The liquid world

William Saletan’s article in Slate about the liquid world makes some thoughtful points about our current woes in fighting terrorism. The idea of treating a threat with a 1% chance of success the same as a 95% chance of success is an unworkable solution and at some point we as a nation will have to face that.

…some of us die. And the rest of us grieve, but we go on, doing our best to fight the bad guys and heal the world. The grieving and fighting and healing never end the dying.

He’s saying the above about terrorism but he could just as well be saying it about our healthcare situation, or any number of other national policy issues.

He closes with a quote from Charles Darwin that carries an elevated poignancy since it not only applies to our struggle with terrorism but the seemingly eternal struggle between the scientist who struggles to understand the world on his own terms and the zealot who will only look at the world in someone else’s terms.

It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.