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I think it's a key insight that we can incrementally improve the law, but a credit-card bucket system must be fully implemented before anyone uses it. We can a
by decode 17y ago
I think it's a key insight that we can incrementally improve the law, but a credit-card bucket system must be fully implemented before anyone uses it. We can and do use this feature of the US legal system on a near daily basis to make meaningful improvements over time.
However, I think this point is significant: "People will die. It's a certainty. Some people are going to die as a direct consequence of legalization of marijuana." It's okay to release a crappy messaging website and iterate it into goodness, but it's irresponsible to do the same with medical software. In the same way, when people's lives are at stake, we have a responsibility to produce good laws from the start, so even if we don't get it perfectly right immediately, all of the complicated details that Steve brings up have to be thought through, or else there could be major negative consequences during the stabilization period.
- mhb 17y agoOn the other hand, thinking through the details is not a hallmark of many current laws which already cost lives (e.g., war on drugs, overly conservative regulation of new drugs by FDA). So the hurdle to be met by ironing out the details of changes in laws shouldn't be whether they will cost lives; it should be whether they will cost fewer lives than what currently exists.
- jamesbritt 17y ago'However, I think this point is significant: "People will die. It's a certainty. Some people are going to die as a direct consequence of legalization of marijuana." ' People are already dying as a result of current marijuana laws. If your current medical software is buggy and causing deaths, you want the replacement to be solid but you also can't wait until you are 100% sure. You need to be sure enough that the consequences, bugs and all, are an improvement.