Amid the rousing successes of the Trump 2.0 administration, there emerge voices of discontent, originating not only from the TDS-affected left but from pockets within MAGA territory. Musk’s rejection of the Big Beautiful Bill, now Law, and his plan to create a third party might sow division and potentially jeopardize the Republicans’ winning streak in upcoming elections.
It is important to give credit where appropriate. Musk liberated Twitter and contributed in no small measure to the 2024 victory. Often, however, individuals who are highly intelligent and accomplished in theoretical STEM fields are less skilled in navigating life’s realities and making necessary compromises to achieve the best possible outcome.
Passing the Big Beautiful Bill was a feat of determination and efficiency. The new law promises economic growth and secure borders, rejects absurd ideologies and harmful practices, and provides significant tax benefits. The main question surrounding it should not have been “Is it perfect for balancing the budget?” but “Is it good and necessary?” or “Is it a long-overdue course-correction that represents a tremendous improvement over the current situation and the leftist alternative?”
Purely cerebral debates over numbers and economic theory may be useful in academic auditoria but cannot account for the myriad variables that reality in a free society may produce. Such discussions are reminiscent of a model suggested by the economist and Nobel laureate George Stigler and the mathematician Jordan Ellenberg, which can be summarized as “If You’ve Never Missed a Flight, You’re Probably Wasting Your Time.”
The premise is that numerous travelers reach the airport hours before their flight and end up wasting much productive time over the years. Arriving too early is a waste of time. Arriving too late also wastes time in rescheduling the trip. Therefore, the theory goes, one must practice a Goldilocks approach, whereby one must arrive just early enough to make most flights on the nose, and the occasional missed flight would be offset by all the time saved over a long period. On the surface, this makes sense. Natasha Geiling explains:
Ellenberg breaks this down in mathematical terms by using a measurement of utility called utils. Let’s say that an hour of your time, to you, is worth one util. Arriving at the airport two hours early wastes you two hours of time, so you lose two utils. But missing a plane is more annoying to you than wasting time at an airport – maybe it’s six times more annoying than an hour of wasted time, so missing your flight costs you six utils. Ellenberg uses this quantification to assess the utility of three different scenarios:Option 1: arrive two hours before flight, miss flight two percent of the timeOption 2: arrive one and a half hours before flight, miss flight five percent of the timeOption 3: arrive one hour before flight, miss flight fifteen percent of the timeUsing util values for time, you can figure out which scenario affords you the most positive utility. In the first scenario, two hours of your time equals -2 utils …, but the chance of missing the flight two percent of the time has to be accounted for as well (-6 utils times the two percent chance of that happening). When the two are added together, the utility for the first scenario lands at -2.12 utils. For option two, your utility ends up being -1.8 (-1.5 utils plus -6 times five percent) and for option three, your utility is -1.9 utils. So from a mathematical standpoint, your best bet would be to arrive one and a half hours before your flight.
Such equations may have their place in theoretical cost-benefit analyses, six-sigma quality and efficiency calculations, and other engineering models. Life, however, as well as politics, is messy and unpredictable. People are not machines. It is difficult to factor in security delays, check-in queues, or other unexpected glitches or quantify one’s peace of mind. Arriving at the airport too close to the cutoff time is extremely stressful for most travelers, and the added stress accumulated over time would prove more costly and damaging to one’s health and productivity in the long run.
When the economy is strong and societies free, there is no limit to the prosperity that human ingenuity can generate. Something as simple as sand has been used for millennia to create glassware; more recently, it has been used to produce computer chips of extraordinary complexity. That is why Malthusian theory, which warns against limited resources and overpopulation and is favored by socialists, has been proven false. Today, the world’s population is larger than ever, and so is people’s relative wealth compared to prior epochs. When certain resources are exhausted, new ones emerge – as well as new technologies to utilize what was previously unusable. The Big Beautiful Law may not cut budget spending as much as ideally desired but between tariff revenue, recent investments, and a flourishing economy, it may well surpass the benefits of such cuts.
Trump is a realist and a deal-maker. He gets the best result within the art of the possible. Musk is a genius who thinks scientifically. There is a place and time for both types of intelligence. Both Trump and Musk possess greatness but in different ways. A popular theme in Greek mythology and art was the Gigantomachy – the fierce battle between Giants and Olympian Gods, which wreaked widespread havoc.
Hopefully, Trump’s and Musk’s disagreement will be smoothed over, so that the much-needed American revival we are witnessing can continue full-steam ahead without the drawbacks of avoidable infighting.
Nora D. Clinton is a Research Scholar at the Legal Insurrection Foundation. She was born and raised in Sofia, Bulgaria. She holds a PhD in Classics and has published extensively on ancient documents on stone. In 2020, she authored the popular memoir Quarantine Reflections Across Two Worlds. Nora is a co-founder of two partner charities dedicated to academic cooperation and American values. She lives in Northern Virginia with her husband and son.
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