An Invitation to Read Them All!

As the latest poll shows 63% of Americans think the country is headed in the wrong direction, here is the 800^th in a series of messages that began in 2011. Most contain examples of failures in the five behavioral dimensions listed above. The purpose is not to “beat a dead horse,” but to show readers how to identify similar examples in their own lives and be able to classify them into the dimensions.

The title is Real American Solutions, because I believe that the future of America lies not in more government programs but in a nationwide effort to improve in these five key areas. 

Behavior has consequences, and consequences are predictable. Wise choices usually lead to happy outcomes; careless behavior leads to problems. As individuals make unwise choices in five key areas, trends develop across the entire society leading to unwanted outcomes.

These outcomes are expressed on the television and Internet news as the crises and epidemics of the day. But these societal problems don’t emerge from nowhere. They can, in very many cases, be traced back to individual choices. The government did not cause the obesity epidemic and retirement insecurity, for example, so why do we expect government to solve them? Critical thinking aligned with basic economic understanding can help people avoid many of the consumer fraud and deceptive/questionable advertising traps better than some distant, slow moving, bureaucratic protection agency. The same is true in so many other areas; wise behavior in the dimensions leads to individual happiness, which compounds into positive societal outcomes. 

So the many examples given are really practice exercises to spread the word that what we need is better choices and actions, not more ineffective programs. As more people become versed in the behavioral model, they will begin to question and challenge some of their own actions and those they observe. Well meaning politicians and advocates will not be able to get away with their faulty logic and top-down solutions, imposed through legal force or false guilt. (The ocean is not full of plastic because we use too many straws or drink too much soda!)

The hidden benefit is that behavior can be observed and described. It moves us out of the realm of blaming and assigning dastardly motives to everything we disagree with. A person’s motive or attitude is irrelevant as long as they do the right thing. If they do or say the wrong thing, it is easy to point that out without calling them evil, stupid or hateful. 

But being easy doesn’t mean it happens very often. These are habits to break.

Think of it as behavioral capitalism. Adam Smith wrote that if each person worked in his own best interest (economically), the outcome for the whole would improve. Likewise, if everyone makes a determined effort to be fitter and healthier, to have a more secure retirement, to get enough sleep, not to be lured in by ads for phony remedies or by empty promises about superficial happiness, and not to become stressed out by the constant litany of negative news coverage, the crises and epidemics go away.

There are 799 other entries and more to come – with a continued emphasis on behavior and not politics. I never seem to run out of material. Some from years ago pop up on the favorites list occasionally. The only difference between the early ones and the more recent ones are the examples. There should be something for everyone. So I encourage readers to “read ‘em all” (and let me know where I might have missed the point – my words are my behavior and open to critique; just don’t call me names!)

Power of the Behavioral Model

I have mentioned before how correctly using the behavioral model eliminates the kind of name-calling and attribution of negative motives that are so common. Using the model requires a little skill and practice, but mostly paying attention.

It’s based on the old adage of punish the behavior and not the child. Good parents don’t call their children bad; they ask for better behavior.

As an easy example, take the spouse (or teen) coming home later than expected. The other party is waiting up, feeling worried and upset, ready to pounce when the door opens. “You promised to be home by X! Don’t you care about my feelings? You are so inconsiderate! You don’t care about me (or your family)!” And on it goes. The other person gets defensive, possibly angry, especially if there is a good explanation – some accident or emergency.

The behavior is coming home late. Both can agree. Even if there is not a good reason, there may still be a solution that both can agree on without antagonistic remarks. But in the heat of the moment, it’s hard to discuss only behavior without affixing blame and bad intentions.

This is hard even for journalists who we expect to be objective. This Atlantic article published a few days after the Lincoln Memorial incident is instructive. By then several videos had become available showing different sides of the story, but people still couldn’t stick to the facts – they couldn’t report the behavior without assigning motives.

In the original picture, a student, “wearing a ‘Make America Great Again’ hat, smiles before an Omaha tribal elder, a confrontation viewers took as an act of aggression by a group of white youths against an indigenous community – and by extension, people of color more broadly.” The behavior was standing, wearing a certain hat and smiling. It was automatically racist. He didn’t just hate the individual; he hated all Native Americans as well as every other minority. The smile was called a smirk, when it could have meant he felt nervous having an adult in his personal space beating on a drum.

Later video showed that the tribal elder moved toward the student (not the other way around). Which was the act of aggression? Possibly neither. We don’t know what they were thinking. Neither said anything to indicate what they were thinking, but observers on both sides were sure they knew. The tribal elder later said it felt hostile “and caused him and his companions to fear for their safety.” In that case why did he move forward? What behavior gave him that impression? Follow-up questions are called for.

The explosion of emotion led to condemnation on social media of the student, and by extension, other students at his school, the school itself and even Catholic education! No behavior to support any of this – but let’s throw in some death threats.

The story was much more complex, but most people made up their minds and moved on. The article even says about the students, “their actual intentions and motivations seem vital to any account of what took place. But not only can we never really know what those were, they also don’t matter once the original video has been shot and shared.”

Had this happened only 15 years ago, the incident would have gone unnoticed except for the people involved. Those heckling the students would have felt satisfied that they stood up for their beliefs. The students would have gone home with a story of an unexpected confrontation with a tribal elder. He, in turn, may have felt proud of his role.

But thanks to new technology, national news got to broadcast erroneous first impressions. Even with new evidence, the New York Times tried to soften their original take by reporting a revised opinion “that an explosive convergence of race, religion and ideological beliefs – against a national backdrop of political tension – set the stage for the viral moment.” Of course uninvolved citizens across the country got to express outrage for or against the student(s) complete with name-calling and insults. It’s mob mentality carried out on smart phones.

It’s easy to look at behavior and jump to conclusions. It’s also gratifying, if we can uncover a conclusion that satisfies our own preconceived prejudices. The article itself even calls a MAGA hat “an almost perfect avatar for apparent white nationalism.” It’s a sad state when a hat can set off such an emotional firestorm! Behavior like this does not lead to a happy ending, and it's time we all stopped jumping to a favored conclusion and blaming the other side long enough to figure that out.

One More Time: Detox

It was almost exactly a month ago that I wrote about the potential dangers of the various detox regimens that were being pressed by numerous health gurus. Now, I never intended this to become a health-oriented blog. It really couldn’t be, because to be popular I would be forced to come up with some guaranteed quick and easy formula, packed with endorsements, ancient wisdom, scientific sounding pronouncements and unspecified clinical trials that treats a long list of ailments. The critical thinking in me, not to mention the integrity, wouldn’t have any part of it.

But I always try to pass along some of that critical thinking to readers by citing examples; and to my surprise, in one short month the subject of detox came up again. This time the emphasis was not necessarily on safety, but on the overall effectiveness.

The main source was a brief, four-minute video on the Vox website with the headline: “Products that promise ‘detox’ are a sham. Yes, all of them. Though they have a long history of duping us.” The video is interesting and worth a quick look.

In brief, they say that a research group asked detox marketers exactly what toxins they were getting rid of and none could give a satisfactory answer. It’s based on erroneous historical medical practices; and unless it is used to treat severe alcohol or drug poisoning,  detox is not necessary and worthless. They label it a health pseudo-science and conclude by saying, “Before you succumb to this incredibly appealing notion, you should know that the idea of using some product to ‘detox’ is nonsense. But this hasn’t stopped clever marketers from selling the idea that we can become, somehow, less toxic by using special products.”

Only a couple of days later an ad came in my email linked to a very long video by a former pediatric heart surgeon promoting his dietary supplement. The same video is found here, where it’s described as “a power wash for your insides.” 

According to the doctor, if you have digestive issues, food cravings, weight gain, morning soreness, low energy and all those skin, mood and health issues, he has the answer. Anyone can restore the healthy body he or she used to have, inside and out.

His discovery is based on "shocking new information" and "a remarkable scientific breakthrough!" There is something wrong inside you and it’s not your fault. He bases this on his experience and impressive medical background – even though, according to him, almost all the other doctors don’t understand. He left his practice to promote this product full-time, because 

all those problems start in the gut where toxins leak into the system.

This is followed by a number of stories about ordinary people and celebrities. He wrote a book, but understands that people who are suffering don’t have time to read all the books. So he came up with a supplement that doesn’t require seeing a doctor or going to a lab. It’s an all-natural pill, based on ancient tradition that you can simply buy from him and take everyday. 

Of course, beneath the video is the usual disclaimer: “The information on this website has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.”

There in one neat package are all the ingredients I have warned about: quick and easy, ancient, natural, celebrity endorsed, revolutionary, scientific, exclusive, a long list of ailments, etc. It is a pill, not the traditional detox, though it did contain the word detox in the headline. Rather it’s based on the idea of “leaky gut syndrome,” which I found on Quackwatch characterized as a fad diagnosis, “not recognized by the scientific community” and a “figment of pseudoscientific imagination."

Several years ago as I was headed into work, I observed one colleague telling another about her fabulous detox weekend – as she sat in the sun smoking a cigarette – enough said!

GMO Myths Persist

Despite the strong scientific, economic and humanitarian arguments in their favor, some individuals and organizations continue to spread a fear of genetically modified foods. Look up “GMO Warnings” to get a list of websites spreading the gospel.

This one is representative, promoting a book by an anti-GMO author. “In a study in the early 1990's rats were [force-]fed genetically modified (GM) tomatoes…. Several of the rats developed stomach lesions and seven out of forty died within two weeks.” At the time “agency scientists warned that GM foods in general might create unpredicted allergies, toxins, antibiotic resistant diseases, and nutritional problems” (emphasis in the original).

What they fail to mention is that GMO tomatoes were never available to market. A little more than two years ago the Hunt Company was scorned for their “No GMOs in sight” marketing campaign. Hundreds of “consumers, farmers and scientists criticizing the company for fear mongering and pandering to ‘the superstitions of misinformed extremists.’” That Forbes article goes on to explain that all the food we eat is technically genetically modified from their ancestors, either by nature, by human selection, by crossbreeding or by genetic engineering. All such modification is capable of producing favorable or unfavorable, even dangerous characteristics. But we can’t be afraid of all food!

The economic and humanitarian arguments go hand in hand to some extent. As the population of the earth continues to increase, the need for food increases. The amount of land available to raise that food is not increasing. In fact more will be used for other activities like homes and highways for that growing population. For the past hundred years, the ability to keep up with population growth has come not by throwing more resources at it, but by using science and technology. GMO is just another option.

The latest effort comes from the University of Illinois as shown in this headline: “Scientists engineer shortcut for photosynthetic glitch, boost crop growth by 40 percent.” By making the photosynthetic process in plants, their ability to convert sunlight to energy, more efficient, the principal investigator believes, "We could feed up to 200 million additional people with the calories lost to photorespiration in the Midwestern U.S. each year."

But the people promoting their books, their websites and their products don’t seem to care about those 200 million going hungry. They are more than willing to promote and prey upon the fear of science among people who are not starving and who can be easily convinced to be unnecessarily fussy and fearful about food. It’s been going on for some time and has become even more intense using the speed and reach of the Internet along with the growing appetite for movements motivated to save ignorant neighbors by forcing change.

A second economic argument is that some of our favorite foods may be disappearing too rapidly to be saved by any means less efficient than genetic engineering. I wrote in March 2017 about the problems orange growers face with citrus greening.

There is also a concern about bananas. This article explains that the bananas we buy in the store are sterile and produced via cloning. They lack the genetic variation needed to develop immunity to pests or diseases. 

The need is clear; the science is clear. Without constant improvement in farming technology, the world will not be able to support current levels of population growth. Without genetic engineering people will starve. About 90% or more of cotton, corn, soybeans, and sugar beets are currently genetically modified. People die from food contamination, not from genetic engineering. 

 Meanwhile, entities like the Institute for Responsible Technology and several others seem to have teamed up with the marketing departments of major food companies to sustain the fear and to use that fear to sell us products under the false, unfounded and misguided assumption that we are doing what’s healthier and what’s right for our families.

The Rising Minimum Wage

As an increase in the minimum wage in 20 states and more than 20 individual cities takes effect, according to the AP, this is an excellent time to review economic understanding.

My two primary rules of thumb about economics are: only people really have money and there is no magic money tree.

The idea that only people have money helps trace the flow of dollars back to our own wallets and helps to anticipate unexpected consequences of changes. Most people think the government and businesses also have money, but where do they get their money? They collect from people, their taxpayers and customers. Then they hold the money and eventually spend it. Governments have budgets for spending on employee pay and their various services and grants. Companies pay employees, buy raw materials or otherwise spend it to keep the business functioning. If they need more, they either borrow or raise taxes or raise prices or try to be more efficient. Except for the government printing more money, which affects people by lowering the value of the money they hold; the needed money always comes from people.

The second idea is related: there is no magic money tree. Money must come from somewhere. It doesn’t materialize out of thin air.

So the AP piece about the minimum wage starts with a story of a small restaurant in Missouri anticipating the need to raise prices slightly to account for the minimum wage increase. As the owner rightly says, “For us it’s very simple. There’s no big pot of money out there to get the money out of.” The companies that sell them food or napkins will not decide to just charge them less. The utilities will not lower water and electricity rates. It must come from the customers as 5 cents here and 10 cents there. The wait staff worries that patrons will notice, and compensate with lower tips or stop in less often. 

That is typically the way it works, prices go up or businesses make other changes. Again from the AP article, “Economic studies on minimum wage increases have shown that some workers do benefit, while others might see their work hours reduced. Businesses may place a higher value on experienced workers, making it more challenging for entry-level employees to find jobs.”

Some studies focusing on Seattle, an early adopter of minimum wage increases, have shown mixed results. There was little effect from a 2015 increase to $11 and conflicting reports on subsequent increases. Defenders of the increase rely on a later study showing only a modest reduction in hours and a small increase in take-home pay. In this case economic understanding urges us not to pass off any increase as harmless, but instead to ask what other factors may have been at work, and will these other factors be able to similarly moderate future increases or will there be a tipping point? It can't go on indefinitely with no effect unless everyone is already earning above the minimum wage.

We know there is no magic money tree. Only people have money. And when the prices go up (or the portion sizes go down like they do on many grocery store items) to cover the increased cost of business, the customers will make decisions – pay more or patronize less. If they pay more, they will have less money to spend elsewhere. If they patronize less the workers will feel the effects of less business. It’s a pretty simple choice.

Food For Thought

Considering consistency by the news media: CBS This Morning has a regular series, "What’s Working," which investigates innovations in America that seem to be paying off. On one particular episode a few weeks ago they went to the University of Vermont to highlight a program to discourage the use of drugs and alcohol and move students toward more healthy activities.

Near the end of the piece the professor who designed the program explained that the brains of college students are not yet fully developed. "You couldn't come up with a worse age to send someone to college than when they're 18.” The reporter feeds back the notion, “The brains are not done developing at 18?” He responds, “Not even close.” 

This was not the only report emphasizing the immaturity of college students, and is not confined to CBS, with some saying the brain is not done developing until the early twenties. Some sources put the age of a fully developed frontal cortex closer to 25. Such statements have been fairly common when discussing various crimes and indiscreet tweets. Then why were these same reporters so excited just ten months ago about the apparent wisdom of a group of high school students lecturing the country on gun policy?

Considering income inequality: If we didn’t have rich people, there would be no designer goods. Nobody would be able to show off for their friends by buying the cheap knock-offs.

Considering trusting medical information based only on endorsements: Bloodletting was a common practice among doctors for thousands of years up to about one hundred years ago. Today bloodletting has been shown to be ineffective and mostly harmful. (A controlled variation is used today only in the treatment of a few very rare diseases.)

Since there would have been no opportunity for controlled experiments, the only way it could have continued to be practiced for so long would be through endorsements and by doctors hyping their own successes. “Marie-Antoinette, for instance, seemed to benefit from a healthy dose of bloodletting while giving birth to her first child, Marie-Thérèse, in 1778” – an endorsement from the Queen! 

Doesn’t this same practice of celebrity and friends’ endorsements and doctors hyping their own successes sound like anything we might see on TV or read on the Internet today for any number of miracle cures?

Considering the cancer conspiracy: Did you know that doctors, Big Pharma and the FDA are working together to suppress cancer research for fear that discovery of a cure will put them out of business? They also try to undermine real cures provided by alternative medicine. Many Americans do believe this conspiracy theory. Wired reported on a video that came out last July on the Internet about a miracle cancer cure derived from moss and available online. It “quickly racked up millions of views.” The video used the usual lure of “what the pharmaceutical companies don’t want you to know.”

The problem was the video was intentionally faked for the purpose of education, “teaching people to be skeptical of videos exactly like this one.” Do the same people who endorse this cancer-conspiracy myth also believe that firefighters want more fires and do not promote the use of smoke alarms and the practice of fire safety? Do they think dentists don’t want you to brush and floss? All this is equally hard to believe.

It doesn’t take much research (and critical thinking) to find obvious distortions and contradictions in the news and social media. As always the bad information flies around the world at lightning speed, while the truth struggles to catch up (often just in time to be slapped down by committed advocates or enterprising charlatans).

Dogs Are Not Human

When I took driver-training classes years ago, the standard instruction was “Do Not Swerve for Animals.” If a dog dashes out in the road and you can’t safely slow down to avoid it, keep going do not swerve. The rationale was that your life and the lives of your passengers were more important than that of a dog. It made sense then, and it makes sense now; but attitudes have changed. Is that still the case?

This insurance website reassured me that it is. This report from Washington State last August reinforces its validity: “Multiple-vehicle crash triggered by a dog in the road.” A motorist stopped for the dog resulting in four vehicles colliding and one woman being sent to the hospital. (The Chicago Tribune gave the same advice about deer in November.)

The reason to question it comes from recent articles like this one on December 10: “Man dies after trying to rescue dog from icy pond, fire officials say.” He fell though the ice, but his stranded dog later walked away. What was he thinking? Whatever it was, he was not alone. Look up “Man, Dog, Ice” to find numerous YouTube videos of men saving dogs in icy ponds. This story is typical. “The dog’s owner went out in a kayak to rescue his dog after the pet became trapped.” The kayak flipped, the man fell in the water and was taken to the hospital.

What’s worse is that firefighters and police who risk their own lives to save pets are hailed as heroes, rather than as people who have lost perspective. It’s fine when everything works out, but what of the family of such a “hero” who dies trying to save a dog or cat?

Even worse are those who value the life of their pet over that of another human being. Back in 2014 I wrote about the problems facing officials when residents insist that they choose between their own pets and their neighbors in public tornado shelters. Why would that be a problem? Again, it’s a perspective issue. It’s about values. 

But that’s not all! In 2013 researchers asked 573 Americans to choose which they would save from certain death, a human or their dog. One percent chose the dog over a sibling, two percent over a grandparent, 16% over a distant cousin, and 26% over a foreigner. More than one-quarter valued the life of a dog over the life of a fellow human being.

Today many cities face a feral cat problem. The cats live in the wild, killing birds and small rodents. They can be aggressive. Their bites and scratches can transmit various diseases including rabies to humans or feline HIV, other infections, fleas and intestinal parasites to domestic cats. They also can create driving hazards. And they reproduce.

The proposed “compassionate solution to feline homelessness,” in many places is to trap them, vaccinate them, neuter them, and release them back into the streets. Homeless cats? Even advocates like petful.com and PETA recognize the need for euthanasia in these cases “out of compassion,…[rather than] causing them terror, pain, and a prolonged death by leaving them to struggle to survive on the streets.”

But at the thought of putting a pet to sleep many people, including these catch-and-release programs, get such a lump in their throats that they cannot condone it and will fight to prevent it. Some even argue that all life is sacred and it’s immoral to value one species above another. Tell that to someone battling bedbugs!

Finally, consider the Massachusetts mayor who took his terminally ill dog on a cross-country road trip, as if the dog had a bucket list. Wouldn’t the dog have been just as happy curled up at home? But CBS featured this as a feel-good story on the news. It didn’t make me feel good; it made me wonder whether the whole country had lost its collective mind!

The 1956 children’s novel Old Yeller told the story of a boy and his dog. In the end the dog was bitten by a rabid wolf, and the boy had to shoot it. (We all cried.) But the lesson was that to become an adult, the boy had to learn to make difficult decisions. Today, not enough Americans  have the perspective to consider some difficult decisions or the maturity to act on them.

It’s fine to pretend your dog (or cat) is part of the family, to miss it when it dies and to spend reasonable time and money on medical attention. But some “pet parents” need to get a grip and remember from time to time that dogs are not human.

Read The Label

Every gardening class on the use of pesticides repeats the mantra, “Read the Label.” Even a bottle of Lysol brand cleaner has the statement, “It is a violation of Federal law to use this product in a manner inconsistent with its labeling.” This is true of many other household cleaners, even though most people do not think of them as pesticides (killing bacteria) or otherwise hazardous.

But this little bit of wisdom applies not only to household cleaning and garden chores, but also to what we eat. I found a rather surprising example recently.

Since about 60 years ago Americans began worrying about the amount and types of fat contained in their foods. Eating fat was believed to clog the arteries, and many assumed that the fat in food turned into fat in the body. Government guidelines picked up the message, and most of the funding from about 1970 on went to scientists trying to prove the dangers of fat. 

More recent research shows that we should be more concerned with sugar than we are with fat. Experts now blame the obesity epidemic on sugar, as cities try to tax or ban sugary soft drinks and experts try to discourage sugar consumption in general. (Sugar moderation is especially important to avoid developing adult-onset diabetes.)

Here is the example that surprised me. Below are pictured two products: a 32-ounce bottle of Gatorade and a container of Boston Cream Donuts from my local grocery store. Which would the average person guess contains more sugar? 

 

The Gatorade, as with its rival PowerAde, contains 21 grams of sugar per serving with 2.5+ servings in the bottle. That’s 56 grams of sugar as pictured here.

The package of donuts contains 10 grams per serving with 4 servings total. That’s about 28% less sugar in the four donuts pictured compared to a single bottle of sports drink, and the donuts contain less than half the amount of sugar per serving!

How many other surprises are lining the grocery store aisles? We never know unless we read the label.

Failure of many people to do so is how the foodies and other self-proclaimed health experts get away with their absolute rules – never eat prepackaged foods, never eat anything you can’t pronounce, avoid GMOs and gluten. These stances are easy to remember but extreme and often nonsensical. If we just take a minute or two to read the label, we can make good choices without going overboard.