In a comment replying to MikeP about my post “Preach What You Practice,” September 20, 2021, I made the point that acting rationally often involves going along with something that doesn’t make sense because the penalties are substantial.
I wrote:
Something that helps me deal with government in these situations is to think of it as a big angry bear. That helps me not moralize too much and, instead, to just remember to focus on how to survive and thrive around the big angry bear. That’s why I pay the incredibly high taxes I pay; it’s why I don’t bother fighting expensive traffic tickets for driving in ways that endangered no one; etc.
It’s not just government. I find that going along with other things that don’t make sense is often a good idea when others can impose substantial costs.
A case in point is my flight yesterday from San Francisco to Washington Dulles airport. When a friend had asked me on the phone the day before if I was looking forward to being in Washington, I said I was but I wasn’t looking forward to being on a long flight and having to wear a mask. When he found out I was flying United, he reassured me that he had flown back from Hawaii a week or two earlier and the mask rule had not been enforced, with about half of the passengers not masking.
I told him that I would do what I normally do: get on the flight with my mask beneath my nose and see if anyone said anything. She did. The flight attendant told me in no uncertain terms to put my mask over my nose. So I did.
When I was seated in an aisle seat, I told the guy beside me that I had had 2 Covid vaccine shots and that I was more comfortable with the mask below my nose, but that if he wanted me to, I would wear it over my nose. He told me he didn’t care.
So I placed it beneath my nose. But about 20 minutes into the flight, the woman across the aisle from me said, “Please wear your mask.”
What to do? I realized that she held all the cards. If I refused, she would almost certainly call the flight attendant, who, whatever her own view of enforcement, would feel compelled to enforce. They had said twice over the PA system that failure to comply could result in a prison sentence. So I kept my mask on and took it off whenever I drank, and I drank in little sips, and whenever I ate peanuts, which I did a few at a time. And I put my mask beneath my nose the two times that the woman across went to the bathroom.
I didn’t focus on my anger at her, which was only momentary. I just decided to see her as an angry bear. So I didn’t waste time thinking about revenge, thinking about nasty things to say, etc. That would have taken energy and taken away from the good feelings I was having about the trip.
Of course, there was a government component at the root of this. The airline would probably not have enforced the rule and certainly wouldn’t have able to threaten a prison sentence if President Biden had not required masks.
READER COMMENTS
Frank
Sep 23 2021 at 3:50pm
I think the efficient solution is to certainly allow an enterprise to require masks and/or vaccinations, or business attire, or green bandanas, but not vast governments. It is wrong for States [I believe there are two] which forbid enterprises to require vaccinations and masks [unless enterprises could buy themselves out].
Turning the regime around, suppose the federal government required vaccinations and/or masks. Maybe that’s the actual airline case. Fine for efficiency if one could buy oneself out of the mask/vaccine mandate! 🙂
David Seltzer
Sep 23 2021 at 6:03pm
Good advice. I back packed in Glacier National park for two weeks some years ago. Grizzly Bears were common and in the highly incentivized self-interest of survival, I did the best I knew how to avoid encountering or annoying them. I fully accepted the risk of being a guest in their environment. BUT! I also carried a 45 caliber weapon in case the angry bear tried to impose his will.
Thomas Lee Hutcheson
Sep 24 2021 at 6:42am
I guess that the optimal reduction of spread on a flight of fully vaccinated passengers doe not require 100% to be masked. So why not let airlines price no-mask seats as the do those with extra leg room?
David Henderson
Sep 24 2021 at 6:56am
Good idea.
Alan Goldhammer
Sep 24 2021 at 8:50am
This only works if you trust the airplane ventilation system and have restrictions on passenger movement in and out of un-vaxxed sections.
suddyan
Sep 26 2021 at 8:20am
[Alan Goldhammer says: This only works if you trust the airplane ventilation system and have restrictions on passenger movement in and out of un-vaxxed sections.]
Don’t you trust your wonderful vaccine to protect you?
WHy else would you have allowed them to inject you full of stuff!
Matthias
Sep 26 2021 at 8:58pm
The vaccine is not a 100% protection.
Just like seat belts in cars don’t protect 100%, but are still useful.
Alan Goldhammer
Sep 24 2021 at 8:49am
It may be that David has the wrong style of mask. When we flew out to California back in the Spring (also on United) we both wore nice fitting Honeywell masks with filters. I didn’t feel inconvenienced at all. I’ve also been singing at choir rehearsals with a mask on and it’s OK as well.
The fundamental problem is that there is not a vaccine mandate for air travel. If everyone on the plane had to show proof of vaccination, the mask mandate could be eliminated. One reason some Euro countries are in better shape than the US right now is because of vaccine mandates. Friends just got back from Tuscany where there is very little Covid. Masks are required and vax regulations are in place as well.
MikeP
Sep 24 2021 at 2:47pm
The fundamental problem is that we are not over COVID yet.
In hindsight, COVID was never the public health emergency it was feared it was, yet every day we are treating it more ridiculously than ever.
What was the count from last summer? 44 cases traced to catching it on an airplane out of millions of passenger-flights? And that was before mask insanity and any vaccines.
Since the air is rapidly changed over and filtered, airplanes are about the safest place you can be.
Thomas Lee Hutcheson
Sep 25 2021 at 6:45pm
I don’t think the external costs of and infected person infecting other people was overestimated at all. What the optimal way of “taxing” that externality was is still not clear. Closing outdoor recreation was too much. Closing businesses by category rather than by spread characteristics (which the firm might have been able to change) was a mistake. Indoor masking was almost certainly cost effective. Once vaccines became available a daily fee for non-vaccinated status would have been a good idea.
suddyan
Sep 26 2021 at 8:23am
[Alan Goldhammer says: The fundamental problem is that there is not a vaccine mandate for air travel. If everyone on the plane had to show proof of vaccination, the mask mandate could be eliminated.]
“[P]roof of vaccination” sounds so much like “show me your papers.”
I wonder how Alan would have “responded” as a citizen to the mandates from the “duly elected government in charge” in pre-WWII Germany.
G Holt
Oct 7 2021 at 3:06am
Sounds like Robert Frank
”Passions within reason” :
many of the situations you describe can be characterized as an “Ultimatum Game”.
Angry bear is a precommitment strategy (cf. Thomas Schelling) to extract more surplus from you – even if you are the first mover. Interestingly, strong emotions (ex : valuing “fairness”) allows the second mover in an ultimatum game to obtain more than epsilon (scraps) via pre-commitment. A rational actor needs to take account of the less rational / precommitted actor’s likely response or they will receive less. A perfectly rational actor lacking the ability to otherwise precommit ironically does worse, gets epsilon (scraps) and happily accepts it.
Interesting lesson from game theory for our times…
Comments are closed.