The Winston Churchill Fallacy

"You make a living by what you get; you make a life by what you give."

- attributed to Winston Churchill.

It is true that you make a life by what you give, but it is a gross error to say you make a living by what you get.

The truth is, you make a living by what you give. The people who pay you value your work more than the money they trade for it. What you get is simply the reward for what you have given.

Should Daydreaming While Driving Be Illegal?

Since 48 out of 50 states have banned texting while driving, should it also be illegal to...

clean sunglasses?

pick things up off of the floor?

eat?

drink non-alcoholic beverages?

do makeup?

change clothes?

dance violently?

read a book?

answer difficult math questions?

close your eyes?

look at gps?

make out?

memorize a speech?

look at a passenger?

yell at your kids in the back seat?

daydream?

clean the rear-view mirror?

write?

stretch your back?

be extremely emotional?

shave?

(Feel free to continue my list in the comments.)

Driving is a dangerous activity. Anything that distracts a driver from the act of driving has the potential to cause an accident. The longer that distraction lasts and the busier a road is, the more likely an accident is to occur.

Unfortunately, we don't have a crystal ball that will tell us who is going to cause an accident. All we can do is look at what may have distracted a driver who already caused the accident.

Reading is much more distracting than texting. What if you need to familiarize yourself with a few pages from a book while driving? You can make sure to look down for only 2-3 seconds at a time, and always check the road before doing so, but it wouldn't be an easy task.

On the other hand, reading a text is much less time-consuming. I have heard it said that it takes a minimum of 5 seconds of looking away from the road to text. That is a lie. Sending a text is not easy, but if you have the key locations memorized, you barely need to look down at all.

I wouldn't recommend texting while driving as a rule, but I also wouldn't recommend any of the other things mentioned in the above list. Should they all be banned?

Remember the potentialities of passed laws before advocating for them.

Instead...

If we stop mandating auto insurance and hold the instigator of the accident liable, we would no longer need to worry about outlawing potential causes of accidents. People would be responsible for the consequences of their driving instead of  worrying-about-whether-or-not-the-thing-they-are-doing-is-included-in-the-list-of-illegal-driving-activities.

If every driver had to pony up for damage caused, whether monetary or physical, driving safety would become a much more highly regarded aspiration.

In addition to more liberty and fewer police-citizen encounters, the roads would actually be safer.

When is it OK to Argue?

The first question we have to ask is, What is the highest good? To bring glory to God, and share His Word with others. Volumes have already been written to show how to do these two things, so I will leave that to them for the moment. Suffice it to say that all things must fit under these two huge umbrella concepts.

Some people are more inclined to argue than others, due in large part to the individual's comfort level with conflict. Your counterpart's comfort level with conflict is one of the most important considerations as to when arguing is OK. Consider the exhortation from God's Word to count others as more significant than yourself, and to look to others' interests (Philippians 2:4,3).

Truth is underrated. Remember that helpful phrase: "All truth is God's truth"? It's true. All truths can be monumentally important, given certain contexts.

Example 1: Two people sometimes argue about trivialities like what the exact lyrics to a song written 30 years ago are. However, if knowing the correct answer wins $10,000...

Example 2: If a certain fact is very important to Bob, and he beats Mike over the head with it, Bob is now rejecting Philippians 2:3. However, Mike is also rejecting this passage if he trivializes what Bob believes to be very important.

Example 3: Bob believes that when families do not vaccinate, they put other children at great risk. Mike believes vaccinating children puts them at unnecessary risk. John isn't sure about the risks/benefits of vaccinating, but he believes that mandating vaccinations puts everybody's liberty at great risk.

Example 4: Bob believes people around the world are better off by bringing Democracy to their countries, but Mike believes those same people are better off left to private means of help. This is a matter of life and death in most cases.

We could go on to list hundreds, even thousands of important issues about which people argue. To suggest that people should "stop arguing" is simplistic to the point of foolishness. Many of the people who discuss these things are doing so because they believe they are protecting their families. There is not much that is more important than that. (Whether or not they are protecting their families is another truth to seek!)

When I was growing up, my mother would often point out to me that relationships are more important than being right. There is profound truth in that phrase, and I need to heed the truth of it. However, there is also a substantial flaw. Relationships are more important than making sure the other person always knows where he/she is wrong, but relationships are not more important than truth.

I Corinthians 13 states that a lack of love renders all wisdom, knowledge, spiritual gifts, and even great sacrifice and faith, virtually useless.* When we disagree with someone, this should be our first consideration, and it should spill into every moment of out thoughts.

It would be a mistake, however, to think that this replaces truth.

*It is the person who possesses the gifts listed in the first three verses, but who lacks love, who is nothing. Paul does not say that it is the gifts themselves, nor even the use of them, that is worthless, even when love is absent.

Wages, Charity, or Theft?

A pepper company began in the US, but has since moved to Mexico. This company now pays its employees a paltry $.50/hour, but each employee is free to work or not work as he pleases. Even assuming the previous employees from the US made only minimum wage, it is obvious the company will save piles of money by paying workers not 'protected' by such a law. Businesses make decisions with one purpose in mind: profits. Are the Mexican employees being treated unfairly? What is a fair wage?

Businessmen hire the individuals who bring the most profit to the company. If Mike nets the company $100/week, and Bob nets $125/week, all other things being equal, it would be quite foolish to hire Mike. On the side of the coin, laborers will also look for the job that brings in the most income, all other things being equal. Assuming again the Mexican employees are not being coerced, they have judged that their lives are better off working for the pepper company than they otherwise would be. No one is claiming the company has reached sainthood, but the fact is the standard of living for the people's lives whom they employ is improved, at least in the opinions of the employees. Both the company and employees benefit - however little - from the exchange.

How could someone, upon seeing these destitute conditions in which the employees lives, continue to pay such a low wage and be considered anything but heartless and cruel? If the company decides that the employees need more and then provides it - without providing any present or future benefit to the company - this is no longer a wage. Here enters a different form of payment: charity. Even if it is given in the form of 'higher wages', it is no such thing. As soon as pay is based on felt or actual need, irrespective of the company's bottom line, we have crossed over from 'wage' into 'charity'.

A wage is the smallest pay for which the employee is willing to work. An increase can only be considered a wage increase if it is voluntary, and is believed to be in the company's best interest. A good definition of 'wage' must include the notion of added value to the company. That is why the company will always pay an employee as little as possible, rightly so.

God's Word teaches that it is our obligation to help those in need when able. Unfortunately, charity has been severely and tragically tarnished by the travesty of forcibly taking from one person to give to someone else. This crosses over from charity into theft.

So now wages, charity, and theft abide, these three; but the greatest thing is to avoid confusing them.

College Students Owe Themselves, Not Professors

The beautiful thing about free exchange is that both parties are better off following the transaction. Value is subjective, but all that really matters is the opinion of those doing the exchanging. When I buy a TV, I clearly prefer it to the money I forked over, and the seller prefers to have the money. So what is the customer's obligation, and what is the merchant's? The customer must pay the merchant. End of story. The merchant, however, must provide a product that meets the customer's expectations. If he doesn't, he loses business.

This is certainly not a new idea by any stretch, but it is a foreign concept to the entire college scene. The college student is the customer and the teacher is the merchant. Therefore, once the teacher gets paid, the student has no further obligation in the transaction. The teacher, on the other hand, is now obligated to provide the product for which the student has paid.

Having been and around college my whole life - as a child of a professor, student, and now adjunct faculty myself - I have observed a role reversal. Students are constantly made to feel as though they owe something to the professor. When a paper hasn't been completed on time, or even when a student doesn't do as well on a test as he 'should' have, the student issues apologies, feeling guilty for not having 'pleased' the professor. Professors do look better when students learn and do well, but it is not the student's responsibility to make this happen!

What would college look like if students and teachers were forced to deal with economic reality?

According to the College Board, the average cost of tuition and fees for the 2013-2014 school year was $30,094 at private colleges, $8,893 for state residents at public colleges, and $22,203 for out-of-state residents attending public universities. [1] If we use the example of $20,000 tuition ($10,000/semester) and an average of 16 credits per semester, that comes to $625 per credit. Assuming 40 hours of class time per semester for a 3-credit course, that comes to $46.88 per hour of class. Imagine how different things would be if, after signing a contract for a semester of classes, the students handed the professor $47 cash every time he walked into class.

Given a 13-week semester and 16 credits, that's about $770/week - Ouch! Students would be a lot more concerned about getting good value:

1. The onus to work hard would be on the students - they'd be much more diligent.

2. Students would not re-up unless the product continued to pay dividends for them.

3. The professor would know his livelihood depended on producing every semester.

4. Students wouldn't be apologizing to professors for not showing up/doing work.

5. The idea that students are wasting professors' time would be flushed down the toilet (you've been paid, handsomely!).

Some people may not view all of these consequences as positive, but I can guarantee there would be much more learning, and much less time and money wasted. In the short run, that would hurt colleges and professors, perhaps tremendously, but in the long run, productive activity is good for everyone. After all, creating a product is about serving the customer, not the merchant.

1. http://www.collegedata.com/cs/content/content_payarticle_tmpl.jhtml?articleId=10064

Stop Giving Vaccines All the Credit!

Has there ever been a more telling graph on the usefulness of certain vaccines?

Source: http://blog.drbrownstein.com/should-mickey-and-minnie-mouse-be-vaccinated/

This reminds me of the graph which reveals the usefulness of OSHA...

Is What You Do Valuable?

How do you know if what you do is valuable? The problem is, value is subjective. What one person finds valuable, someone else views as worthless. You could answer the question by saying that as long as you believe in what you are doing, block out everything else. But does that pay the bills?

There is a much easier answer. Is someone willing to pay out of his or her own pocket for that thing you do? Yes? Then 'that thing you do' provides exactly that much value to that person. This is called the Free Market. If you are able to make a living based on individuals willingly giving you money for what you do, you can be 100% certain as to how much value your actions have.

The Grade School Test as a Learning Tool

The most obvious benefit of a test is the incentive it provides for studying; few of us are as self-motivated as we'd like to be. This incentive includes proving to one's self the extent of learning already achieved, but also to peers, teachers, and parents alike. Also, the test result is usually applied to a grade, which is used for various things, though its usefulness is a question for another essay. The other benefit of the test to the learning process is in letting the teacher know whether the student is ready to move on to the next unit, or to what extent the student needs continued study.

The Scenario

A teacher tells a class of 20 students that a test on the current unit will be administered in two weeks. The amount of time students need in order to master the material for this test will vary greatly. Assuming diligent work from each student, the students will fit into one of three categories: A) two weeks is the exact amount of time needed to master the material, B) two weeks is not enough time, C) two weeks is more time than necessary. (Lack of diligent work only exacerbates the problem of testing even further, and will not be explored here.)

The Consequences

The vast majority of Group B students and their parents accept what they see as their fate: the time to study that material is over, and it will never be mastered. If the student and parents wish to overcome this damaging scenario, they must continue to study the material while the teacher and class moves on to the next unit. Therefore, the student and his/her parent must choose either to fail to master the material, or accept the possibility of falling farther and farther behind.

Most teachers, perhaps without even realizing it, set the test date far enough away that almost all the students fit into Group C. For Group C students, the material will be mastered, but there will be extra time to be filled. Parents, then, will need to step in and provide other useful activities or material for the student to study while they await test day. Otherwise, the interim will be wasted, not to mention the boredom experienced by the student (or worse). As for Group A students, we are lucky if there is even one that fits into this category.

What is the Purpose of a Test?

There is another huge problem with test administering in an institutional setting. The most important purpose of a test is to find out what the student has and has not yet mastered, so that following the test, the teacher is able to tutor accordingly. However, in what institutional setting does this happen? It is no fault of the teacher; he/she simply cannot take the time to spend with each student necessary to bring mastery to the fore.

If the student attends institutional school (public or private), parents must be deeply involved through time and other resources in order to make the best of this unfortunate situation. This will not fully maximize the time lost, but will redeem much of the adverse circumstances. Other arguments aside, home-schooling solves this problem completely if the parents are on their game. Either way, parents, not institutions, are the foundation of a child's education.

Conclusion

Much of life is making the most of less-than-ideal circumstances, but the first step is realizing that such is the case. Test-administering can be very helpful, and should not be abandoned. On the other hand, if parents and teachers fail to recognize the true benefits of testing, the test becomes a virtually useless tool in the process of learning, and can even harm the long-term success of the student.