Life and Death and 100%

This link is right on the logic target. 

"On Ebola, Like Terrorism, We Don't Actually Have to Be Right 100 Percent of the Time"

The justification logic thinking for invading Iraq:  If there is the slightest chance (1% or anything less) that Iraq has an atomic weapon that will become a mushroom cloud over an American city we must invade.  It really puts the decision in a binary domain.  Extremely low probability has extreme decision making leverage in a binary live or die situation.  

 It expresses itself at the micro level as well:  If there is the slightest chance that a kid with his hand in his pocket has a gun in it where a police officer is involved in a situational context of possible law enforcement then deadly force is authorized.  Another example: Stand your ground.  If someone simple thinks they are in danger then merely having that belief justifies the use of a weapon.

There has been much written as a result of Ebola coming to the USA.  Much of the reasonable thought exposes situation where death due to other causes is just part of life in our society and does not get as much concern for extreme action.  

Extreme action if the face of, or the defense of,  (fill in the blank) is no vice!

Perfection is being right 100% of the time.  Maybe more right than wrong is and doing the best we can based on our best social moral principals is a better cause for action.

Recent Ebola headlines have focused on the number of hospital workers exposed to and contracting Ebola.  If there was the slightest chance of a hospital worker contracting Ebola from a patient what would that worker's decision be?  

 What is needed to make decision like this?  Wisdom, justice, a social moral system with a framework that supports the best reasonable decision?  

 The "slightest possible chance" rule to justify extreme action applies at extreme ends of the action.  At one end is the hero that risks their own life against impossible odds for the life of another.  At the other extreme is taking the life of another if there is the slightest possible chance they may take yours.

It is a decision making problem. What is the criteria?  The greater good?  The lesser of two evils? 

Maybe the greatest evil is to manipulate the outcome to dispose an illogical, immoral outcome by setting up a criteria for extreme action based on the slightest probability of being wrong.  

So, this is "beyond the shadow" of a doubt territory.  How often do we get that wrong but maybe the question is how often do we get it right and does that balance being wrong?

If social wisdom is a growing thing over the span of our social history what is the trend line.  Maybe that is a better way to look at where we are going than a doomsday clock that says we live or die in the end.  Maybe when we attain 100% wisdom we have heaven on earth?  More right than wrong on the things that really matter and allocating our attention and resources decisions accordingly in hindsight in the court of human history judgment is perhaps the best ultimate judge of any action.

Take care of the absolutely worst first is a good way to prioritize actions but enough resources have to be allocated accordingly throughout the infrastructure to keep the entire system going while fighting alligators.

What are those alligators?  Terrorists?  Ebola?  Maybe instead of identifying alligators the question is "Who Benefits"? and....how did they get us to do what we did in an extreme situation related to a situation of lesser priority when the benefit was not to us as the greater good of the many rather than the greater good of the few, by the few?

Tough decisions on tough questions.  Terrorism, Ebola they test us.  Challenge our decision making systems and find them logically and reasonably lacking.  Actually, totally lacking in the extremely big things.  

Examining the thoughts of this blog and consulting the common man's encyclopedia Wikipedia, the term "beyond the shadow of a doubt" implying no room for error is not accurate in the application to decisions in courts of justice.  "Beyond a reasonable doubt" is the standard.  Further, beyond a reasonable doubt that the burden of proof has been met.   

Now I recall my judgment on invading Iraq when it was done.  The burden of proof was on Husein to prove the negative.  That he did not have WMD and specifically that interprets to nuclear weapons not a shell or two or even thousands of old chemical weapons the "discovery" of which supports the "gotcha" that Bush was right on WMD all the time.  Everyone knows that WMD was nuclear despite the military definition of nuclear/chemical/biological (NBC).

The burden of proof was on the USA.  Burden of proof to prove a negative is not reasonable but is a reasonable way to load the dice. 

 Side note:  What is it about Ukraine that gets so many blogger page views?