But that’s nevertheless the wisest course when you don’t know what you’re doing.

From In Praise of Passivity by Michael Huemer.  The essay is written in the form of a series of clear assertions, many or most of which I would like to either debate in order to reach better clarity or actually reject.  I think Huemer is usefully using clarity as a catalyst to better thinking.  

There are three elements where I am very comfortable with the clear assertion and largely agree with it, both in the clarity and in the artfulness of the articulation.  

On the challenge represented by dealing with chaotic, non-linear, loosely coupled complex evolving systems with weakly understood causal mechanisms and feedback mechanisms.  

In brief, the human body is a very complex mechanism. Fixing it requires detailed and precise knowledge of its workings and the nature of the disorder affecting it, knowledge that no one in 1799 possessed. Without that knowledge, almost all interventions are going to be harmful.

Society is kind of like that, and today’s politicians are kind of like medieval doctors. Their solutions to social problems are based on prescientific theories and emotionally driven guesses, which is why almost none of them work. In the Middle Ages, you were usually better off avoiding the doctor. Today, we’re usually better off avoiding government solutions to social problems.

The following is much better insight and advice than the precautionary principle.  Very few public policies achieve their stated goals and virtually never within the timeframes and cost estimates committed to.  Given that track record:

There is general a presumption against government interventions. This is because government interventions involve restricting freedom, imposing harms on people who violate the law, and expending resources. Thus, if we don’t have strong reasons in favor of a government intervention, we generally shouldn’t do it.

Given our ignorance about society and how to improve it, we simply don’t have strong reasons to make most laws (including most laws that we have already made), other than the obvious ones. E.g., it’s obvious why we should have a law against murder. But for less obvious, more controversial cases (say, the government is thinking of regulating social media), the government should probably stand back and do nothing.

Just as it would have been hard to find a doctor in 1799 who would have stood by and done nothing about Washington’s illness, it would be hard to find a politician or activist who would support doing nothing to solve some social problem. But that’s nevertheless the wisest course when you don’t know what you’re doing. 

Indeed.  Meat and potatoes, stick to your knitting, take care of the blocking and tackling, taking care of business, watch the pennies and the dollars will take of themselves - our language and culture is full of guard rails against extravagant bold gestures.  

Most of the time, if you’re “fighting” for a cause, that means the cause is controversial, and you probably don’t actually know that the thing you’re supporting is good. If you actually want to benefit the world, a better bet is to devote your resources to uncontroversially good things, like the Against Malaria Foundation.

We make it too easy for shallow, callow people to access the public purse to impose exotic expensive solutions which do not work and cause harm.  They go after these moonshots because the exotic idea is exciting and has the unfounded promise of doing good which will bolster the fame and prestige of the otherwise NPC poser.