“Never ascribe to malice what can adequately be explained by stupidity.”–attributed to Napoleon
As I was out driving Prostate Washboard Road about 0-Dark-Thirty this ayem, I was once again reminded that the best intentions of even very intelligent, well-meaning people, urm, “gang aft agley“.
*heh*
Driving along on twisty-turny two-lane washboard of a road. High beams on, naturally. Another vehivle approaches and we both dim our lights, except… I turned mine completely off! You see, the engineers who designed the car put the on-off switch right on the end of the light stalk (how I often miss the old floor dimmer switch!) and it rotates very, very easily.
Right. Dimmed the beam and turned the lights off at the same time as I drew the light stalk–which is juuust far enough from the steering wheel to require removing ones hand from the steering wheel (on a twisty-turny two-lane road) to securely high/low beam–toward me to dim the headlamps.
Disconcerting? Yeh, and in slightly different circumstances potentially fatal.
I’m sure the design team carefully considered all the situations the average driver might encounter in average driving conditions, but it’s difficult to plan ahead to every circumstance, even more diffifult when planning for the “average person” in a diverse population, cos the “average Joe” DOES NOT EXIST. Such a person is simply a mental construct.
It’s even worse whenever politicians *spit*, bureaucrats, educrats or some other class that makes decisions affecting large numbers of people try to fix something they broke to begin with. The Law of Unintended Consequences insists that, however benign their intentions, however bright and capable individual politicians *spit*, bureaucrats, educrats, etc., may be, their meddling will always create proplems that did not exist before their intervention.
And, of course, savvy politicians *spit*, bureaucrats, educrats, etc., know this and simply consider it “job security”–though not aloud where those whose lives they’ve screwed around with can hear them.
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