Systemic Thinking, and Other Things

I've been thinking about - well, lots of things.

Economics, capitalism, the failures made evident by COVID-19... oligarchs and social dilemmas, and various other odds and ends.

I might go into some of that, another time. Because I think, fundamentally, there's something else to be addressed first.

Systemic vs... idk, individualistic?

Let me explain.

When something bad happens, some people shrug and say 's*** happens', and others say 'why did this happen? What can we do to prevent it from happening in the future?'

This is not meant to say one way is better than the other. As with all things, there are advantages and disadvantages to both. The disadvantage to just shrugging and accepting something is that it can (and probably will) happen again. To someone else.

But as anyone who used to climb trees as a kid, and feels sad knowing so many trees have their lower limbs cut off to make it 'safe' and keep kids today from doing the same, there are disadvantages to handling everything systemically.

First, it gives the false sense that you can somehow 'put padding on all the harsh corners of the world'. It means you focus more on making the world itself safer, instead of teaching the resilience, decision-making, and know-how that allows people to navigate safely regardless of the risk. (This is what many on the right get at, when they complain about lawsuits for failures in common sense or attempts to control speech instead of making people less susceptible to the message. Plus there's a bit of paternalism, an "I know better than you and will make sure you make the 'right' choice" tied up, here.)

As I typically say - both sides have good points, and where I fall on any particular issue depends. It's true that there are systemic changes we can make, changes that will reduce the chances of injury or death... and if we can, then choosing not to seems irresponsible.

But there's also something to be said for making people responsible for themselves, and for letting people make their own decisions. Letting them decide for themselves what risks they're willing to take.

This pandemic, btw, puts those issues in stark relief. If a Gen Z college kid evaluates the risks and decides its worth it to go on spring break, is it paternalistic and controlling to force them to stay home?

Or is the good of the larger public - the ability to 'flatten the curve' and ensure hospitals aren't hit with demand all at the same time - enough to justify it?

I'm not going to explore that issue right now, because this post isn't about answering that so much as it is about framing the way we look at the issue, and how we think about it.

Because this is true for a lot of other things, as well. Like healthcare, racism, student loan debt, and a lot of other things.

We can do a "5 Why's" on any of them, we can explore the systemic issues on all sorts of levels -

Or we can shrug and say "you agreed to that debt when you signed the loan agreement. Nobody owes you anything, and if you get sick and can't pay your medical bills too bad. And racism exists, but I'm not racist and if you just showed the cops some respect and don't commit any crime you'll be fine. What's the big deal?"

We can all choose to socially distance ourselves, hoping that we can slow the spread and prevent the hospitals from getting overwhelmed... so that everyone who catches the disease has the best chance of surviving it. And we can use the powers of the federal government to get businesses churning out masks and ventilators and PPE... And we can ask ourselves why testing isn't widely available, and why this disease spread so fast and so quickly, and why it's so much worse here than in a place like South Korea -

Or we can say "it's a virus, s*** happens. Let's not ruin the economy over it."