Pentanomics and Political Extremes
How do we minimize harm?
As with so many things involving humans, we can separate people into two extremes when it comes to politics. On one extreme are those who think governments enhance people’s lives by creating laws. Those people have a default position of voting FOR every law.
On the other extreme are those who believe governments create more problems by creating laws. Those people have a default position of voting AGAINST every law.
Ironically, the people who vote for more laws have no intention of obeying the laws. The laws do not apply to them. They also have no intention of enforcing the law. They believe that passing a law is good enough to change behavior.
The people who believe that governments should enforce laws vote against more laws. They believe that if government does not enforce laws people will ignore them. The result is either no enforcement or selective enforcement of the law.
Pentanomics is about minimizing harm. Governments minimize harm at the political level by maintaining balance. Checks and balances must be in place to minimize tyranny by a person or group in power.
For example, the people who vote against new laws are frequently benefiting from the status quo. They like the way things are. People who vote for every new law often benefit from the new laws. For example, I went to a meeting of people who were advocating for new laws to provide healthcare. Those in attendance were those who needed healthcare and the doctors and attorneys who make money from serving them.
Leaving people without healthcare may not minimize harm. Government should offer a trial of a form of care to determine if the care improves outcomes. Key to the approach is to determine what outcomes are to be desired and measure the outcomes before and after changing the law.
A teacher was explaining care for whiplash injuries and said doctors discovered importance of moving after injury in a country that was giving injured officers better care than lower ranking soldiers. The soldiers were recovering better than the officers. It would seem reasonable to argue that soldiers should receive the same care as officers. However, statistics showed that the officers needed to receive the same care as the soldiers. Too much care resulted in poorer outcomes.
Most patients are now up and walking very shortly after surgery. The change from prescribing bed rest to prescribing physical therapy came from statistical analysis of two approaches.
Key is measurement of outcomes and testing approaches that minimize harm. That is one of the things I find attractive about Pentanomics.