At minimum, I spreadsheet my big decisions. I put in all my known factors: budget, TCO, alternatives, a weighted list of pros and cons (weights according to factors important to me or ability to solve the problem at hand), etc.

For really big decisions, I build a decision tree with dynamic branches. For example, when buying my most recent house, i had inputs for interest rate, points, house inspector rating, cost to move my sailboat to my house, average luminous flux received, etc. Data in these fields adjust other fields like TCO and budget, which then shift the decision tree one way or another.

It’s excessive, but I do it this way to help me avoid missing some big variable.

I just finished reading Neil Postman’s book last week. This is an absolute must-read for everyone. I can’t own a lot of hardcopy books because of space, but this is going to become one of them.

Fully agreed. One of the significant contradictions of democracy in the US is that it was largely shaped by various forms of illegal civil disobedience against entrenched power structures. Such civil disobedience is retrospectively seen as justified, committed by people who are retrospectively seen as heroes. But each successive generation is demanded to believe that any further civil disobedience is unreasonable.

Just a small selection of a long history of US civil disobedience:

• Boston Tea Party
• Great Railroad Strike
• Haymarket aaffair
• Battle of Blair Mountain - largest armed insurrection in America since the Civil War
• Selma to Montgomery Marches

There is a lot we get to take for granted from our comfortable, privileged perches built with the blood and tears of those who would perform civil disobedience.

So, you’re saying you don’t want those RAGBRAI dollars. Welp, we’re more than happy to stop spending that money all the way across your state.