Fighting for Common Sense

Mike-O

Mike-O

Active member


Jani Kaaro is a scientific journalist, a researcher and encyclopedist, and he has some of the most insightful columns that I have read, time after time. I'm going to translate a few of his articles, if you have time and interest, check it out.

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Fighting for Common Sense

A few years ago, a complete farce unfolded in the United States, a kind of farce which could not happen if we put more trust in people's ability to use some common sense.

A father took his nine-year-old son to watch a Detroit Tigers baseball match. He was in an academic position and did not follow baseball much at all and didn't go to many matches. Before the game began, his son asked if he could get some lemonade. The only "lemonade" available was of course Mike's Hard Lemonade, which has alchohol in it. But he didn't know that.

That's how it all began. A security guard saw that an underaged child was drinking alcohol and alerted the police and called an ambulance. Before anyone had time to say "Pop goes the weasel", the father was handcuffed in the back of a squad car and the boy was rushed to the hospital. In the hospital they realized there was no alcohol in the boy's blood, but the child protection officials were already there.

No, the child won't be going back home, he's going to a foster home.

Next the case went into court. Due to the mother's request, the child could come home after three days in foster care, but only on the condition that the father moved out of there immediately and could not meet his son during the court process.

This story does have a happy ending. The dad could return to his family and everything went back to normal. But the real tragedy in this case was somewhere else, because everyone involved - the police, ambulance drivers, doctors, child protection and even the judge - knew that none of this made any sense. Everyone understood that this was a completely normal father. He just happened not to know that Mike's Hard Lemonade is an alcoholic drink. But everyone had their own rules and regulations which they had to uphold.

Many of us can identify with this story. Have you ever sat on the line for half an hour to an agency, customer service or the IRS, only to find out that your call was directed to the wrong department which has no say in the matter you are trying to resolve? Have you ever gotten in trouble just because a computer or a register has made a mistake, a mistake that no man can simply rectify as it is now "in the system"? It's all the same thing. Rules, systems and practices are an excuse not to use common sense.

Aristotle defined practical wisdom as the combination of the want and ability to act morally right. A wise person knows when it's morally right to go against rules and instructions. Or you could say, that a wise person doesn't need rules or instructions to act morally right.

Barry Schwartz, a professor in Swarthmore College, whose thoughts this column is based on, has shed some light on practical wisdom through janitors. Janitors of hospitals often have over 200 tasks, such as mopping the floors, changing light bulbs and removing the trash. None of these tasks require any interaction with other people.

Even so, when janitors have been interviewed, they tell how they sometimes guide a delusional senior citizen back to their beds, talk with lonely patients or even act as messengers between patient's relatives and the staff. One janitor made it a matter of pride to clean a young comatose patient's room twice in a day, as his parent's were heartbroken and they appreciated that his room was kept clean.

A janitor's position has been developed as such, that if and when a robot clever enough is constructed, it could take over the janitor's tasks. But no robot could replace what they do outside their rules and regulations. They use their wisdom, show empathy and serve the common good.

Looking at these factors in the background, it's mind-numbing to see that when there's a catastrophe somewhere or things didn't go as they should have, the automatic reaction is to tighten the the rules, coming up with new regulations and creating better incentives for following them. For all the aforementioned reason I simply don't believe that rules and regulations will bring us toward a better world. I also don't believe in better incentives, as previous experiences show that they often help lead to a worse result than the one that started it all.

A good example of incentives failing completely comes from Switzerland. Psychologists went around the area and asked people if they would be OK with nuclear waste being deposited in their neighbourhood. Surprisingly more than half said 'Yes'. First of all, the waste had to go somewhere. Secondly, they thought it was their responsibility as Swiss citizens, who have benefited from nuclear power, to receive the waste.

In another area people were asked if they would receive the waste if they would get half a year's extra salary for the rest of their lives for accepting. This time, only 25% said 'Yes'. The economic incentive wasn't "enough" - it never is - but it also brushed away a person's internal, natural incentive - the sense of national duty.

I think this speaks volumes of the harmful effects of high incentives for chairmen or other notable leaders. When someone is offered a monetary incentive, they ask "What do I get from this" and they often stop working for simple gratification or sense of pride for accomplishments.

I don't mean that there is no place for incentives in a better world. Of course there is. However, if we introduce them to all aspects of our lives and resort to them too much, they will rob us of something much, much more important. We aren't born into this world as wise. We aren't born as morally perfect. Morality is actually something that one has to practice. In their interviews, the janitors stressed that it takes a lot of experience to know when it's acceptable to meddle in other people's matters.

We need a society that supports and encourages people who dare to do the morally right thing - without care for rules and regulations. Teachers who don't just teach, but care; mayors who don't just govern, but look after our children in trams; and hospital janitors, who make themselves available -

...even if it's not a part of the job.

 
anyone else find that the first 1/3 (the story of the father) and the last 2/3's (the talk about the janitor) don't related to each other?

also i'm curious to know how the boy was drinking a mike's hard lemonade, but ended up having no alcohol in his blood?
 
The security guard could have talked to the dad instead of following orders and reporting it. That would have stopped the whole court process
 
What do you mean? It's about people blindly going through the motions, withholding common sense, as opposed to others who go far and beyond over their "rules" a.k.a. job description and necessities to help others.

As for the alcohol, it's pretty obvious that probably a few sips of 5,0% proof drink won't take long to burn off, even on a nine-year-old.
 
lets replace alcohol with gun. if you were a security guard, and you saw a little kid holding a gun at a public arena, would you go talk to him or would you do what would uphold the law and call the police?

 
think of the point of view of the security guard, he just sees some kid drinking mikes hard lemonade and obviously the dad would make up any excuse such as "i didn't know there was alcohol in it" to get out of trouble, what do you expect him to do if he didnt report it and something happened to the kid his ass would be on the line
 
plus the dad should have his kid taken away from him for being dumb enough to not know mikes hard alcohol had booze in it and for buying his kid one
 
Well now you've done it.

Anyway, if you're honestly saying that someone's child should be taken away for such a small error, you are fucked in the head. As for the guard's actions, granted, like said - he did what he "had to". As did the officers, doctors, child custody services etc. But the whole thing had no reason to go that far.
 
read my last post as a response to you first statements

as for the alcohol in the child: alcohol metabolizes at a rate of 0.015% BAC per hour. even at a 0.02 BAC, the legal limit for minors in america (set because diabetics with hypoglycemia can develop ketoacidosis, which can be read by breathalyzer's as having alcohol in the body), it still takes approximately an hour and twenty minutes. by using common sense, you can render that this time would be longer, since metabolic rates for alcohol are taken from adults.

think of it this way. the average kid (10 year old) has about 7 pints of blood in its body. the average adult male has about 12 pints of blood in his body. with such a drastic change in how much blood the body has, between a kid and an adult, wouldn't it make sense that the effects of alcohol would be amped up greatly?
 
No it isn't, he said that the dad would have deserved to have his child taken away in any case. Which is fucked in the head.
 
the illegal object in which the son was holding could be interchangeable with various other items (a gun, alcohol, a drug, etc.)
 
Yes, because gambling $1 outside of a casino and murdering someone are equivalent due to the fact that they are both felonies.

Flawless logic there, you dumb.
 
i love that it's the system that has no common sense, and not the father who's too dumb to read the bottle that he gives his son. If you had children, would you haphazardly give them any ol' drink?

Plus i can guarantee you he had to show an ID to get it. If not, the Tigers could be in serious trouble as MLB/the state can ban stadiums from all alcohol sales.

And that also explains the security guard's actions. He doesn't see the "honest mistake" in it because he's probably had to deal with hundreds of other parents/adults who give teenagers booze "by accident" that season alone. Granted seeing a kid that young with it is uncommon, but not totally unimaginable. He's covering his own ass by reporting it, and in doing so is covering the stadium/the tiger's ass with MLB and the state. There isn't wiggle room in his position. If he does nothing, everyone gets put in a bad place.
 
I was reflecting your shit logic.

Accidentally sipping a Mikes Hard lemonade is nowhere near the same as walking around with a gun. You can't just interchange random illegal objects/activities as if they both hold equal value.

Nobody gambles $1, but that doesn't change the fact that it's a felony while things like driving drunk are not.
 
if you misunderstood, i'm sorry.i was meaning it as the kid was sitting there, like he did with the mikes, holding a gun. or lets say a cigarette. no matter the item, if it was illegal for the child to have in his possession, the security guard would have acted the same.
 
If I remember correctly, you were working at a baseball stadium yourself once? If the man bought a beer for himself and the lemonade at the same time, I'm guessing he didn't have to show his ID again or at all for the lemonade.

Please don't focus only on the actions of the guard or even the first part of the article, there's a lot more to it than the first example.
 
Again, no. Nothing is black and white.

A gun is far worse than a cigarette, which is worse than a mike's hard. A child does not just accidentally buy a gun, nor do they accidentally smoke a cigarette. If you see a child drinking Mike's Hard, the obvious thing to do is to find their parent and say "you do realize that has alcohol in it, right? At which point the parent will likely take it away." Chances are the parent was unaware.

 
who the fuck said the child bought a gun? you come up with the stupid shit to reply with i swear to god.

if you weren't such a fucking moron you would understand by now that the gun, cigarette. etc., examples were as if the father had handed his cigarette or gun to the child. for fucks sake fucking think before you type. god damn
 
To those who are argung (or playing devils advocate/trolling whatever) with the security guard etc. you have completely missed the point of the article - no one's saying they didn't carry out their jobs impeccably. They stuck strictly to the law, but they did so blindly, as 'robots'. While they technically cannot be criticised, if they had applied a bit of common sense, or let their moral compasses override their rules and instructions, things would have turned out simpler and ultimately better for everyone, not least the family of that 9 year old.

A great read, thanks mike-o for translating! Loved the janitor analogy and that Aristotle quote. I think we live being told so often what is right/acceptable/not okay/politically correct etc. that we're losing the ability/courage to apply our own morals.
 
How are you not getting this? The author is criticizing the fact that security said OMG HE HAS A DRINK without thinking about how he could have possibly acquired it. With Mike's Hard, common sense will tell you it was likely an honest mistake. Kids don't come across guns/cigarettes by honest mistake. Therefore, your comparison is fucking retarded and completely beside the point.
 
my comparison was in defense of the security guard, showing that it didn't matter what the kid was holding, if it was illegal for the kid to have and his father was next to him, he would've acted as he had been trained
 
You're talking in circles. We understand your point. It is not the main point in this article.
 
Yes, I get that. Your circular logic has nothing to do with the article. All you're doing is reinforcing the author's point that this type of reasoning is fucking stupid.
 
"The economic incentive wasn't "enough" - it never is - but it also brushed away a person's internal, natural incentive - the sense of national duty." I'm being entirely serious when I say that this man is what's wrong with the world.
 
missingthepoint.gif
 
...which is the whole point of the thread. that people just go with what they've been trained or with what society says, regardless of the situation, without applying any common sense or personal thought into each specific situation. times have changed from innocent until proven guilty to guilty until proven innocent, and although the dad was guilty in giving his son alcohol, it was a clear mistake. did the security guard do his job right? yes. but him and the cop should have separated the dad and son, talked to them separately and figured out the real situation, rather than causing a traumatic experience for the kid and making the dad think he was going to lose his child.

if the kid was holding a gun, or even smoking a cigarette, its a little different, as no kid should be holding any gun or smoking anything at that age. but a kid drinking lemonade at a baseball game that has a tiny amount of alcohol in it, to someone that can actually think for themselves you can see the mistake

 
He's about 1/5th of the way to understanding, if I had to put a number on it. Incentives are society. Positive and negative. It's the removal of those incentives that result in systems that destroy lives. If he thinks there is something outside of incentives that direct human behavior, he's just another 21st century mystic. Civic responsibility is the original sin.
 
He's not saying that there is no place for incentives, he actually says so in the article, just how far we are going with them in the wrong areas of life and for wrongful reasons and I completely agree with him.

As for civic responsibility, call me a romantic but I do love to help the fellow man out of both love for my peers and societal upkeep.
 
He's not talking about incentives though, he's talking about positive economic incentives. Incentives of all kinds must exist in society if we want peace and prosperity. There's no place for their absence.

Why do you love it?
 
No, he mentions economic incentives in the Swiss case and brushes the topic when it comes to disastrous incentives for high-seated leaders that have burst the fucktown bubble here in Finland, and goes on to say that there is always a place for incentives in our society, it's pretty easy to read and see, no?

Why do I love helping those around me if I can? Probably because I see that people can carry other people and even without any clear obligation or civic duty, for me it's innate. I want to help if I can, and if it is engrained in our society to try and be helpful in the guise of civic duty, I'm all for it.

Why don't you?
 
"if we introduce them to all aspects of our lives and resort to them too

much, they will rob us of something much, much more important."

This implies there are places where incentives shouldn't be considered. Something may have been lost in translation, though.

Do you help people solely because you're able to, or do you help people because it gives you joy and meaning to create those feelings in others?

I don't believe society has to ingrain something into humans that's already there. I believe that making something a "civic duty" robs good will of any meaning it might have. What does it matter if people do things because they're "supposed to"? There's no morality in that. We might as well call drinking water a virtue if morality is what's forced onto people.

 
I watched that TED talk, and felt this dejávu feeling and realized I had read his book (or skimmed for test) 'Drive' for a class few years back.

As I said earlier, the father bought a beer for himself and a lemonade for his son on the side, which quite certainly makes the situation clear, that he either wasn't ID'd at all, or was only ID'd for the beer and the Mike's Hard came along fine. And can you honestly, HONESTLY say that someone deserves not to have children or raise children because of a little mistake like this? Maybe he does live in a box, not every single person in the world or even Michigan probably knows about every single alcoholic beverage and their name and contents. Looking at the Mike's bottle, it's a large logo, tagline and the alcohol content is not marked very visibly in one of the label styles - if he had no better idea, to him it was lemonade.

Calling him stupid and terrible as a parent for something like this without knowing anything else about his raising methods, love for his child or anything at all is pretty farfethced.

 
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