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by AnimalMuppet 63 days ago
There are two errors.

Error 1: "Something must be done, this is something, therefore this must be done." Yeah, but "this" is something stupid, with no real-world chance of working.

Error 2: "We will not do anything until we can prove that it will work." You can analyze things to death and waste years in the process, and never do anything.

Somewhere in between is the right answer. You see plausible success, but still far from certain. Then you experiment.

Now, is New York striking the right balance? I have no idea. I'm not privy to their internal discussions. But I know that, if it fails, everyone is going to mock them for trying. That is, everyone is going to assume they fell into error 1. But did they? Getting the balance right still means that the experiments fail a fair amount of the time.