Lori Falce: Six degrees of big decisions

My son enjoys a good game of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.

In his version, it’s more Six Degrees of Marvel Movie Characters, but the principle still holds — especially since Bacon played the villain in “X-Men: First Class.” Take any actor — or person, really — and find the connections that tie them in a chain until you reach the star of “Footloose.”

It’s not hard. Bacon has been working steadily since 1978 and has shared the screen with some of the biggest names in Hollywood and been guided by the best directors. It’s almost more of a challenge to find someone who isn’t inside that circle of association.

Take me, for example. A 1997 book signing I arranged with Oliver Stone puts me a solid two degrees away. Stone directed Bacon in “JFK.”

I use this as an object lesson with my kid. You are always tied more closely to someone than you think.

It’s a concept that frequently keeps me from road rage or a viral video of me snapping at someone in frustration. I have an absolute certainty that the person I yell at in a parking lot for cutting me off will end up being the person I need to call for an interview or the new receptionist at my dentist’s office.

It also is a concept that government and industry should consider more carefully.

The action that government takes today is bound to have consequences that hit close to home — probably sooner rather than later. Today’s tax cut is tomorrow’s deficit burden. The program trashed by the minority party when it is time to vote is exactly the one legislators will want to tout when it is time to hand out giant checks. The lobbyist whose money they take gratefully will be the one they want to avoid when ignored problems come to light.

By the same token, industries often have no problem cutting corners when it comes to the environment or paring worker safety close to the bone to maximize profits. What seems like a good idea in the short term can hurt in the long run when a company is tarred as a bad neighbor or an uncaring employer.

A little game of Six Degrees could show the dominoes that come after a decision.

As a young reporter, I covered a borough where a resident constantly staged yard sales on a busy corner, drawing complaints as an eyesore. The local council took action: A unaminous resolution required that sales pay a $25 permit, be limited to three days and could only be held twice a year. The council members were quite pleased with their solution.

Until the question arose: what exactly does this cover? The way the resolution was written, it would impact everything from Girl Scout cookies to Avon ladies to making it all but impossible to sell real estate in the borough. The code enforcement officer refused to enforce it. The resolution was walked back almost immediately.

For decades, that has stuck out in my mind as the perfect example of poor planning — of being so focused on the one goal that all of the other impacts spiderwebbing off were not so much ignored as never even considered.

If a simple game can string together how many jumps it takes to get from Jimmy Stewart to Kevin Bacon — it’s two — then it should be easy to see how few steps it takes for a new law or a corporate decision to impact the people.