Innovation

One of the characteristics of a free civilization is innovation. Finding new solutions to problems that come up. In fact, in a free society, new problems are an opportunity. If you can come up with a solution—a way to help people with a given problem—then you get shown appreciation for that, often in the form of payment to represent the value. But, regardless of immediate payback, innovation happens, because free people have an attitude of looking for ways to meet the needs of others.

That kind of thing has been going on during this pandemic crisis.

There have been calls for the president to invoke the war powers act, which technically he has done. But, as he says, and as the Surgeon General has reiterated, you don’t have to order people to do what they’re doing anyway.

Here are some of the solutions to problems that have been offered.

Ford Motor Company—also GM and Tesla—offered to build ventilators to meet the shortage. Because of air conditioning, heating, and circulation systems they build into cars, they just need to do a bit of retooling. 

What’s interesting is that it’s something they knew about their industry, when they recognized society’s need, that a central government planner would not have known. If government had needed to choose an industry to gear up and make more ventilators, it probably would have turned to the obvious—the manufacturers already building those things. But those companies are probably already functioning at near their capacity, which was built on what had been the demand for their supply. They would have had to build new factories from the ground up. Auto manufacturers just have to retool their existing manufacturing, to adapt toward producing the needed ventilators. No new buildings necessary. They offer, and the President says go for it, and thank you.

It’s a win-win. Rather than shutting down their facilities, because shutdowns caused by the virus had led to fewer people buying cars, the automakers can keep people working to produce something considered essential.

New Dyson-invented ventilator
image from here

Dyson, the vacuum cleaner manufacturer, also went into innovation mode. In just ten days they invented a new ventilator—adapted from the air-moving machine they already know so well—and are set to produce 15,000. Thank you, vacuum cleaner people; government hadn’t thought of you. 

Innovation is underway everywhere. In hospitals, where ventilators are in use, Dr. Alain Gauthier, an anesthetist in Ontario, Canada, thought, “What if this one ventilator could be adapted to serve more than one person at a time? Does it produce enough air pressure?” The answer was yes. With ten minutes of “evil geniusing,” he turned a single ventilator into one that could serve nine patients.   Dr. Gauthier brought the knowledge to bear, but he didn’t invent it; he watched a YouTube video that showed how two Detroit doctors reworked the machines back in 2006. Not all machines can provide that much added capacity; nine is an ultimate. But even doubling or tripling the usefulness of a single machine is a significant improvement.

tweet from a coworker of Dr. Gauthier
found here

Another problem in need of a solution is a shortage of surgical masks. I checked online the first day I heard about the virus spreading—back in January. Amazon was sold out. They let you put a note on your account to be notified when they become available again. So far they haven’t. That’s OK for me; I’m not a medical professional. In a pinch, I think we’re good with a few painting masks in the garage—which, by the way, are being used now by hospitals, since that is a perfectly adequate new source in a shortage.

A high school friend is a quilter, and posted
these masks on her Facebook page.

Someone came up with the idea of sewing surgical masks, and they put out a pattern. They may not be as safe for healthcare workers as the N-95, but they will be better than running out and may be adequate for less critical care. Quilters and crafters have been using their fabric scraps and sudden abundance of time to fill the demand for face masks—with color. And they’re using social media to find sources to get them where they can get used.

Just setting your mind to a problem is a way toward solving it. Back in 2017, here in Houston, we were using a whole lot of N-95 masks when mucking out flooding homes, to keep from breathing in mold spores and other illness-causing things. Our church was one of many to send out work teams, and our worldwide relief efforts supplied a lot of supplies. (We still have a generator at our house, supplied by the Church, from Hurricane Ike, for example.) And they continue to do that worldwide. 

Anyway, a stake president (leader over around ten congregations) in College Station, about an hour and a half from Houston, remembered that they had stored a box of supplies at the church building after Harvey relief. Our churches aren’t really set up for storing things, but many of them do have yellow Helping Hands shirts and a few leftover supplies in a box because of frequent disasters in the Gulf Coast region. That box came to mind when he became aware of the N-95 mask shortage. And, sure enough, there was a good supply of several hundred he was able to donate to local hospitals.

The way a free society is set up, people tend to think in terms of solving people’s problems. It’s what we do. And I’m happy to see that, so far during this pandemic, that’s what people are up to. If we keep it up, we’ll be out of this soon, and back to our regular lives—with maybe a little better appreciation for the innovators and problem solvers. And our free lives.

Contrasting Civilization and Savagery in Ferguson

It has been a week now since the verdict came from the grand jury in Ferguson, MO, not to indict police officer Darren Wilson. I watched the press announcement by the district attorney (video and transcript available through C-SPAN). He was clear; he was thorough. He also provided a packet of material, including pretty much every iota of information set before the grand jury (available here).

Robert McCulloch, St. Louis, MO, Prosecutor
photo from here

There were, in the streets, people waiting for the announcement without the details. They did not want to know why a grand jury would not indict; they wanted an excuse to riot.

We have here the contrast between civilization and savagery.

Civilization abides by the law, and when it sees unfairness in the law, seeks to change the law through the appropriate process at the appropriate level for that law.

Savagery breaks the law and blames society for the negative consequences, and breaks more laws in defiance of their civilizing purpose.

It is a tragedy that a young man had to die. But I haven’t heard a single good suggestion on how to change a broken system—or even anything broken about the system. A very large young man, on drugs, robs a store, shoving the (Asian) store owner on his way out with unpaid-for merchandise. Minutes later, when a report of the robbery is being sent to police officers nearby, he’s walking down the middle of the street, where he will attract the attention of law enforcement. He doesn’t take direction to get out of the street, but reaches in to a police vehicle, attacks the officer, goes for his gun, threatens his life.

When the officer shoots, still with the perpetrator looming over him within the police car, the man begins to run away. He has just represented himself as a threat; it is the officer’s duty to pursue to see where he goes, particularly because this is near residential areas; people could be harmed by this man. In Officer Wilson’s statement, he never intended to apprehend the big, dangerous man alone. He had called for backup and was just keeping eye contact. But Michael Brown turned around and started coming at the officer.

Considering the previous attempt on the officer’s life, just moments before, there were a lot of things the officer could fear: another physical attack that might knock him out; losing control of the weapon and having it used on him and on other innocent civilians. He fired several rounds at the charging man. He saw a flinch, so he knew he had hit him. He paused. Michael Brown didn’t do the normal thing—stop, hold up his empty hands, surrender. After being shot, he continued to charge at the officer. He kept charging, despite additional bullet wounds. Nothing stopped him but the final head shot—when he was within three yards of the officer.

Unarmed does not mean not dangerous. Clearly this man was dangerous and was exhibiting threatening behavior. Would it have been nice if we had some sort of instantaneous tranquilizer gun, instead of real bullets? Maybe. But when you’re up against a criminal with real bullets, you might not want to risk a slow response to his getting hit. And you might not know in the moment all the details that get examined after the fact. So officers carry guns, and I think we’re in agreement that’s for our protection and theirs.

What about Tasers? Good in some circumstances. But you have to be quite close, with all circumstances right. And there is always a chance they could still cause death. So I’m still waiting to hear what problem exists with the system.

There was one sure, certain way this tragedy could have been avoided: Michael Brown could have behaved less like a thuggish threat and more like a civilized human being.

He could have raised his hands to show he had no weapon. He could have respectfully obeyed the officer. He would probably still be alive if he had done everything wrong except for charging at Officer Wilson even after receiving bullet wounds. Stopping at any point would have saved his life.

The circumstances would have been the same if a man of a different color had behaved as Michael Brown did. It’s sad that this young man didn’t get straightened out in time to see a better future. But his choices that day made it so that any police officer simply doing his job would follow essentially the same procedures as Officer Wilson.

It would have been a travesty to put this officer on trial when all the evidence validated his version and discounted the contradictory eye-witness accounts. (Witness 10 corroborates, for example. Paul Cassell, for Volokh Conspiracy, a law blog, discusses that here.)

There has been discussion about how rare it is for a DA not to recommend an outcome for the jury. There’s some context for that. Usually a DA is certain he has enough evidence for probable cause—and probably for an eventual conviction. The grand jury is there to make sure there’s not corruption in the process; the DA must actually have the evidence. In this case the DA knew he did not have sufficient evidence to prosecute the officer. In normal circumstances (i.e., without the media circus and riot instigation), the officer would simply have been examined and dismissed, since he followed procedure. The grand jury was only used in this case to satisfy those claiming an injustice had been done. If the DA simply dismissed, the complaints could continue. (Paul Cassell again gives a good rundown of the grand jury procedure, here. Cassell has spent the week going through the reports. He also has good commentary on the self-defense argument and the supporting physical evidence.)

What is puzzling in the aftermath is to see, in the face of clear evidence, that a “tribe” of racist blacks, mainly, insist on demonstrating their displeasure through rioting, looting, burning—of unrelated business people. (We talked about “tribalism” last month, including mentioning this case. It’s worth a re-read.) One store taken down the first night was a cake decorating shop, owned by a young black woman, who had saved up after starting small and mobile, and had put everything into her business, opening up just in June.

First of all, the narrative about this case being anti-black is bogus; it’s about someone being prevented from acting savagely among civilized people. People who do what Michael Brown did don't get a pass just because of their skin tone. Second, how does it prove society is unfair and uncivilized to blacks when blacks go out afterward and savagely cause mayhem? It doesn’t. And third, targeting innocent businesses—even black-owned ones—is a particularly ineffective way of claiming society is unfair to these otherwise deserving blacks. “We’re more civilized than you, and that’s what we’re showing you by going out and destroying random property.” Hmm.

But one thing I’d like to point out here is that love of goodness—love of fellow human beings, love of civilization—will win. We have seen some stories this week.

As Mr. Rogers is quoted as saying, “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’” That is true now, as in any civilization.

image found on Pinterest

One example concerns Natalie Debose, the cake decorator whose place was trashed. Online, people started gathering money to help her rebuild, and last report I read the crowdsourcing had raise $140,000 for her, without government help.

One example is a group of four young black men, who armed themselves and descended on a business—to protect it from the rioters. Some confusion ensued, and the business owner had to validate to police that they were there to help. So it took more than a little bravery on their part. But they saw good that needed doing, and they did it.

Another story mentioned a woman who stood up to armed thugs about to attack a Papa John’s pizza shop. She wasn’t the owner, didn’t even work there. She just saw where the thugs were headed and stood up to them. I don’t know her name (or even her race), but she’s very brave.

Standing up against tyranny—including the chaotic kind—is what civilized people do. Civilized people think, build, love, and stand strong. Savages gnash their teeth, hate, hurt, and destroy.

The civilized world is a better place to live. Anyone willing to live the rules that bring about civilization is welcome to live among the civilized.