what is "good enough"?

Since coming up with the Chart and seeing it grow and change and watching the discussion on various forums, and even conceding a bit and putting a caveat in the writeup, I find myself wondering at "good enough". We hear and see, and sometimes even write "well, I'm not defending the free world with it so this XYZ should be good enough". Of late, I'm having a hard time figuring out what "good enough" means to people.

Years ago when I first started buying power tools I saw a big package deal of cordless tools at Sears. It included a reciprocating saw, a drill, a small circular saw, etc. It was literally 1/3 the price of Dewalt or Milwaukee. So I bought the Sears version thinking "I'm no contractor and I just need to do some chores around the house, this will be good enough". Those tools lasted me through one, count 'em ONE, home project before they died. I suppose if my intention had been to only do one project ever then that may have been acceptable, but since I thought I was buying tools I could use over and over again, this presented a problem. Since then all the tools I buy are yellow, and when I do break down and buy something that's a store brand I'm quickly reminded as to why I only buy yellow tools.

A couple of years later I decided I wanted a semi-auto centerfire pistol. I already had done the requisite .22 rifle, then .22 handgun, then .357 wheelgun and I thought I was ready for a bigboy gun. A friend had a Ballester Molina (look it up if you don't know what it is) he was willing to sell me and I thought "well, i ain't no cop or nothing, this thing should be good enough". In the year or so that I owned that gun it would only feed ball ammo, and even then only out of a select few magazines. Eventually I sold it back to the original owner, saved up a few more bucks, and bought myself a Glock.

A year or so ago I decided it would be fun if the 11 year old (then 9 year old) and I got into RC cars. I shopped around, looked at what was new in the 20 years since I had been into them, and decided on a 1/18th scale truck. I had seen some bad reviews of it but I thought "we're not going to be racing or anything, this will be good enough". To date every known problem that I read about with that truck has happened to ours. I'm so stupid I even bought a second one for myself, and now our sample size is two with 100% of the known issues. I even went so far as to buy hundreds of dollars worth of bolt-on go-faster parts for them, only to still have the underlying drivetrain problems. A friend has since given us a 1:10 scale nitro truck that is a known entity and known for it's reliability. He's also been racing for years and the upgrades he's made to the truck not only made it faster but more reliable AND easier to fix when it does break (shit breaks in RC, it's a fact of life).

My house didn't fall down because of the crappy Sears tools. No lives were lost because the Ballester wouldn't run. No races were lost or missed because of the RC trucks not running. But you know what? All of those things were frustrating as all hell, and frankly negatively impacted my enjoyment as well as my perceptions of the associated activities. Having those tools shit the bed made me never want to work on the house again, but since having quality tools it's actually one of my favorite things to do. Trying to make that Ballester run made me almost hate shooting, but now that I have guns that run it's my favorite pasttime. Constantly having to fix the boy's RC truck not only made me dread going to the track, but colored his perception of the hobby to the point that it will take a long time for him to see it as something enjoyable.

So I have a hard time understanding what "good enough" means for people. Good enough for what?

It may be just me, but I would take a $500 Glock with no add-ons or accessories over a questionable 1911 at twice the price. Bells and whistles are great, but the gun needs to run first and foremost. I would take a stock Colt 6920 over another brand with hundreds of dollars of crap bolted to it. (Hell, I'd rather have an AK than a stock lesser brand AR.) Optics, rails, stock, etc. are great but the gun needs to run first and foremost. This is true no matter whether I am plinking at tin cans, shooting a match, or storming a mud hud in asscrackistan or a meth lab in Vegas. While the consequences of failure in some endeavors are more dire than others, the tools still need to work for the intended task. Period. and for me, at least, the way to ensure that the tools work is to make educated purchases and buy quality from known entities. This does not mean ask my brother-in-law-the-cop what pistol to buy simply because he carries one ever day, nor does it mean ask my mom's-cousin-the-Marine what AR to buy because he is issued one. This means ask those questions, and then follow up with my own research. Trust, but verify.

Voltaire is often mis-quoted as saying "perfect is the enemy of good enough". I think Pat Rogers gets much closer with "good enough, rarely is", and that statement is independent of intended use.