For the example question you posed, I would look to precedents. To rehash a bit: I came across this article on Singapore some time ago [1], and even though Sin

For the example question you posed, I would look to precedents. To rehash a bit: I came across this article on Singapore some time ago [1], and even though Singapore is a small nation-state, I believe two principles can be extracted on how to tackle big problems. 1) First principles "Ironically, Lee Kuan Yew himself had no patience for other people’s models. In his words, “I am not following any prescription given to me by any theoretician on democracy or whatever. I work from first principles: what will get me there?” If there is a lesson from Singapore’s development it is this: forget grand ideologies and others’ models. There is no replacement for experimentation, independent thought, and ruthless pragmatism." (Lee Kuan Yew was the founding Prime Minister of modern Singapore) 2) Experimentation (while recognizing the limitation of models and the increasing error between models and ground truth as scale increases) "Decision-makers must rely on simplified models to make their decisions. All schemata are by nature imperfect representations of reality. Indeed, a scheme that reflected reality perfectly would be cluttered and uninterpretable. The reality is always more complex than the plan. In large countries, the planner is further from ground reality than in tiny city-states. Abstractions and errors inevitably compound as the distance increases." [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24382249 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24382249