Information security, recycling and irony

[Ben Scott]

On 2/2/06, fj1200 at comcast.net <fj1200 at comcast.net> wrote:
> Penn & Teller, might not be experts, but here is an interesting article to read
> http://www.williams.edu/HistSci/curriculum/101/garbage.html

  The one comment I'll make on recycling in this forum is that many of
the analyses I've seen (including that one) speak only in terms of
present-day monetary costs to do things -- e.g., cost of process to
recycle vs cost to dump in the ground.  I am not the only one who
feels that approach omits critical criteria.

  Complexity also plays a huge role, and not just in recycling, or
even just economics.  Any time you attempt to change some aspect of a
system, you are practically always going to change other things, and
often not realize some of them.  This is often called "The Law of
Unintended Consequences".  Anyone designing secure protocols has
encountered this problem!  :-)

  Some choice quotes (I do like quotes, and think they are useful):

  "You can't do just one thing." (variously attributed)

  "When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to
everything else in the Universe." --  John Muir

-- Ben