You’ve heard the argument — typically from some vocal zealot short on any other merit to support his position.
We should do this thing even if it only benefits one person in a thousand.
Thus, highway speeds should be lowered to 35 MPH, if justified no more than by saving just one more life. Church doors should never be locked, if only to save the soul of just one midnight sinner otherwise lost. No idea should go unheard, in excruciating detail! during a brainstorming session, if only to allow that it may be that one in a thousand which turns out to be a moneymaker.
The problem is that none of these arguments takes consequence into account. For every choice, there is an alternative: A choice not made, no longer available.
Refusal to consider consequence does not negate the fact that lowering the speed limit will impact all sorts of lives, in all sorts of ways. It may save one life in a thousand. It may also impede commerce to such a degree that a greater multiple of other lives are lost because food, medical supplies, and disaster relief cannot be delivered timely.
An empty church that is left unlocked is at high risk for vandalism and looting, consequently leaving it unusable for an entire congregation. Hire security? That may come at the expense of missions programs. Or existing staff could simply be assigned “watch” duties — if you’re open to burning their candles at both ends.
If you’ve ever been in a free-for-all “team” meeting sans responsible structuring, I don’t need to tell you how quickly the intellectual and emotional contributions of your real horses will be snuffed by unbridled flights of fancy.
Of course there are some ideas that are bad even before they’ve crossed the speaker’s lips.
Time has value. Things exist as they do for reasons. All change comes at some cost. It’s not unkind, closed-minded, or greedy to acknowledge this.
On the other hand, the “if only for one in a thousand” conversation-stopper seems to me very much all of these things.
If a solution is truly the best, right way to go, then show all of us the respect of doing the homework, organizing a case for it, and making a logically persuasive argument based on real people, in a real world.
Show us real understanding of the sacrifices and consequences that are to be imposed on others. Be accountable, in the fullest sense of cost-to-benefit ratios.
Truly good ideas and needs met must be rise by their own merits, sans hyperbole.