Wilder, Wealthy, and Wise

High Trust Societies, Low Trust Societies, Red Dawn, and Castro

“There is no promise you can make that I can trust.” The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

Anyone seen my hobbits? I know I left them here. Or maybe the name was similar?

Note: I’ve had a tremendous number of emails since the Civil War post. If I haven’t gotten back to you, I will shortly. Thanks!!

On Friday and Saturday, The Mrs. and I took The Boy and Pugsley off to the nearby Big City for the weekend. The Boy and Pugsley had a 10 hour class, split between two days. That left The Mrs. and I to ride around the town. The Mrs. and I had lived in Big City years ago, so Big City was familiar, even though 8 miles of what had been vacant farmland when we moved away had been converted to strip malls, chain restaurants, big box stores, and the rest of the standard commercial establishments that make up nearly every generic copy of Big City in the Midwest. The farms had character. Each was different. This? This was as featureless and bland as Bernie Sanders’ forehead covered in mayonnaise and Monkee’s® music.

We stopped at one fast food restaurant for a snack while we waited for the boys to finish class for the night. We ate for a bit, and then I got up to get more iced tea. I walked back to the table.

“Now that’s why I’m glad we don’t live here anymore!” The Mrs. was furious.

Confused, I looked around, and back at the table. Nothing seemed to be amiss.

“Okay, umm, why?”

“That little kid,” she gestured at a little blonde guy of about 10 who was busy running around the table near his parents, “just ran between your chair and the table.” I had only slightly pushed my chair back in when I went to go get tea, but there was less than a foot between my chair and the table.

He also had a pretty cool boomerang that he kept throwing at me, but I never could quite catch it.

As far as indiscretions go, it wasn’t up there with armed robbery using a chicken as a weapon, but the point was made. These parents were letting their kid run wild in a fast food restaurant. We never saw that behavior in Modern Mayberry. We’d figured out the “why” of that fairly soon after we moved there.

People here in Modern Mayberry don’t have the option of anonymity. If I cut a person off in traffic, it might be the principle of the school. If I am a jerk to a clerk at Wal-Mart®, we’ll hear about it, because the clerk knows someone I know. Who? I’m not sure. But in a small town, there’s someone in common.

In Modern Mayberry? You have a reputation. Your family has a reputation. People aren’t horribly nosy here, but word spreads.

When I was young, I liked the concept of libertarianism, enough to even join the Libertarian party and vote for people who had zero chance of being elected. It wasn’t too bad – you could always see that you were one of the 10 or so votes the candidate got on election night. The idea of Libertarianism is simple: Go do (more or less) what you want. Don’t hurt other people. Enjoy. Repeat. Libertarianism is really just individualism on a large scale, but with more Star Wars® t-shirts and fewer showers.

I never had braces. But I also never raced across a field to give a beat-down to the British.

The United States was (more or less) founded on this type of individualism, though I have no idea how Ben Franklin smelled, and I think he was a Star Trek© fan instead of Star Wars®. Liberty was one of the few things that all of the members of the Constitutional Convention could agree upon – the folks from Massachusetts weren’t entirely sure about the folks from Georgia, and vice versa. But if Massachusetts would promise to leave Georgia pretty much alone, Georgia figured they could at least try to make it work.

This lasted until 1860, but that’s another story. Spoiler: Massachusetts won’t take, “It’s not you, it’s me,” for an answer.

Thankfully, the American people also had a built-in safety valve – they could move West at any time their neighbor (or state!) annoyed them. This added, especially in the Midwest and Mountain areas, a strong sense of, “Leave me alone, you’re not my supervisor.” People would move into an areas with a weak government that couldn’t do much for them. It also couldn’t ask much of them.

First two seasons of Archer were pretty good. I wouldn’t go much past that. Not for kids.

Individually was the norm, if I can get away with saying that, and the individuality was, like a hipster convention, nearly identical from one person to the next. Generally, as long as behavior was circumscribed by the predominant values of the time, it was all good. The values that were both required by and created by that streak of individualism were:

Fair Play – that there were rules, and, generally we were all expected to abide by them. Sure, rich people got a better deal, but even they were not completely above the law. I don’t care if you are my supervisor – you’re not cutting in line.
Meritocracy – the best person generally got the job, generally got the promotion. Was there nepotism? Was there political favoritism? But those words still have negative connotations. And when smart people get hired into a family business, they know that the goofy, entitled son will get the corner office before they do. But if your kid has the highest GPA? They’ll be valedictorian.
Personal Restraint – Just because it’s illegal doesn’t make it moral. And just because you have the right, doesn’t require you to do it. Either by guilt or by shame or by good common sense, Americans had generally shown the prudence to show restraint.
Generally Accepted Norms – One of the lessons that I’ve shared with my kids is a simple one: where politeness fails, laws follow. The one guy in the subdivision decides he wants to recreate Jurassic Park®-level vegetation in his front yard will mow because his wife doesn’t want to catch abuse from the other wives as they sacrifice puppies to Gorto or play cards or whatever women do when men aren’t around.
Faith in Fellow Citizens – If your car breaks down on a lonely night in winter, it’s likely that the next person who passes by will stop and to help. The colder it is, the lonelier it is? The more likely they are to stop. They feel safe in stopping, because of the next point, an obligation to stop.
Sense of Community – On Friday night, the local football stadium will be filled. People will know where you sit, and you’ll see familiar faces every game. You know the owner of the restaurant you go to every Friday. The auto repair place knows the names of your kids, as does the barber and the dentist. The superintendent of schools has sent you handwritten notes, at least one of them good.

Yes. These are generalizations, and I could certainly generate examples of when we didn’t live up to these values in the United States in the past. But these values are, generally, the rules that we have to all follow to make things work in a high trust society: recognized property rights, independent courts, and faith in our elected officials. You don’t trespass, because that’s old man Smith’s place. Yeah, the judge likes to drink a bit too much on Friday, but he sentenced the robbery suspect to 10 years and didn’t charge the shopkeeper who shot him up. And Sheriff Buford sends your kid a certificate, just for graduating high school.

Actually, we’re pretty welcoming, as long as you don’t send paratroopers first.

The result is that you get a society where people can work together, voluntarily. Things like park boards and school boards and town councils and county supervisors are the most effective forms of government, and have the most impact on a typical person’s life. The Sheriff is more important than people in Washington, because the Sheriff is actually accountable, and has to live with the people he’s protecting. He also knows when not writing a ticket is the right answer.

However, when societies are built on nepotism, separatism, egos, immorality, or freeloading, that trust disappears. The Sheriff won’t arrest a murderer because he’s a cousin. Or of the same faith. Or of the same race. Cars are stolen with regularity, because everyone believes that anyone who is wealthy isn’t to be admired and emulated, but hated. Why? Because the only way to get ahead is to cheat. And anyone who has more than you has cheated, right?

High trust societies produce wealth. Polite children. People who act honorably. They have stable governments with an emphasis on rights for common men. People pay their taxes, and act together.

Low trust societies are characterized by poor social trust. High theft rates. Low wealth. Their governments are often stable, because they’re collective and totalitarian. At least the election results aren’t in doubt. How can you doubt an election where the winner gets 98% of the vote?

Is it ironic that someone who hated capitalism died on Black Friday?

The truth is that you can’t combine a low trust society and a high trust society. The values of a low trust group in a high trust society will destroy the high trust society after time. Why? You can’t win a game of cards when everyone else is cheating. You can’t have peace when another country has declared war on you. In a war of values, the lowest common denominator wins.

Our car ate up the miles between Big City and home. We finally crossed the last little creek and headed up the hill, past the farm that flooded every other spring, and heard the familiar crunch of gravel under our tires as I stopped near the mailbox. The mailbox was open, and had probably been open since Saturday, but our mail was still there.

We were glad to get home.

Mall pic by Dj1997 [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)]

Cognitive Dissonance, Normalcy Bias, and Survival, with Wonder Woman, Bigfoot, Johnny Carson, Stalin, and a Bond Girl.

“So you really think Morgan thinks I have a racial bias? This is so unfair. I would’ve marched on Selma if it was on Long Island.” – Seinfeld

I’ll have to admit, when I was doing this meme, I forgot where I was going with it. Which was appropriate.

This post is the result of a reader request by frequent commenter and occasional photo contributor 173dVietVet, and I’m glad to do it because it keeps me away from plumbing. I had actually already started my notes for another topic (you’ll see it next Friday and it will be amazing, if I have enough beer before I start writing) when he suggested that I post about the interplay of Cognitive Dissonance, Normalcy Bias, and Survival.

This post sounded like way more fun than re-plumbing the drain line under my sink (this is true). Despite the protestations of The Mrs. that we need a silly old sink in the kitchen I dug right into the topic, especially since Friday is typically health day and this topic is broad enough to cover both personal health and the broader issues related to disasters and living through crisis that have recently become a theme here.

Maybe . . . it may have been a way for 173dVietVet to see if I’m not a computer mind sent from the future to influence the United States in 2019 to make more PEZ® workers for our PEZ© mines. Who can say? Regardless, 173dVietVet (and the other 10,000 people who will read this), here it is.

What is Cognitive Dissonance?

Cognitive Dissonance is the state of holding two opposing ideas in your mind, or of having beliefs that run counter to your actions. The best example I ever ran into in real life was when I was at a convenience store and two Spandex®-clad bicyclists came in – helmets still on, complete with wrap-around sunglasses and smelly padded butt shorts. One of the guys was loudly criticizing every item the other guy picked up. Trust me, the guy was loud enough that everyone in the store could hear him. I was NOT eavesdropping like I do with the neighbors on a Saturday night.

“No, you can’t drink that, man. Fructose will kill you, after it makes your children sterile.”
“Dude – the bleached flour in that is empty calories. It will screw up your metabolism and make the Martians attack.”
“Ah, man – that jerky has nitrates. Really bad for you. Also, no one has ever loved me.”

Then he got up to the counter.

“I’ll have this, and . . . a pack of Marlboros®.” He looked at his bicycling buddy. “Yeah, man, I know.”

That’s Cognitive Dissonance in action. I was buying Copenhagen® and Cheddar Ruffles™ at the same time, so my ability to criticize was pretty limited. I’ve since given up the Copenhagen©, but you can rip those Cheddar Ruffles® from my cold, dead, orange fingers.

If you get tired of Soylent Lays®? You can just gnaw on a neighbor! Spoiler: in the movie, companies were making food from people. But apparently it was tasty. Mmmm, tasty people.

Another example? An attorney that goes to church. Normally lawyers burst into flame upon entering a Holy Place, but I heard California filed a restraining order against God, and the Ninth Circuit upheld it. Last I heard, God is has appealed to the Supreme Court®. Sadly, he might lose, since he doesn’t have any lawyers in Heaven to represent him.

Like anything, Cognitive Dissonance goes from mild (our bicycling smoker in the example above) to extreme (pretending Trump® isn’t president because you don’t like mean old Cheeto™ man). In the middle is anyone who liked the latest Star Wars™ movies. Or are they in the middle? They might be the sickest of all of us.

In doing research about this topic, I found that studies of Cognitive Dissonance had different origins for different peoples. It turns out that Cognitive Dissonance in European-descended people is driven by the concepts of shame and guilt. Shame, in this case, is the feeling brought out by violating a group norm. Mental values based in Shame are built around what other people will think of you. Guilt is violating an absolute right and wrong. Everyone on the planet could be dead, and you’d still feel Guilt.

In East Asians, Cognitive Dissonance was only built around Shame. Guilt didn’t play a part in it. If everybody on Earth died? You’d be free at last! I have no other data on any other ethnicities, so don’t ask. I’m thinking the researcher did the study in Chinese restaurant in North Dakota.

Some other odd things I discovered about Cognitive Dissonance:

Initiations and hazing – people who are subjected to rough rites of initiation actually have increased commitment to the group hazing them. I guess the lesson here is, don’t skimp. Rent the goat. And get the extended insurance plan on the goat. You know why.
People highlight the positives of the choice they made … after they made the choice, not before. Rationalization is a way to smooth over Cognitive Dissonance, and also explains why I justify the late night tipsy Amazon.com purchases to The Mrs. Everyone needs a life size Bigfoot® statue, right?

The Mrs. took this picture after we bought Bigfoot One. I had this statue until The Mrs.’ dog ate it. Then I bought another one, but I keep it inside. Sadly, this is a true story. Bigfoot deserves to be free.

Essentially, when your brain is faced with the contradictions that spring from Cognitive Dissonance, it has (as far as I can tell) four choices:

Change a belief,
Change an action,
Pretend our actions don’t make us big fat hypocrites, or
Ignore it all and get a cookie.

Orwell even talked about it in his future history novel 1984. A great example of Cognitive Dissonance in action was the way that supporters minimized Bill Clinton’s horrible behavior in the Lewinski mess. (Actually it was Clinton’s mess, but this is a family-friendly blog.) And mainstream Republicans were no better in the whole “invade Iraq” mess, for absolute fairness. Supporters, like hazed college freshmen pledging Omega, seem to like politicians more when they lie to them.

Go figure.

If you haven’t seen Animal House®, that makes me die a little inside. It’s the Star Wars™ of anti-Cognitive Dissonance movies.

Okay, that’s Cognitive Dissonance. What’s Normalcy Bias?

First, Normalcy. Really? Did we really need that word? I guess I’ll allow it. Guys, the English language has 171,476 words according to the Oxford Dictionary of the English Language, and your ‘umble ‘ost only knows about 45,000 of them. Unless your new word involves ways that aliens have sex in clown costumes in a vacuum while in orbit over Mongolia on a Tuesday? There’s probably already a word for it.

Second, what is Normalcy Bias? Normalcy Bias is just a belief that things are going to return to “normal” at some unspecified point in the future, often through the actions of some unspecified savior, like Johnny Carson returning from the dead and eating the livers of all of the current late night hosts while they were still alive. Oh, wait, that was a dream I had the other night. Never mind.

The answer is no, not funny at all.

Third, I think that Normalcy Bias is just a subset of Cognitive Dissonance. Here are some examples:

Underestimating the probability of a flood hitting your house. This is not a personal example – I’ve checked FEMA flood maps on every house I’ve ever bought – before I bought them. I remember talking to a friend who thought I was lying when I told him that. Right now? If a flood takes out my house, I’m expecting to see a little old man with an Ark.
Underestimating disaster impacts. FEMA is really good at this – in the middle of Hurricane Ike, FEMA was on the radio. Thankfully, we had a crank-radio and were able to get the vital advice that lists of available FEMA services were . . . on the Internet at FEMA.gov. Telling people with no power (and no cell service) to go to the Internet to get the latest updates. Yay, FEMA! Why don’t you suggest direct brain transfer?
The Roman citizens in Great Britain standing on the pier and waving goodbye to the last Legion in Rome as it went off to put down an uprising of those pesky Gauls. The Romans will be back soon, right? Things will be normal again? Right? (Rome, Britain, and Money: Why You Can’t Find Fine China after the Apocalypse)
King Arthur’s legend that he’ll return to save England – it’s just one example of the hidden and secret king that will return one day to Make England Great Again. Assuming any English are left when Arthur gets back.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb talks about Normalcy Bias in his book The Black Swan. He describes the belief that his family had that things would “return to normal” in Lebanon, even after it was ripped apart by civil war between 1975 and 1990. They talked about how they’d be able to return, and how things would . . . return to normal.

When Taleb wrote this, this was a picture that was taken in Lebanon – 2006. I’m not thinking this is a great place for long term real estate growth. Unless you have quite a large number of Trident® missiles – 3 out of 4 despots recommend Trident© if you chew missiles.

I think that Normalcy Bias is pretty deep seated function of the human brain – I see too many examples, both in my own thinking and in my observations of others to believe that it’s abnormal.

During a crisis, that’s a problem. The biggest dangers in a crisis are:

Not accepting that the world has changed, maybe forever. People who change their world view soonest . . . win. An example: I was driving and saw a car pulled over on the side of the road. The driver had obviously just wrecked his BMW®. He was wandering around, dazed. “My BMW® . . . it’s wrecked!” He was distraught. I said to him, “Man, forget about the car – your left arm has been severed!” He became even more upset. “My God,” he screamed, looking down at the place his arm should have been, “Where is my Rolex©!” Okay, that didn’t happen. But I’m allowed to dream.
Not realizing or believing that changes could happen. This happens before the crisis, and the result is that you’ve never planned. Not having planned, you’ve got no preparations. The best cure for this is nearly getting caught up in a disaster. My daughter, Alia S. Wilder, recently found out that her house was in a zone that could be flooded. Even more oops? She had zero preparations. Being evil, I didn’t give her answers. I asked questions. “Oh, so you bought a month’s worth of food. Good. How much water to you have?” Her eyes were really opened to the huge vulnerabilities that she had. I slept well that night, even though I had to shower to get the evil off of me.
Thinking that other people share your values. They don’t. I assure you that there is no neighborhood in Modern Mayberry I would be afraid to be in at any time of the day or night. If you carry that same lack of awareness to, say, Chicago, the results might be less than optimal. Monday’s post will be about the implications of this logical fallacy. The sooner you internalize this, the better.
Failing to practice. Just as having the neatest nickel-plated 1911 with laser sights and the chainsaw attachment won’t help you if you don’t practice, if you don’t practice your disaster response from time to time, it won’t help you, either. You won’t be able to find your preps. They’ll be in the wrong spot. Or, worse yet, your child moved them and the mice got into your rice, the parakeet got into your wheat, and your dehydrated food has been mildewed. That’s a bad day. But it’s a much better day if none of the steers got into your beer.
Thinking that someone else will save you. They won’t. This is why I hate the term “first responders.” It puts the responsibility for a crisis on the wrong person. If someone is breaking into my house – I am the first responder. If Pugsley cuts deeply into his thumb while whittling, I am, again, the first responder. In any real crisis, the “first responders” have probably missed many of the issues I’ve listed above. During Hurricane Ike, I heard one of the funniest things I’ve ever heard – pleas from the radio announcer to bring food, gasoline, generators, and water to . . . the “first responders.” The “first responders” weren’t an asset. They were a liability that couldn’t even save themselves. I’m not bragging, but the Wilder family was at home, eating steak. We had enough food for weeks. Again, The Mrs. and I were the first responders. Mmm. Steak.
Not realizing the implications of changes. In apocalypse movies, one typical means of comic relief is the former banker/stockbroker/boss who, in a fit of self-important pomposity, asks, “Do you know who I am?” Immediately this character (who you’re not supposed to like), gets his ego shot down as either the hero or bad guy shows him that the rules have changed. One humorous version of this is in the underrated Kevin Costner flick The Postman, when he meets Tom Petty. The Postman says to Tom Petty, “I know you, you’re famous.” Petty replies, “I was. Kinda.” At the end, Tom Petty asks Costner, “Are you The Postman?” Costner nods. Petty says, “I’ve heard of you. You’re famous.” It was a brilliant way to turn that trope on its head, and pointed out a lesson we’ll talk about in a minute in item 1 of the list below. I guess that depends on your reading speed.
Not adapting to the reality of the changes. This is a little different than number six. A great example is the Kulaks that I wrote about recently. When Stalin came to power they thought they could negotiate with him since they were the economic engine of the U.S.S.R. Spoiler alert: they couldn’t. Score Stalin: 20,000,000, Kulaks: 0. A less sinister version of this is when you flip a light switch during a blackout, and a second later feel like an idiot, thankfully Stalin’s ghost doesn’t send you to the Gulag for that.

It always cracks me up that AntiFa© thinks they won’t be the first people sent to the camps. Loyalty? The commies can work with that. Being disloyal to the country that provides the framework for your material success? Gulag first. But you get to choose the top bunk. Yay!

Every single point I’ve made above can kill you, given the right circumstances. If I were evil, like an ancient emaciated grizzled she-demon direct from Hell, or Madonna® (I’m sorry, I repeat myself) I’d just leave you here to twist in the wind, stuck in a never ending cycle of Cognitive Dissonance and Normalcy Bias that spirals into a black hole of self-despair that ultimately leaves you as a tweeker midwife sitting in a ripped-up vinyl booth in an Ecuadoran Dairy Queen® with no Blizzard™ machine, delivering Ecuadorian children for leftover chicken tenders. And there’s no gravy in Ecuador. I think that’s because the toilets circle the other way. Maybe.

But I’m not that mean. Well, I am that mean, but I’m still begging for working for that Nobel® Peace™ Prize©, or maybe a lousy MacArthur Award™, so I’d best pretend to be a loving, caring human being. Besides, no body? No crime. Right? That’s what my lawyer keeps telling me. I hope he’s right.

I know what you are asking, “John Wilder, how can I learn to make comedy jokes like you?” See? You’re dead in a disaster already! A disaster is no joking matter, unless it happens to someone else. But, following are some preventive (the word preventative, while in the dictionary, has that stupid extra “ta” in the middle and I refuse to engage with a single ta – two ta’s only) steps that you can take to, well, live. And these steps apply to both a disaster and your life. In the end, your life is a disaster. I’m not judging, but if you treat your life like a metaphorical disaster, you’ll be healthier and more prepared.

Humility: Know what you don’t know. As Aesop (LINK) perspicaciously quoted Donald Rumsfeld the other day: “Reports that say that something hasn’t happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know.” People liked to bag on Rumsfeld, mainly because they were jealous of his mad dancing skills and that he bested John Cusack in an arm-wrestling contest once so he could win the chance to date Demi Moore. This was before she began to resemble beef jerky, so it was worth it at the time. Regardless, this is a great quote on humility. Know what you don’t know. Either learn it, or compensate for it.
Prepare Generally for General Disasters: Most things you can prepare for are the same, or at least rhyme like poetry used to rhyme before cigarette smoking smelly people in black berets with low-testosterone face hair (high testosterone for the females, which looks about the same) ruined it. Hitler’s ghost won’t re-start World War II, and Abraham Lincoln’s ghost won’t be around to start Civil War II, but human needs don’t change all that much, regardless of what disaster you face. You have to eat. You have to have water. You have to have Internet. Oh, wait – sorry. Water is optional now, according to the WHO (The Who, The WHO, Cavemen, Child Labor, and We Won’t Get Fooled Again). You can quote me on the following: A multi-tool is a crappy tool. Unless it’s your only tool. And it weighs less than your tool kit. Never expect that preparations will be exact replacements of what you really need. But as long as you have Internet, it’s all good, right?
Do Things That Take You Out Of Your Comfort Zone: No, this isn’t an excuse to try to convince you into a Multi-Level-Marketing© scheme to strain your friendships by selling a product that ultimately is the object of a 60 Minutes™ investigation (this happened to my ex-wife, for reals). Take a different road to work. How well do you know the lay of the land in the ten miles around your house? How well do you know your neighbors, I mean, reciprocally? The telescope views don’t count no matter how hot she is. Imagine you had to do without electricity. Do without it for a night. Two nights. Spend a night in a tent in the back yard. Go camping. Eat a burger . . . without fries. Your routine is your enemy, except for the lifting and healthy bits. Change it up.
Practice with your tools: Heh, hehe, hehehe, he said tools. Okay, Beavis, knock it off. If it’s a pistol. If it’s a chainsaw. If it’s a hammer. Heh, hehe, hehehe, he said hammer. Practice with it. 80% of your proficiency will come for 20% of your effort, unless you’re me trying to learn guitar, because that’s just hopeless. Become mediocre now, when there’s time, that will help with number one, up above. At least then you’ll know what you don’t know.
Play “What if?” mind games: I do this all the time. Sometimes I end up in crazy stupid places – as in the entire world is gone and leaves just me and the cast of The Breakfast Club and the cast of Who fighting over who gets the last deodorant stick in the world and Sophie Marceau is the only one who can save me. Okay, that’s not really productive. But when you think about what could happen, you become mentally prepared if it does happen.

Sophie is the one on bottom. James Bond® is the one on top. I guess I might need to explain that to the folks in California. I’m just worried that the next movie might have Jeanette Bond, who has never even been to England at all. Because what’s more British than that?

So, there it is. I guess I have a sink to fix. 173dVietVet, how did I do?

Also, if you have a pet topic, toss it out, either in the comments or at my email at movingnorth@gmail.com. I won’t promise that I’ll do it, but your odds are good. 100% as of this writing. If I don’t do it, it’s not you, it’s that I think I’d suck at it.

How Auto Manufacturing Makes You More Likely to Die in a Crisis, Plus, Ironman is a Mass Murderer.

â€œThe mostÂ efficientÂ killing machine ever invented; youâ€™ve got her doing the laundry.â€ â€“ Terminator, The Sarah Connor Chronicles

My first job was in a toy vampire manufacturing factory.Â I worked as part of a two man team, so I had to make every second Count.

Modern society is based on efficiency.

Efficiency in what?

Efficiency in everything, from the proper number of employees to completely mess up my order at McDonaldsÂ© to using the absolute minimum amount of labor and material to make a car.

Letâ€™s stick with cars, because the local McDonaldsâ„¢ in Modern Mayberry is primarily efficient only at serving me a Sausage McMuffinÂ® without sausage, egg, or cheese.Â Yes.Â They served me a plain muffin, which I guess is more efficient.Â In 2018, ToyotaÂ® sold roughly 8,000,000 cars, trucks and station wagons (I refuse to call them SUVs on principle) worldwide.Â Overall, 86,000,000 new cars were made and sold in 2018.

I think cars just might finally be catching on as a consumer item.Â Maybe theyâ€™re not a fad after all.

When you do something 86,000,000 times, though, you start to get good at it, or at least sore.Â I brought up ToyotaÂ© because they decided to get good at making cars, and were highly innovative in trying to increase quality while at the same time increasing efficiency â€“ they made better cars with less labor, less rework, less effort.Â While I can make the case that Detroit finally caught up with Toyotaâ„¢ by the early 2000â€™s as far as quality goes, ToyotaÂ® was leading the pack for decades â€“ thatâ€™s why theyâ€™re the number one auto manufacturer in the world today.

One particular innovation that ToyotaÂ® came up with was â€œjust-in-timeâ€ manufacturing, which is also known as â€œLean Manufacturing.â€Â The concept is simple:Â I make a car with parts that just showed up â€“ nobody has to go get them, they just show up right when I need them.Â The ideal would be the supplier delivers the part to the production line at the moment itâ€™s required.Â The windshield wiper salesman puts two in the bin as the next Corollaâ„¢ arrives at the windshield wiper installation station.Â There isnâ€™t a bucket of thousands of wipers behind the worker, just the few he or she needs right then.Â Hence?Â Just-in-time.

Just-in-time sounds really nice.Â The things you need just show up, right when you need them, as if teddy-bear angels with lace wings made them materialize from the aether as they used to when Victoria was Queen.Â In practice, you need more than two windshield wipers at the CorollaÂ© assembly station, but you might only need enough for an hour.Â Or two hours.Â That de-clutters the line, and makes the work actually go faster.Â Implementation of this system is one reason Toyotaâ„¢ went from a mass producer of cheap cars to a mass producer of high quality cars.

Why didnâ€™t they invent and do this just-in-time production in 1880?Â Transport speed.Â Slow transport requires stockpiles and large shipment.Â Also required is production coordination.Â Assembly lines break from time to time â€“ you have to make sure that the windshield wipers donâ€™t stack up like chocolates on an assembly line. Â There has to be sufficient communication, and the Internet helps make it easy.

Now?Â I can order prescription glasses online and have them shipped to my house directly from the manufacturer in China in less than a week.

Worth watching again even if youâ€™ve seen it before.

The rest of the world has, in the last thirty years, done everything they could to adopt this system, which is now called â€œLean Manufacturing.â€Â Accountants love it, because it reduces inventory, and turns that inventory into cash as soon as possible.Â An example:Â the average grocery story turns over its entire inventory nearly 14 times per year, which means lots of items hit the shelf and disappear.Â Some grocery stores even have the vendor stock the shelf, eliminating costs there as well, as they attempt to get the customer to do the job of a checker.

But the at least the cashier was dead sexy.

The result of this effort is a one-time boost in profits as inventory is reduced.Â There is also the ongoing benefit that the money that paid for the inventory (that no longer exists) can be used for some other business purpose like bonuses, bacon-wrapped shrimp, corporate jets or Harvey Weinsteinâ€™s sexual harassment lawsuit settlements.

But since thereâ€™s less inventory, you need fewer warehouses.Â And fewer warehouse workers.Â Yay!Â More money for bacon-wrapped shrimp!Â You can see how this was a dominant concept in the late 1990â€™s when most corporate jobs required that you sign over your soul to SatanÂ®, or Al Pacino if Satanâ„¢ had taken the corporate jet with Weinstein that day.

If I were to create a personal analogy, Lean Manufacturing is similar to the idea that when you buy gasoline you buy just enough for this trip, and this trip only.Â No more wasteful storage of gasoline inventory.Â And why keep more than a single meal on hand in the house?Â While weâ€™re at it, letâ€™s also reduce that inventory of money we keep in the bank.Â I bet we could make sure our lives are structured around a system that I think Iâ€™ll invent a snazzy name for:Â Paycheck-to-Paycheckâ„¢.

If you think no one cares if youâ€™re alive, skip a monthâ€™s worth of bills.

So, all sarcasm aside, the paycheck example starts to illustrate the problems with Lean Manufacturing.Â Inventory is a bad word in a manufacturing plant, and no manufacturing plant in the world would keep spare capacity that it doesnâ€™t use regularly just sitting there.Â Soon enough, a bright young soulless MBA from the head office will either start production on the spare capacity, sell the manufacturing equipment, or take a jet trip to a conference where there is a platter of free bacon-wrapped shrimp.

What has been profitable business advice is, as you can see, horrible personal advice.Â Life isnâ€™t about efficiency.Â Life is about . . . life.Â Being inefficient actually has some huge advantages.

People who regularly prepare for disasters (â€œpreppersâ€) have popularized the phrase â€œTwo is one, and one is none.â€Â I looked for the origin of the phrase, and I believe it is old enough that it probably originated in a Roman Legion stationed in Carthage, when a grizzled Centurion stuck a cigar in his mouth and was dressing down a new recruit for having an insufficiently shiny gladius.Â And donâ€™t tell me that it was another 1,500 years until tobacco was introduced to Europe â€“ an outfit with a good supply guy can find anything.

Okay, you donâ€™t need two of everything.Â A friend of mine has two ex-wives.

The philosophy of prepping is the exact opposite of Lean Manufacturing.Â It says that we are stupid â€“ we donâ€™t know whatâ€™s going to happen so having extra supplies is crucial.Â Stuff gets broken.Â Stuff gets lost â€“ just this week somebody found a batch of Revolutionary-era bayonets in a pit at Valley Forge.Â You can bet there was a corporal that got his butt chewed over those by George Washington.Â But Iâ€™m betting that the Continental Army had some extras.Â Heck, itâ€™s certain that even the Egyptians knew to store the extra grain in good years 6,000 years ago because:

Spare capacity is freedom,
Spare capacity is resilience,
Spare capacity gives you time and space when both are precious, and
Scarcity is the enemy, not inefficiency.

Recently, there have been a series of movies about obscure comic book heroes from the 1970â€™s.Â You might have heard of them â€“ The Avengersâ„¢.Â In one of them, The Avengers:Â Quest for Infinity CashÂ®, the villain (a very large Smurfâ„¢ named ThanosÂ©) had been hungry as a child and decided nobody should ever be hungry again.Â ThanosÂ® then gathered a bunch of magic rocks which allowed him to make a super glove so he could make a wish.

Iâ€™m not making this up.Â People spent $2.048 BILLION dollars to see that story.

See?Â Big SmurfÂ® and magic rocks.Â Told you I wasnâ€™t making it up.

Anyway, ThanosÂ®â€™ wish was that half of the people in the Universe disappear.Â Thatâ€™s just what happened.Â Half the people turned to ash.Â It really wasnâ€™t that sad, at least for me, because itâ€™s a comic book and Superman and Batman have each died something like fifty times, so death in a comic book movie is about as permanent as a Hollywood marriage.Â The movie ends with lots of people, including SpidermanÂ®, dissolving into ash.

I took The Boy and Pugsley to go see the sequel, The Avengers:Â Endgaming for Even More of Infinity CashÂ©.Â Whether or not the people who turned into ash were going to come back was spoiled before the movie started â€“ one of the trailers was for the new SpidermanÂ® movie. Â EndgamingÂ© starts five years after half the people in the Universe turned into ash.

After watching the movie Iâ€™m thinking that, like every member of Congress, the screenwriters had no training in economics.Â Okay, a big SmurfÂ© snaps his fingers and everyone disappears and Iâ€™m concerned they didnâ€™t get their economics right.Â Yeah, Iâ€™m an economics nerd.

What did they miss?Â Well, after all the people disappeared the economy would have cratered.Â We would have gone from producing 86,000,000 cars to producing . . . zero.Â The economy would stop completely.Â Grain would rot in the fields because half the people who ate TwinkiesÂ® were ash.Â In 2009 when the Gross Domestic Product dropped by 2.5% and the economy nearly locked up.Â If half the people disappeared, the economy would drop by 70%.

Anarchy.

But in The Avengers:Â Endgaming for Even More of Infinity CashÂ©, everybody who was turned into ash returns after one of the AvengersÂ® (Tony Starkâ„¢) snaps his fingers.Â Take that, ThanosÂ©!

Except by doing that, Tony StarkÂ© just sentenced most of them to death when they showed back up.Â Why?Â In five years, the economy on Earth had contracted to serve not 7 billion, but 3.5 billion.Â When an extra 3.5 billion people show back up?Â Our just in time world only has food for 3.5 billion.Â We only planted enough corn for 3.5 billion.

Massive famine and starvation.

Oops.

Thanks, IronmanÂ©.Â Instead of a nice, peaceful death youâ€™ve condemned some large fraction of beings on every planet to a horrible slow death of starvation, misery, and violence, mainly thanks to the lack of resilience in our planetary production systems.Â I guess that I should stop expecting economic accuracy in a movie that features a talking raccoon.

Only be the last guy to the supermarket during a disaster if you want to take amusing pictures.

But I am concerned â€“ our economy is based on a global experiment in efficiency that frees up capital for bacon-wrapped shrimp, at the cost of making our lives less secure.Â What could go wrong?

Sweet dreams!

Civil War II Weather Report: Spicy Time Coming

John Wilder’s Civil War II Weather Report Number 1

“Yeah. There were horses, and a man on fire, and I killed a guy with a trident.” – Anchorman

With apologies to Gary Larson, in my defense there are only so many John Brown jokes out there.

Way back in 1998, I ended up with one of the neatest jobs that I had – assessing risks to a major corporation. The Internet was new at work, and I was being paid to research potential disasters. It was so interesting and so much fun I felt guilty. In researching disasters and risk, I came across Y2K. For those that don’t remember, there was a concern that, as a result of programmers only using two digits to store year information in computers, that many computers and computer programs would cease to function when the calendar flipped over to 00.

There were multiple websites and personalities that were writing about Y2K, and one that I went to from time to time was Cory Hamasaki’s Y2K Weather Report. Hamasaki was a programmer (he has since passed away) and he had an inside perspective of the ongoing work that was required to keep the systems working. As a result of his insider knowledge he bought an AR, a lot of food, and spent New Year’s Eve at his remote cabin.

Obviously, the systems kept working.

Not my original. And I’m sorry.

We live, however, in spicy times, with the potential for them becoming even spicier (I got the Spicy Time meme from Western Rifle Shooters (LINK), which really should be on your daily reading list). I’ve written several articles about the potential for Civil War, and studied and thought quite a bit about it. As such, this is the inaugural edition of John Wilder’s Civil War II Weather Report. I anticipate putting it out monthly. This first issue will probably be a bit longer than later issues, since I’m putting the framework together and explaining the background.

I’m attempting to put together a framework that measures where we are on the continuum between peace and war. I’ll even try to develop some sort of measures that show if the level of danger is increasing or decreasing. Civil wars don’t happen all at once, and like a strong storm, they require the atmosphere to be right. A weather report is probably a good metaphor.

If you haven’t seen it, the guy with the trident was the weatherman in Anchorman. And when he has a trident? People die.

So, to review the future, let’s start by looking at Civil War I so we understand what happened, and what the potential differences are.

Civil War I was:

Based on philosophical differences – the views of the people, North and South were pretty similar, except that the Northerners were descended from Puritans who sailed on the Mayflower, and the Southerners were descended from the Norman conquerors that took England in 1066 but got booted out after having lost a war in England. Although the North and South were the same people, more or less, with the same heritage, there were enough differences to lead to a war. And it was a doozy.