[idiotsecant]

Sometimes behaviour is legislated through second order behaviours because legislating first order behaviour is politically sensitive, or sometimes because even though the primary behaviour is already legislated the second order behaviour is as well. Not saying it's right, but it's exceedingly common.

I'd make an example but these are exactly the sort of things that launch off topic 10 page discussions with very low information content.

[dan-robertson]

Sure, there are exceptions. When I wrote ‘normally’ to cover them, I was more thinking of things where it is hard to set good metrics for the thing one wants controlled, or cases where avoiding the spirit of the rule would be too likely.

Nevertheless, I think those are exceptions. I think first order effects tend to matter more than second order effects (that’s why they’re called first order) and not doing good first-order things because of potentially bad second-order things is often wrong.

[slowmovintarget]

And sometimes the legislation is the way it is because the legislature works from an understanding that is easy to popularize... and wrong.