We Must Do Something Now

[billroper]

Something happens. There is a great hue and outcry that it is a "bad thing". And that "we must do something now to make sure that this never happens again".

Something is done now. The problem is solved.

Save for the unintended consequences of hasty action.

As an example -- one from which we're safely removed by the passage of time -- I offer the "hanging chad".

Obviously, we could not trust the results from the old Votematic machines. Something had to be done.

And in many jurisdictions, we introduced lovely new electronic voting machines with touch screens -- voting machines whose internal software was less than secure and potentially subject to tampering, with touch screens that persistently registered votes for the wrong candidate due to calibration errors, and auditing systems that would make it arguably possible to figure out just who a particular person had voted for. (The new voting machine in our district had a paper scroll that recorded the votes in order. The election judges marked down the order in which each person voted. I used it once before reverting to a paper ballot, not because I believe anyone was checking on my vote, but because I object to a system that would allow them to do so.)

And let's not forget the people who thought that Diebold, the company that made many of these machines, was going to "steal" elections. I doubt that they did, but I prefer systems that are inherently trustworthy. (Not that voting in many areas is particularly trustworthy for a variety of reasons, but let's not go there right now.)

We spent a metric boatload of money to replace a system that was defective with a system that may well have been even more defective, because something had to be done now.

There may well be occasions when something has to be done now.

There are many more occasions when it's more important to take the time to do it right and actually solve the problem that you set out to solve without breaking something else.

But usually, we do something now.

Comments

[tigertoy.livejournal.com]

This is very true and there are many threads I could follow up on. One example of a closely related phenomenon happens when a serious crime is committed. As soon as someone is accused (even if only by a rumor) there is a huge impulse to hang that person right away, and very few people seem to be happy about going through the process of making sure that the accused is really guilty. I have a lot of problems with our justice system, but I think that the principle of innocence until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt is a sound one. In fact, one of the big problems I have is that we often fail to actually apply a reasonable standard of reasonable doubt. And the more serious the accusation is, the more important it is to be sure before we declare someone guilty.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

We do something now because now is all we have. How many bad things have happened because we didn't do something sooner?

At the other extreme, we can send out feelers to gauge reactions to setting up a commission to debate options around the possibility of forming an exploratory steering committee to entertain broad-ranging discussions with a view to taking the pulse of the grass roots as regards blue-sky projections arising from a series of focus group meetings based on indications bearing on the urgent need fr action, and pass our time that way till the bad thing happens again, as it always does...

...or we can do something now, and fix the ineviitable problems as they occur.

[catalana.livejournal.com]

I agree that this is a huge problem, and I think there are at least two contributing factors to this. One is that politicians have relatively short terms, so they want to be seen as doing something now - not be seen as the person who waits around while someone later gets the credit. (Conveniently, it may also mean that the later bad effects come out on someone else's watch...). The second is that we aren't a hugely patient culture, so we want instant action. Waiting for the right solution, sadly, isn't as satisfying to many as instant gratification.

The combination is extremely problematic.

[phillip2637.livejournal.com]

Someone identified it to me once as the "political syllogism":

Something must be done.
This is something.
Therefore this must be done.

[joecoustic.livejournal.com]

You make a good point. I used to always say (and still think) that many times the best solution is a two prong approach. Something that is recognized as offering a short term fix while the search for a long term solution continues. Nobody ever liked hearing this cuz so many folks want to view things as all or nothing hand in hand with doing it now. *sigh*

[madfilkentist]

The worst thing about electronic voting machines is that they make large-scale, nearly undetectable fraud possible. At least with hanging chads, there's physical evidence something isn't right.

[samwinolj.livejournal.com]

I see what you did there.

Well done.