Excessive chaos produces a desire for order. The desire for order is both good and evil: cooperation is good, dictatorship is evil. Everything not trivial is complex.

Excessive order produces a desire for chaos. The desire for chaos is both good and evil: self-determinism is good, denying responsibility is evil. Nothing is purely one or the other.

Improving things is not futile, but it can be difficult and requires maintenance and debugging. It is impossible to predict every consequence, but quite possible to predict the likely consequences of most actions. Nothing exists in a vacuum.

Ignoring one or more of the above precepts is a common failure for philosophers, economists, engineers and politicians.

-30-

People are very fond of the Shirley argument. The Shirley argument goes like this:

“Surely the people who implement this law will do common-sense things to avoid ridiculous results!”

The Shirley argument is always wrong, usually because of non-systematic yet surprisingly pervasive discrimination… and sometimes because of systematic and intentional discrimination. And occasionally because people aren’t perfect. But it’s always wrong.

Laws can be incredibly pedantic: if you’re not sure, go read some. A law which seems to inadvertently leave loopholes is not a well-written law; anything which you can immediately spot is deliberate.

And don’t call me Shirley.

-30-