Choices

Aquarius 

When the moon is in the Seventh House 

And Jupiter aligns with Mars 

Then peace will guide the planets 

And love will steer the stars  

Do our stars choose what is best for us? 

Society consists of individuals. What is best for society, may not be the best for each individual in that society. My favorite way to understand this is the bank run scene in the film, “It’s a Wonderful Life”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPkJH6BT7dM. At the 1-minute mark of this clip, Tom demands all of his $242 from the Bailey Building and Loan, and says it is better to get half the amount from Mr. Potter, than to get nothing. George Bailey gives the customers his own money to stop this and at the 3 minute 30 second mark kisses Miss Davis when she only asks for $17.50 to tide her over. Tom is willing to consider taking a loss of 50% because he is considering a User Optimal solution. George and Miss Davis are seeking a System Optimal solution. 

Back in 2005, I was part of a team studying the transportation impacts of Climate Change on the Gulf Coast. In the middle of the study, Nature provided an unplanned experiment when Hurricane Rita struck Houston. The evacuation of Houston was a massive failure. The developers of the evacuation plan were part of the consultant team. Their evacuation plan assumed that each household would use only one vehicle to evacuate the members of the a household to safety, and any other vehicles would be abandoned at the household. Thus a household with 3 drivers and three cars would still only use one car, would evacuate on a timed schedule by neighborhood, and the highways would not get clogged. But the developers of the evacuation plan explained during the study that they themselves had one driver in every one of the cars they owned, ( 3 cars and three drivers per household means 3 cars evacuated), and left as soon as the evacuation started, which was their User Optimal solution, and as a result the roads were clogged. So even those who developed the System Optimal solution still chose a User Optimal solution, which explains the clogged evacuation highways. The lesson is that it is hard to choose the System Optimal solution when it requires you do something that conflicts with your own User Optimal solution. 

But “There is no “I” in Team”, “I only regret, that I have but one life to give for my country”, etc., etc. We want, and admire, System Optimal solutions, but we will choose User Optimal solutions. The problem is when the sum of User Optimal solutions is often way less than the System Optimal solution. That is why the fault is not in the stars, but in ourselves.