You are playing pool in a bar. You strike the cue ball with the cue stick and the cue ball moves. That is a First Order Effect. The cue ball moves in response to your striking it with the cue stick.
The cue ball rolls along until it strikes another ball, perhaps the 10. The 10-ball moves. That is a Second Order effect of your cue stick action. The 10-ball rolls along until it strikes the 8-ball, knocking it into the pocket and causing you to lose the game. That is a Third Order effect of your cue stick action. They all result from your action. They are direct, predictable, foreseeable results and good pool players know better than to take that shot.
Governor Walz issues Executive Orders based on the First Order effects. He orders the bar closed to prevent the spread of Covid, the bar is closed, First Order Effect. What are the Second Order effects? The bartender and wait staff lose their jobs. They can’t pay their rent. They’re looking at eviction and homelessness, the Second Order Effect. They apply for unemployment and welfare, which increases the state budget deficit, leaving less money available for schools and local government aid, the Third Order Effect.
These are direct, predictable, foreseeable results and good Governors (in other states) know better than to implement those policies.
Joe Doakes
And if we had a caste of journalists who actually worked to tell the story, as opposed to logrolling people into compliance with the narrative they’ve been given, people would know this.
Joe – I have remarked in the past that the Minneapolis City Council lacks the ability to see past first order effects. And, just like with Waltz and the shutdown, we’re dealing with third order effects of a crazy high crime rate.
Reading your description of 1st, 2nd, 3rd order made me reflect; I’d say most people understand that, and could point to an instance in their own life. But, it takes training to be able to apply it forward, and use it in decision making. Examining the effects of your decisions prior to making them, especially in this past year, seems to be a lacking ability. Especially the ability to realize that there can be multiple branches of effects.
“We” actually do know all that. ….and we didn’t have to be told either. “They” know it too. Where does that leave us?
That leaves us with the media saying, “Joe Doakes claimed without evidence that Governor Walz lost the game when the 8-ball dropped, but independent fact-checkers rated the claim as “Mostly False.” And with the Emery Collective (along with every Democrat voter) saying, “That Doakes is a hateful racist, always blaming Blacks for something.”
So are you saying Third Order Effects lead to Third World Shitholes?
So are you saying Third Order Effects lead to Third World Shitholes?
Or the Third Reich?
Lefties fall into one of two categories:
– those who support well-intentioned and populist policies who are unable to see the logical outcome of the ultimately flawed policies (usually socio-economic decline)
– those who expect the policies to result in socio-economic decline and use the crisis they created to steer policy towards policies that would otherwise be met with scorn and derision by logically-thinking people.
The various examples of politicians demonstrating how little science is behind their tyrannical and economy-crippling policies make me wonder if they intend to get things like Universal Basic Income implemented while public resistance is at its weakest. The shutdowns are just the way they get the camel’s nose under the tent.
Touché, NW, touché…
Ian – agreed on the two categories. I am fairly certain ‘civics’ education (as it were) does not and has not existed in many locales across this country’s fine public school systems to the extent that most of our ‘yoots’ have not been taught/warned correctly about the dangers of creeping programs like UBI etc …..