Instinctive desire to ‘do something’ almost always leads to bad policy

By David McElroy · October 2, 2017

When there’s unexpected tragedy in the world, I always know what to expect from myself. My first instinct is to call someone I love and say, “Are you OK? Are you safe?”

It’s a very instinctive and irrational desire to reach out to try to protect someone who couldn’t possibly have been threatened by a shooting in Las Vegas today. It’s just so instinctive that it takes time for my conscious rational brain to kick in and remind me, “The people you love aren’t in danger, so you can relax.”

The many centuries of human history seem to have wired us in this way. When there is a danger — to ourselves or others — the first thing we’re programmed to do is think of the people we love and to think about how to protect them.

When something terrible happens, who do you think of first? Who do you want to tell about news in your life? Who do you want to protect? Your complicated answers to those questions will tell you who you really love — because your instincts tell you the truth.

When these terrible things happen, our instinct tells us — very strongly — that it’s our job to fix the situation. We first try to immediately protect those people we love. Then when it’s clear they’re safe this time, something else unconsciously kicks in. Because we recognize this as a danger to someone we love, an instinctive part of us says we have to do something now to fix it — or at least insist someone else fix it.

Every time something terrible happens — such as the as-yet inexplicable murders in Las Vegas — millions of people around the country experience their own version of this instinct. As they work their way through the realization that their loved ones are safe — this time — the other voice starts instinctively shouting.

“Somebody has to make sure this can’t happen again! Do something about it! Now!”

As the more rational parts of the person’s brain starts taking over, his biases start leading his thoughts. Whatever he already thought made sense is suddenly urgently important.

A person who already dislikes guns will insistently latch onto this idea as the thing which would have prevented the current tragedy. Even if you can show him that he is in more danger — statistically speaking — when he just drives a car or takes a shower, it doesn’t matter to him. He has latched onto that idea. He can’t even hear the downsides of eliminating guns, because his mind is locked onto the instinctive belief that guns are the real problem.

A person who already has a dislike of foreigners — maybe someone who’s predisposed not to trust Muslims or Hispanics, for instance — might latch onto this idea as the key to making the world safe. Even if you could show him in economic and statistical terms that we’re all better off with immigration, it doesn’t matter to him. He’s latched onto the notion that we need a wall to keep “bad people” out. He isn’t interested in the downsides of cutting immigration — and he doesn’t care about the moral case — because he thinks building a magical wall would keep everyone safe.

Everyone has a different pattern, but the first part is the “who you care about” and the second part is the policy bias. In a time of crisis, those things combine to make you scream for some politician to fix things.

But there’s bad news when it comes to the evil which people do to one another. Human beings will always find reasons to kill each other. Always.

We mourn some murders and glorify others as heroic. There will never be a shortage of ways to kill or a shortage of people who feel justified in killing.

People will kill with guns and knives and fertilizer bombs and military drones. People of all sorts will kill, whether they’re white or black or Muslim or Hispanic or Nazis. They might live next door to us. They might live on the other side of the world. They can be anywhere.

This truth is scary for those who have no desire to kill at the moment, so we will constantly argue about how to stop the killing. Depending on your social or political bias, you might want to ban certain weapons or deal harshly with lesser crimes. You might want to “lock them up and throw away the key” when people commit small crimes. You might even want to target demographic groups.

These debates will always rage, but the real issue is the hatred that’s built into the human heart. Some call that hatred “original sin.” Whatever it is, though, there’s something in us that can turn anyone who’s pushed in certain ways into a killer.

This evil is a problem of the heart which will never be cured through legislation or force.

No matter what you do — or what you goad politicians into doing — your solutions won’t work. You can’t force people to be good. You can’t force people to change their hearts. You can’t force people to love one another.

So when something terrible happens, protect your loved ones from the immediate danger if you can, but remember that pushing politicians to save you won’t help.

If the world is going to change, it’s going to happen because individuals make the decision to stop hating and to start loving. You can’t make that decision for anybody but yourself. You can’t make that change for anybody but yourself.

The solution starts with genuine love in your own heart, not with forcing others to change. Work on changing yourself instead.

In the meantime, reach out to the people you love in times of danger. They need you and they need your love. Let them know you choose to love them — because genuine love is always a choice.

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I’m seeing a lot of simplistic and dishonest explanations right now for the current rioting in France. Those on the populist far right claim it’s all about Muslim immigrants to France disrupting the culture. Their message is that this sort of thing is going to happen in the U.S. unless “we defend the border.” On the far left, socialists and their fellow travelers claim the riots are all about wealthy people in France not paying enough taxes, resulting in cuts to government services. The truth is far more complicated, but it’s rooted in the decline of population growth in Europe. There simply aren’t enough young workers paying into the tax system anymore, so cuts in social services were inevitable. There is genuine cultural tension as more and more people immigrate from other countries, but government cuts to education and other services are even more important to what’s happening. The situation is complicated, so don’t let dishonest people with U.S. political agendas tell you that it happens to support whatever they were already promoting for partisan reasons.

Here’s another reason to appreciate the cats in your life: New research involving 93 countries found that places with more cats per person also tended to have happier people. The researchers say the finding fits with previous evidence that living with pets can reduce loneliness and stress while providing companionship, emotional attachment and social support. The study doesn’t prove that cats cause greater happiness, but it certainly adds to the evidence that sharing your home — and your life — with a cat might be good for you.

The company that owns Facebook and Instagram is heavily promoting its new AI-based software assistant called Muse, but people who are using it as it was designed are incredibly foolish. An early adopter of the software discovered that a few days ago when he advertised an item for sale on Facebook Marketplace — and he inadvertently gave Muse full authority to act on his behalf. The software agreed to a lowball offer made by another Facebook user and then gave that man the home address of the man for whom he was an agent. The software told the buyer that the seller was home and waiting for him. When the buyer showed up and waited angrily, the would-be buyer left an angry review for the man. And this angry man had the seller’s home address. It was only well after that that the software reported what it had done and admitted it had made a mistake. I won’t be putting that much power into the hands of any software. I think anyone who agrees to such terms is a fool. And the software’s user agreement says you’re responsible for purchases the software makes in your name. Nope.

Meet my new girlfriend. Her name is Meg. And she’s my little sweetheart. A couple of months ago, a neighbor across the street told me about a new stray in the neighborhood that she and I were both soon feeding. The cat had been very skittish about contact and she had a lot of scabs and parasites in her fur, but a trip to the vet last week revealed that she was otherwise in good health. The vet estimates her to be 1 to 2 years old. I named her for Meg Murry, the 13-year-old protagonist of Madeleine L’Engle’s wonderful book, “A Wrinkle in Time.” (Please read the book. Don’t watch the horrible movie.) Since we lost Lucy almost a year ago, it seems appropriate that we finally have a new little girl to join the household. She’s already captured my heart, but Alex, Oliver and Sam aren’t there quite yet.

There’s nothing socially acceptable that’s as dangerous as drinking alcohol. Most people grow up being told to “drink responsibly” — and all of us see people abusing this drug in one way or another — but the truth is that drinking alcohol is always a terrible risk. The alcohol in these drinks is toxic and the human liver has to work hard to filter the toxins out. What most people don’t realize is that alcohol is classified as a known carcinogen by the World Health Organization — because of the well-established connection between imbibing and various cancers. Many people have taken refuge behind the idea that light or moderate drinking might be safe, but a new study shows that drinking even one drink a day increases the risks of 10 types of cancer. When I was a teen-ager, I looked around and saw the negative effects that this behavior had on a lot of people and decided not to start drinking, so I’ve never even tried this poison. The evidence keeps piling up that I was lucky to have come to that conclusion early.

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