[magila]

It seems to me the complexity argument works in favor of cap-and-trade. While the global climate and global economy are both staggeringly complex systems, we can predict the former significantly more accurately than the latter. Thus it would be simpler to set the allowable emissions by policy and let the market work out the economic side.

[WalterBright]

We don't need to predict it. We tax the pollution at its source, then measure the results. Adjust the tax up and down to achieve the desired result. (This is done in engineering all the time, it's called a feedback circuit.)

Not needing to figure out the relationship between input and output is the beauty of feedback systems, and why they are so prevalent in engineering.

For example, one of my jobs at Boeing was working on the hydraulic actuators that moved the elevators up and down. The goal was to move the elevators in proportion to the control column movements. Nobody ever bothered to figure out how far the actuator would move for a particular input. How it worked was a mechanical linkage provided feedback so when the elevator was too far, the linkage would open the valve to move it back. If it wasn't far enough, the linkage would open the valve the other way, which would move it forward.

It behaves beautifully. It also makes the 3 redundant actuators work together, despite variations in tolerances.

[UncleEntity]

People aren’t variables in some equation, if the central planners get things wrong people can literally die.

[WalterBright]

> People aren’t variables in some equation,

They are for many purposes.

> if the central planners get things wrong people can literally die.

That's a problem with any system.