Snowden, Aspirin, and Unintended Consequences

The best constructionⁱ that I can put on the actions of Edward Snowden is that he honestly believed that what he was doing was for the nation's benefit and that he was acting for the benefit of his fellow citizens.ⁱⁱ I must assume that he saw no alternative to what he did – that there was no place to turn. I also assume that he was unaware of the contents of all the files he saw fit to reveal, since it is difficult to believe that he read them all and understood all their implications. But it also seems likely that he did not expect to wind up in Russia or to have damaged American foreign policy to the extent that he appears to have done so. Indeed, each additional story in the media suggests that the harm was quite significant. But, of course, that was not his aim. His intentions were good. He viewed himself as wearing a white hat and riding in to take action to rescue his country.

Unfortunately the road he was taking was also paved with the good intentions of those who preceded him. It was a road often traveled by those convinced of their own virtue, people who view immediate action as mandatory. From their vantage point, no further investigation or discussion was necessary. “Don't confuse me with facts. My mind is made up.”ⁱⁱⁱ

We live in an age when it is believed that there is no problem that cannot be solved. And it's an age in which many people, both in and out of government, are convinced that they have the solutions. But they're also convinced that the solution is so obvious “it's a wonder that no one thought of it already. Let's implement it immediately.”^iv And that's one of the worst problems with those who are eager to make the world better for everyone. They're too eager. Though I don't always believe it, I'm willing, for the sake of this discussion, to accept the idea that their hearts are in the right place; that they're eager, and convinced they're right. But Don Quixote was also eager to right wrongs, and thinking through the problems would simply have delayed his action. “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.”^v

Winston Churchill is supposed to have said “The Americans can always be trusted to do the right thing, once all other possibilities have been exhausted.” There is no evidence that he ever said it,^vi but that doesn't really matter. The second part of the statement is especially revealing. The “Americans”^vii (and this really applies to all those who see a rapid change as necessary when they are not satisfied with the status quo) too often want to do “the right thing” fast, no matter whom it hurts. Quick action, even if several tries are required, is better than delay for evaluation and thought so as to get it right the first time. They're willing to exhaust all the possibilities – as long as they're doing something. When they're acting and solving everyone's problems (or at least making them different) they'll feel better, even if others feel worse. In most cases they will refuse to consider anything that worked in the past. “New” and “innovative” is superior to “tried and true,” and it's important to act with dispatch. After all, “He who hesitates is lost.” “The early bird catches the worm.” So “If you don't succeed at first, [you can always] try, try, again.”^viii The problem is clear, as is the solution.

But H. L. Mencken had a clear view of such solutions. “Explanations exist; they have existed for all time; there is always a well-known solution to every human problem — neat, plausible, and wrong.”^ix They were wrong. Quick and obvious solutions weren't applicable.

But it's not so simple – not Mencken's appraisal and certainly not the proposed remedies. There are times when the answer to a problem is obvious, however it may be difficult to reach that answer without causing other problems. People are hungry? Feed them! They're homeless? Build them places to live! Obvious answers. As the saying goes, however, “The Devil is in the details.” But we don't have time to wait for the details to be worked out. And that's where we fall down too often. In our zeal to find answers to all situations we face, we don't always anticipate the consequences of our acts.

An example. In 2000, the Presidential election was hotly contested. In the end, President Bush was elected when he was awarded Florida's electoral votes. The official state count, which was ultimately affirmed by the United States Supreme Court, showed a 537 vote margin.^x But the accusations and legal challenges to the vote, and to the nature of the voting machines used in Florida, were significant – great enough to warrant some evaluation, and possibly replacement, of the faulty machines. Indeed, there was a call for electoral reform in Florida and the state switched to touch-screen voting. The paper ballots which had been punched in the voting machines previously were eliminated.

Congress, however, also went to work on the problem in Florida and allocated 3.9 billion dollars ($3,900,000,000) in the “Help America Vote Act” to solve the problem.^xi The reforms were far-reaching and included, in addition to changes in voting systems, regulations that help disabled voters cast ballots independently, new regulations allowing voters to check for ballot errors, minimum standards for state data bases, and the provision of provisional ballots for those not on the state voter registration lists. Whether or not those additional programs were successful, there were continued voting machine problems. Apparently the electronic machines are susceptible to hacking. Many states, including my own, have voters mark paper ballots in an area that's not very private, and then march them over with a paid employee to machines that read them. That's extra time for me, and the need for additional paid personnel. Add that cost to the 3.9 billion. And don't forget that we're back to marking paper ballots, and the privacy that I used to have in a voting booth is gone. We're left with a very expensive “fix” which is, in many ways, worse than the prior system, and a lot more expensive.^xii Perhaps a focused effort to deal with the specific problem would have been preferable.

Let me give an example of that kind of method. (Actually it was this that inspired me to write this essay. It begins with the bottle of aspirin on the window sill. My wife bought it to replace the one that had just run out. And I have to admit that it was a vast improvement over the one before. I could open it. Actually it says “Easy Open Cap” on the label. Getting there, though, took some time.

Salicylates have been used for at least three and a half millennia – initially to reduce fever, but more recently for their effects on pain and inflammation. Unfortunately,^xiii however, because the aspirin were so effective against fever, and babies had colds and fever so often, aspirin became a common medicine given to children, though it tasted bad. The simple solution – one that really worked – was to flavor the tablets, and the term “candy” was used to entice reluctant youngsters to take them. It worked. But it worked so well that aspirin poisoning became a real problem when unsupervised children took many pieces of the tasty “candy.”

To deal with the problem, pharmaceutical makers began to produce smaller tablets, 1 ¼ grain “baby aspirin,” limit the number in a bottle to lower the risk, and put a cap on the bottle that was difficult for a child to remove. They were direct responses to a specific problem, and they worked. Because of the discovery of an association between aspirin ingestion in children and Reye's Disease, however, it's rarely used for pediatric patients nowadays.^xiv But another use was found for baby aspirin: the decrease in platelet stickiness it causes decreases the incidence of heart attacks and strokes in many older patients. Unfortunately those patients are often afflicted with weakness, tremors, and joint pains, and have difficulty opening child-proof caps. So there is now a return of the old screw-caps.^xv In each case there was a simple solution to every new problem as it was recognized. There were unforeseen consequences but they were treated rapidly, without an expensive and overarching study and plan.

The perspectives of these two cases, though, illustrate is reflective of American society and politics. Liberals view the “obstructionism” of conservatives who demand, for example, a pay as you go policy, as oversimplification, while conservatives see attempts by liberals – who, they claim, “throw money” at every problem and come up with ill-considered solutions – as being the ones who are wrong.

As a result, we have many problems and, at times, a choice between no solutions and solutions that don't work or are worse than what they're designed to remedy. Is there any hope? I think so, although I know that many would argue either with my appraisal or my approach.^xvi It seems to me that the questions that society will have to handle will become increasingly vexing, and that we, as humans, are prone to errors – no matter how well intentioned we may be. So since we can't hope to come up with errorless resolutions to the situations that plague us, we're best off following the advice given every medical student: “First of all, do no harm.” And since it cannot be eliminated entirely, minimizing the harm we cause when we deal with mankind's ailments should be our goal. We should avoid treatments that are overkill or are not well thought out – that cause more problems than they solve – as we seek solutions for problems as they arise, and with the least intrusive (and the least expensive) remedy for each.

Remember Murphy's Law. There will be consequences you didn't anticipate. Although that knowledge shouldn't keep you from acting, don't take so long and spend so much money considering it that you never get around to solving the problem. You're going to fail in your attempt to prevent unwanted results, so don't waste your time trying.^xvii Do what you can do.

Next episode: “I Think I Missed Something” – Run that by me again.

I        I'm generous to a fault. Or, in this case, to a traitor. At least that's the way I view it.

ii       I wasn't nearly as forgiving in my posting “The Big Picture” which appeared on June 18, 2013. That view is more reflective of my own, but I'll give Mr. Snowden the benefit of the doubt as this essay relates to a different issue. I doubt, though, that he consulted his fellow citizens before acting on their behalf.

iii     This is one – the most common – version of a frequently-used idea. See http://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/02/13/confuse-me/

iv     There are so many among us who somehow believe that they were the first to discover a problem, and they want to act before someone else does – with the apparent goal of being recognized as the savior of some group of people. Precedence and political gain seem to be more important than merit. You can change things later if this doesn't work.

v      That's the way it's usually quoted but, at least according to Wikipedia, it was a little different: "Damn the torpedoes!" said Farragut, "Four bells. Captain Drayton, go ahead! Jouett, full speed!" It doesn't matter though. Either way it as a “[Let] the Devil take the hindmost” approach. There was little concern for the consequences – especially to others.

vi      Abba Eban was quoted, in 1967, as having said “Men and nations behave wisely when they have exhausted all other resources.” Most researchers attribute the idea – or at least its exposition – to him. All state that they cannot confirm its attribution to Churchill.

vii     In Eban's rendering, “Men and nations,” because he recognized that this was a more universal trait. I think it's fair to state that there are many who are so intent on doing good that they will keep trying out “solutions” to any problem they perceive. They will do so rapidly and often without any evaluation, rather than not act on the problem. “Shoot first and ask questions afterward.” Until they've exhausted all the possibilities. Even then, however, they may not have solved the problem.

viii    The solutions they sought may have been new, but the bromides were old.

ix        New York Evening Mail, November 16, 1917.

x        Of 5,963,110 cast.

xi      That's a little more than $7,262,569.83 per vote by which Bush defeated Gore in Florida. Assuming all American votes have equal value, and in view of the fact that 105,405,100 were cast in the 2000 presidential balloting, the American electorate is worth over 765 and a half quadrillion dollars. What a country!

xii     Another example is the Affordable Care Act which took over 2,000 pages to write and over 15,000 pages of regulations to implement. (Winston Churchill wrote: “If you have ten thousand regulations you destroy all respect for the law.") Except that implementation of this overly complex legislation has been disastrous and there have been unexpected surprises in its roll out, and due both to executive orders necessitated by unanticipated problems, and mixed court responses to the legality of its provisions, it has been a very expensive, and thus far unsuccessful, “solution” to a perceived failure of the health care system.

xiii    "Fortunately” it seemed at the time.

xiv     The following message appears on the aspirin bottle: “This product not for households with young children.”

xv      And flavoring is less important.

xvi     Or both.

xvii    As for situations like Snowden's, there should be a panel to which he could turn with his disclosures – a panel that will direct the problems he discovered to those capable of dealing with them. The panel should review the results of the referral and escalate it if no effective action is taken in a prescribed time. Some governmental secrets are too sensitive for public disclosure, but not for disclosure to authorities tasked with their remediation.