A Parable

Three men went out to a restaurant for dinner. One is the owner of a company, another a middle manager at that company and the third a lower tier worker for the company. The company owner ordered lobster tail with  baby vegetables  The middle manager ordered a steak with a baked potato. The lower tier worker ordered a hamburger, fries, and a milk shake. All three enjoy their meals and after finishing they are all quite happy.

The waiter brings the check, however it is not itemized, it is merely a single number on a piece of paper. The three men now discuss how to split the bill.

The lower tier worker says "I can't afford to pay one-third of the bill, but I'll give you what I can and one day when I have more I'll take both of you out to dinner."

The middle manager says "I appreciate that and I remember the days when I couldn't afford to pay as much, so though it will be a bit of a strain for me, I'll split the rest of the bill with our company's owner."

The company owner says "I don't understand why I should pay for any of this meal. I give both of you jobs, you should be paying for my meal as a thank you. Besides, you both ate more food than I did."

Unable to come to an agreement on how to split the tab, the three men turn to the restaurant staff and ask them who should pay how much. The chef, the matre'd, and the waiter go back into the kitchen to discuss the matter. A few minutes later there emerges from the kitchen a bevy of shouts and the discordant sounds of the clanging of pots and pans. Finally the noises ceased and the chef, matre'd and waiter returned to the table.

The chef announced they had come to a decision. "Mr. Worker, we know you don't have much money so trying to get anything from you would be futile on our part. Pay ten percent of the bill and we'll be okay with that."

Turning to the other two, the chef continued. "Mr. Middle Manager, we know you work hard and are the backbone of your company's success and we're sure that you remember the days when like Mr. Worker you didn't have much money, so we think you should pay ninety percent of the bill."

"And Mr. Company Owner, we believe that if we ask you to leave only the tip then you will take what money you would have spent on this meal and invest it in a company that will employ more people and those people will in turn come to our restaurant, thus making more money for us in the long run."

Red in the face from anger, the middle manager pulled out his credit card to pay his share. While the middle manager sputters, the company owner beams, pulled out a wad of bills and plunks down a tip that was way more than the entire bill.

"I don't get it", said the middle manager, "why did you leave such a big tip? That's more than the entire bill!"

The company owner smiled. "Yes, it's more than this bill, but less than the bill I would rack up if I had to pay for every meal I eat here. And I eat here almost every day. If once every two years I have to tip these guys like this, I'm still way ahead."

"That's ridiculous!", said the middle manager. "Those three guys split the bill the way they did only because they knew you'd tip them like that. I'll get them fired!"

The company owner laughed. "No you won't. They are so good at what they do, they can't ever be replaced. Replacing them would only bring chaos and uncertainty and ruin this perfectly wonderful restaurant, this restaurant that makes it possible for everyone to eat well and enjoy themselves. Besides, anyone who came in to replace them would be inexperienced and unsure of themselves and you wouldn't want that in a restaurant like this? Now go on home and have a good night's sleep."

The middle manager thought of the great meal he had just had and how he'd like to bring his wife and kids to the restaurant and how what the company owner had said was probably true. Besides he wanted to get home and see who made it into the next round of his favorite reality TV show.  So he signed his credit card slip and walked off into the night.

But.

That night as he twisted in fits of sleep, the middle manager dreamed of blowing up the restaurant, of watching the company owner roast on a spit over coals lit by dollar bills. And a hole grew in his soul, a hole that could not be filled with anything but resentment.

If You Could Take A Pill...

So recently I got into a conversation about the upcoming Summer Olympics. One of the guys mentioned that he had read an article that said 50% of aspiring Olympians said that if offered, they would take a pill that could absolutely guarantee them a gold medal in their event, even if they KNEW it would kill them five years later.  Of course that turned into a “what would you do?” conversation, with various redistributions of the risk/reward equation thrown out to the gods of speculation and ultimately ending, as these conversations always seem to, in mandatory sexual connotation (“so if you had a pill that would guarantee you could have any woman in the world but after five years your hoo doo would fall off…”)

Fantasy scenarios like that are fine for water cooler conversations, but the reality is we are faced with real life versions every day, albeit for the most part not as extreme.  You can take the train to work and have a pleasant twenty minute commute or you can drive the car and have the freedom to come and go as you please. You can take the high stress job with the probability you’ll die sooner or the low stress job that means a longer life but less money or recognition. The fact is we make these kinds of deals with the universe all the time and in the past we’ve always known all the risks and all the rewards.

More and more in this world we aren't told what the price is we have to pay. At best we get half a story, usually the one associated with the reward side of the equation. Buy this real estate with little money down and low mortgage payments and you’ll make a fortune renting it out (but nothing about the balloon payments and the packaging of your loan with others to be sold as a bet against your success in this exact venture). Vote for this politician because he’s a guy you’d want to have a beer with, the kind who will bring back the good old days (never mind that his economic policies will result in you losing your job, won’t train you for a new one, and likely will decimate your community).

But let’s get back to that pill for a moment.  What if I told you that there was a pill you could take that would prevent you from getting 90% of the major diseases. No cancer, no diabetes, no AIDS, you’d be able to skate through life without having to worry about anything more than the occasional cold or flu. Really? Sign me up! Oh, but here’s the other half of the equation. While you won’t get cancer or diabetes or AIDS, there is a 20% chance taking this pill will leave you with debilitating nerve damage; damage so severe you’d have to be on pain medication the rest of your life. Now there’s an 80% chance you could take the pill, have no ill effects, and go through your life immune to those diseases, but that 20% chance exists, it’s real and it’s going to happen. Do you take the pill?

Now let’s take it one step further. I have another pill. This magic pill has a 95% chance of working on you, but now the diseases aren’t cancer or diabetes or AIDS. Now they are the measles, the mumps, whooping cough, all diseases that could potentially cause severe problems, but ones that in this day and age are treatable.  The catch is there is a five percent chance that you will end up brain damaged, unable to hold a simple conversation or fully function in society. You’ll be dependent on others to take care of you pretty much the rest of your life. Oh and let’s not forget that in the immediate aftermath of taking the pill you’ll be spewing out something called acidic diarrhea which I’ll let you imagine what that is.

The fact is, put that way most people would never take that pill. “No thanks, I’ll put up with a couple of weeks of puffy cheeks or red spots or persistent hacking if it means I don’t have to find out what acidic diarrhea is”.  I know I wouldn’t take it and I doubt many of you would. So if some company actually produced this pill they’d have a tough sell. Now I know something about selling, I’ve been doing it all my life. When you’ve got a dog product, one that you just know is going to be a tough sell; the way to sell it is to only talk about its upsides and never about its downsides. “Look at this refrigerator, it’s so inexpensive. Automatic ice maker? Who needs that, besides they always break.  Energy efficiency? You’d have to own that other model for thirty years to make up the price difference!” You get the picture. The company would only talk about the upsides to the pill and never about the downsides. But with down sides that severe you’d probably have to take it a step further. You’d have to say that those downsides don’t really exist, that it’s all made up, that it’s all just a coincidence.

And that friends is why vaccine makers deny that their products cause autism. As a matter of fact they deny that their products ever do any harm. Nobody ever gets hurt from a vaccine. There is no downside according to those who make money from selling vaccines. If some baby is perfectly fine one day, goes into the pediatrician for her well baby check up (including her dTP shot) and the next day starts a downward spiral into the “autism spectrum” well that’s just a total coincidence. If a 50 year old woman gets a Hepatitis B vaccine shot and three weeks later is in pain so severe she can’t get out of bed, well that’s just a total coincidence. Vaccines couldn’t possibly be the cause of any problems, they only do good. Keep repeating that mantra till you are blue in the face, or at least can say it with a straight face.  Tell doctors only half the story on your research so they’ll tell patients the official abbreviated version. Don’t forget to discredit any doctor who might suggest otherwise. Jump on that “herd immunity” theory, that it’s in the public interest for everyone to be vaccinated (honestly if it was, then why don’t they give the vaccines away for free?). And for god’s sake, financially incentivize doctors to be on your side against their own patients. Give them the free dinners and the free trips and the free dollars and fund their pet projects and most of all make sure they know that it all comes from those tiny vials sitting in the office refrigerator -- the energy inefficient one without an ice maker.