Decibel #4
I’ve received some very nice responses to these publications. Thanks!
Please continue. It brings me smiles.
Reply All #158: the Case of the Missing Hit
An hour well spent hearing about the search for a song stuck in someone’s head.
Car Seats as Contraception
We estimate that these laws prevented only 57 car crash fatalities of children nationwide in 2017. Simultaneously, they led to a permanent reduction of approximately 8,000 births in the same year…
For every death prevented, they estimate that stricter car seat laws prevent 150 births.
The logic goes like this: it is difficult to put three car seats in many smaller cars, so for women who already have two young children, the decision to have another child might mean upsizing their car as well. The granularity of birthrate data combined with different municipalities passing different laws at different times allows them to find that the effect on third-child birth still persists through all of their controls.
I would be surprised if contraception was the intended effect of car seat laws. Humans tend to have a hubris about them when changing things. We change our environment, our governments, our social norms, lifestyles and more without knowing all of the effects of our actions. And how could we know? Our world is complicated. If we waited until we fully understood the ramifications of our actions, we would be paralyzed, unable to affect the world.
Instead, I encourage us to forge forward, but with a deep humble awareness of what we don’t know.
Slack
Slack, or the absence of binding constraints on behavior, is a useful term that I’ve been thinking about lately.
I’ve been on a sabbatical / fun-employment for the better part of a year now. One of the most precious parts of this time to me has been the slack. The freedom to spend my time as a please — to chase ideas I think are interesting, to visit people and places I find worthy, and to enjoy life. But Slack is about more than just free time.
Slack means margin for error. You can relax.
Slack allows pursuing opportunities. You can explore.You cantrade.
Slack permits planning for the long term. You can invest.
Slack enables doing things for your own amusement. You can *play games.*You can have fun.
Slack enables doing the right thing. Stand by your friends. Reward the worthy. Punish the wicked. You can have a code.
The interesting part will be maintaining that slack during times in my life with heavy work and commitment. Here are a few questions I aim to ask myself with such things: In what ways does this commitment take away my slack? Are the constraints self-imposed? Or is something real being taken away? Can I be honest here? Are there opportunities for error? Inside of the binds of the commitment, can I plan for the future? Is there room for fun and goofing off?
Sometimes we don’t have much choice in our life directions, but when we do, I think considering slack is worth it.
Extending the concept to relationships, if you take actions that reduce the slack in your relationship with someone, they might feel more bound to acting a certain way. Actions that increase slack would then be ones that provide the most opportunities for playful, relaxed, invested responses to arise. Relationships with slack allow the other person to be who they really are. It takes the expectations of the relationship and loosens them, maybe transforming them into hopes and desires.
Relationships full of slack aren’t synonymous with loving ones, but it feels closely related in a way I think is worth pondering.
RSS should also work.