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Overcoming Bias Commenter's avatar

I agree that market failure is not the real worry about a new technology (at least not in the sense of merely pricing the item incorrectly due to incremental externalities). Quoth Bryson:

So Whitney's gin not only helped make many people rich on both sides of the Atlantic but also reinvigorated slavery, turned child labor into a necessity, and paved the way for the American Civil War. Perhaps at no other time in history has someone with a simple, well-meaning invention generated more general prosperity, personal disappointment, and inadvertent suffering than Eli Whitney with his gin. That is quite a lot of consequence for a simple rotating drum.This should damn well have been subject to voter approval.

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Overcoming Bias Commenter's avatar

I think your point is excellently illustrated in the HBO series The Wire's 4th Season. Its were the lame-duck district commander who is gonna retire, sets up a 'drug-legal zone' which is nicknamed 'Hamsterdam' (after Amsterdam) and directs all the drug dealers to setup their shop there, than committing nuisance in the other neighborhoods. It turned out that in the city, the crime rate did drop, until the newly elected mayor got to know about the whole situation, (and since he was newly elected) with his fresh rhetoric, quickly instructed the police head to round off all the gangs in that location, which initially, that district commander had in mind, in case, the upper ranks were to change their thoughts on the project. I highly recommend the Overcoming Bias Blog readers to watch the whole series its very relevant to that type of audience.

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