[CWuestefeld]

I don't think you've answered the question. In your response you cite a program that enjoyed the effects that were intended, but to an even greater degree than had been expected (and aside from the effects being expected, it's also not a large and complex program). Another example of a program that successfully achieved its goal, but surpassed expectations, would be the Eisenhower Interstate Highway system (which is probably the most successful large program I can think of).

What's the NASA spinoff you allude to? I expect it's, again, what had been promised. Part of the plan was to bring about technological innovations. The development of velcro, or things like it, was part of the plan.

What I actually asked for is any example of what you claimed to be a certainty: a large, complex government program having unintended positive results.

I wasn't being snarky, I was trying to demonstrate that the record here is nearly, if not entirely, on the downside. History shows us governmental programs failing in a myriad of ways, but this isn't balanced on the upside. I honestly can't think of a counterexample within my parameters (large size and complexity, and having unintended positive results).

EDIT: A better way to state my question occurred to me. What I'm looking for is not quantitatively unexpected results, but qualitatively unexpected results, because I think that's what is implied in the above back-and-forth about these qualitatively unintended bad results versus a certainty of unintended good results.

[fbags]

Give me a break. I guarantee that when NASA was proposed, nobody had a presentation which showed all the companies that would result, nor all the side effects of the engineering talent that would be accreted in industry and universities, nor all the innovations that would occur not just from items listed in the RFPs but from items inspired by those items and so on.

You're pretending that if something good happens after a government action it was all intentional and thus there were never any unintended positive impacts of anything, ever. Because government is full of far-sighted individuals who totally grokked that ARPAnet would eventually be used for every conceivable form of communication, entertainment, and commerce.

The world is complex. Governmental programs aren't all good or all bad. Reality isn't compatible with your small-minded ideology. Deal with it.

[CWuestefeld]

You're pretending that if something good happens after a government action it was all planned

I'll admit that I'm walking a dangerous line with the "no true Scotsman" fallacy. I stand by my judgment of the examples cited, but agree there is some room for debate.

I think the NASA example fails not because I'm being too narrow, but because the initial stated objectives were so fuzzy and broad. More importantly, these stated objectives were probably just secondary, a rationalization to enable the true objective - the nationalistic desire to win the "space race" against the Soviets. JFK, who initially got the whole ball rolling, actually wanted nothing to do with space exploration. His backing of it was really just a political ploy. (of course, in pointing this out, I'm making your point to a certain degree: JFK set out to score political points, and in the end he wound up bringing us velcro and ICBMs - yes, I'm being snarky there)

That said, you've also given me the best reply to my question: ARPAnet. While it wasn't large at the time, it was certainly complex (beyond my ability to understand all of its technology, anyway). And since it was developed for defense purposes, the end positive consequences are in a whole different ballpark than what was originally planned.

Anyway, what really drives my questioning here is a Megan McArdle post from yesterday [1] about a political science class at John Hopkins about policy failures. She quotes the prof. as talking about opening minds to critical thinking about the endless ways in which the best-laid plans can go awry.

[1] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-04/learning-from-iraq-...

[hga]

"nationalistic desire" implies an inward looking reason, right?

As I read it, it was part of the fight for the hearts and minds of the 3rd world, the "Western" 1st World's approach to things vs. the Communist's 2nd World approach. Eisenhower let the Soviets orbit the first satellite to de facto establish his Open Skies policy, which the Soviets were mightily objecting to (the principle that outer space overflights were beyond territorial claims like those for airspace) ... but that the usual internal infighting led to our being visibly behind the Soviets in the most visible form of high technology. Which severely weakened our sales proposition to the 3rd World....

One explicit objective that developed, especially after LBJ took over, was uplifting the South with high tech. The opportunity of spending an extra billion in Texas is why we didn't build any infrastructure in space....

[fbags]

If you're going to stand by your judgment, you should do so on both sides.

Actors within government are generally aware that their actions have some negative consequences. They have a lot of smart people who tell them about problems that can (and will) occur, along with some likelihoods of the magnitude and frequencies of those problems. So under your classification scheme, there really aren't many unintended downsides of governmental action.

You seem to be conflating the public marketing of a policy (it will be sunshine and rainbows) with the internal understanding of a policy (it will solve a few problems, create a few different problems, and hopefully net positive).

[CWuestefeld]

You seem to be conflating the public marketing of a policy with the internal understanding of a policy

Yes. I'm doing that consciously, because I think it's appropriate. The very nature of the question is that when it's presented to the public, only the public marketing is on display. At the time we're debating a policy, we can guess at the internal agenda but we never really know for sure until later (if at all).

So if we're trying to learn from history and apply it to today's policy debate, of what use is a history that separates the hidden agenda - a factor that we are unable to know and make use of at the time the decision is being made?

[fbags]

It's in no way appropriate. You're purposefully conflating completely different arguments to try to score cheap political points.

And it's almost comic that you're essentially pretending that nobody talked about potential problems and failure modes for various healthcare reforms prior to the passing of Obamacare.

It saddens me that you seem to be an otherwise intelligent person, but you're so blinded by your ideology that you don't realize what intellectually dishonest nonsense you're spewing.

[CWuestefeld]

I respond poorly to people accusing me of intellectual dishonesty without demonstrating in what way I'm being dishonest. In my defense, if you look back through this thread, when specifically confronted about the arguments, I directly addressed the "no true Scotsman" issue, for example.

It's true that I'm not impartial here, but there's every indication that you're not either, yet you're trying to pin it all on me.

Of course problems and potential failure modes were debated; that was part of the public marketing. But there clearly was a hidden agenda that we still don't know. Why else would they have worked so hard to pass something overnight -- as if it were an emergency -- and including language making it so far from what anyone wanted and containing provisions contradicting what had been promised (and with every indication that (at the outset, anyway) those promises were sincere?

But where in the debate do you see any discourse about the hidden agendas of either side? How in the world can we include this in today's discussion when even now it can only be speculation? And how can I be intellectually dishonest with it, then, if we can't know what it is?

Sidebar: The debate we had included raging dishonesty on both sides. On the pro side we had misdirection about the problems the bill was putatively intended to solve (preexisting conditions were already significantly addressed by HIPAA; uninsured could already get catastrophic care at hospitals, financed by the government) and funding (expenditure estimates were cooked by showing a runtime starting years before actual outlays began, in order to minimize the deficit impact). On the anti side we had hyperbole about "death panels" and about the government taking over the industry, etc.