You're arguing for some sort of political change -- in this case health care reform -- based on statistics and personal experience.

Yes, personal experience and statistics are very important in setting public policy. And heck, make the government do anything you want it to do. But that's not what I'm talking about.

Let's say you run a company with ten thousand workers. But they seem unhappy. One day a VP comes in and tells you that 30% of the workers are not able to read as much as they would like to stay current with their job.

So you, wise person that you are, implement a free book program. The next month the number hasn't changed much. So querying further, you find out that folks don't have enough time to read the books -- it's not that they can't afford them. So you implement extra time off on Fridays so folks can read.

Months later, no change. This time you bring in a comittee of experts. After much investigation, they find out that folks would rather play golf than read, and the extra time has just been spent on leisure activities instead of the reading. So you implement a program where folks can read at work on Friday afternoons.

Months later, no change. This time it turns out that the books they are reading are not job-related. So, after bringing in an expensive outside consulting team, you decide to put video cameras in the office...

What's happening? Are these people just lazy or what? Is management stupid? How many times do we have to set up the conditions where more reading can take place?

Two things have happened. First, you've confused the statistic with the individuals. The 30% who want to read more aren't necessarily the same as the ones playing golf, which aren't necessarily the same as the ones reading other books. But in your mind they're all the same.

You see, all you have is a metric, an aggregation of data. It's not like there's any one universal person out there -- everybody is unique. The system is made up of great variations in motives, ability, and circumstances. Teams of people work because they are all different, not because they are all the same.

But you'll keep on measuring, and keep on poking around, and the numbers will never do what you want them to do. Why? Because top-down, statistics-based reactive management is full of shit. Doesn't work for your company, doesn't work for other companies, doesn't work for the government.

That's not a political statement -- vote for your guys and do whatever you want to with the world. Lots of things need fixing. Let's go fix them. This has nothing to do with wanting less or more government. It's a statement on how systems of people operate.

People either understand that concept or they don't. And if they don't, they're always looking at aggregate numbers instead of system constraints. It's just a futile and endlessly spiraling methodology to fix any problem of any system of interacting people. It continues to fail over and over again, yet we keep framing the discussion this way. Probably because we have a vast lack of education in economics.

The final thing that's happened -- and this is the worst of all -- is that you've lost track of the goal for the metric. Somewhere along the way you're chasing percentages of folks reading books. What you really want is people leading happy and fulfilling work lives. But the minute you put a number on that, your abstraction starts carrying you away from your real goal. I've seen this happen over and over again, and I've never seen anybody go back to the original problem.

These are just stupid people tricks. All I'm saying is that we have to be aware of them to keep from repeating yet again for the hundredth time.

In reality, if you want to make people's lives better, you need to deal with one person and the thousand parameters around his or her life. Then you can make a difference. But once you start averaging -- even in groups as small as ten or so -- you've gone off the rails and into the weeds.