Hasbeen,
"who thought they had done a good job"

That is interesting. Done a good job over what time span?

One day, one month, one year, or over one decade?

And done a good job in what area. Maths, science, English or none of these.

Hard science is more reliable, while soft science is now so unreliable and hijacked for political purposes it is hardly worth spending any money on.

Education is supposed to inform people so that they can make better decisions, but education is being slowly hijacked, and information is being left out or hidden.

EG.
While temperature readings at ground level have apparently increased, atmospheric temperatures have not, but this is seldom stated by those who want to push the climate change agenda.

EG.
In the area of sociology, everything has to conform to feminist theory with nothing good said about the male gender, and anything to do with sociology is now a waste of time and money.

Large amounts of information is being left out of both research and education to suit political purposes.

But when information is left out or hidden, few if any experts can be formed, and few if any accurate predictions or worthwhile decisions can be made.

My apologies, then, to Jennifer Sinclair for picking on the title.

>Pericles I am responsible for the word "horrid", from the little girl who was very very good, but when she was bad she was horrid<<

But that's all.

Complex problem-solving in my experience tends to be organic, rather than mechanical. Occasionally, a consensus approach may work, but more often - far more often, in fact - up to 49% of the people around the table will be required to leave dissatisfied.

This is a natural consequence of our being thinking human beings, with different levels of education, different wants and needs, different human experiences, different ages - the list of differences is almost endless.

To attempt a codification of those differences is far from being a futile exercise, however, as it might have value in helping to understand what ultimately drives a decision, should one be forthcoming.

But as far as it being useful in actually reaching that decision, I have grave doubts, given the information provided in this article.

Jon J's first post is the funniest EVER post on OLO. Cheers!

Jennifer says that smallpox was a “ simple problem because once an antidote was discovered, a public immunisation program resolved the issue”.

It rather spoils her neat little story but it needs to be pointed out that the vaccine was developed & administered by a few states, often aptly called "donor nations" –and the rest of the world simply free rode—and so it has been with most other health initiatives.

Climate change , because it has been reframed by the proponents of AGW to mean anything from famine to floods to fierce bush fires is not likely to be solved anytime soon.

Though, I have no doubt that any solutions for pollution or alternate energies that are found are likely to come from the same few nations that produced the smallpox vaccine.

The majority of nations and special interest groups need not have bothered to have turned up to happenings like Copenhagen or Calcun. The only special “knowledges” they had revolved around how many freebies they could extort.

Squeers
So if only we could kill of a few thousand million people and live at a subsistence level THEN what an earthly paradise government control of everything would be?

Squeers, no-one appointed you to be the judge of everyone else's happiness.