Basically, the legal equivalent to the trolley problem. Worth noting that there are solutions in our legal code for this. Good Samaritan laws would be a good ex

Basically, the legal equivalent to the trolley problem. Worth noting that there are solutions in our legal code for this. Good Samaritan laws would be a good example. However, even in a world without such countermeasures, if the negative externalities as a whole are drastically less than what would happen doing nothing, it stands to reason that simply paying the price for the negative externalities would still be logical and it would have the advantage that those negatively impacted by those externalities would not feel like they are disproportionately bearing the burden of the action. > But if you get treatment and the doctors make a mistake and their actions cause some unintended harm, then there's someone to blame and sue, even if your statistical outcome was drastically improved by their intervention. Doctors still have a lot of cover, even if they make a mistake, for exactly that reason. The real challenge for doctors is the difficulty preventing the litigation itself. Even if they win in court, the consequences of being subject to so many lawsuits are dramatic. > The same problem is going to exist trying to mitigate climate change. Positive actions to reverse the problem will create negative externalities that hurt some people, but doing nothing will be drastically worse. I think the bigger problem is that mitigating climate change will necessarily change the winners and losers, and the current winners have more power than the current losers.