It Doesn’t Matter . . . Eventually and Almost Always
A paradox concerning the meaning of details
This is not a post about economics. But I am going to use an economics analogy.
There is a maxim in macroeconomics that nominal variables matter in the short run not the long run. This is often described in terms of money being neutral in the long run.
A large, unexpected increase in inflation will certainly cause the prices of goods to change (that's what inflation is), but it won't affect real variables like productivity. More money chasing the same number of goods and services will not make us able to produce more goods and services in the long run. In the short run all kinds of changes can and will occur as inflation is very distortive—in the short run. Eventually we simply settle into a higher nominal price for everything, and life goes on.
I think we can apply this more broadly in life: Unless something is exceptionally great or horrible, it is all the same in the long run.
The changes and events of today seem and may in fact be huge, but that is here in the short run. In the long run they will fade in importance as we adjust to the new and life goes on.
Back to the economics analogy: The price of the average consumer item in 1979 was double what it was in 1970. This was painful and distortive at that time; yet those dramatic changes in price levels don't seem to have had any affect on long-run real production of goods and services.
Everything is details. Zoom in closely enough, and these details are huge. Or they seem huge. Eventually they are just details. And eventually details don’t matter. Except obviously details do matter.
So it is a bit of a paradox.
Consider two maxims:
Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
If you take care of the small things, the big things take care of themselves.
There is some tension between them as well as some complement.
In certain aspects of life every second counts. Consider the world-changing Apollo program. So many, many things had to be so finely tuned for it to be successful. And yet failure would not have meant we wouldn’t be basically where we are today more or less. We very likely would still have a space program(s) and be regularly going to and sending equipment into space.
In other aspects of life intolerance for flaws drastically limits potential. Consider the lessons from Adam Mastroianni in his EconTalk interview on Peer Review and the Academic Kitchen.
I think this is a unique set of trade-offs in science: that, I'm not willing to give up the best in order to prevent some of the worst.
I feel differently about my doctor, for instance. I care a lot about going to a doctor that isn't going to harm me. And so, I'm willing to give up some of the best doctors if it means I get to prevent some of the worst doctors.
I just think science works differently, and that in the long term, the truth wins out. I think that's been true historically. And so, what we want to do, I think, is actually increase the variance of the work that we do, because the bad stuff basically ends up not mattering in the long run and the good stuff changes the world.
In the here and now risk/return, cost/benefit matters . . . greatly. Ruination is game over. This is Nassim Taleb’s comparison between a man crossing the street and humanity crossing the street.
My point is that humanity almost never is crossing the street. It is basically always just one person or small group at a time. So back to Mastroianni, don’t sacrifice the best ideas for the sake of preventing the worst ideas. Doing so retards progress and lowers the long-term trajectory. The gain is inconsequential.
Good things are better than less good things which are better than bad things, but these are small, compounding effects. Even extremely tragic events that indeed can scar us for life or set us on a new trajectory (good or bad, but these things are almost always bad) still do fade into the background radiation of our past.
It is up to us move the journey along.
P.S. My son had this figured out at a young age.