Cures

 

Good Lovin’

Honey, please squeeze me tight (squeeze me tight)
Don't you want your baby to be all right? (be all right)
I said baby (baby), "Now it's for sure (it's for sure)
I got the fever, yeah, and you got the cure

Just as long as the cure is not worse than the fever.

I have previously blogged that risk is the product of two things: likelihood and consequences.  The cost of a cure should be less than the cost times the risk of getting the disease. Some anecdotes if I may:

When I was a senior in High School, and I had gym class, I used to store my notebooks and books for my next class in a common area outside of the gym (because they would not fit in my gym locker.)  One day my notebooks and books were not in that common area after gym class. My reaction was, “so it goes”.  In my next class, I got a call to go to the principal’s office.  He had taken my notebooks and books to teach me a lesson that my possessions could be stolen.  I replied that before the Principal did, no one had ever stolen them.  In fact, I now realize that we both saw the likelihood the same, but he valued  the consequences of losing my possession much more than I did.  The cost of learning my lesson was that I did not use the common area any more for gym. An inconvenience, but not a big cost.

Before the Tylenol murders, the likelihood of getting a tainted product was no different than the likelihood after.  But the consequences of getting a tainted product was not acceptable.  Nothing could be done about the consequences, but the risk could be lowered if the likelihood was lowered.  Tamper Proof packing does nothing to change the consequences, but it does decrease the likelihood, which decreases the risk.  The cost of shrink wrapping, and tamper proof caps, is small compared to the consequences.

When the liquid bomber tried to blow up an airplane, I had just traveled by plane the previous week. When I tried to fly home after, TSA confiscated all of the liquids in my carry-on bag.  This confiscation and ban did nothing to change the consequences of a plane explosion, but they reduced the likelihood of the plane explosion.  The cost of confiscating, and banning, my (and other passengers) liquids was considered less than the cost of a plane explosion.

Macros are small pieces of code within computer files.  In most cases they are benign, especially if you wrote them yourself.  But if they are malicious and you did not insert them, then they can have dire consequences.  Microsoft's and my firm’s IT department's solution is not to trust anything on a network because you don’t know where it came from, even if you put it there.  The consequences may be dire but reducing the likelihood also means that the cure is that macros can longer be inserted in network files and files with existing macros are no longer trusted.  IMHO, the cure, which is no more macros, is worse than the risk times the cost of the risk.

Since people get risk confused with likelihood, consequently the costs of the cure and the costs of the disease can also be expected to be confused. And that may be why God allows evil in the world. The cost of eliminating evil may be greater than the cost of the evil, at least that is what the Christian Gospels say.

The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field.  But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away.  When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared.

 The owner’s servants came to him and said, “Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’’

 “An enemy did this’’,  he replied. The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’’

 “No’’ he answered, “because while you are pulling the weeds, you may uproot the wheat with them.  Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn”