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 Originally Posted by wufwugy
Absolutely, yet there is a catch: unintended consequences. Any system of sustainable error solving has to also solve the unintended consequences, most of which are not known or identified (hence unintended) at the time of implementation. The best functioning system is then not one that solves for errors given current knowledge and the current status, but solves for errors given future/potential knowledge and future/potential status. A system that sustainably solves problems isn't one that applies a known solution to a known problem; instead, it uses a known function to solve unknown problems, roughly speaking.
Agreed, the system needs to be self-correcting. It's just that I'm unconvinced that the market forces, in effect evolution, is the most efficient solution in all cases. The correcting effect of trial and error is limited, in most cases just to the one making the error and some of those immediately around him, if even that, but certainly not the whole population at once. For every error that "makes it to the news" there are thousands that don't. This means the same errors are made over and over again before they become "known".
Combining the trial and error process with predetermined (but dynamic, that is, the performance of which are regularly measured and adjusted when necessary) rules for known errors would give the best of both worlds. To me it's just not sufficient, that issues that have been around for hundreds of years under the influence of market forces without having been fixed, might be fixed at some point in the future.
 Originally Posted by wufwugy
I have another response to this.
I don't know what exactly the errors are or exactly how to solve them. The same is true for everybody else. Policy doesn't derive from hard facts and hard science (because those don't exist within the domains of sociology). When somebody says that they know what is best for society, they're arrogant or confused or both.
I say that I don't know what is best for others because, regarding their unique and close circumstances, I have less information (and less skin in the game) than they do. The policy of letting people have liberty over their lives is fundamentally different than the policy of dictating over them, because the former is saying that I don't know what is best for the world while the latter is saying that I do.
It's certainly preposterous to claim to know the right answers to everything, but the same goes for claiming all answers are unknowable. We know perfectly well the answers to many questions, and not using that knowledge to patch the known errors seems folly. I'm all for maximizing liberties, but that does not extend to actions that affect other people's liberties.
Do you think killing and stealing should be legal?
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