The Problem of Hindsight
29th June 2023
… the tendency for any human institution to perpetuate itself, no matter how stupid or harmful its purpose, because it is the job of the persons running it.
Suppose tomorrow there was a plague that rotted infants from the toes up, so that if you didn’t immediately cut an infants’ toes off, they would die sometime before five. An organization would be formed to cut infants’ toes off, and develop all sorts of branches and sub-organizations. Then twenty years later, someone discovered that a simple antibiotic stopped the death. Do you think the infant-toes-cutting-off bureaucracy would go away? Really? Why?
I bet you they would come up with a million reasons why cutting off day-olds’ toes was better for the baby, and stridently refuse to disband and/or change policy.
This is sort of how we got here.
Wisdom. Attend.