Dan wrote: > > One thing to remember about experimentation: 99.99% of experiments fail;
What's the criteria for success? An experimental form of governance (or some aspect of governance) may not yield a completely successful law or system of laws, but I'm relatively certain that important knowledge can be gleaned from any well designed experiment forming the basis for further experimentation and eventually a more successful law or system. > > they do not achieve the goals they set out to achieve. In physics, > theorists have come up with tens if not hundreds of thousands of wrong > theories. Shelly Glashow, who I mentioned, said he came up with 5 new > theories per day. Only one of his really paid off...and it paid off big. > Most experiments in physics don’t find the new and exciting thing they are > looking for; they just find that the 2 sigma signal they spent 2 years > getting more data on disappear. I'm not sure physics experiments where there is generally one right answer and thousands of wrong ones are comparable to social experiments where there is seldom one correct answer and often many acceptable solutions to a problem. Furthermore, a correct answer in physics will remain correct whereas a social system is always fluctuating not only from year to year but from one location to the next. Economic studies have shown that, for average entrepreneurs, the business > ends up failing and costing money. We are fortunate that we have these > folks, because every once in a while they come up with something that > _really_ benefits everyone. But, even averaging the winners in, the > average person taking a risk on a new business loses money. Am I wrong in guessing that very few new businesses are experimental > > Finally, we do have experimentation in government. California and Texas > have very different governments; and very different sets of problems. > California is wining the race down to failure, it seems.....because Texas > doesn't have much of a housing problem and is not about to go bankrupt. I don't think that this is an experiment in any useful sense of the word. > You may argue that these are minimalistic changes; and they are. I would argue that they are apples and oranges. Doug
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