Complex Numbers

Moral Hazard

Still going through "JAFBG"  [XGC] at random, mostly to prove to myself that I can write about almost anything.

Write about something people do that isn't necessarily a huge deal, but if everyone did it, it would be total chaos.

Well, the sidewalk snow removal (specifically, lack thereof) thing from a few days ago comes to mind, but I already wrote about that.

Ethics 101: ask yourself, would it still be ethical if everyone did it?

I'm sure there's more nuance to it than that, but I consider it a starting point.

For example. Imagine you're at a university that features an internationally-famous lawn. One of the main entry points to this lawn is along one side. Also, the entrance to the Philosophy department is diagonally across this lawn from that entry point. Sidewalks run along all sides of the lawn, with a few cutting straight across, so you're meant to do a Pac-Man thing and turn right, then left (or go straight then turn right). But you're also taking math classes, so you know that the shortest distance, the one that requires the least steps, is to cut across the lawn past a statue of, say, Homer.

The blind poet, not the Simpson.

So you're running late to your first-year Ethics class one day, and to shave a few seconds off the walk, you cut across the lawn, giving Homer a high-five on the way.

No big deal. People walk and play frisbee on the lawn all the time; one student taking a shortcut isn't going to make a lick of difference.

Problem is, though, that other people see you do that, and they take the high-fiving Homer route. The increased traffic kills the grass and compacts the soil underneath, wearing a strip of dirt into the historic sward. Then it rains, and everyone taking the shortcut walks into Ethics class with muddy Uggs.

Homer would roll his eyes if he had them. And wasn't a statue.

And yes, this actually happened when I was at UVA. Except there weren't Uggs back then. One of my first attempts at satire was a proposal I wrote for the editorial section of an April Fools issue of the student paper, suggesting that, at night, the Grounds maintenance crew should bury claymores along the path. Nothing, I argued, would discourage people taking that shortcut more than watching a few of their classmates' legs get blown off by the shrapnel. As a bonus, the soil would become aerated and could be successfully reseeded.

Sadly, they didn't end up mining the Lawn, but they did install some short steel posts around the corners and stretch a chain through them. Which might have actually been effective if they had taken into account that they're dealing with agile teenagers who can easily hop a steel chain, not aging hippies like me who can't catch air to save their lives.

Total chaos? Eh, no, just an ugly brown streak on the diagonal across the Lawn and, ultimately, a destruction of its pristine (and, as I said, historically recognized) design caused by the installation of the ineffective barrier. But that particular kerfluffle stuck in my head and served me well when I graduated and did public space design for a living. No, I never designed land mines, but I always kept in mind where the probable foot traffic would go and propose sidewalks accordingly.

But I'm sure I could think of other examples that fit the prompt, if I weren't so completely hung over right now (thanks, lunch beers). Here are a few that pop into mind:

Driving a gas-guzzling car
Letting your dog shit in someone's yard and not picking it up
Having a dozen kids
Having no kids
Stealing a Coke from a store
Drinking three high-octane beers at lunch
Not wearing a fucking mask in the grocery store during a pandemic
Speaking of grocery stores, failing to return your cart to the corral afterward.
Littering

In a sense, these are all counterexamples of my Lone Asshole Theory. If you didn't read that previous entry, basically, Lone Asshole Theory states that even if the majority of people act ethically, all it takes is one asshole to ruin your day. I used the example of leaving your car unlocked; all it takes is one thief and your interior is trashed, even if 99% of people walking by would leave it alone. In these cases, however, what you're doing barely registers on anyone's radar, but if everyone did them, there would be, if not total chaos, at least some sort of suboptimal result for everyone.

But they're also kind of moral hazards, aren't they? Like in the example I used above: one person cutting across the Lawn, by herself, makes no discernible difference. But other impressionable students, seeing that, might go, "Hey, if she's doing that, then so can I!" And so you get the bare diagonal trail.

And aren't you glad that not everyone writes a long-winded blog entry every day? You'd have no time to do anything but read blogs or, worse, you'd have no time to read mine.