{"id":9348,"date":"2014-04-26T11:30:12","date_gmt":"2014-04-26T15:30:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/?p=9348"},"modified":"2014-04-26T11:30:12","modified_gmt":"2014-04-26T15:30:12","slug":"good-failures-and-bad-fixes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2014\/04\/good-failures-and-bad-fixes.html","title":{"rendered":"Good Failures and Bad Fixes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In two of my recent posts for\u00a0The American Conservative<\/em>, I got to review Megan McArdle\u2019s The Up Side of Down: Why Failing Well Is the Key to Success<\/a><\/em> and to take a crack at improving a not quite fubar\u2019d health insurance survey. \u00a0I\u2019m also still pleased that my editor let me get away with using the roller derby image above as the featured image for the McArdle. \u00a0I can still remember, from the one time I went to a roller derby bootcamp, the coach saying \u201cFall up! \u00a0Fall\u00a0up!<\/em> Don\u2019t lose momentum!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

McArdle\u2019s Guide to Failing Well<\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

It\u2019s easy for courts outside Hawaii to assume that the criminals in\u00a0their<\/em>\u00a0jails must be\u00a0choosing<\/em>\u00a0recidivism, and soft nudges won\u2019t be enough to get them back on track. Humans also have a tendency to rationalize punishment as justice\u2014if the penalty is harsh, the prisoner must be\u00a0really<\/em>\u00a0awful. As Eve Tushnet pointed out in\u00a0her analysis of the Mississippi woman prosecuted for having a stillbirth<\/a>, we even have a tendency to\u00a0hope<\/em>\u00a0that the misfortune of others is due to some intrinsic flaw, so that we can pretend we\u2019re exempt from bad luck.<\/p>\n

Our society needs better social scripts for failure, since we have more power to react to upheavals than to prevent them. As McArdle narrates, institutions and individuals are blinded by biases and bad heuristics, and wind up perpetuating a throw-away culture. We struggle to prevent problems from turning into catastrophes, and we\u2019re reluctant to sift through the wreckage to see what can be mended.\u00a0And, as McArdle is willing to admit, often the very person floundering will be prone to write themselves off as unsalvageable.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

How to Fix the Census\u2019s Obamacare Errors<\/a><\/h3>\n

Can you cook the books by using more accurate statistics?<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the question hanging over the Obama\u00a0administration, now that the Census bureau has decided to\u00a0change the way it assesses the number of Americans without insurance<\/a>\u00a0in the middle of the Obamacare rollout.<\/p>\n

The basic problem the Census has been struggling with is how, exactly, to define \u201cAmericans without insurance.\u201d If you ask your survey respondents \u201cDo you currently have health insurance?\u201d the percentage answering \u201cNo\u201d will be a lot lower than the number of people who would say \u201cNo\u201d to \u201cHave you been uninsured at any point in the last year?\u201d If you change your question to \u201cWere you uninsured forall<\/em>\u00a0of last year?\u201d the \u201cNos\u201d will plunge accordingly.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In two of my recent posts for\u00a0The American Conservative, I got to review Megan McArdle\u2019s The Up Side of Down: Why Failing Well Is the Key to Success and to take a crack at improving a not quite fubar\u2019d health insurance survey. \u00a0I\u2019m also still pleased that my editor let me get away with using […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":9351,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[92],"class_list":["post-9348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-other-writing"],"yoast_head":"\nGood Failures and Bad Fixes<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In two of my recent posts for\u00a0The American Conservative, I got to review Megan McArdle's The Up Side of Down: Why Failing Well Is the Key to Success and\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, 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