4 ms·

I don't understand what this argument is. I think the FDA was approving medicines long before the precise molecular mechanisms were known. Even with unknowns y

by Bigpet 6y ago

I don't understand what this argument is. I think the FDA was approving medicines long before the precise molecular mechanisms were known. Even with unknowns you can still study outcomes and legislate around them. Instead you seem to propose "oh we don't know enough, so we should just let it run wild". I do agree that sensible legislation around this is hard to impossible to do. I'd rather see some more research into the effects funded before jumping directly into legislation.

sandspar 6y ago
You're right that we don't need to understand something completely before we regulate it. My point was to emphasize how little we know about psychology and how little good a law that addresses our current technology will do in the long run, since the psychology-focused technology we have 50 or 100 years from now will likely be vastly more dangerous. The image I have is of a caveman who, upon seeing one of his tribesmen kill another with a rock, proposes to regulate the use of rocks. Good idea maybe, but give it time and rocks will be the least of his troubles. However it's unfair of me to dismiss our real life solutions to real life problems by pointing to a problem that might come to exist in an imaginary long-term future. We can only make the best with what we have. Maybe I need to update my mental model of the law from an eternal-and-perfect view to an incremental-and-imperfect view, especially when it comes to the intersection of law and technology.