What Are The Real Solutions?

As the COVID-19 recovery grinds on, it should have become apparent that there are two kinds of epidemics. One is an actual epidemic, like the we are experiencing that spreads from one infected person to the next. The other is a metaphorical epidemic, the kind we have been hearing about from newscasters, bureaucrats and politicians every other week for many years. 

These metaphorical epidemics include teen vaping, obesity, retirement insecurity, texting while driving, gambling, drug abuse, violent videogames, sleep deprivation and any other widespread behavior that can be classified as a public health crisis. One recently pushed out of the headlines was the opioid epidemic.

Authorities bemoan the situation, wringing their hands over each of these problems, hoping to gain support for government policies and regulations to get them under control. 

These epidemics are the result of individual choices and, except for the dynamics of peer pressure, are not spread from person to person. They are behavioral choices freely made. 

That is the key; they are behavioral. And as it says in the heading above, behavior has consequences. Wise decisions generally lead to favorable outcomes; poor decisions guarantee the opposite. America does not experience metaphorical epidemics because a virus from China got out of control. Americans make choices and watch the bad outcomes spread until too many of us are overweight, struggling to make ends meet, simultaneously parenting grown children and aging parents, stumbling drowsily through each day, while filling garages and rented storage spaces with all the junk we thought we couldn’t live without.

Regulations and restrictions try to solve some behavioral problems by limiting the freedom of everyone, but they are inefficient at best and often totally ineffective with serious unintended consequences, the development of black markets, for example. (Note that teen vaping, though a problem, is much healthier than teen smoking – except if they are forced to buy supplies from street vendors; and no hard evidence exists regarding violent videogames.) 

The only Real American Solutions to these metaphorical epidemics are widespread changes in behavior, changes from destructive choices to wiser choices. What to do is not a mystery. It usually means choosing the opposite: saving instead of spending; resisting drugs and gambling along with the pressure to participate; eating and drinking moderately; going to bed on time; being materially satisfied instead of yearning for more. Either side has consequences: one leads to epidemics, the other to favorable outcomes.

Some will argue that it has always been this way. Society has always had people preaching repentance lest bad things happen. That is true, but as we have moved into a new millennium, consequences have become progressively less forgiving. The speed and reach of communications and transactions make the outcomes swifter and more far-reaching at an increasingly faster pace: computer speed doubling every 18 months allows everyone to find and buy nearly anything and having it delivered to the house the next day using the phone in your pocket – impossible, barely imaginable, 20 years ago! 

Each week I highlight a number of real examples, fitting them into one of five categories. Poor choices in a dimension can predict not only a repeat of that behavior, but also similar behavior in the same dimension. Faulty critical thinking in one area, for example, predicts problematic decisions in many other areas. Classifying behavior into dimensions makes it easier to organize an investigation and recognize trends. Those examples clearly show serious trends in the wrong direction in each of the dimensions listed above (and defined here) that lead directly to unwanted outcomes and metaphorical epidemics. 

Over nine years I have accumulated 940 examples of these trends, including some flashback reviews on recent Fridays. Sometimes I predicted news stories years ahead by just watching for patterns or likely unintended consequences. These examples are all symptoms of deeper behavioral choices.

America doesn’t need more political promises, regulations and miracle cures. Those epidemics are the accumulation of so many individual bad choices in the five key dimensions, compounded by a culture dominated by low expectations and a mood of tolerance for poor decisions. The world is moving faster; we can’t regulate our way out of behavioral problems. The only Real Solution is to set and begin to live by higher societal standards