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This issue is symptomatic of an underlying problem for me: we do not regularly re-evaluate laws to see if they are having the intended effect. American politic

by Zak 2y ago

This issue is symptomatic of an underlying problem for me: we do not regularly re-evaluate laws to see if they are having the intended effect. American politics might have bigger problems at the moment, but under normal circumstances, I consider this pretty important. I'm not sure what the solution is, but an expiration date on nearly all laws comes to mind as a start to an interesting discussion on the matter.

ryandrake 2y ago
It would be great if laws worked like software deployments: 1. Roll out law to 2%, look for any obvious unintended effects (like we check for crashes) 2. Roll out law to 50%, study for effectiveness. Is the intended positive effect happening in the experiment population? Any effect on the control population? 3. Finally, roll out law to 100% and keep monitoring. 4. Be ready to roll back to 0% if failures seen at any stage. 5. Be ready to apply a zero day patch after it's at 100% if edge cases are found. But, we don't do any of this! Lawmakers make a law and yolo it into production on a fixed date, and it's often impossible to roll it back or modify it.
- justinpombrio 2y ago
  We do sort of do that, with state laws. Different states try out different laws, and copy laws from other states. Ideally a state will repeal laws that don't work well, and copy laws from other states when they work well. In practice it's all a mess of course. California is the experimental group.
FireBeyond 2y ago
> This issue is symptomatic of an underlying problem for me: we do not regularly re-evaluate laws to see if they are having the intended effect. Even the Constitution. It was intended to be revisited for appropriateness and currency every 20 years. Instead, a significant number of people, including some on the Supreme Court, believe that the Founding Fathers[1] could speak no wrong words and that the Constitution is the perfect document, to be taken at its word, with no deviation, until the end of time. [1] Pop Quiz: "How old were the Founding Fathers when they signed the Declaration of Independence and crafted the Constitution?" You'd be forgiven for thinking they were world-weary, wizened old men. In fact, the majority were under forty. Indeed, it was also signed by a sixteen-year-old, a 21-year-old, two 26-year-olds, a 27-year-old, and a 29-year-old.
- tptacek 2y ago
  Yes but the life expectancy was only 35 so in relative terms they were all senior.
  - bloopernova 2y ago
    Average life expectancy. Once past your childhood, you had a good chance of making it to 60 at least.

by Zak 2y ago

ryandrake 2y ago

It would be great if laws worked like software deployments: 1. Roll out law to 2%, look for any obvious unintended effects (like we check for crashes) 2. Roll out law to 50%, study for effectiveness. Is the intended positive effect happening in the experiment population? Any effect on the control population? 3. Finally, roll out law to 100% and keep monitoring. 4. Be ready to roll back to 0% if failures seen at any stage. 5. Be ready to apply a zero day patch after it's at 100% if edge cases are found. But, we don't do any of this! Lawmakers make a law and yolo it into production on a fixed date, and it's often impossible to roll it back or modify it.

justinpombrio 2y ago
We do sort of do that, with state laws. Different states try out different laws, and copy laws from other states. Ideally a state will repeal laws that don't work well, and copy laws from other states when they work well. In practice it's all a mess of course. California is the experimental group.

FireBeyond 2y ago

> This issue is symptomatic of an underlying problem for me: we do not regularly re-evaluate laws to see if they are having the intended effect. Even the Constitution. It was intended to be revisited for appropriateness and currency every 20 years. Instead, a significant number of people, including some on the Supreme Court, believe that the Founding Fathers[1] could speak no wrong words and that the Constitution is the perfect document, to be taken at its word, with no deviation, until the end of time. [1] Pop Quiz: "How old were the Founding Fathers when they signed the Declaration of Independence and crafted the Constitution?" You'd be forgiven for thinking they were world-weary, wizened old men. In fact, the majority were under forty. Indeed, it was also signed by a sixteen-year-old, a 21-year-old, two 26-year-olds, a 27-year-old, and a 29-year-old.

tptacek 2y ago
Yes but the life expectancy was only 35 so in relative terms they were all senior.
- bloopernova 2y ago
  Average life expectancy. Once past your childhood, you had a good chance of making it to 60 at least.