Design and Organization

One of my better moves as a parent was organizing out the little Legos by color.

Before, when all the little Legos were mixed together, my 4 year old - who can follow Lego instructions - would have a difficult time finding the pieces to build whatever design he was going for. I spent a great deal of time helping him look for pieces.

It took a bit of time, but we separated all the little Legos into colors. Now, he can practically build all the designs by himself and almost never need help "finding a piece." What's more: he sees the logic in organization and will put the Legos away by color.

I consider this an unqualified success and an example of win-wins all around.

Can we as a society find some similar win-wins with respect to this goddamn coronavirus?

I've been thinking about this mask thing and I'm wondering if the government hasn't totally screwed the pooch in both directions. Why are we mandating mask wearing? It's a stupid mandate because it can't really be enforced, can it? What we should have always been doing is encouraging mask wearing.

At first our government warned in the complete wrong direction by suggesting we don't wear masks. Perhaps this was the single stupidest thing the government did -- by undermining an easy, costless solution that people were already prone to do. Now, we're mandating masks in certain places - an unenforceable edict - that is building deserved resentment.

You don't get people to wear masks by force. You can't defeat this coronavirus by force. We need sensible, measure solutions that protect against the worst outcomes.