You’ll never get anything done if you give in to this sort of analysis paralysis.
Sometimes getting nothing done is the best outcome.
Ways people trying to do good accidentally do harm instead and how to avoid them
121–130 of 149 posts
Re: Ways people trying to do good accidentally do harm instead and how to avoid them
#122"Imagine a first year medical student who comes across a seriously injured pedestrian on a busy street, announces that they know first aid, and provides care on their own. They’ll look as though they’re helping. But imagine that a passerby who was about to call an ambulance refrained because the student showed up and took charge. In that case, the counterfactual may actually have been better medical care at the hands of an experienced doctor, making their apparent help an illusion."
I think this is a poor analogy. Or maybe it's an excellent analogy for the dilemma the article glosses over: would the "right" answer be for the medical student to not help someone very obviously in need? Ambulances don't materialize instantaneously out of thin air, nor do they magically teleport themselves (and the patient inside) to a hospital. That hospital might be overcrowded, delaying treatment further.
Or the med student could actually try to help (or at least triage) and at the same time call an ambulance.
Re: Ways people trying to do good accidentally do harm instead and how to avoid them
#123Socialism. /thread
Re: Ways people trying to do good accidentally do harm instead and how to avoid them
#124"Imagine a first year medical student who comes across a seriously injured pedestrian on a busy street, announces that they know first aid, and provides care on their own. They’ll look as though they’re helping. But imagine that a passerby who was about to call an ambulance refrained because the student showed up and took charge. In that case, the counterfactual may actually have been better medical care at the hands…
It is a very poor analogy given that step two of first aid after evaluating that one of the first steps is to call emergency services yourself or direct someone specifically to call (targetting bypasses diffusion of responsibility).
Re: Ways people trying to do good accidentally do harm instead and how to avoid them
#125There is a German word for this: verschlimmbessern. This roughly translates in English to "imworsenprove". :)
Re: Ways people trying to do good accidentally do harm instead and how to avoid them
#126The bit I struggled with is that in many fields, either the majority are wrong/don't have the solution (Argumentum ad populum) or otherwise listening to expertise/experience can either give you too much input or, again, implies that there is more chance that experience will give you a better solution to a problem. In their example, if Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis had asked his more experienced peers about approaching the pro…
The downside is that most "crazy" thinking produces crazy results. Take Thanos: with one snap of the fingers he destroys 50% of the intelligent beings in the universe and ends all of the problems associated with overpopulation, right? But, to quote a story I heard somewhere, if you have a coke bottle in a landfill growing bacteria, who double in population in 30 minutes, such that the number of bacteria will overwhel…
Are you saying that Thanos just delayed overpopulation for a constant amount of time, and didn't really solve anything?
Re: Ways people trying to do good accidentally do harm instead and how to avoid them
#127The medical field has a term for this: iatrogenic.
Re: Ways people trying to do good accidentally do harm instead and how to avoid them
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
The downside is that most "crazy" thinking produces crazy results. Take Thanos: with one snap of the fingers he destroys 50% of the intelligent beings in the universe and ends all of the problems associated with overpopulation, right? But, to quote a story I heard somewhere, if you have a coke bottle in a landfill growing bacteria, who double in population in 30 minutes, such that the number of bacteria will overwhel…
Are you saying that Thanos just delayed overpopulation for a constant amount of time, and didn't really solve anything?
No, he's saying that Thanos just delayed overpopulation for a constant amount of time, and didn't really solve anything.
Re: Ways people trying to do good accidentally do harm instead and how to avoid them
#129One that has gotten me and some of my cohort is the idea that if you have a below average income you have to live in an ugly run down neighborhood. But a few too many beautification projects and property taxes start to go up. Now you’re pricing people out of their neighborhood. With renters they don’t even get the benefit of selling their house. Most of the solutions I can think of could be easily gamed by speculator…
This only happens in unique context, though. If you were in a theoretical environment where there wasn't any demand for beautified neighborhoods the value of the housing wouldn't rise if you beautified it.
The circumstance though isn't unique and is applicable in a lot of different markets. Investing in almost anything makes it more valuable. Be that housing, a country, a company, a farm or a person. That is why education is such a potent force multiplier.
Housing though has an elephant in the room being how bad the situation has gotten. Its the same class of problem as healthcare because both aren't luxury optional goods. People need housing, and that housing need requires parameters that are in conflict with one another. The worst part is that because sustainability of housing trumps all other aspects of it that means you can easily find yourself in an unsafe, insecure environment out of necessity. Beautification makes the living more enjoyable and prosperous but is trumped by the cost benefit analysis of living there. When people are already sacrificing personal safety for job security they quickly get pushed out if you make the housing more valuable for any reason but enhanced job security.
Re: Ways people trying to do good accidentally do harm instead and how to avoid them
#130Imagine a first year medical student who comes across a seriously injured pedestrian on a busy street, announces that they know first aid, and provides care on their own...but imagine that a passerby who was about to call an ambulance refrained because the student showed up and took charge
Then he's not following his first aid training. One of the first things they taught in my first aid class is to send someone for help first -- find someone in the crowd and tell them specifically to call 911. Don't just tell the crowd in general to call for help or everyone may assume someone else is doing it, direct someone in particular to call.