Priorities
Let’s review some recent prioritizations we appear to have made as a society.
| Acceptable | Unacceptable |
|---|---|
| Buying a child a video game that is won by committing murders and selling drugs. | Buying a child a video game that contains a carefully-hidden glimpse of texture-mapped sex. |
| Changing the temperature of our planet, with results that are likely to be spectacularly bad | It is difficult to find a parking space in the Court House area of Arlington, Virginia after 9 o’clock in the evening. |
| Compromising the identity of an undercover intelligence agent | Uttering a bad word on national television. |
Are we losing the ability to prioritize? Or did we ever have it?
Matt tells the charming story of how he once was given a long list of tasks to complete at work. He asked his boss to rank the tasks in terms of importance so that he could prioritize the work. His boss proceeded to write “high” next to every task.