Al's Thinking

My spam filter is not working yet and I am getting comments from commercial folks — they may be fine people, but the RISK of putting up a blog is that commercial interests will hijack the intent of the blog author or sponsor. The REWARD is, of course, that I can share my thoughts and research with others. In my case, I do not charge a subscription price. My reward is doing the writing and hearing back from people who want to converse about the topic.

It seems to me that nearly all decisions have a risk / reward component. Setting up a blog is only one example. Going out with someone, even a trip to the store for groceries all have an inherent risk and a hoped for reward. Here in the United States of America many people have had a pretty low-risk existence and forget that for much of the history of humankind deciding to step out of the cave or house or hut, or to stay in, involved a conscious or unconscious risk / reward analysis. For much of the world risk is so high they must ponder doing things you and I take for granted. “It’s our right,” we think, and away we go doing what we want without regard to the risk to ourselves or to others.

Believe me, I have other blogs. I am aware of some of the risks, and did not begin this one without giving thought for the risks.

Currently we are many days out since the underwater oil welllost our ability to control the flow of oil. President Obama seems to have reversed his decision to permit more drilling under our coastal waters because the RISK may well outweigh the REWARD. Ecologically and economically the risk of such accidents has to be weighed against the cost of the spill. Is it idealistic to consider the cost to the undersea environment, the plants, marine life, coral reefs and so forth? Is it responsible to consider the costs to Louisiana and Mississippi crabbers, fishermen, chambers of commerce, home-owners and realtors?

When juveniles of any age refuse to weigh carefully the risks against the rewards immature thinking too often costs the rest of us dearly. But it is not an easy task. Possibly there are times when we take greater risks because we don’t know how risky taking that course of action will be. BP assured us they had a plan if the unlikely event that did occur ever occurred. Now, we need more assurances based on evidence before we maintain the same risk/reward ratio.

Takeaway: think about the decisions you make in terms of risk and reward. One example: running a yellow light in traffic. What are the number of people potentially injured worth compared to saving that minute or two of time?

“Change is good!”

Thus speak many people, but I disagree. Change is change. Some change only slaps us out of our ruts, but causes terrible harm. A tsunami roaring over a village of lively people is “change”, but the cost in lives, property and relationships is high. Some change is superficial. Changing channels from one superficial nighttime soap opera to another superficial soap opera usually doesn’t even prevent boredom. Consider, however, social networks and individuals who are stagnating, suffocating in the homogeneity of day to day sameness.

Along comes the iPad, or printing press, or radio, or affordable airfares. Values change, thought change, ways of solving problems change, and although some damage can be done or is done, the positive clearly offsets the negative.

Welcome to Al’s Thinking.  Please bookmark this blog (lustie.com/blog).  I have another blog dealing mainly with PC Tips (lustie.blogspot.com) and invite you to visit there as well.

currently I think a lot about things like separation of church and state, secular vs. sacred in popular thought, thinking, writing, being useful and . . . well, quite a few other things.  I don’t yet know what all will be in this blog, but I look forward to finding out.

If you want to be notified when I add a post, please sign up.  Normally I will only be posting two to four times a week.

Al