How to Fight Social Pollution

Here we go again. The world is full of ideas on global claimate change, immigration, education, alternative energy, poverty, mankind's place in the natural order, blah, blah, blah. Those who follow my blogs know about my interest in fighting ideas that are counterfactual, illogical, or destructive of widely-held human values.

The time before last, I posted a checklist that you could use to test ideas. I assumed that the world needed a set of objective criteria to evaluate ideas.  (Yeah, I know the checklist isn't truly objective because you have to make judgement calls about some things. Don't get all fancy on me!)

I just had a few new thoughts on social pollution, thoughts that should be added to any checklist. Here are four questions you may want to consider:

1. Do the assumptions behind this idea make sense, meaning that they are factual and/or logical?

2. Who will benefit from this idea? (An obvious follow-up question: Who bears the costs of this idea?)

3. Are the people who benefit/will benefit pay the costs are passing the costs to others?

4. Has the problem really been identified, in a concrete way? If the "problem" is that some behavior goes agains God or nature, then the idea is probably nonsense. (A real problem statement is something like "Teen suicide has been increasing for the past four years. We need to do ____________ to reverse this terrible trend.")

I think these four questions could also apply to philosophical ideas like marriage, retirement, self-determination, and democracy. We may not like the results. But, we need to do these sorts of exercises to develop better ideas!

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A Social Pollution Checklist

Maybe complexity is the main reason we don't try harder to evaluate ideas about social policy, economic policy, crime, the war on terror, global climate change, and other issues.  The issues themselves are also hard to understand. Deciding what we think about the ideas we encounter can be awfully complicated.

Yet, our unwillingness to confront this complexity causes all sorts of social problems. The biggest problem is the production of social pollution. You should know from previous posts that fighting social pollution is a pet cause of mine. But detecting social pollution can be a complicated affair. There must be a simpler way to detect social pollution. Well, maybe...

Here is an 12-question checklist to whip out whenever you read about or hear about some new idea to make society better:

1. Do any of the assumptions behind this idea seem wrong? (Maybe this is only question worth asking. If the assumptions behind some proposed law, policy, or piece of legislation can't hold up then the idea is probably bovine feces.)

2. Do any of the assumptions contradict the facts? (Perhaps this question is also essential?)

3. Will the idea undermine any of the top 10 human values: family, health and fitness, self esteem, self-reliance, freedom, justice, knowledge, learning, honesty, relationships?

4. Are any facts being misused? (You might also ask yourself if there are any missing facts that are relevant to making a decision about this idea.You could also ask if technical terms, like "theory" or "ecology" are being used correctly.)

5. Does the idea still make sense in light of what you've learned from answering the first four questions? (If YES, keep going. If NO, you may as well stop because things will only get worse!)

6.  Is there a cause-effect relationship between the "problem" and the consequences that sparked the idea in question?

7. Is it hard to see how the idea will fix the problem?

8. Are you wondering what the problem is?

9. Is the idea based on research conducted by unnamed experts?

10. Is the solution based on speculation/guesses/something somebody read in the Bible? (A good idea for society will not be based on such lazy thinking!)

11. Are you wondering why the idea would help with the problem?

12. Is the idea being sold based on fear of anything?

This is just a draft of my Social Pollution Checklist. Feel free to offer comments! Try it out and tell me what you think.

Here's a scoring suggestion: The more YES answers, the worse the idea. If the idea gets 6 or more YES answers, or a YES answer to questions one and two, the idea is social pollution!

The checklist is meant for practical ideas like an immigration reform plan or a specific energy policy. It could be used to audit the partly-baked ideas thrown at us by politicians and talk-show hosts. If you really feel introspective you could use the checklist on philosophical ideas, like marriage and retirement.

(Legal footnote: In the unlikely event that you want to use this checklist for commerical purposes, bear in mind that everything I publish is copyrighted. Contact me for information regarding commercial reuse of my work.) 

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Just the Facts

Do the facts support our ideas about crime, poverty, immigration, environmental problems, corruption in business, and other things that keep appearing in the news? Are today's laws and policies based on facts?

When an idea is based on no facts, misinterpreted facts, or misused scientific concepts it is probably social pollution. Even if the idea seems likely to have positive consequences for society, it is still social pollutrion if the people who created the idea didn't bother to get their facts straight.

Yes, I know legislation and social policy is mostly based on a combination of ideology (We want society to be this way!) and backroom deal-making. I'm hoping we can put the squeeze on politicians' nutty ideas by testing their ideas against the facts. And while we scrutinize politicians we ought to give some attention to activists' ideas about society and our own ideas. We ought to ask just a few simple but powerful questions about ideas:

1. Are any of the "facts" wrong? Somebody claims that homosexuality is "unnatural" but you've read about a genetic predisposition to homosexuality.

2. Are any terms used incorrectly? To some people a family ideally consists of a married man and woman, and a couple of kids (or maybe the kids are still in the near future). Is this the only reasonable definition of a family, or does it just represent one view of the "correct" family structure?

3. What facts have been left out? For example, what percentage of American families consist of a married man and woman with children (or plans ot have children)?

4. Is there really a trend here? Is the "traditional" family structure really threatened now. as opposed to in the nation's past?

So, next time you are asked to consider some policy, social program, or ballot initiative pause and think about those 4 questions. Society would improve in so many ways if people followed this not-so-complicated advice. (The real challenge here is not getting people to answer these questions, its to get them to divoce their answers from political and religious biases about how society ought to work.)

Next time:  A social pollution checklist will tie together the ideas I presented in this post and some others.

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Assumptions Can Be Bad

Assumptions can be a real problem when they relate to social policy, ballot initiatives, activism efforts, and legislation. Are the assumptions behind welfare reform, immigration reform, flag burning bans, anti-poverty measures, and drug policy based on sound assumptions. These are the sorts of issues that call for asking some tough questions about our assumptions.

So, what assumptions are problems? I'm glad you asked me! I've made a list of some common assumptions about society or human behavior. Sometimes these assumptions are justified, but other time they aren't.

1. We know where to intervene in a system (like a local economy) to make positive changes.

2. People do what they want to do - see #3..

3. People are willing and able to change their behavior in a particular direction - don't discount the effects of peer pressure, habit, and fear of change.

4. Lack of money is the problem (EX: our nation's schools).

5. Lack of motivation is the problem

6. The risks will be managed appropriately by competent people.

7. We understand the potential negative consequences of this decision.

8. People are rational.

9. We understand the real costs and benefits of this proposed action.

Hmm, I wonder how much time and money gets wasted because somebody ignored the need to examine their assumptions before proposing some new idea. (Yes, I know that most legislation and policy is not created through a rational process.)

This suggests a new mission for some free thinking sorts who have some time on their hands. Somebody, perhaps me, needs to "out" the bad assumptions behind ideas proposed by activists, politicians, and talk show hosts. In fact, this could be a good project for a nonprofit organization.

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Logic Can Save the World

No, I haven't been watching too much Star Trek. Logic is something that we need more of in social policy, economic policy, elections, foreign policy, education, voting, and personal decisions of all sorts.

(Note to you psychologists: I know that decision making is not really a rational activity. I'm choosing to politely ignore that fact.)

What would happen if policies were based more firmly on logical thinking about what to do in order to achieve a given objective? Wouldn't our social programs, policies, and legislation be better if their logic was rigorously audited by someone? One can hope that shame would force politicians to try harder. One would hope our newfound desire for logical rigor would open a door for logical, humanist legislators, activists, and (maybe?) high-level civil servants.

Maybe, if things worked out that way people wouldn't be able to "sell" the rest of us on policies, programs, and legislation that fail multiple tests of logic. Society would be spared the massive waste of time and money that illogical social polcies, programs, and legislation lead to. And consider the other things that we could be doing instead of fighting gay marriage (which God opposes, of course) or other feel-good things that have little or no social value. 

Consider some of the ways we as a society can be led astray:

1. By appeals to emotion - The terrorists are coming to kill our women and children.

2. Appeals to authority - God hates the idea of gay marriage.

3. Cause-Effect (Errors in Identifying) - As skirts get shorter, sex crimes increase so short skirts must make men go crazy!

4. Ad hominem attacks - Rush Limbaugh is a fat windbag.

Yep, we fall prey to these sorts of errors and others, both as society and as individuals making decisions about our own lives. No, I don't agree with the second or third idea!

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Values and Society

Do our social policies and economic policies really support our values? Do spending priorities in Congress really reflect our values. When someone in Congress or, God help us, on talk radio proposes some social program or piece of legislation we might wonder what values will be supported or undermined?

Sometimes we like to think about what society should be like. Liberals, leftists, progressives, and conservatives all like to opine about how society should work. That's okay. People should just keep common human values in mind as they fantasize about how things ought to be.

What values should be kept in mind? Hmm, that's a good question. It really depends on the issue under consideration.  Some values will be more relevant to some issues than to others. I'll just offer this list of the top ten human values from a 2000 Roper poll: family, health/fitness, self-esteem, self-reliance, honesty, freedom, justice, relationships, knowledge, learning. We could debate what constitutes justice, or a family.

There ought to be a written guide to how those ten values can be supported or undermined by various sorts of programs and policies. There would also be advice on dealing with questions like "What's the difference between freedom and license?"
and "What definition of 'family' should we use?" The guide would contain guidance on predicting the first-order and econd-order consequences of a policy or program or law. First-order consequences? What?

Well, a Constitutional amendment to ban flag burning would reduce our freedom a little. That's a first-order consequence of the amendment. Reduced freedom may lead to flag burning protests. People are likely to lie about their involvement with or support of those flag burnings. Dishonesty is a second-order consequence.

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