the military are the Death Eaters from the Harry Potter books

[miriam_e]

Maximum pain is aim of new US weapon

How saddening. How do these people get research dollars when there are people starving in their own country?

Comments

Re: And I paid for it

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was thinking about that very point just recently, trying to put my thoughts into some kind of structure.

It goes like this:

Many actions have small, positive results in the short term, but much larger negative results in the long term. Unfortunately most people don't see beyond the immediate gain and become mystified when more doesn't work the way intended.

Here are a few examples:

When people are impatient and drive close behind another car at night, it might initially cause the driver in front to speed up a little, but driving even closer will have the opposite effect, because the glare of headlights in the mirror reduces visibility and causes the first driver to slow to a safer speed.

When people wait at the baggage conveyer belts at airport terminals many of them cluster close to the luggage conveyer, watching for their bags. This makes it hard for others to see their bags so more people push closer to the conveyer to see. As the wall of people at the conveyer becomes denser, less people can see and even those at the conveyer find it difficult to manoeuvre. If everybody stood back a meter or so from the conveyer everybody would be able to see and easily step in to pick up their bags when they need to, but there is this counterproductive push to keep moving closer.

Bullying works in the short term, and people obey because they are afraid of the consequences, but it never works in the longer term. The bullies get their comeuppance in a rebellion. Or they lose the respect of those around them who leave at the first opportunity. Perplexed, most bullies will simply become more ferocious when they start to lose their power, never realising that any small gains simply hasten the end.

I am sure there are many more examples. And I am sure it has a proper name, because I doubt I'm the first to think of the connection. It is like a combination of negative feedback and positive feedback that switches in catastrophic fashion.