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The history of government attempts to get people to eat "healthily" is a pretty good illustration of the many ways that government policy is a bad tool for addr

The history of government attempts to get people to eat "healthily" is a pretty good illustration of the many ways that government policy is a bad tool for addressing these type of issues. Government policy tends to have a lot of inertia and is bad at adapting to changing information. This is particularly evident when it attempts to track evolving scientific understanding of complex topics like nutrition and diet and their relation to health. It is also prone to being overly influenced by special interests and this particular area is full of textbook examples of regulatory capture and public choice theory. I certainly believe that some individuals will be better informed and better able to translate that information into the best course of action for themselves given their goals than governments, especially "governments" as represented by a patchwork of laws and regulations the impact a complex thing like individual health. This is true even at the time that new policy is enacted and tends to become more true over time due to the inertia of government policy that goes down the wrong path.

lmm 9y ago
> I certainly believe that some individuals will be better informed and better able to translate that information into the best course of action for themselves given their goals than governments, especially "governments" as represented by a patchwork of laws and regulations the impact a complex thing like individual health. Some individuals, sure. Most individuals, probably not. I agree that government policy has inertia, and that overconfidence on uncertain issues can lead to imposing well-intentioned policy that ends up being harmful. But it's equally possible to make the opposite mistake, and hold off introducing policy changes for too long because of perceived uncertainty. E.g. car seatbelt laws and tobacco advertising laws should have been introduced earlier than they were. I don't think there's any general principle we can draw here; some government policymakers could do with more humility, others could do with more confidence, but all any one of them can do "from the inside" is try to figure out how strong the evidence actually is on a given issue, and use their own best judgement in determining whether there's a clear enough scientific/medical consensus to warrant policy changes, or not.

lmm 9y ago

> I certainly believe that some individuals will be better informed and better able to translate that information into the best course of action for themselves given their goals than governments, especially "governments" as represented by a patchwork of laws and regulations the impact a complex thing like individual health. Some individuals, sure. Most individuals, probably not. I agree that government policy has inertia, and that overconfidence on uncertain issues can lead to imposing well-intentioned policy that ends up being harmful. But it's equally possible to make the opposite mistake, and hold off introducing policy changes for too long because of perceived uncertainty. E.g. car seatbelt laws and tobacco advertising laws should have been introduced earlier than they were. I don't think there's any general principle we can draw here; some government policymakers could do with more humility, others could do with more confidence, but all any one of them can do "from the inside" is try to figure out how strong the evidence actually is on a given issue, and use their own best judgement in determining whether there's a clear enough scientific/medical consensus to warrant policy changes, or not.