[BaronSamedi]

This is an excellent comment. Thinking about laws or policies as dynamic processes with various feedback loops and side-effects offers a better model than the usual static approach. Side-effects are critical, so critical that they often often work against the intended goal. Yet side-effects are almost never mentioned when people advocate for a certain policy.

How does it end? Probably with brittle systems that are unable to survive exogenous shocks.

[aeternum]

I think this concept could lend to a pretty interesting and unique game. The engine would be a city simulation, the more realistic and complex the better. However rather than build directly, the player would enact policies (laws + regulations) for the city and see how things evolve.

[BaronSamedi]

I would play that. Your comment makes me wonder why policy simulators don't already exist, or maybe they do and I am unaware of them. Such a simulator would have to be able to handle the "cobra effect" which could be quite a challenge.

The Cobra effect, by the way, is a great illustration of the problem with static thinking. Problem: too many cobras, Solution: pay a bounty for them, Unintended side-effect: people raise cobras for the bounty so now there are even more cobras.