So often I am seeing people talk about cost.
Cost to keep businesses closed during the pandemic, cost of universal healthcare, cost of doing things to improve the environment, etc.
But what I don't ever see from those bringing up cost is the other side, current costs we are already paying and costs of not doing it. Every action, even inaction, has a cost. Sometimes it is really obvious, like not grabbing a child who wandered into a street when a car is coming, sometimes it not so clear.
There are real costs to inaction or maintaining the status quo. And I think we, as a country, have not done a really good job of showing people how to do a cost/benefit analysis on these things. Yes, it's math but it is also economics. And I think it is important that when people talk about economics and also personal freedom, we actually think it through.
I'll take an old example that I always found weird. A company says that they do not want to pay for women's health (I'm saying women's health because as a person who has a hobby of growing ovarian cysts I was put on birth control to help control those and not need more surgeries years before I became sexually active) because it's against it's religion. Okay, on the surface that is a personal freedom decision. But not exactly. First, it is the personal freedom of the person(s) in charge of the company. By them exercising their personal freedom they are directly violating all the personal freedoms of all those employees that work for them. And since we in this country have tied health insurance to working, which I could go on for length on why that is literal definition of "road to hell is paved with good intentions", it means that access to needed care becomes more limited.
It also violates stock holders because of a couple of reasons. First - their religious beliefs might not be the same as the person in charge yet they own part of the company as well. Second - it can directly impact hiring of people to work for the company potentially cause the loss of good talent that would improve the company and in turn the stock. Third - a real obvious one but pregnant (especially unexpected and unwanted) and sick people cost more, both in terms of health care but also all the other aspects such as absenteeism and "being present" syndrome. That impacts productivity and profits.
But all I heard was the cost to the company in price of these additional mandated services and personal freedom of the company in the debate. I never heard about the rest. And that's because that was the narrative that was being pushed, oddly enough including in the "liberal" media. All I ever heard was that medicine should between a doctor and their patient. Well yes, duh. But there are actual costs involve on the other side that no one would bring up that were just as real as the costs that were being brought up on the no side.
So many of the arguments I see in media and especially on here, fail to do a true cost/benefit analysis when people say we can't afford to do something. And I always assumed it was because people are just pushing their agenda and points of view. But now, when people can't seem to catch the MASSIVE cost to the economy that will happen if we open up to early in this pandemic, a real economic cost, not even talking lives, but a crippling economic impact that we have seen play out before when the public panics, I'm thinking people just don't know to look for those potential costs.
I'm not sure how to solve for it other than for the love of God turn off the 24 hour news (I find them all horrible-more interested in spin and takes than actual facts they can point to for us to verify that they aren't just pulling things out of their bums) and lets build in critical thinking skills and economics into elementary school and make those the basis for all the other tests. Test for math and reading by having them dissect a story problem to determine if the source is reliable, if they have all the information they need to determine the cost of maintaining or making the change. Then do the analysis and have them say whether their view matches the analysis results and if so or not so, why. At least we will know they can read, comprehend, calculate things and then communicate their opinion in a coherent way - and we all need to know these to be good functioning citizens of a democracy.
I think we are all capable of being this, of being able to learn these skills. And in turn, we stop needing to yell into the void our opinions to have people agree with us and fight and be cruel to those who don't. We stop taking people questioning our rationale or take on a problem as personal, and be open to the fact, that maybe, we just simply don't have all the information prior to have the "right" take. Believing in lowering taxes or free child care are not moral superiority or failings, they simply are policy takes that need to truly analyze the costs for what they are from all sides, not just the obvious one, and then determine if the cost of inaction or action is the greater to society. The math can be hard to do, I totally get that, but the concept shouldn't be and certainly the discussion after the analysis shouldn't be entirely based on spiting those "libtards" or "Republic scum". I mean honestly, if you make decisions entirely on being reactionary to someone else, you are never going to be happy or at peace because you are fundamentally giving all your thinking and opinions to someone else to control. Whether you follow the cult leader or do the exact opposite of what the cult leader says, you are still fundamentally following a cult leader.
I also just think it is much easier to control people who don't have these skills than those who do.
But then again I read 1984 in 6th grade and it became my favorite book since, so maybe I'm just paranoid. Maybe I just need to accept it and get into the Group Think already and be a dick more often to people who don't agree with me on things. It would probably be a lot easier.
“The best books... are those that tell you what you know already.”
― George Orwell, 1984
“Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.”
― George Orwell, 1984
“Orthodoxy means not thinking--not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.”
― George Orwell, 1984
“Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious.”
― George Orwell, 1984