What do the homeless, brutal cops, and polluting cars have in common?

They all follow a power law distribution, not a normal distribution, and so need power law solutions according to the always interesting Malcolm Gladwell:

Power-law solutions have little appeal to the right, because they involve special treatment for people who do not deserve special treatment; and they have little appeal to the left, because their emphasis on efficiency over fairness suggests the cold number-crunching of Chicago-school cost-benefit analysis. Even the promise of millions of dollars in savings or cleaner air or better police departments cannot entirely compensate for such discomfort.

What is doing the same thing over and over but expecting a different result this time?