Distancing from each other vs. Garage sales

While setting up for a garage sale this last weekend (trying to eliminate thirty plus years of accumulation and four households of "stuff") I listened, via radio, comments made by some host or other about how infatuation with social media and electronic delivery actually pulls at the threads of community (my words) and destroys social interaction. No argument there, just look around and you. People of all ages staring at their pads, phones, or whatever busily thumbing, flipping, or sliding away at screen. Oblivious to those around them. Thank goodness those three fellow Oregonians were paying attention in France last week.


We all talk about it, and blithely participate.


So to my point. Most of the people (with the exception of the early morning first day pickers) were from the neighborhood. A rough sampling of visitors put the most distant home about one and half miles away. Of course we ran ads in the local paper (web site) and Craigs List so the entire metropolitan area knew about the sale. It was fun talking with people, heard some stories, and met a couple new to the immediate area.


It is sad to think "community" may be dying. Do your part to save it and visit some garage sales in the neighborhood.

Consequences

Bouncing between CNBC this morning and the CBS Morning news two stories came up striking a familiar cord. First CBS referenced an interview with Marco Rubio by Chris Wallace of Fox News about Shifting Answers – On the Iraq War. The crux of the questions from Wallace was on the clarity of twenty-twenty hindsight and attempting to persuade the presidential candidate to admit the war was a mistake.

 CBS sighted a poll that 75% of Americans thought the war was “not worth it.” The best Rubio could say, in defense of a republican predecessor was; he made his decision on the best information he had at the time. Since the issue was about whether there were WMD’s in place and subsequently none have been found. For myself I always thought the war was personal, Saddam had made public statements about his goal/desire to kill the senior Bush while he was in office. Rubio also added “A President cannot make a decision on what someone might know in the future.” So the President does not have to consider potential consequences to a particular course of action? To call such a position outrageous is insufficient.

CNBC featured some footage of Tim Cook’s (Apple CEO) commencement address at George Washington University encouraging students not to stand on the sidelines and to be impatient about progress for solving the world’s problems. Citing Martin Luther King, Cook encouraged students not be one of those good people who stand by in “appalling silence.”

Cook has spoken before about how he made his decisions and encouraged similar actions. In the GWU address he spoke to his experience of interviewing with Steve Jobs at Jobs second stint at Apple, and how Cook knew he was on a road to something definitive. In his 2010 commencement address at Auburn Cook said “. . . there are times when careful consideration of costs and benefits just does not seem like the right way to make a decision.” Jobs was obviously persuasive as the future was bleak for Apple in 1997.

Decision making is to weigh the costs and benefits, evaluate the data, and make the best possible choice. Sometimes all the data must still be evaluated against the values of the community or individual, and that position could be in opposition to the “facts.” Further, I would suggest, no decision can be made without an evaluation of potential consequences. That is what struck me with Rubio’s remark. He is stating there is no expectation for evaluating probable consequences.

Cook hardly touches on the topic of failure/consequence other than the final decision must be made carefully. Data, values, balance with the risks, and if you fail, admit it, fix it and move on. Something neither of the major political parties is willing to do.