For practical application, Panetic Analysis must address four methodological challenges. It is proposed that an interdisciplinary team of academicians and practitioners be organized to address them and that a funding proposal be developed to carry out the suggested research and development.

(1) The Challenge of Complexity and Trade-Offs

Most political decisions are concerned not just with the suffering of a victim, but with the many levels through which that suffering ramifies in society and the trade-offs involved. In addition to the suffering of the victim, there is suffering by the family and individuals close to the victim, plus the costs imposed on the community if the suffering is to be alleviated, plus the possibility that resources are diverted from others who may also be suffering.

The late social scientist Harold Lasswell characterized politics as the art of deciding "who gets what, when, and how?" Many political decisions involve the imposition of some degree of suffering on one group in order to benefit another. The politician must gauge "who is going to be glad and how glad. Who is going to be mad, and how mad?"

Siu provides a good example of the trade-off choices political decision-makers face.

An Example of the "Trade-Off" Conundrum

"In 1979, when unemployment stood around ten percent in New York City, robbery rose by 43 percent city-wide and 70 percent in the subways...With the City on the verge of bankruptcy and burdened with increased welfare costs, court-ordered busing for schools, and many other services, the Mayor was impaled on the horns of a dilemma. To assign more transit police to the subway system was to have dirtier streets and fewer teachers. ‘We laid off 2,200 teachers,’ said Ed Koch. "I am not prepared to lay off more teachers to have more cops. That is our problem." The upshot was that even more criminals eluded the clutches of the law than ever before."

Attempts to calculate trade-offs "objectively" and "quantitatively" are not unfamiliar. For example, the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) process, adopted in the 1970s to help determine, in advance, the probable consequences of a decision for human health and the natural environment provides an on-point example.

In an assessment of whether to permit logging in a National Forest, an EIA must weigh, on the one hand, the suffering of loggers who may lose their jobs, together with that of people in the towns who may lose business and jobs, and the saw mill and company owners who may lose income. On the other side of the equation, the process must weigh the suffering that harvesting timber may impose on the general public through lost recreation, increased soil erosion, deteriorated water supplies, etc. perhaps aggravated by the loss of rare and endangered flora and fauna.

The methodologies for weighing the trade-offs between these various degrees of suffering are as imperfect as the cost-benefit calculations used by the US Army Corps of Engineers to justify construction of a flood protection levee, dam, or waterway. Every calculation is viewed with suspicion by antagonists on either side of any decision. Every calculation is seized upon by advocates on either side as forensic fodder in support of their argument.

Weighing Trade-offs

In most Panetics Analysis so far, the challenge of weighing trade-offs has received little attention. For this reason, the Interdisciplinary Team put forward in this proposal will focus particular attention upon it.

For example, James N. Davis has performed many Panetic analyses of major political issues, e.g. reductions in human suffering that could result from a $1.25 tax per pack on cigarettes, reductions in airplane noise, and a hypothetical calculation of the human suffering that ensued from the federal Waco intervention.

Missing from his computations are the trade-offs that weighed most heavily in the minds of government decision-makers. For example, their anticipations of the potential future human suffering that might arise from a heavily-armed anti-social group which political decision-makers must have had in mind when they decided to "go in." Such considerations might have seemed less credible at the time Davis performed his hypothetical analysis than they appeared after the Oklahoma City bombing and arrest of the Viper militia in Arizona.

In an analysis of the consequences of high level and petty corruption in the Republic of Georgia, Widner attempted to portray the multi-dimensionality of the problem and the consequences that might flow from various decisions not to control it, but time and resources limited the ability to weigh trade-offs implicit in various interventions to bring corruption under control. What is more, the analysis and portrayal could fall back upon no graphical or analytical conventions that can be applied consistently to Panetic analyses of complex decision-making issues.

As in the case of Environmental Impact Assessments, we must, first of all, measure the dukkhas suffered by those hurt as well as helped by any political choice.

Benefits in reduced suffering Costs in increased suffering # of persons x days x Dukkha intensity # of persons x days x Dukkha intensity

The NET of the difference in dukkhas is what counts.

But most political decisions are more than two-sided–-they are multi-dimensional.

For example, let us say Congress is considering a major bill to provide financial assistance to poor and destitute families. The "suffering" imposed on the 114 million taxpayers by an increase in taxes is a "Barely Noticeable" 1 on the Panetic scale, giving us a value of 114,000,000 dukkhas. The "suffering" of the affected families is a "Quite a Lot" 6 on the Panetics scale for 13,600,000 families giving us a total of 81,600,000 dukkhas. On our scale of human suffering, the poor and destitute lose out. In a society where the majority rules, an important constitutional principle has been to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority, yet on its face, this Panetic Analysis contravenes this principle.

The reason is that many of the "inputs" are missing. There are no calculations of second and third order consequences, and other types of impacts that may not entail suffering. A poverty-stricken population, unable to participate in the mainstream economy and contribute its full measure, imposes many social and economic costs on the general community. It detracts from the over-all quality of the workforce and affects the economic well-being of the general community. It can generate street crime, youth violence, severe public health problems, etc. These multiple dimensions must be included in the Panetic calculations if they are to prove practical for political decision-making.

Portraying Trade-offs and Complexities

Over the past nine years, members of the Intenational Society of Panetics have tried to develop "Panetic Tables" and "Panetic diagrams" that attempt to make the multiple dimensions of suffering and trade-offs involved in a decision explicit , quantifiable, understandable and useful..

Siu proposed a system of graphic conventions that emphasizes the infliction or alleviation of suffering by individuals, groups, or institutions on other individuals, groups, or institutions. Langmuir, a former research Director of the Space Technology Laboratories at TRW, has proposed a system that aggregates the increase or reduction of dukkhas over time, an approach that enables us to calculate "Gross Dukkhas" for a population, community, or nation and focus on those in greatest need of relief. Using this procedure, Langmuir proposed that a "curve of concern" be calculated that focused attention at the levels suffering deemed to be most unacceptable, rather on all suffering no matter how minor.

As already noted, Widner, in analyzing the consequences of corruption in Georgia resorted to a variety of graphic techniques that may help a reader understand the interconnections, but are unique to that analysis and not generalizable as a convention for use in all complex Panetic analyses.

A primary objective under this proposal is to develop the graphical and analytical conventions (models, diagrams, and tables) that can be applied in ANY Panetic Analysis, no matter what the issue or problem.

(2) The Challenge of Forseeability

Panetic analyses must try to take into account the anticipated future consequences of a decision. After all, most major political decisions are about making a change in the present to achieve some anticipated benefit in the future. Often it may prove to be a matter of "no pain, no gain."

As illustrated by the Waco example, much human suffering alleviated or inflicted by a decision lies in the future. For reasons not difficult to understand, methods to anticipate the future are regarded with considerable skepticism by the public and decision-makers alike. The cynicism that greets cost/benefit calculations by the US Army Corps of Engineers in connection with the 50 or 100-year life of a proposed project provides just one concrete example.

Technology Assessment, like the Environmental Impact Assessment process, was formulated as a new discipline over a quarter century ago. Its challenge was to estimate the probable consequences that might arise as a result of the introduction of new technologies. While such analyses had been conducted for many years within the US Defense Establishment in connection with military technologies, the notion of a formal Technology Assessment capability linked to the policy-making powers of the US Congress seemed attractive two decades ago. The introduction of new technologies seemed to be altering the society so rapidly and radically with unforeseen, inadvertent and harmful consequences for some, that Congress believed it needed some "foresight" in order to regulate the process.

After 20 years, Congress eliminated OTA, ostensibly to reduce its "bloated" staff. The elimination might also be ascribed to those who believe "fuzzing things up" can avoid conflict–at least for the present. More charitably, we might see OTA as a victim of the plausible argument that projecting the future is not only an imperfect–but well nigh impossible–art given all of the many complex serendipities that arise around the introduction of any new technology.

Even if we could reliably anticipate events a century and a half hence, which we can not, how much suffering are people today willing to endure for the benefit of their grandchildren’s children? And how much stock are they willing to take in whatever benefits we forecast? We need only turn to current debates over the future of Medicare and Social Security to see how skeptical-–or uncaring–-many are about prognostication.

What frame of time can we place around Panetic calculations that will be credible for decision-makers and citizenry alike? And what methodologies can apply most practically to projecting credibly future suffering or benefits from a decision?

The issue is far from trivial. We have reached a stage in the evolution of human society in which many decisions have awesome implications for the long-run future of the race, life on the planet, and the planet itself. Decision-making must concern itself with potential future consequences. But how? With what reliability?

While the Team will attempt to develop a rigorous procedure by means of which potential future consequences of a decision will be anticipated and portrayed, it will also define a process by means of which the consequences of a Panetics-based decision can be monitored and adjusted to accommodate unforeseen serendipties that arise in the future.

(3) The Challenge of Time Limits

However, time is a problem in the present as well as the future.

Many decisions, if they are to affect the problem at hand effectively, must be made "in time." Should the time-line for decision not be met, no decision results, and "no decision" may produce as much, or more, human suffering than a mistaken "decision".

Twenty years after its adoption, the Environmental Impact Assessment process is often the butt of political jokes for this very reason. EIA is complex and technically challenging. Unquestionably, it has slowed up decisions that, rashly made, might have adversely affected human health, or the integrity of vulnerable national environments. However, the volumes and volumes of analyses required have added new costs to decision-making and incur enormous delays. In the case of environmental matters, this may prove to be more of an advantage than disadvantage, but for a medical decision, or a decision about whether the international community should intervene in a situation like that in a Bosnia, or Somalia, or Rwanda, Haiti, or Iraq, failure to make a decision in time may produce disaster.

Panetic Tables and Contigency Planning

One possible way to meet this challenge is to prepare Panetic Tables covering whole realms of major decision-making in advance of need, in much the way military, foreign policy, or natural disaster contigency plans are prepared by policy-planners.

Following a Panetic Analysis of the Los Angeles riots and eight other urban disturbances by discussants at a meeting of the International Society of Panetics, Siu proposed that a set of continuing Dukkha Tables be prepared based on actual experience in connection with such disturbances:

DUKKHA TABLES AND DIAGRAMS ON CIVIL DISTURBANCE

"Conscientious mayors and chiefs of police would find considerable utility in an up-to-date file of Panetic system diagrams and supporting case studies of various riot and control situations in relatively recent decades...(including) quantitative flows of suffering inflicted and precluded in the course of various interactions, tactics of police, policies of political leaders, size and character of participants and inciters, and the like. By the simple expedient of fax machines, every law enforcement agency would be able to take a quick glance at how other police departments and governmental bodies had successfully handled an actual disturbance or defused a threatening situation with minimal suffering on all parties.

"The very exercise...would assure a progressive self-analysis of what actually happened in the last experience, of lessons learned, of required modifications in tactics for the future, etc. In effect, the police would have access to a running refresher course.

"As far as the mayors are concerned, the continuing practice would provide the following value:

"1. Assurance that their police force has a systematic mechanism in place warning against the unnecessary and counter-productive use of force and raising the efficiency of necessary force.

"2. Public evidence that the mayors and their police take human suffering seriously into consideration in carrying out their law enforcement responsibilities and are constantly reviewing their plans and operations toward that end.

"3. Easily understandable reviews at a glance as to "what really happened?,"what was actually behind that which was behind that which was behind, and so on in the intricate causal chain, to lead to answers to what can be done to preclude or reduce public disturbances and what can be done to minimize unnecessary suffering caused by police and non-police actions alike."

The Interdisciplinary Team will develop sets of Panetic Contingency Tables on issues that lend themselves already to straight-forward Panetic Analysis. These will be placed in the hands of selected practitioners for trial application when appropriate occasions arise. The results will be evaluated and Panetic methodologies adjusted accordingly based upon the results.

(4) Conflicting Perceptions and Values

Certainly, when the public perceives a direct connection between objective measurement of a general threat to its physical and mental well-being and the need for government action, it not only accepts, but insists upon apolitical action. In issues of public health and public safety, for example, the Panetic equation can be applied in a reasonably straight-forward manner.

But when a cause of human suffering is distributional in character–that is, in order to alleviate the suffering of one group, another must give up something, possibly even suffer a little pain, decisions become more difficult. Yet such decisions are the "meat and potatoes" of political decision-making. In a way, many political decisions have to do with the "re-distribution" of suffering–spreading suffering around so that everybody suffers a little in order to ameliorate high levels of suffering in a particular segment of the population.

If the weight to be given to the degree of suffering is to be determined subjectively by the victim–an approach that is workable in medicine and in a few other areas of general public concern–the method is at odds with how "distributional" political decisions are actually made.

In our adversarial system of politics, politicians are elected by constituencies. By definition, then, they give greater weight to the suffering of their supporters than they give to those who oppose them, or whom they do not represent. On a global scale, decision-making is still guided by the "self-interest" of constituencies in nation-states. The weight a US President must assign to the loss of lives of his own citizenry on behalf of lives in Bosnia is greater than the weight he assigns to one Bosnian human life. The Bosnian can not determine that weight for the purposes of an American–or even an international– decision.

Most political issues involve conflicts in perceptions, values and interests among groups. Each group is understandably preoccupied with its own suffering–or lack of it. To expect each group to assign values to its degree of suffering that will be acceptable to others is unrealistic. But that weight can not be assigned arbitrarily by the uninvolved. The perceptions of all the parties involved must be taken into account.

To address this challenge, the Interdisciplinary Team can fall back upon procedures already tried, tested, and accepted in the arenas of business and governmental decision-making–to bring people with these conflicting perceptions, values and suffering together to develop an agreed upon outcome.

Facilitators and mediators of many different stripes have employed facilitated group processes that use nominal group techniques to help individuals of very divergent views come together, agree on a definition of the problem, establish a sufficient level of trust to reach consensus on what strategies are likely to ameliorate the problem, settle on a decision, and agree on who has responsibility for implementation.

The most systematic and comprehensive effort to assemble this array of techniques into a coherent body of decision-making tools has been led by John N. Warfield, at George Mason University. Through the use of a set of computer-assisted graphic devices, Warfield’s procedures for facilitated "Interactive Management" help accelerate the ability of individuals with divergent views and perceptions to arrive at agreement and, themselves, produce projections and decisions they believe credible.

Using Nominal Group Techniques, this approach would ask a group representing all of the parties involved in a Panetic decision to rank, on their own, the direct, indirect and anticipated consequences in the infliction or alleviation of human suffering and add their own evaluation of intensity. These are collected and the composite assembled in a table that enables the group to structure a "Problematique" of the sort suggested hypothetically in Figure 3.

In a facilitated discussion by the group, the categories can be both clarified and consolidated so that the group reaches agreement on the "map’ of interconnections–present and future–that the problem or decision entails.

Then, through facilitated discussion and scoring by participants, they can proceed through a series of steps to agree on decisions and actions.

The results can then by represented by a DELTA CHART which is a graphic portrayal of a prescription for action. Panetic Analysis can utilize these techniques to help groups develop the Panetic Tables needed to shorten the time involved in humane decision-making.

The Interdisciplinary Team will experiment with various facilitated procedures in order to develop a practical process through which decision-makers can attempt to reconcile conflicting values and aspirations in order to implement a decision effectively.

With these four methodological challenges as the focus, the Interdisciplinary Team will choose a set of major decision-making issues that can provide the real-life laboratories in which the techniques of Panetic Analysis can bested, developed and applied in trial applications.