The Value In Choices

We emphasise lateral thinking by having a checklist of questions that can be used to assess any situation. The more factors you consider, the more likely that the decision you make is better in different aspects of that same decision.

Goo : The one thing most humans are not good at – is considering the long-term consequences of their choices.

For example, John wants a fancy car. John buys the fancy car. Then reality hits. A tyre goes flat and needs to be replaced. The garage attendant tells him that the unit cost to replace the one tyre will be four hundred dollars, not the usual $100 per tyre of the ordinary car. Parts for the car service are similarly expensive. Only a few mechanics deal with these types of cars – and they are expensive. An accident occurs – and replacement parts are expensive as well, (because there is a limited number of suppliers of these parts). Replacement parts may need to be flown in from overseas - adding delays to repairs.

And don’t forget big cars have big fuel bills. Poor John suddenly finds it costs him $120 to fill the fuel tank, not the usual $60. John had not considered maintenance as one of the critical factors in the choice of his car.

He just wanted a fancy car and did not consider consequences beyond 12 months.

Kinkajou : Another classic example is the person who wins the Lotto. They buy a fancy house. They buy the best of many things. Eventually, of course the money runs out. Then they discover that they cannot maintain the bills associated with a fancy house – repairs, rates, or insurance. They end up selling the fancy house. Research has shown that many people who win the lotto are in the long-term indistinguishable in terms of their finances from normal people except in one aspect. They tend to own their own house. In short, they have gone through and spent all the money they won, with little to show for it long-term.

And it makes sense if you consider that learning to invest and look after money is a skill you learn throughout your whole life. So, if you suddenly “come into the money”, you really don’t know anything about what to do with it except to spend it.
Goo : And all too many of the people who will help you look after it, are prone to help themselves first in helping you look after it.

Kinkajou : I wouldn’t make that mistake.
Erasmus : Well okay. Let’s consider some ordinary examples. Michael buys an MP3 player (USB rechargeable) or a battery-powered tool such as a drill or other gadgets such as an electronic dog collar, wireless surveillance cameras, mobile phones, watches or an odd gadget such as a laser pointer. Many of these gadgets have built-in batteries, nowadays often being USB rechargeable. The problem with USB rechargeable batteries is that they have a lifespan. They can last up to 6 years if well-maintained. Many specialist watch batteries can last up to 10 years.

Neglect them,and they may not last 12 months - especially lithium ion batteries.

The issue is of course that if you buy a number of these items, you have a maintenance problem. Lithium batteries once they hit zero charge, effectively become unusable and un-rechargeable. The integrated battery is often of an unusual size or shape, perhaps looking much like a strip of paper. Getting a replacement battery which is even half a millimetre too thick, can make it impossible to fit the new battery into its position in the gadget, due to tolerance (space) issues making the battery “not fit”. They are difficult to buy to an exact size and may require technical soldering and installation expertise. In essence, these items are throwaway items once the battery has reached end of life.

The battery in the drill is removable. But again – left alone for too long and uncharged – you will need to spend $50 to 100 to acquire a new replacement battery.
UPS power supplies filter the power for sensitive electronic equipment. These batteries are usually kept charged by their electronic programming boards. Nonetheless, they still need to be replaced approximately every three years. In short, after a certain period of time, they cease to be able to hold and to release charge.

Ryobi Batteries for Tools

Goo : The moral of the story?
Erasmus : Buy only what you need and generally only buy one of what you need, not two.
Have a definite business case as to why you are buying these gadgets – in short - you are using them regularly and require these gadgets.
The best place to store gadgets with rechargeable battery systems – is in the gadget supplier’s store. You can always buy a new gadget with a new battery. The store is responsible for the maintenance and replacement of the gadget. You do not have to worry about the battery going sour, (generally).

If possible, try to purchase devices with user replaceable batteries. This means so long as you are looking after your device, a standard battery can be replaced at any time with another battery to obtain a few more years of service.

Kinkajou : One of my friends is really into watches. But he discovered very early that batteries run out. He learned how to replace the watch batteries himself.

Consequently, keeping his watch collection going was easy, since he could maintain his own batteries in his own watches. He just buys a few batteries over time and replaces the batteries as necessary to keep the collection in top operating order. Silver watch batteries may have a life of up to 10 years.

10 years life is also the new standard for batteries in smoke detectors. (The current standard in Australia is to migrate battery-powered smoke detection systems to wired into house mains smoke detection systems so even these batteries will not meet the standard for smoke alarms in Australia. it sounds like a logical progression, but what happens when the power is out.)

Dr Xxxxx : I don’t have a huge number of battery-operated devices at home.
Erasmus : You often don’t realise where these systems are. For example, a leftover wireless keyboard or wireless mouse from a computer installation may have a built-in rechargeable battery rather than a user replaceable battery. And devices such as garden lights, often use triple-A rechargeable batteries. The catch here is that trying to buy triple-A rechargeable batteries can end up costing you more than the solar light itself. In short, the solar light becomes a throwaway item.

Kinkajou : I can see your point of view. However, with solar lights, you do get corrosion issues over time. Even if you can replace the triple-A battery, it may still be best to buy a new light.
Erasmus : True! But if you have a fancy light such as a flame light and these are not easily available in the stores, you may still choose to replace the battery, simply because you cannot replace the light.
Overall, though, so long as you consider the need to maintain the battery, it is simple enough to choose your devices to enhance their longevity.

Fancy Flame Garden Lights are often hard to find even in this consumer Age

 

Kinkajou : You can get maintenance issues even if there are no batteries.
Erasmus : True! If you decide to get a pet such as a dog or cat or a fish, you need to commit a huge amount of time to maintain your pets. And heaven forbid if you go all out and get a horse. You can easily spend a couple of hours each day caring for/feeding and/ or looking after your horse. And don’t forget the vet bills.
Kinkajou : Well, pets are a pretty obvious problem.

Erasmus : Lifestyle choices can be just as bad. For example, Peter lives his life to the full enjoying girls and money as much as possible. Unfortunately, one day he wakes up –
with very little money, (having spent all of it on lifestyle and girls),
no girl, (she had run off), and
not as attractive as he used to be.

In short, he chose to live a lifestyle with a sunset clause and forgot about the sunset clause.

 

Kinkajou : So how does life go on from here?
Erasmus : After a certain age, about 45 years old, there are a lot more women surviving then men. So, men tend to find it easy to find potentially interested women. Unfortunately, women have grown up to regard a lot of the men as “roadkill”. The girls have decided that they would rather have a life for themselves than to live it as a slave for others. Men in particular can be very needy – having no idea how to cook or clean or wash – never having bothered to learn, not that it’s hard.

Kinkajou : Some lifestyle choices have unexpected complications. An acquaintance – Gary, had good connections to drug suppliers. He was able to find his lifestyle buying and selling – easily. His house was a fortress and the grounds around his house were a fortress as well – a 6-foot-high spiked metal fence surrounding the house with an electronically controlled gate and installed electronic surveillance and alarms.
Erasmus : What happened?
Kinkajou : His reputation for having good stuff was the problem. A few people decided that the easiest way to get drugs was just to take them. He ended up shot in the head in front of his family in a drug theft incident. His family unfortunately are left with the image of his death forever.

And there’s more. Even before he died, he was dying. The lifestyle of drug use exposed him to hepatitis B and hepatitis C resulting in cirrhosis of his liver. The last few years of his life would have been hell. Symptoms would include general vague malaise, shortness of breath, swollen blue feet, poor mobility, social isolation and cognitive issues (head not working right).

Drugs-Destroy-Health

He would have considered none of these as factors in his choice of lifestyle. They all became unexpected consequences of his lifestyle. But these sorts of things are not rare. Anybody in considering their circumstances, can predict where their life is going to go. But very few people sit and think about where their life is going. They fail to think. They fail to plan. They suffer all the consequences nonetheless.

Erasmus : The question therefore merges – “if I’m choosing this lifestyle – how do I maximise the upside and minimise the downside of my lifestyle choices?) Obvious issues are – safety, health, income and other obvious issues such as avoiding police attention.

Kinkajou : People such as Gary can however make long-term choices and decisions for the people around them that make a lot of sense. They may realise they are dying and that they have very few options for the future. The previous choices limit their future choices. To try to change direction in life may well be impossible at an advanced stage of life. Gary had acted to gift money and belongings to family friends and relatives, while he still had the capacity to do so. And a good will can ensure that even if he is not living any more, his dependents can be taken care of as much as possible.

Erasmus : A theme emerges. Most of us make decisions quickly and easily considering our immediate circumstances and consequences. But very few of us look at long-term issues and complications more than a few years in time downstream.

So, in considering a decision, you must remember that many decisions have a “price”. The price may be in terms of time, or money, or resources. The price may not appear until after at least 12 months have gone by. There can be a price in terms of consequences to health, family and in terms of legal complications.

If you are sick or dead, you cannot help anyone much less yourself. So, in considering consequences of your actions is important to consider the effect of your actions on your own long-term health and welfare.

Dr Xxxxx : Another patient Michael received a $200,000 settlement because he was a victim of child abuse. He spent $80,000 of this paying back SPER. (This is a government traffic fine supervising organisation. It is amazing that someone can build up a debt of $80,000. But consider. You travel through a tollway such as the Brisbane tunnel, and do not pay your toll of five dollars. This then receives a $120 administration fee. You don’t pay that either. It goes to court. The court adds another $200-$400 as the associated court fee. In short, your five-dollar toll fee has become a $500 bill, all countenanced by the government, (for its own benefit).

Goo : I think the government taking advantage of people in such circumstances is reprehensible. But it is accepted as legal until such time as people challenge the government and force them to change their ways.
Dr Xxxxx : Michael then spent $40,000 on drugs.
Michael also purchased several cars to the tune of $80,000. Because of his SPER fines, Michael did not have a license. But this did not stop him buying several cars and driving them. Being caught with substantial fines against him and no license, the car was impounded and sold by the government – to pay the new fine for unlicensed driving. He was forced by his bills for the insurance and registration of his vehicles, (including the impounded vehicle) to resell his vehicles – now at a loss due to his desperation for money.

The long and the short of it is that Michael has essentially lost all of his $200,000 settlement. There is nothing left. Bad decisions – bad outcomes.

Erasmus : So key factors in assessing the value of our choices consider not just the item and how it achieves something, but in considering the cost of maintenance of the item in terms of – energy – time – other natural resources.

Countries make choices for their citizens as well. In our enktechs social engineering site we have talked about how social economic policies can dictate people’s choices of when to have a family. The Howard government in Australia introduced a number of social policies aimed at encouraging people to have children. It addressed childcare and financial issues especially for many of the poorer members of the community and looked at providing subsidies to new mothers. Guess what? People started having more children.

So, countries often make decisions that they do not realise they are making with huge consequences to their citizens. A country like Australia needs to grow its citizen base and can only do so through immigration as “governmental greed” limits people’s ability to have and raise families.

Goo : But there are other issues with countries as well. Why are the USA/Australia/England relatively rich while the rest of the world’s poor.

The Lucky Country

Erasmus : Answers include:
low population: (China recently decided that it would rather be a rich country of 600 million than a poor country of 1 billion. It introduced child policies that discouraged a generation from having more than one child. It will achieve its aim long-term).

Corruption: Wealth distributed contributes to business efficiency. So, when wealth becomes stolen by a few it impacts significantly on the wealth of the many.

Personalities of the people: (we have already talked about how the people of ancient Sumeria seemed to be Enneagram Sevens with the attitude of “Do It Now”. By contrast, the personalities of people in the Indus Valley tilted towards Enneagram Ones. This personality type favours a tight political and social structure not conducive to innovation and growth. Perhaps a similar situation we see in India today).

Disease: This affects people’s levels of energy and their ability to work. In particular schistosomiasis and a number of of diseases as well as nutritional deficiencies do impact on health and work capacity, especially in the Developing World.

Paill and Nutrition: Paill in particular damages cognition and learning, creating a class of people who cannot partake of the technological civilisation we are building. (If you cannot remember a phone number without mixing up the digits, you are going to fail at many tasks that require sequence memory).

Geography and resources: History has shown time and time again that countries with extensive natural resources really do not end up much better off long-term. Because life and earning are easy, money becomes distributed through population and the costs of many services rise, effectively reducing the competitiveness of the country as a whole due to the inflation in values triggered by resource associated earnings. Digging things out of the ground makes you rich short term, but makes the country and its people much poorer long-term due to the distortion it facilitates on work pay and economics.

Goo : So, to summarise in considering any choices it is important to consider long-term consequences to yourself and to others.

In considering a decision, you must remember that many decisions have a “price”. The price may be in terms of time, or money, or resources. The price may not appear until after at least 12 months have gone by. There can be a price in terms of consequences to health, family and in terms of legal complications.
If you are sick or dead, you cannot help anyone much less yourself. So, in considering consequences of your actions is important to consider the effect of your actions on your own long-term health and welfare.

Regarding devices with batteries installed:
Buy only what you need and generally only buy one of what you need, not two.
Have a definite business case as to why you are buying these gadgets – in short - you are using them regularly and require these gadgets.

The best place to store gadgets with rechargeable battery systems – is in the gadget supplier’s store. You can always buy a new gadget with a new battery. The store is responsible for the maintenance and replacement of the gadget. You do not have to worry about the battery going sour, (generally).

If possible, try to purchase devices with user replaceable batteries. This means so long as you are looking after your device, a standard battery can be replaced at any time with another battery to obtain a few more years of service.

Decisions about life and lifestyle such as owning a pet and family tend to have far more consequences long-term and far more maintenance issues than devices with batteries. Every choice has consequences. Consider your consequences. You are free to make your choices are not free to choose your consequences.

People make choices but countries do as well.  We’ve talked about how as “governmental greed” limits people’s ability to have and raise families. And we’ve mentioned the example of government greed bankrupting the lower socioeconomic status people through the medium of fines. See our social engineering page on our enktechs.com site.