Monday 6 June 2011

What's wrong with the precautionary principle?

Better safe than sorry is not always the best policy.  In fact, it can often be the worst.

I came across an example of this back in the 1980s in Scotland where the MoD had a missile test range.  The missiles were fired out to sea over a stretch of ocean that was a cauldron of shoals, reefs, and jagged rocks that only a lunatic would sail into, but the Powers That Be declared that for safety's sake a couple of men drive a jeep out to the point to make sure the area was clear.

The result?  The test programme had to be abandoned because of the many accidents the men had driving on the dirt track out to the point to prevent the unlikely chance of an accident.

9 comments:

eon said...

Quoting Cass Sunstein about the dangers of the "precautionary principle" edges toward the surreal. Considering that Sunstein is one of the prime proponents of using draconian measures to keep evil Americans from further harming the rest of the world.

As for the choice between "Holy Mother Gaia" and human misery, it's a false choice. Because in every case in recorded history, "progressives" and "social reformers" have invariably chosen to increase human misery, no matter what the "reason". Because for them, the "reason" is never anything but an excuse; the misery is their goal.

They hate people, enjoy oppressing them, and frankly would enjoy killing them in job lots even more. It makes them feel big, powerful, and important, in a way nothing else does. It says a great deal about the "caring, compassionate" ones that their dreams invariably end in death camps, from Sobibor to the gulag to Cambodia to Guyana. (Yes, even the Nazis claimed to be working for the "betterment of mankind"- read Houston Stewart Chamberlain, sometime.)

They dream of a world in which only they exist. At which point, I suspect, they will turn on each other like rabid dogs.

Not that it would do the rest of us any good, by then.

cheers

eon

Sergej said...

"Do not touch anything, lest you harm something! Or evoke the rage of something else! Or change ANYTHING!" I laugh. The thought occurred to me some time ago that the lefties these days are just amazingly---conservative. Only, not in the sense of being careful where they step, but full on, cargo culting, sacrificing people to the volcano gods, reactionaries against the discovery and use of fire!

(Not really, I'd say more accurately, they and Romanticism, reactionaries against the Industrial Revolution.)

David said...

Interesting. I didn't know that the quote was by Sunstein. I chose the image because it struck me as an amazingly clueless remark where the PP leads of utter paralysis. Apparently the clueless goes down to the molecular level in this case.

Wesley said...

As Eon said, the choice presented is a false choice. The caption in the image also makes the incorrect assumption that there are only two choices. And the first choice is based on an incorrect assumption. With so many flaws and so few ideas, it's no wonder that human misery is the result.

Sergej, isn't it amazing how the clueless ones love the toys that industry provides them, yet despise the very activity that produces those toys?

Yes, David, cluelessness among these self-defined "progressives" (really regressives) is congenital. You cannot separate them from it; it is part of who they decide to become.

Wesley said...

(Congenital in the cultural sense; "A descriptive term for a disease or condition that is present at birth. A congenital disease can be either hereditary or acquired.")

eon said...

BTW, the quote I'm referring to is in the article the link goes to. It is even more bizarre than the image's line. Especially if you know Sunstein's track record and writings.

/just wanted to clarify the point.

cheers

eon

Wesley said...

We know Obama can read a Teleprompter("Corps(e)man" aside). It seems all his "principles" come from those of a certain ideological bent. I'd like to see him debate someone who can articulate the US's founding principles, sans Teleprompter. For that matter, I'd like to see Sunstein or Soros try, but that's not politically expedient.

These people would be entertaining if they didn't have power. I just hope we're learning our lesson.

David said...

Personally, I want to dispense with the debates altogether and have the candidates do a lap around the Top Gear test track. I think we'd learn far more about them.

Wesley said...

Good idea, David - Not only would it get US candidates away from some of the US media, the physical challenge might be more relevant than some debates as typically moderated. Each candidate could use the vehicle of his choice, whether the type be green machine or fire-breathing oiler.