If you have been reading the news lately, you would know the story about OceanGate submarine that failed and killed all people onboard. The cause of this tragic incident is that the creator of the submarine chose to ignore regulations. He believed that they are only in place to stifle innovation and that he knows better than the others and can't be wrong.
OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush said in 2021 he knew he'd 'broken some rules' by making the Titanic submersible out of carbon fiber and not pure metal: 'You're remembered for the rules you break'lThis should be a cautionary tale to people who dream about society without government and its regulations. Imagine if someone makes an "experimental and innovative" nuclear reactor that explodes and gives radiation sickness + cancer to hundreds of thousands. Or someone makes an "experimental and innovative" dam that collapses and floods houses. Invisible hand of the market won't be able to undo the damage or prevent it in the future from repeating again.
A few keywords come to mind:
BALANCEThere needs to be a balance between how heavily or lightly regulated things are - in the case of the Sub, money spoke and people were bought out. The balance and common sense (which I'll mention next) simply wasn't there, sure they could do this crazy thing (and did) and lo and behold there are consequences when you do stupid things.
However, let's imagine that we have an angry and authoritarian leader who is opposed to change, new facts and new ideas...
Dr. Roger Bannister would have been in trouble for proving great leader wrong because 'no man can run a mile in under four minutes' was the accepted common belief in the early 1960s in the UK.
The modern diesel and electric trains would have been banned, because 'change is scary... we'll stick with steam trains, just because.'
Bitcoin would have been banned because great leader cannot understand new thing, if great leader cannot understand it is wrong and banned.
COMMON SENSE'How dare you not tell me to peepee on the electric fence... bzzzzzboom!'
Use your brain, if it's too good to be true or seems dumb then it is.
The flipside is that by not doing something, we can make a problem worse - during Lockdown, deafblind children in the UK suffered because they could not do the things that they normally did and struggled to adapt to the draconian laws (however well intended...)
'We must keep people safe because deadly virus'
'Locking down the world will hurt people with special issues though...'
'BLAST YOU, I'M A GOOD PERSON AND I AM IN CHARGE!'
'Can we compromise and can our feelings be made known>'
'NO, NAY, NEVER!'
Whilst safety is needed, too much and indeed too little of something is bad enough.
A little rhyme to help you remember:
Flashy Jack was quick to act and thought about it later
Whilst Dopey Pat just sat and sat - action, he did not favour.
Steady John said 'steady on, I'll think whilst I have time...
... but then I act, or it's a fact that I'll be in the slime!'