Competent, compassionate, obsessives > whiz kids

On my morning bike ride today I rode up on a chunk of concrete that had fallen off an overpass onto the bike path. Somehow I've lost the picture of it, but no matter. I used WichitaReport to report it, and that got me thinking: the app is great, but simple. So much of what we get out of government is accomplished by compassionate, competent, experienced people--not stereotypical "whiz kids"--who obsess over solving difficult problems. Their work proceeds in spite of who leadership is (though the current EPA may be an exception). The result is that life gets better for the rest of us.

And then I saw this article on Kottke.org. 

Relevant quote: "When innovation does occur in city and state government, it looks small, boring, like the parts of life you don’t really want to think about. In some cases it doesn’t even look like innovation."

I don't think it ends at government. In medicine, the care that ultimately saves the most lives is routine (some would say boring) care delivered in anonymous health departments and clinics: immunizations, blood pressure control, diabetes screenings, eye examinations, and others. It's easy to do all these things poorly and astonishingly hard to do them well. But those of us who are lucky get the care of obsessive, compassionate nurses, doctors, pharmacists, and others who pay attention to details and competently treat around all the obstacles that come between us and good care.

This observation is so powerful that people have (rightly) started to think that we should put values other than raw intelligence, like emotional intelligence, at the top of our list of qualifications for medical school. It's worth a thought.

Links for Wednesday, August 2, 2017: death of the high-top, marijuana makes you stupid, and spending money only makes you so happy

Are high-top basketball sneakers on their way out?

True story: I bought 3/4 top sneakers for my senior year of basketball over the objections of my high-school coach, who wanted everyone in true high-tops. I stepped on another guy's foot on the first day of practice and broke my fibula. He took this as evidence I'd erred in my shoe choice. The evidence says otherwise:

"There's no science out there, that we have at least, that proves that a high-top shoe is more effective at reducing ankle injuries than anything else," says Kevin Dodson, Nike's senior design director for basketball footwear. 

Marijuana probably makes people do poorly in school, and it's not because they study less

So, with decriminalization and legalization of marijuana occurring nationwide, let's put the drug where it belongs: right beside tobacco and alcohol, two substances that, while not sinister enough to be made illegal, are clearly not good for you and should be mostly avoided.

Is the old adage to "Buy experiences, not things," wrong?

[this] helps us see the car-buyer’s true problem: not that he’s prioritising objects over experience, but that he’s pursuing the wrong kind of experience. He wants to receive a predictable, consistent daily dose of pleasure from owning a car. But that’s not how pleasure works: if the holidaymaker ends up happier, it’ll be because she got to enjoy anticipating the trip, experiencing it, then consigning it to memory, where it can be burnished until it’s perfect (or, if it went terribly, turned into an anecdote that’s even more fun). If our shallow materialist were to use his vehicle to pursue unpredictable, sociable and one-off experiences – like, say, a road trip with friends – he’d stand just as much chance of happiness.

So these new studies seem to indicate that it's not a simple matter of whether you buy things or experiences; it's a matter of what purpose the things you buy serve. If you buy a Faberge' egg (to use the example in the article) to simply put on a shelf in your office to be dusted, it's unlikely to make you any happier. If you buy that same egg to use in a game where it's passed around to close friends and family who are obligated to write a story about it and distribute it at Christmas, it may cause many people to be much happier.