“Simplify, simplify.”–Henry David Thoreau “Seek simplicity, and distrust it.”–Alfred North Whitehead The search for simple solutions to complex problems has been going on for a long time. And with Thoreau on one shoulder encouraging you to pare down and Whitehead on the other telling you to dig complexity, you could easily go totally insane. First you would look for big, underlying principles to explain things; then you’d start working out the exceptions and adaptations that always pop up when big principles meet the real world. Anyone who has ever tried to get a straight answer from a politician knows...