Hanlon's razor is great. I feel it's important to always keep it in mind once you see something stupid (or evil) being done. Stupidity is the most likely explan

Hanlon's razor is great. I feel it's important to always keep it in mind once you see something stupid (or evil) being done. Stupidity is the most likely explanation, but malice is the most satisfying. I think politicians really care about these things. But these big sweeping laws and changes are because of hubris (but then again, the job selects for that). Society is damn complicated, everything affects everything. Making a change in one small part propagates quickly and unpredictably. But politicians don't internalise that (of course, if they did they would never get elected on the platform of "stuff is complicated, I don't know if this will help!"). So they see a problem. Our information is being used maliciously! We need to stop that! Protect the people! So some massive law gets passed with tons of unintended side-effects and it's captured by big corporations at the speed of light.