The coolness factor

The 'coolness' factor: not the coolness that describes 'an aesthetic of attitude, behavior, comportment, appearance and style which is generally admired' but rather the coolness 'marked by steady dispassionate calmness and self-control' at times of high emotion. Currently I'm working on applying the Social Policy Bond concept to health, and one advantage of Health Bonds is that they would target outcomes decided on an unemotional, impartial basis at a time when the interests of the entire population are being considered dispassionately. That we are in dire need of such coolness is clear from this review of Nuclear Folly, by Serhii Plokhy:

... [Khrushchev’s] Oct. 23 [1962] Kremlin outburst—which appears midway through Serhii Plokhy’s superb “Nuclear Folly: A History of the Cuban Missile Crisis”—would appear to mark a significant contribution: an eyewitness account of one of the saga’s two key decision makers exhibiting not only uncontrolled anger but delirium. Khrushchev’s threat to “nuke” the White House, his “avalanche of contradictory orders,” constitute the most troubling behavior we could imagine in a leader “managing” such a crisis. ‘Nuclear Folly’ Review: The Big Red Gamble, James Rosen, 'Wall Street Journal', 19 April 2021

Indeed; it is striking how, at the highest level of national government, big decisions appear to be made on the basis of reactive, primal emotion. Rationality and the long-term interests of the people politicians are supposed to represent hardly figure at all:

…policies are often adopted on the basis of less careful analysis than their importance warrants, leaving wide room for mistakes and misperceptions. Forces of knowledge destruction are often stronger than those favoring knowledge creation. Hence states have an inherent tendency toward primitive thought, and the conduct of public affairs is often polluted by myth, misinformation, and flimsy analysis. Source (pdf)

This type of thinking is particularly dangerous when military conflict looms. An article about Henry Kissinger's role in US foreign policy quotes him saying to US President George W Bush’s speechwriter, about radical Islamic opponents: ‘We need to humiliate them’. Comments like this abound in high politics. George W Bush himself cried ‘bring ‘em on’ at an early point in the invasion of Iraq. These are not examples of high-level thinking. The benefits of a Social Policy Bond regime would include the setting of social goals in a rational way. It's unlikely that random emotional outbursts would crystallise into policy in such a policymaking environment, however high up the hierarchy are the people who make them.