When Horrible Impossibilities Seem Certain to Happen

When a choice is being considered, it is useful to think of the range of possible consequences that might follow from it. One heuristic strategy is to examine the most probable consequences; if the most probable consequences are not good, then reject the choice. If the most probable consequences are all right, then you consider what else might happen, especially looking for outcomes that would be highly negative. Almost any choice has the potential to backfire on you, you should be aware of how that might happen.

I don't want to get too technical here, but one kind of rational choice model would have you take the product of each outcome's value (negative or positive) times its probability, sum them up, and if the sum is positive you accept the choice, otherwise reject it.

Decision theorists have identified all kinds of ways that people distort this rational process. We overestimate the probabilities of vivid things and things that we have seen or thought about recently, for instance.

There is a phenomenon we have dealt with fairly often here in Montgomery County, both in evaluating the sex-ed curriculum and in considering the law prohibiting discrimination against transgender people. In considering a decision, people will identify the very most negative outcome possible, and act as if that outcome is certain to happen. There is another example in the news this week.

So -- we were told that teaching about sexual orientation will directly result in students getting AIDS. People submitted legal court documents saying the school district would be liable when that happens, and the county would go bankrupt when the lawsuits hit. If county residents can't discriminate against their transgender neighbors, we were told, pedophiles and predators will lurk in women's shower-rooms, molesting our innocent wives and daughters.

See how that works? These outcomes are so improbable as to be impossible, yet some people focus on them, acting as if they are sure to happen. A county Republican leader told the County Council that the new gender-identity nondiscrimination law was going to result in "little girls ... showing up dead all over the county because of freaks of nature." That outcome was impossible: he was sure it was going to happen.

I was trying to think of a name for this phenomenon, but haven't come up with anything I'm happy with.

There was another example this week. Maybe you saw the news about the Massachusetts school district that was going to provide free condoms to students. Here's Fox News:

When the school board in Provincetown, Mass., voted unanimously on June 8 to provide free condoms to all students in the district without parental notification, no one in the audience objected.

In fact, no one thought much about it.

The school’s health advisory committee, relying on respected studies, worried that children were becoming sexually active at ever younger ages, and it believed protection was the best policy. The proposal had been on the agenda for weeks, and it had been discussed in open session and on local cable channels.

No one objected. In fact, no one thought much of it, says Beth Singer, the school superintendent.

Even after passage, she said, she had only one phone call -- from a parent who wanted to know when it would go into effect so she could talk to her kids about it.

But then on Thursday, the world took notice.

A FOX station in Boston ran a story Wednesday night titled “Condoms at School,” and that's when Singer said everything changed.

By 2 in the morning, the Massachusetts Family Institute hastily issued a statement saying: "Making condoms available to first graders bullies parents to submit to an agenda that promotes sexual promiscuity to innocent children at their most vulnerable age.

"The Provincetown school committee's decision to force this radical and absurd policy demonstrates the lengths to which some will go to emasculate parents' rights and undermine the notion of encouraging children to delay sexual activity.”

Kris Mineau, the Institute's president, called the school board's policy “absurd” and suggested parents file suit to overturn the policy.

Stories in the Boston morning papers and even national media outlets screamed that first graders were going to get condoms on Cape Cod, and calls from as far away as California began pouring in in opposition to the policy, which requires students to request the condoms from the school nurse, who will also provide counseling and information on birth control, including abstinence. The nurse can also deny condoms to students for many reasons, including age. Condoms for First Graders? School Board's Decision Sparks Firestorm in Massachusetts

For some reason, every telling of this news story focused on the idea of first grade students getting condoms. The condoms were being made available to all students, K through 12 I presume. It's not a bad idea, of course, there are high school students and even seventh and eight grade kids having sex, I don't like it any more than you do but it happens. If they go to the nurse's office and ask for a condom they might get one, plus a lecture about birth control, including abstinence, unless the nurse decides not to give them one.

The obvious fact is, this was for the older students. They don't ask their parents' permission when they decide to have sex, and if they have to ask their parents for a condom they simply won't get one. It's really common sense. If they're having sex, it is better to be protected from infection and pregnancy, and no kid living at home is going to ask their parents for condoms. At least no kid I ever heard of.

But what is the bottom end of the age range? That is hard to say. High school, okay, a lot of people lose their virginity in high school, it would be reasonable to offer them protection. Middle school? The question is not how long do we wish they'd wait, the question is when are they starting to have sex, in reality, and some middle school students will be sexually active, that's just a fact.

It is not necessary to set an arbitrary youngest age for condom distribution, if a kid doesn't need one he won't ask for one. First graders don't need condoms and won't ask for them, so there is no reason to say they can't have them. It just wouldn't occur to a first-grader to ask the nurse for a condom. A sixth grader? Sadly, maybe. This isn't a license to have sex, it's something for the safety of those young people who are doing it.

Every news story focused on the first-graders. Everybody agrees, it would be shocking if the schools were helping six year old children protect themselves and their partners during sexual intercourse, it would be terrible. Nobody wants the schools to give condoms to first graders, not even liberals, believe it or not.

How many first graders even know what a condom is? Oh, there might be a dare by an older sibling, there might even be a hope to acquire materials for the coolest water balloon ever. But realistically, the schools were not going to give condoms to first graders. They "could" have done it, in the sense that you "could" jump off a cliff if you wanted, but they weren't going to.

Why would people think of the worst possible scenario, even though its probability approximates zero, and act as if this scenario is a certainty? I saw CNN talking about the schools giving condoms to first-graders, fer cryin out loud. Why would anyone think that way?

Today we have a new AP story. Moronic thinking prevails again:

The superintendent of a Massachusetts school district is apologizing to parents for what she calls a misunderstanding over a condom availability policy.

Superintendent Beth Singer said in the letter e-mailed Tuesday that the district will clarify that elementary school-age students won't be able to get a condom if they request one from the school nurse.

The Cape Cod Times reports that she wrote it became necessary to revise the wording after it was "so badly understood and misrepresented by the media."

The policy is set to take effect in the fall and appeared to set no minimum age for students to receive condoms without parental consent. The policy drew criticism from conservative groups as well as Democratic Gov. Deval (deh-VAHL') Patrick. No condoms for grade schoolers, Mass. schools say

There should be a name for the cognitive strategy of thinking of some incredibly unlikely consequence, inventing stories about how that outcome can become a certainty, and then asserting that those stories are true.