Robert’s Big Questions
Brilliant Thoughts by Ashleigh Brilliant
by Robert Bernstein
Born London, 1933. Mother Canadian. Father a British civil servant. World War II childhood spent mostly in Toronto and Washington, D.C. Berkeley PhD. in American History, 1964. Living in Santa Barbara since 1973. No children. Best-known for his illustrated epigrams, called “Pot-Shots”, now a series of 10,000. Email ashleigh@west.net or visit www.ashleighbrilliant.com
On the Road
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on’t let them fool you. All roads do not lead to Rome – at least, not anymore. But: there is always a close connection between any road and whatever travels on it. Most of our roads today began as animal tracks. Animals didn’t need motels, or scenic views. They bought no souvenirs, and never wrote home. And the routes they followed were not necessarily direct. So, people straightened them, smoothed them, and eventually sprinkled them with all manner of “facilities.” There had of course been railroads long before the first automobiles appeared in 1895. So the most important roads became those which led to and from the railroad stations. But then came a new factor – the bicycle. These “easy and graceful machines,” as they were described at the time, could theoretically go anywhere. But they had one great limitation. They needed a fairly smooth surface to ride on. It was, therefore, organized bicyclists, not motorists, who spearheaded the first widespread agitation for “Good Roads.” But the better the roads became, the more problems they helped to spread, especially when the Mass Automobile came along. A good example was a certain weed, known to botanists as Tribulus Terrestris, but which became unpleasantly familiar to motorists, especially in California, the most motorized State, as the “Puncture Vine.” The spiked seed pods of this plant were found to be a great menace to automobile tires. The irony was that this plant had not been at all common in California until cars began to proliferate. Then it was found to be spreading rapidly all over the state. The reason was, of course, that the cars themselves were spreading the pest, transporting its seeds on their tires from one area to another. No really satisfactory answer to this problem was ever found, until tires became less vulnerable. Many of the earlier roads were made for military purposes – but all people who used them were of course benefited. In my own days of youthful travel, much of which was by hitchhiking, one of my trips took me into the Highlands of Scotland where, in the troubled times of the 18th Century, a British Field Marshall named George Wade had been responsible for supervising the construction of roads penetrating some of the most rebellious regions. Upon one such thoroughfare, 18 – 25 June 2020
Degrees from Physics departments of MIT and UC Santa Barbara. Career in designing atomic-resolution microscopes. Childhood spent in Europe and the East of the US. Passion to understand the Big Questions of life and the universe. Duty to be a good citizen of the planet.
some grateful user placed this inscription to be seen by travelers: ad you seen this road before it was H made, You would lift up your hands, and bless General Wade. There must be something emotionally appealing about the metaphorical concept of a road, considering how often it appears in our songs and stories. A classic example is the Scottish song “Loch Lomond.” Many people aren’t aware that it’s based on a legend that, for Scots who die abroad, there is an underground pathway (“the Low Road”) by which their spirits return home. The song supposedly expresses the feelings of a Scottish leader who had been captured by the English, and was to be executed in London, to a friend who was free and would be taking “the High Road” back to Scotland. When you know this story, it gives added poignancy to the words “but I’ll be in Scotland before ye’.” On a much lighter note, there was a series of seven “Road” movies featuring Bob Hope and Bing Crosby. The destinations included Singapore, Zanzibar, and Morocco. One gag in one song from the latter film is the only line I can remember from any of them. It said, “Like Webster’s Dictionary, we’re Morocco bound.” Some routes endeared themselves to the public under particular names. Best-known in California since early Spanish days was the official “Royal Highway,” connecting all the Missions. To this day, parts of that route are still called by the original name, “El Camino Real.” When motoring became popular, a route was established in 1913 which went entirely across the U.S., from coast to coast. It was known affectionately as the Lincoln Highway – but that designation was eventually converted into various humdrum numbers. At least one of those numbered routes, however, acquired a cachet of its own. Route 66, which ran from Chicago to Los Angeles (and which, when 17, I hitchhiked along in 1951), became famous as the road followed by “Dust Bowl” refugees, celebrated in Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. Eventually it was bypassed by the Interstate Highway System – but certain forsaken portions still lure tourists who want to say they “got their kicks on Route 66.” •MJ
A Price for a Human Life?
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ew York Governor Cuomo said in March, “If it’s public health versus the economy, the only choice is public health. You cannot put a value on human life.” But public policy absolutely requires placing a value on human life. There are about 35,000 automobile deaths each year in the U.S. If we reduced the speed limit to perhaps 10MPH the death figure could be reduced to nearly zero. Clearly, policy makers have placed a price on human life. So, what is the price of a human life? There have been different measures over history. At one time the price was set by the earnings of the individual. This would be used in legal cases to assess a fair compensation to a family that lost its primary earner. This clearly would depend on the age of the earner and the potential for future earnings. But is that the best way to assign a price? What about when someone dies who was disabled and could not work. An actual court case ruled such a person is a liability and the family got zero. If we base the price on the individual value of a life, I might claim that the value of my own life is infinite and claim the value of others’ lives is something else. A more common value today is given by the “Value of a Statistical Life” or VSL. This is based on how much you would have to pay someone to raise their risk of death by a certain amount. Or how much they would be willing to pay to reduce their risk. It is hard to do a survey for this number, but we can observe what people actually choose. For example, how much more people are paid for taking extra risks on the job. This is called a “revealed preference.” The number reveals about $10 million per life. Private companies make risk assessments based on the penalties they might have to pay if something goes wrong. The case of the Ford Pinto is a famous example. Out of about two million Pintos, there were six horrific deaths due to poor placement of the fuel tank in rear end collisions. Ford calculated that it was cheaper to pay compensation for the deaths and injuries than to fix the problem. Governments can change these assessments by setting fines or other punitive damages. But in most cases these fines are smaller than the actual damages that are caused. In other
• The Voice of the Village •
cases the government simply mandates policies. For example, starting in 1968 all cars were required to have seatbelts for all passengers. U.S. healthcare policy is really an outlier among industrialized countries in that there is very little rational assessment of value of life. The U.S. spends about $3.5 trillion each year on healthcare, amounting to over $10,000 per person on average. But that average is misleading. About 5% of the population accounts for half of that spending. Meanwhile, about 30 million Americans have little or no access to healthcare. Britain has the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, called “NICE,” to rationally allocate money in its universal healthcare system. Their rulings are not always politically popular in individual cases. But their outcome statistics are better than ours in the U.S. Americans will rail against the very idea of “rationing” of healthcare. But what is the alternative to a rational allocation of resources? The U.S. rations healthcare, too. Just not very rationally. In the case of the coronavirus, we may have made a false dichotomy between the value of a human life and the economic costs. First of all, economic costs have real human costs. There is a direct correlation between higher unemployment rates and rates of suicide and domestic violence. But we can also look on the positive side: We could invest in proper disaster preparedness and avoid some of the economic impacts. Starting with adequate supplies of Personal Protective Equipment. We also could be investing in projects that need to be done, but always get sidelined for more immediate priorities. Over a trillion dollars was quickly printed at the start of the COVID-19 crisis and handed out as a stimulus. With no clear idea where that money would end up. The Green New Deal was first promoted during the last economic crisis as Obama ran for president. But little ever came of it. If we invested a trillion dollars in sustainable transportation and energy projects we would get the economic stimulus and keep people employed. But we would also get the benefit of solving the climate crisis and living in a healthier world. Perhaps that is the best value of life? •MJ MONTECITO JOURNAL
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