Economists generally believe that extremism is probably a mistake. That’s because every choice involves a trade off. You’ll start with the easiest trades first, but as you push to greater extremes, you’ll have to trade off more and more things of value. For example, if you set out to own the fastest production car in the world, it will probably turn out to be uncomfortable, loud, hot, and astonishingly expensive.
You may be that rare person for whom those trades offs are worth the trouble to get the fastest car, but most people would be happier with something a little slower that offers more in turms of comfort and amenities.
One common form of extremism is fear of failure. If no woman has ever turned you down when you asked her out on a date, you’ve probably been too careful in choosing who to ask out. If you had been a little less careful, you probably would have been turned down a few times, but you would have asked out a lot more women and gone out on a lot more dates.
Similarly, if you’ve never missed an airplane, you’ve probably spent too much time waiting around in airports, and a heart surgeon who’s never lost a patient has probably turned down patients he could have saved.
Lately, Mark Bennett and Norm Pattis have both been questioning Gerry Spence’s claim to have never lost a criminal case. I don’t know if that’s true or how he defines winning or how many cases he’s taken, but I’m pretty sure of one thing: If Gerry Spence has been turning down every case he thought he might lose, then some of the cases he passed up were cases he would have won.
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