Multi-Tasking

Here's today's purported wisdom from CAtO (i.e. Me): People can devote resources to more than one thing. For example, they may decide to do more cooking for themselves, and also decide to do more reading. People can also support more than one concept or idea. For example, they might support measures to fight poverty, and also support electoral reform. From the above premises, It follows that people can devote resources to more than one thing they support. For example, they might write a donation to the united way to fight poverty, and write a letter to the editor at a newspaper arguing in favour of electoral reform.

All seems pretty obvious, no?

And while this is true for people , it is even more true for organizations, such as government, which can draw upon the resources of many people.

So what is my point?

My point is that if people are discussing whether or not women should be allowed to compete in ski-jumping at the Olympics, and you argue that we shouldn't even be discussing this until women are free from severe oppression in the Middle East, you are an idiot.

Similarly, if people are discussing fighting global warming, and you argue that we shouldn't do anything until we have solved Africa's governance problems and eradicted poverty there, you are also an idiot.

In general, when you argue that people shouldn't talk about x because x is a distraction from problem y, odds are you are an idiot. I say 'odds are', because there are some situations where things really are (somewhat) mutually exclusive, and a focus on one area really does prevent/limit action on another, and it's true that individual people don't have unlimited resources but cases where there is really a constraint in action are rare enough, in my opinion, that I feel comfortable making the general statements above.

People do not get together and identify the most pressing issue facing the world (as if they could even agree), devote all resources and efforts to solving it and then move on to the second most pressing problem and solve it and so on. Arguing that we need to solve problem Y before we solve problem X is just a recipe for getting nowhere on either. The world just doesn't work that way.