zlacker

>>buro9+(OP)
Is there some generalized law (yet) about unintended consequences? For example:

Increase fuel economy -> Introduce fuel economy standards -> Economic cars practically phased out in favour of guzzling "trucks" that are exempt from fuel economy standards -> Worse fuel economy.

or

Protect the children -> Criminalize activites that might in any way cause an increase in risk to children -> Best to just keep them indoors playing with electronic gadgets -> Increased rates of obesity/depression etc -> Children worse off.

As the article itself says: Hold big tech accountable -> Introduce rules so hard to comply with that only big tech will be able to comply -> Big tech goes on, but indie tech forced offline.

>>Markus+6j
Politicians should take a mandatory one-week training in:

- very basic macro economics

- very basic game theory

- very basic statistics

Come to think of it, kids should learn this in high school

>>FredPr+Mo
I think you’re being overly charitable in thinking this happens because they don’t understand these things. The main thing is that they don’t care. The purpose of passing legislation to protect the children isn’t to protect the children, it’s to get reelected.

If we can get the voters to understand the things you mention, then maybe we’d have a chance.

>>wat100+jx
I think you're being underly charitable. The vast majority of congress critters are pretty smart people, and by Jeff Jackson's account, even the ones who yell the loudest are generally reasonable behind closed doors due to incentives.

The problem is that the real problems are very hard, and their job is to simplify it to their constituents well enough to keep their jobs, which may or may not line up with doing the right thing.

This is a truly hard problem. CSAM is a real problem, and those who engage in its distribution are experts in subverting the system. So is freedom of expression. So is the onerous imposition of regulations.

And any such issue (whether it be transnational migration, or infrastructure, or EPA regulations in America, or whatever issue you want to bring up) is going to have some very complex tradeoffs and even if you have a set of Ph.Ds in the room with no political pressure, you are going to have uncomfortable tradeoffs.

What if the regulations are bad because the problem is so hard we can't make good ones, even with the best and brightest?

>>ebiest+CA
“Their job is to simplify it to their constituents well enough to keep their jobs” sounds awfully similar to what I’m saying. Maybe “don’t care” is a little too absolute, but it doesn’t make much difference if they don’t care or if they care but their priority is still keeping their jobs.