People tend to think of only 1st order effects. They don't tend to think in 2nd, 3rd, ..., nth order effects--not that it's easy to quantify the effects, but it

People tend to think of only 1st order effects. They don't tend to think in 2nd, 3rd, ..., nth order effects--not that it's easy to quantify the effects, but it's usually not difficult to see/imagine those potential relationships. This is why a lot of rhetoric in general is so effective: it prays on focusing on simple first order effects instead of attempting to look at issues holistically. I'm not saying hollistic analysis is simple--far from it--but one needs to be aware that life is really complex with a awhole lot of gray areas.