Bruce Bostwick wrote: > On Sep 17, 2008, at 8:26 PM, Ronn! Blankenship wrote: >> At 07:57 PM Wednesday 9/17/2008, Dave Land wrote: >>> On Sep 17, 2008, at 3:56 PM, Andrew Crystall wrote: >>>> On 17 Sep 2008 at 13:46, Dave Land wrote: >>>> >>>>> Perhaps the reproduction tax incentive can be on a curve, with zero >>>>> or >>>>> less population growth being rewarded, over-reproduction being >>>>> penalized: >>>>> >>>>> 0 children -- 3 deductions >>>>> 1 child -- 2 deduction >>>>> 2 children -- 1 deductions >>>>> 3 children -- 1 penalty >>>>> 4 children -- 2 penalties >>>> Congratulations, you just lowered the birth rate again among the >>>> very >>>> people who are not even currently producing a replacement >>>> population, >>>> and the groups who want lots of children anyway are now bitterly >>>> opposed to the government and are very unlike to listen to anything >>>> else they say on the matter. >>> That's OK, I'll just go back to the last save point and try again. >> I imagine most politicians wish it were that easy in RL . . . >> >> Do Over Maru >> >> . . . ronn! :) > > There's a lot to be said for the concept of test simulations, alpha > and beta testing, and staged rollouts for social policy. Those are > foreign concepts to most politicians, who seem to prefer the > equivalent of making a full-scale production run of duplicates of the > first-generation prototype and releasing them to the public with no > testing at all, and when people unsurprisingly call tech support to > ask "WTF?!", screaming at them for being a "bunch of whiners". > > I for one would particularly like there to be a simulation environment > that could be used to catch unintended consequences like these, as > well as alpha and beta test environments with some degree of user > acceptance testing and feedback, before social-policy bills are signed > out of Congress. Never happen, and I'm probably too much of an > engineering-type geek for even thinking about it, but it's an > appealing thought nonetheless.
Actually, this happens in Real Life, at least staged rollouts. In Namibia, for example, they are now test-driving a Basic Income Grant scheme in a limited part of the country for two years, before deciding if this is a good policy to run nation-wide. http://bignam.org /c _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
