so long as it is carried out independently, then the one offering assistance is free of blame⁴. The only trouble is when suicide is treated entirely as a mental health issue, without a hint of a criminal element. In that case, there is little ground for blaming the one offering assistance, though some may come up with creative argument for civil or criminal liability⁵.

So, as I said, my answer must be a small disappointment, though only for a short time, as very soon we will discuss that very topic, the proper handling of individual suicides, and from that we should be able to determine⁶ how best to handle those offering indirect assistance.

So, if directly assisting another in killing himself is impermissible, and providing the means without giving direct aid is of questionable propriety, what of simple suicide? What is the legal status of an individual acting to end his own life?

Clearly, in one way, this is a moot point, as suicide is the one crime which can only be prosecuted when it fails, trials can be held only for accessories or attempts, since a successful effort makes prosecution irrelevant⁷. But there is still a very real need to decide whether those attempts and accessories should be prosecuted, or how the failed efforts, or those providing indirect aid to the successes and failures, should be handled. Which means we must ask, how does suicide figure into a system designed to protect rights?

The problem with policy questions about suicide is that we as a people have never really had a consistent view of suicide. Judeo-Christian theology has always deemed suicide a sin, but since time immemorial compassionate individuals have sought ways to excuse or explain away suicides, if only for the sake of the survivors. (A good deal of rabbinical thought has gone into the story of King Saul in an attempt to excuse suicide under dire circumstances, for example.)  However, though we tend to pity the suicide, and forgive them for the sake of their survivors, the attitude has remained, among the religious, and even among the secular⁸, that suicide is wrong, that life is an absolute good⁹.

That is one side of the story. However, there is the other side, which is a view often held, oddly enough, by the same people holding the first, and that is that under some circumstances, suicide is acceptable, even understandable. Some limit it to terminal illness, others allow for situations of great physical suffering, whether terminal or not, others include other circumstances, such as being deprived of freedom, be it Masada or a hunger strike, and others even allow suicide for those undergoing extreme emotional pain. Obviously, the lines are drawn in a different place by every individual, but most of our fellows can be found to accept that suicide is allowable under some set of conditions.

And that is where the greatest problems arise. Perhaps a small analogy would help to explain. Some time ago, when arguing that mental illness was more of a social construct than anything akin to physical ailments ("The Politics of Psychiatry", "Mental Illness") I described a situation. John loses his wife Mary. He is sad that day. Everyone says that is normal. He is sad the next day, again, normal. He is sad a week later, and everyone agrees that is normal. A month later, some are beginning to ask if he should not start to move on. Six months later, a lot more are asking the same question. When he is still sad after a year, many among his friends begin to claim he is suffering from depression.

This is how we "define" mental illness in our society, a behavior that is outside the consensus view of social norms. However, that definition fits better with a behavior, a choice, rather than an ailment. What we are saying is not "You are sick" but "Your behavior is of a nature I find unacceptable." Thus, depression is not an illness, it is a description for someone who is sad for reasons with which we don't agree¹⁰.

Similar problems plague suicide laws. When a man is suffering from terminal cancer and endures pain which medication cannot control, a failed suicide attempt is treated as understandable, and no one seeks to have him declared unfit. Even a man who tries to kill himself after the death of his wife of 50 years is usually accorded the same treatment. But a man who tries to kill himself because of his frustration with his life, his string of failed attempts to better himself, and his overwhelming loneliness, that man is treated as mentally ill. However, there is no objective difference between him and the others. The only difference is that society at large accepts the first two and their motives, while it fails to accept the third. Yet the third may be suffering emotional pain every bit as severe as the second, may have even less hope of ever feeling better. From his perspective it makes as much, or more, sense for him to die, and yet society rejects this perspective.

That is the problem with treating suicide as a mental health issue, or the greatest problem, as there are others. There is no clear definition of what is and is not an acceptable ground for suicide, and society assumes it knows how much suffering any given experience will inflict on any other individual. On this basis, we feel justified in determining when any possible action might be justified, and when it would constitute a sign of mental illness. However, as when the same logic is applied to the economy, the results of such an approach amounts to forcing one man's, or a small group's, assumptions upon everyone else, producing not more satisfaction, but less. ("The Inherent Disappointment of Authoritarianism") And, in this particular case, depriving a number of people of their freedom based upon nothing more than our assumption that their actions "make no sense", but only because we are judging them based upon our own values.

There are some difficulties in accepting the implications of this argument. First, there is the fact that friends and family who do not agree with an individual's assessment of his condition will seek to restrain him. However, we must ask, can we base one's freedom on the opinions of his friends and family? If my family disagrees with my career choice, with my decision to marry, with any other normal choice I make, do we allow them to interfere? So, why do we accept that because they think my motives are unacceptable do we decide that I must be insane and my freedom curtailed?

This becomes harder when it comes to children, but then again everything does. Children are a very thorny legal problem, and one I must, for the moment, exclude from this debate. You see, children are possessed of rights, but the question remains precisely how far those rights go, and what ability parents have to restrain those rights. I intended to address this topic some time ago, when looking at child protective laws, especially looking at difficult questions of how physical punishment and abuse can be differentiated, or how the parental ability to decide questions about child rearing can be reconciled with modern ideas of "abuse", when abuse can be defined as emotional distress as well as physical. Since I have yet to write that essay, I must say, for the moment I will exclude children from this discussion, their freedom of action will need to wait for a more comprehensive examination.

Which leaves us with adults, and, though it will trouble many, I must say, respect for individual rights demand that we allow individuals the freedom not just of life, but to terminate the same, even when we disagree with their motives for doing so. It may pain us that they do so, it may cause harm to families, but respect for freedom entails respect for decisions with which we disagree, even those we see as harmful. So long as one's actions do not violate the rights of another, we must accept it, and so, the answer here, in the case of adults, is simple. Suicide, whether we agree with the motivation or not, is an individual choice. And thus, to answer a question raised earlier, we must also allow those who provide the means of committing suicide, must also be held blameless, at least in so far as they act in a lawful way.

I doubt this position will find wide acceptance, out belief that suicide is a sign of mental illness is too deeply ingrained, as is our belief that we have the right, even obligation, to deprive of freedom those whom we deem unfit. But the problem with such positions, widely accepted or not, is that such positions open the door to rampant abuse. Taken to the logical conclusions, there is no reason to allow any but the most commonplace of acts, at least if deviation from the norm, or acting upon beliefs not shared by others, is grounds for the loss of freedom. Of course, many will argue I am going too far, mental illness is well defined, and one can only lose his freedom if he is diagnosed by professionals. But I have written before where experts decided a perfectly sane man was delusional ("Finding What You are Looking For"), not to mention the fact that the definition of what is and is not sane is relatively flexible, having changed dramatically over the past decades¹¹.  So who is to say what is today acceptable could not tomorrow be deemed unacceptable? Do you truly want to base your freedom upon the changing fashions of psychiatry?¹²

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1. I suppose in some cases a private suicide might no longer be able to back out, such as once he has consumed a lethal dose. However, there is a significant difference. If I am smothering myself with a bag, I know if I want to stop, and just remove it. If another is holding it in place, he may mistake my second thoughts for simple convulsions and thus ignore my second thoughts.

2. There are many who raise additional, much more abstract concerns, such as the way society is changed when it accepts death as another choice, or the impact on the medical profession when it becomes involved in taking lives rather than saving them. These are valid concerns, but are much harder to examine than the very simple, straightforward concerns I raise here. And since it is so very easy to show quite damning problems with but a short argument, it seems pointless to raise these quite nebulous arguments.

3. This is the case in most states, suicide is officially a crime, but one rarely, if ever, prosecuted, as the assumption is the actor is, by nature of the act, mentally incompetent and unable to stand trial. Thus, most who try suicide end up facing commitment hearings, the criminal part of the law remaining only because it allows the law to be used against those offering assistance, as well as to provide a tool to push difficult individuals into undergoing a competency/commitment hearing. The entire establishment seems to acknowledge the criminal part of the law is a sham, maintained for a few specific reasons, but otherwise  ignored.

4. At least as far as the act itself is concerned. Clearly, providing the means to commit suicide might violate drug dispensing regulations, or professional licensing restrictions, and even the transfer of a gun might be contrary to some ordinance, so there remains the very real possibility of other charges being brought.

5. It is easy to see how some could try to bring civil cases against those offering assistance, arguing the wish to commit suicide proves the incompetence of the individual, and thus anyone providing assistance should have known in advance that providing such assistance was improper. Criminal liability is trickier to establish, though one could argue for some sort of recklessness, or negligence, and try to establish that providing means to an obviously incompetent individual is a form of manslaughter.

6. Unless we decide to treat personal suicide as a mental health issue, in which case we jump headlong into the confusion I described above.

7. I recall hearing a riddle to this effect from time to time, asking about the only crime you can't prosecute if it succeeds, or something similar. And many see to dismiss laws against suicide for this very reason. However, as I already explained, the law still has importance for our handling of those offering assistance. And, beyond that, making suicide a crime has other legal implications, which serve various purposes. For example, though not likely, it would be illegal to make suicide a term in a contract, as contracts cannot be binding if they involve breaking the law. Thus, one could not demand that another commit suicide should he fail to repay a loan. A far fetched possibility, but thanks to this law, one that remains impossible to enforce.

8. The secular arguments against suicide tend to be rather vague, as there is no real foundation for arguing one must cling to an unwanted life in a G-dless universe. They can say "maybe you will change your mind" or "life is precious", but the truth is, life is worth what each thinks it is, at least by a purely secular reckoning. And so, if another finds life to have no worth, there is no good argument against suicide. Yet the traditional Judeo-Christian opposition to suicide forces those who claim to be free of its influence to continue to push its views.

9. As I have said repeatedly ("Absolute Values",  "The Right Way", "It Doesn't Matter to ME...", "Slippery Slopes", "The Inherent Disappointment of Authoritarianism", "The Limits of "Scientific" Management"), there is no such thing as an absolute value, at least in terms of human choice. Life is worth what each individual says it is worth to him. So if someone, for whatever reason, is convinced life imposes more costs than it brings benefits, from his perspective it makes sense to end his life. Of course, if one does not believe in any post-death existence, it seems this would require quite considerable suffering, but still, it is conceivable some would choose nonexistence over the life they have.

10. This does not mean such people might not need help. Many times they no longer want to be sad, or, even if they do not seek help, their unusual behavior makes their life difficult for them. However, just because they can be helped it does not follow this is a disease, or even an objectively defined behavior.

11. And then there is the Soviet example, of using schizophrenia and other diagnoses to imprison dissidents without trial.

12. Some may argue that it is safe enough, provided we exercise common sense. However, as with pragmatism, common sense is a poor guide for action, much less serves as a poor guardian of our freedoms. See my essays "The Lunacy of "Common Sense"", ""Seems About Right", Another Lesson in Common Sense and Its Futility", "A Look at Common Sense", "Res Ipsa Loquitur", "The Shortcomings of Pragmatism", "Pragmatism Revisited", "Pragmatism Revistied, Again", "The Plural of Anecdote is Not Data", "Rules of Grammar and Pragmatism", "The Problem of the Small Picture", "Keyhole Thinking" and "Impractical Pragmatists".

Having just written the title of this essay, I am almost certain everyone coming to this essay will have a completely incorrect assumption about its subject matter. That may not sound too surprising, as most of my titles give away little about the subject, with exception of a few overly verbose ones, such as "An Examination of the Economics and Sociology of Government Spending", "All Life in a Day, or, How Our Mistaken View of History Distorts Our Understanding of Events"and "Catastrophic Thinking, The Political, Economic and Social Impact of Seeing History in the Superlative", or the, less verbose, but still clear "Self-Interest Versus Narcissism", "The Danger Inherent in Banning "Bad Ideas"" or "The Inherent Disappointment of Authoritarianism". However, most of my titles are much less informative such as "Hoist By Your Own Petard", "Trophy Spouses", "The Path of Least Resistance" and "Cranky Old Man?". But none of my rather uninformative titles are actually misleading. However, I am afraid this one may be the exception. Immediately after writing it, I realized that readers are likely to come to it making a few quite incorrect assumptions. And so, to them, I offer my apologies, and hope the actual contents are interesting enough to make up for the confusion.

So, what is the actual topic? Oddly, it has little to do with being gay, or gay rights, or anything of the kind. "Gay" is simply used as it is a good example of the topic, which is the tendency of many to use a given term in several different ways, interchanging the uses without warning to create confusion and smuggle in assumptions without anyone noticing.

The conflicting uses of the term "gay" came to mind when I was revisiting my posts on biological determinism, such as "Biology as Justification", "Passing Thought on PET Scans", "A Question About Biological Theories of Sexual Identity", "Myths of Homosexuality" and "Don't Liberals Notice the Contradictions?".  The term "gay" or "homosexual", as some seem to prefer that term, is not always used in the same sense, and that confusion of definitions leads, sometimes unintentional, but many times intentionally, to smuggled assumptions that distort our understanding of many significant arguments. In fact, it would not be going too far to say that the confusion introduced by misusing these two definitions is responsible for many misunderstanding completely the substance of the argument over biological determinism and the use of biology as an ethical justification.

Let us start simply enough by defining "gay", or "homosexual", in the two senses which the term is used. The first definition is an internal one, based entirely upon one's feelings, and that is that a homosexual is one who finds him or her self attracted primarily to members of the same sex¹. There is then the second, active definition, that a homosexual is one who actively pursues, or engages in, sexual relations with the same sex². What is interesting is how these two definitions are often confused, or, even when explicitly recognized, how they relate to one another.

For example, to look at an explicit recognition of the two differing definitions, many would call gay a man who only had sex with women, yet who was attracted exclusively, or almost exclusively, to men. In this case, the argument would be made that he is gay "by nature" or "by birth", but was forced by society to engage in heterosexual behavior³. This viewpoint explicitly recognizes that the term gay may be used in two different sense, though, after doing so, it dismisses behavior as being unimportant, and instead focuses all attention on the individual's desires⁴. However, these very same individuals, in other contexts, will often blur this distinction and return to defining the individual by behavior, or, more likely, to muddy the line dividing behavior and desire, implying that the two are identical, quietly passing over the countless cases where they are not.

That last case needs to be examined a bit more, as it is the one that gives us so much difficulty, and often leads to confusion, allowing many to justify biological determinism without actually making the requisite arguments.

The problem with biological determinism is that it confuses impulse with approval. And to do this, many often confuse the passive and active definitions of gay. Allow me to explain. Let us assume we accept that homosexuality is biological in origin⁵, that means nothing more than that an individual is born with an inclination toward preferring one sex or the other⁶. What this overlooks is that heterosexuals are exactly the same, being born with an inclination toward the opposite sex. Thus, whatever is said of those "born gay" can be applied equally to those "born straight", which often makes quite a farce of the claims advanced. For instance, the recurring implication that, because someone is born gay, it is unethical to request him to refrain from sexual contact with the same sex. However, no one has a problem with suggesting heterosexuals may be asked to refrain from sexual contact out of moral concerns⁷. So why is homosexual desire qualitatively different from heterosexual? And to such a degree it supersedes ethical demands. Clearly it is not, but that is the implication of many such biological determinist arguments.

The problem is that this argument often gets caught up in implications confused by the dual definitions, especially when dealing with religious beliefs. For example, in most religious communities, homosexuality is sinful if acted upon, while not, or to a much lesser degree, if only felt. (And those that consider homosexual thoughts sinful consider any sexual thoughts sinful, so they are hardly treating gay members in a different way.) On the other hand, those arguing for biology trumping religion often implicitly define homosexuality as the desire, and say it is inborn. And thus they slip thorough two arguments which are both incorrect and not supported by the evidence. First, that religion is condemning gay men for "who they are", ignoring that to the religion it is actually what they do, as with everyone else. Second, they imply that an inborn inclination MUST be expressed in action. Neither is true, and both lead to false conclusions.

First, the implication that desires are considered the sin, not the actions. Admittedly, sexual desires are frowned upon in many faiths, but they are frowned upon whether gay or straight. What is considered especially sinful about homosexuality is not the desire but the act. Every Biblical injunction against homosexuality concerns acts, not thoughts, and that is consistent with the way the faiths operate. However, the use of two different meanings for gay often intentionally obscures this.

Second, there is no reason an inborn inclination must be expressed. Many individuals have inclinations upon which they never act. Some pop psych schools may consider this harmful, but such restraint is the basis of civilization. Imagine if you took everything you wanted, forced yourself on everyone who attracted you, ate whatever you desired and so on. You would end up either dead, sick or reviled. Society could not survive were all our impulses to be acted upon. And that is the basis upon which religious ethics generally handles homosexuality. Seeing the act itself as sinful, they enjoin gay members to refrain from acting on their impulses. However, by confusing impulses and actions, those critical of the religion make this seem that the church is demanding they stop having such inclinations, or, worse, suggest that not acting upon such urges is tantamount to being forced to give them up.

A similar confusion exists in many other situations, though not often as clearly. Perhaps the closest is in terms of addiction and alcoholism. Alcoholism normally applies to someone actually drinking too much, while addiction applies to those actively using addictive substances⁸. However, thanks to the belief of some treatment programs that the only solution is total lifelong abstinence, the terms are now also applied to anyone who has ever been diagnosed, or even self-diagnosed, as an addict or alcoholic. It is useful for fund raisers (as mentioned in "One In..."), as it inflates the number of alcoholics or addicts, and it is also terribly misleading, as most people hearing the number of "alcoholics" does not think of fully functional people who never drink, but imagines the number represents those who regularly drink to excess⁹. And thus, once again, the term muddies the waters. Worse, by simply using the term in both sense, one is implicitly assuming the truth of the assumption that once one is an addict or alcoholic one always is, which, despite the popularity of the concept in modern America, is still a contentious belief¹⁰.

There are probably other examples I could find if I thought a bit more, but I have gone on long enough. I really don't want to argue a particular side in this debate -- well, perhaps in the alcoholism one, but not the one about the ethics of homosexuality -- all I wanted to point out (as I did in "A Few Questions on Abortion") is the dishonest approach and irrational arguments being offered. Quite honestly, it seems a rather bizarre argument to me. I know the "born gay" argument is largely being offered to equate homosexuality with race and sex for purposes of government protection, but since I don't believe in such protection, it doesn't matter to me. Nor, for that matter does the second argument generally offered, the argument against religious ethical opposition to homosexuality. As I argued above, it seems bizarre to offer biology in opposition to morality, so I have never understood the argument at all, but, bizarre or not, it is not particularly relevant to me. I suppose, in that latter case, though, I am taking sides, but only because the argument seems so irrational, not because I have a particular interest in the outcomes.

No, what I want to demonstrate is how badly defined terms can not only confuse arguments, but be used to actively mislead, and that is my main point. We need to be conscious at all times of what our terms mean and how they are being used, otherwise we run the risk of reaching conclusions which are not even remotely supported by the evidence.

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1. This is actually a source of a different confusion. Due to the spectrum of possible positions one can adopt in terms of attraction, from exclusively homosexual, through entirely bisexual, to completely heterosexual, and with asexuality as a choice as well, it is often misleading to use such absolute terms, and can make us think things are more clear cut than they truly are. I discussed this somewhat in my post "Cultural Rules".

2. Again, there are degrees here. Allowing for multiple sexual partners, one can occupy as many points along this spectrum as along the spectrum of one's feelings of attraction mentioned above.

3. It is interesting that the opposite is never even considered. However, if a heterosexual friendly environment could force someone gay to act straight, could not a straight man or woman, finding him or herself in an environment encouraging homosexuality, be forced to act gay even though straight? And, if so, would gay activists support putting them in touch with their inner heterosexuality, the way they support liberating closeted gays from enforced heterosexuality? I know many would deny such "coercive gay" environments exist, but I would argue that an effeminate, quiet, shy male may fit so many stereotypes of homosexuality held by well meaning teachers, social workers and others that he might be encouraged to "be himself" so frequently it could effectively press him into denying his true feelings every but as much as injunctions to "be a man could force a gay child to act heterosexual.

4. Alcoholism has a similar dichotomy, as we shall see later. Alcoholism is basically defined by behavior. At one time it was constant drinking, though later it was expanded to include "patterned drinking" and "binge drinking". However, many times this meaning is cast aside and statements are made along the lines of "you will always be an alcoholic, even if you don't drink", equating alcoholism with, not even desire, but only the assumption the individual will be unable to control his drinking should he start again. This use of conflicting terms often leads to a great deal of confusion, including the ability to greatly inflate the number of alcoholics, by including anyone ever diagnosed whether drinking or not, as well as making some rather flimsy arguments sound better. But we shall discuss this later in the post proper.
 
5. I am not agreeing with the biological argument, the evidence is still too tentative for me. However, for the sake of argument, I am allowing the possibility it is true.

6. Actually, as we stated before, the truth is individuals have a range of preferences, and those preferences may also change due to circumstance, or with age, making me dubious of a biological basis, as such nuanced conditions tend to suggest volition rather than biology.

7. To be fair, some do suggest that any sort of sexual self control, or demands for sexual self denial, are immoral and harmful, so I suppose in some cases gay and straight lust is treated the same. However, many make this argument in a specifically religious context, arguing religions should not call gay members sinful for practicing homosexual sex, while ignoring that the same religions call heterosexuals sinful for practicing heterosexual sex outside of marriage. And, for those who argue that gays cannot marry, and thus are being treated more harshly, recall many sects see sex even in marriage as inferior to abstinence, and accept marital sex only as a necessity. Thus, there is little difference in the treatment of gay and straight members, all are enjoined to abstinence, the heterosexuals being given an exemption solely for procreation.

8. Addiction has been expanded to cover so much it is now hard to define. At one time it only applied to drugs with a physical withdrawal syndrome. Then it applied to things supposedly causing "psychological withdrawal". Now it seems to apply to any pleasurable act which some may think another does to excess.

9. Even when discussing those who are still drinking, alcoholic has changed in meaning. Where once it meant someone who regularly drank a considerable amount, it has since come to include "patterned drinking" and "binge drinking". If we take those two to heart, it means that virtually anyone who drinks is possibly an alcoholic, as drinking on a fixed schedule (say every Friday) could be an alcoholic, but so could someone who drinks without pattern. Admittedly, no one has yet suggested any drinking makes one an alcoholic, but the logic is there should anyone wish to do so.

10. Outside of the United States, and even within the US, moderation has been a successful treatment regimen for alcohol, and probably would work in terms of some drugs, except for cultural and legal barriers to doing so. However, as Alcoholics Anonymous has enjoyed such success, even becoming the first choice for many court ordered treatments, this concept has largely vanished from public consciousness. What is interesting is that the abstinence view has won, not on the strength of science, but on PR alone. (Then again, so have the environmentalists, so perhaps I should not be so surprised.) I know, even among conservatives, I will get heat for denying AA orthodoxy, I often hear "but it is proven to work", but the truth is that alternate approaches enjoy equal or greater success in many properly designed studies. If an individual finds AA a useful approach, that is great, but it does not mean that it is the most effective approach for the majority of people.

Recently I have noticed a return of advertisements claiming "on in X" adults, children, whatever suffer from some particular disability or hardship. It is a popular advertising tactic, as makes it easy for the public to see the scope of a given problem. However, as with the ancestor of the whole concept (the claim that "1 in 7" people are alcoholics), it suffers from two problems. First, the use of poor definitions to exaggerate the scale of the problem and, second, the use of unsupported estimates to create massive numbers.

The best example of the first problem is an advertisement I saw recently claiming "1 in 5 children don't know where their next meal is coming from."On the face of it, this suggests 20% of children are suffering from hunger, but that is not what it actually says. Taken literally, I would suggest that the number is closer to 1 in 1, as most children do not know, or care, where their next meal will originate. However, I think this advertisement is actually suggesting that "1 in 5" are on the verge of hunger, however defined, that they somehow might be without food should hardship strike. I still find the numbers quite doubtful, but it is much closer to reality than the implied 20% starvation figure*.

A second figure shows the same problem. Recently, it has become common practice to use the term "autism" to cover everything that was once called "on the autism spectrum". Where, once, autism proper was reserved for severe cases, and the rest were defined with other names, autism has recently been expanded to cover all disorders, creating an "explosion" of cases of autism**. Thanks to this change in definition, we have now been treated to advertisements arguing somewhere between 1 in 110 and 1 in 100 people suffer from autism. I still believe the numbers are inflated, but they are definitely larger than they would have been prior to the change in definition. (Cf "I Am Quite Dubious".)

Then again, these are hardly the most deceptive numbers. Prior to the expansion of the definition of alcoholism allowing the advertisements to plainly state "1 in 7 are alcoholics", the 1 in 7 number made an earlier appearance***, that being that "1in 7 Americans are effected by alcoholism". That is a nice statement, as it is impossible to prove or disprove. What does it mean to be touched by alcoholism? Am I touched if my cousin's wife is an alcoholic? My boss? His wife? His wife's sister? After all, if his wife's sister's alcoholism causes him to miss work, causing projects to slip, it has an effect upon me. It is, again, such a vague definition it is almost impossible to argue, as it is essentially meaningless. In addition, by having changed into the actual "1 in 7" being alcoholics, it provides an example of the other problem, unsupported numbers.

What always amazes me is how often these numbers will pass unchallenged. Obviously, we cannot question an advertisement on television, but when an expert begins to cite these numbers, no one ever asks where the numbers originate. having heard them so often on television, we seem to have accepted them through nothing but familiarity****. And worse, having been packaged in these nice little "1 in X' packages, they stick in the memory, allowing individuals with little interest, or expertise, to continue passing them along, as if they were true. And so, just as we have come to believe there was a "mother plucker", that Agincourt is responsible for the middle finger gesture and that legionnaires played hopscotch (See "Roman Legions, Hopscotch, Killer Gays, "Got AIDS Yet", WMDs and a "Damn Piece of Paper"", "The Power of Myth on the Internet", "The Tragedy of the Creative Commons" and "All Conspiracies Great and Small"), we accept these little "factoids" regardless of their truth or falsehood. And thus do we continue to overestimate the risks posed by disease, poverty, environmental damage and a host of other causes supported by such dubious numbers.

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* "Hunger" numbers are always dubious, as "hungry" or "malnourished" is an ill-defined concept. In addition, because many types of food aid are dependent upon need, there is an incentive to self-report as being more in need than is the case. This is not to say there is no hunger, there are any number of people who either out of incapacity or irresponsibility fail to care for their children, I am just dubious of the very large figures often bandied about. (I also think it would be useful to distinguish between parents unable to feed children and those unwilling, as it would be quite telling, but it is always implied all hunger is involuntary, which is a blatant lie, as anyone who worked in social services can attest.)

** We will ignore here the validity of the diagnoses of those other disorders, as well as the impact of "awareness" upon diagnosis. However, it does seem that when any disorder receives considerable government attention (and funding), the number of cases skyrocket. Depression comes to mind as one example. What is interesting is that physical disorders -- as opposed to emotional -- do not seem to follow the same pattern. Funding does not increase heart disease diagnoses. The one exception - asthma -- is largely diagnosed on self-reported symptoms, and -- again from personal experience in social services -- is a favorite disorder for prolonging childhood medical assistance. (I am not saying it is not a real disorder, but, like soft-tissue injury, some neuropathies and a few others, it is easily faked and a false report is hard to disprove.)

*** A number of writers have examined the origin of the 1 in 7 number and found it has little foundation. I am skeptical myself as the same number has appeared in multiple contexts. It is not impossible that is simply coincidence, but with so little actual research provided to support the numbers, the coincidental use of the same ratio makes me think the numbers are simply estimates someone found pleasing, or thought would appeal to those hearing the advertisements.

**** This is one of those cases where I would argue our silly "truth in advertising" laws do actual harm. In reality, truth in advertising only applies to ads which may cause financial harm, that is when used to promote commercial goods. Nonprofits sell nothing, so it is impossible to sue for damages from being misinformed. Yet many think there is some sort of vetting of ads for truth, that truth in advertising laws prevent the use of outright lies. No, not true. In fact, nonprofits could lie safely in every advertisement. Unless they are selling something, there really is no law preventing them from lying through their teeth. (The pointlessness of enforcing honesty by law is a subject I shall address in a future post. Of course, we need to distinguish between fraud and lies, which the law sadly does very rarely, but we shall, as my readers shall see shortly.)

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POSTSCRIPT

I discussed such suspect numbers before in my posts "Shocking Numbers", "Mathematical Deception", "Misusing Numbers", "Statistical Artifacts", "Pro Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc" and "The Nonsensical Nature of Some Statistical Analysis". I could probably cite twice as many if I dug a bit more, but I am sure these essays will provide links to a number of additional essays.

One additional point. In the interest of disclosure I should say that I am rather skeptical of many psychiatric diagnoses and tend to hold rather unorthodoxy views of psychiatry and psychology. I admit as much and recognize that I am in a very small minority. However, even allowing for much more conventional views of mental illness, these numbers still seem extremely inflated. (See "The Politics of Psychiatry" and "Mental Illness".) I also know my statements about asthma and faking disorders might draw angry comments. However, if we admit ambulance chasers can fake neuropathy or soft tissue injury, why could not parents eager to retain welfare benefits misrepresent their child's condition to mimic asthma? Especially as a lot of tentative diagnoses are made simply on self-reported symptoms? (I was listed as having small fiber neuropathy for over two years before a biopsy confirmed it.) For some discussion of this topic see "Disease Incidence" and "Allergies, Asthma and Their Incidence".

UPDATE (2012/04/09): A few hours after posting this, I saw an advertisement that claimed 1 in 6 adults have a mental illness. Now, that is just absurd. The only way that is possible is to so loosely define "mental illness" that it no longer has any meaning. I am sure some will argue with me and claim it is absolutely true and I am just in denial, but I would argue if we have defined down mental illness so far that it can define over 15% of the populace, then it no longer has a real meaning, and certainly is not something we must treat. There is no way 1 in 6 American adults need treatment, well, unless you are a therapist or pharmaceutical rep, then I suppose it is easy to claim 1 in 6, or even 1 in 3 or more.