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The Villains Aren’t Who You Think They Are

“Don’t assume villainy where it is merely different goals.

Andy Ellis, CSO, Akamai

The conference presentation of a friend and former boss has been on my mind as I’ve watch people argue about how we should conduct ourselves during a pandemic.

Mood Music:

Andy Ellis is CSO at Akamai, where I probably leaned more about the technical nuts and bolts of security in three years than I had in the previous decade of writing about it as a tech journalist. His presentation, “Humans Are Awesome/Terrible at Risk Management” covers how people make decisions concerning risk.

He uses the OODA loop decision-making model developed by U.S. Air Force Col. John Boyd to explain why humans are “awesome” at risk management.

The model frames decision-making as a repeating cycle of observing what’s happening, orienting (filtering what’s happening through past experiences and values), deciding what to do next and acting on that decision.

I’ve tried to apply the OODA loop to my personal and professional actions of late and have mapped out the experience in a recent post.

Humans are horrible at risk management! How are we even still around?And yet, we are still around. Humans are awesome at risk management; we’re now the dominant species on the planet.

Andy Ellis

Andy cites humanity’s advantages in making rapid, generally correct risk choices, even when those choices seem baffling to others. To understand the other person’s decisions, he suggests:

  1. Unpacking how risk choices that appear unreasonable from the outside may not be.
  2. Learning how to identify the hidden factors in someone’s risk choice that most influence it.
  3. Finding out how to help guide people to risk choices that you find more favorable.

I’ve been trying to follow those suggestions as I navigate the seemingly endless arguments on social media about how to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic.

On myriad Facebook threads, people share articles and make statements that fall into one of two camps:

  • That in a health emergency like this, the best decision is to stay home and minimize the virus’ spread — thus saving lives
  • That the current lockdowns are tyranny: massive, fear-driven overreactions that have allowed authorities to exert unprecedented control over the masses

My own views are somewhere in the middle. I believed the lockdowns necessary at the beginning to slow the spread long enough to give hospitals time to bulk up on supplies and workers to take care of everyone who is sick. I also believed it necessary to buy us time to ramp up testing so we’d have a better picture of who was infected and who wasn’t.

Three months in, we’ve slowed the spread in places but don’t appear much better off. We don’t have nearly enough data points to know what we’re dealing with. I’ve begun to question the wisdom of staying locked down, thinking instead that we must figure out a way to re-open carefully and learn to live in a pandemic without staying seized up.

Along the way I’ve found myself exasperated by how people in the two camps above have vilified each other. Camp 1 brands Camp 2 as a bunch of selfish right-wing thugs who care more about their economic pursuits than protecting grandma. Camp 2 sees Camp 1 as a bunch of government-controlled sheep who submit to tyranny as easily as past generations submitted to Nazi and Soviet subjugation.

One good friend, from Camp 2, suggested that those who support the lockdowns support tyranny and should renounce their American citizenship. I called him out on that. Another friend in Camp 1 repeatedly attacked people on my wall for being OK with people dying. I rarely unfriend people I disagree with but did so in her case.

Along the way, I keep coming back to what Andy said: “Don’t assume villainy where it is merely different goals.”

It’s good advice.

Most of us have rigorously thought-out reasons for staying home or arguing for a re-opening. We all weigh the risks on criteria colored by our personal experiences. There is no villainy in that.

People will believe what they will believe and act on it. Their intent is good, though sometimes distorted by a lack of reliable data.

In the weeks and months to come, I hope for more common ground.

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Sending Our Kids to Another School

After weeks of agonizing, debating, praying and researching, Erin and I made the painful but necessary decision to move the kids from the only school they’ve ever known to someplace new.

Mood music:

In three weeks, Sean and Duncan won’t be starting school at St. Joseph’s in Haverhill. Instead, they’re going to St. Augustine’s in Andover.

We love the St. Joe’s community and always will. But the bottom line is that both boys have extra needs the school simply isn’t equipped to provide. Sean needs more of an academic challenge in the next two years, as he sets his sights on getting into a prestigious, private high school. Duncan needs an environment better equipped to meet the needs of his IEP (Individualized Education Program). St. Joe’s has struggled to do what’s needed for a child with ADHD.

We’re excited to send them to St. Augustine’s, which has many more resources to meet those needs. But getting to that decision was hard. And telling the kids was even harder.

Like many parents, we instinctively want to shield our children from trauma. Few traumas are greater to kids than being sent to another school, particularly when they’ve been in the same place since pre-school. As expected, they were upset when we told them. There were tears and protests. We were emotionally spent by day’s end.

The next morning, we took them to the new school for admissions testing and a tour. We spent more than half the morning there, and by the time we were done, the kids were smiling. They still have their anxieties about the unknown. They are not jumping for joy, and they won’t be. But by the time we left, I think they knew this was for the best and that they were going to be just fine.

They know they’ll make new friends, and we’ve made it clear that we’ll help them stay connected to their St. Joe’s friends. Doing so won’t be difficult. We’re still parishioners of the school’s parent church, All Saints. Sean is still part of the church youth group and will see many of his friends there. And both boys are still Scouts, which will ensure another level of continuity.

In the final analysis playing it safe was unacceptable to us. Kids are going to have tough experiences in their lives and need to learn to roll with it. As parents, we have to give them our time and attention and help them stay on the right path. But we also must take occasional risks, upsetting the balance in the face of opportunity, teaching them to do the same.

And so we have.

The New School