DWQA QuestionsCategory: Problems in SocietyThe Cobra Effect teaches us that good intentions can create perverse incentives. And then these incentives can undermine the good intentions that got the ball rolling, so to speak. We see the effects of this today with government farm subsidies. These came about during The Great Depression in the 1930s. Farmers were plagued with damaging surpluses because no one had money to buy the crops. This caused agricultural prices to crash to the extent that it could have endangered the nation’s food supply if it bankrupted every farmer. So as an interim solution, the government created a program to pay farmers NOT to grow crops. The only problem is, what was meant to be a temporary stopgap turned into a chronic entitlement, with no end in sight, even though it’s been nearly a century since they started. What is Creator’s perspective?
Nicola Staff asked 2 weeks ago
Your description of farm subsidies becoming immortalized through government support and approval is Exhibit A in a pantheon of good intentions run amuck. When emergency measures are adopted, it will usually be under the worst of circumstances, when a problem is developed of considerable proportions, and that is always a consequence of illogical thinking, inadequate oversight, and political complications preventing what might be a better approach from being mounted. Once underway, people will return to a state of complacency, most likely under the assumption the problem has been solved or at least is being dealt with. The fact such decisions never get revisited for reconsideration and a halt of programs that have outlived their usefulness is quite diagnostic of dysfunction. It is not that humans are too stupid to see that money is being wasted, they are being manipulated to be complacent and to disregard the warning signs. The end result of this legacy of steady worsening through becoming increasingly encumbered by bad ideas and their consequences is leading to the impoverishment of the world. There is no better case study example than the U.S. government becoming so bloated in size and the vast array of projects and schemes turning into entitlements that people expect to continue indefinitely once those who do benefit have a taste of the rewards and will fight for their self-interest over that of society. It is not that everyone is a petty criminal quite willing to stab everyone else in the back, people simply are not aware of the big picture because it is being hidden from them. The leadership lies with impunity about all sorts of things, and they themselves are out of touch with reality, and so the false worldview is propagated that "things are under control and proceeding as they need to," when, in fact, there are all sorts of faulty programs and unmet needs that languish because people in the institutions they organize and are influenced by, in turn, are corrupted to apply faulty thinking and false objectives to begin with. When the "experts" cannot be trusted to truly understand the problems of the world, it is no wonder that their recommendations end up being hollow and more comprised of half-measures with shortcomings. People who benefit from government programs that serve as a kind of reward, in the form of a handout, find it hard to resist, and will become the squeaky wheel that gets the grease, so to speak. It is not difficult to arrange political backing for such "special interest groups" as they are called. They often curry favor with politicians and become a kind of entitled industry or class that will receive funding or benefits at the expense of society as a whole whether it makes sense and is well-deserved or not. Given the many examples down through the ages of inequities of all kinds by individuals and institutions who gain a degree of power enough to influence things, these should serve as an object lesson of what to avoid—and, in fact, a large part of what a well-functioning governmental oversight needs to provide is a system of checks and balances and cost accounting to look at outcomes, and periodically review strategies and policies for their optimization or abrupt cancellation when they can be seen clearly, to be inadequate—all too often the way things are organized will put the fox in charge of the henhouse, and what that does is to institutionalize inefficiency, biased and self-serving policies, and eventually, even a criminal level of misconduct. The lesson needing to be learned is that humanity is capable of greatness and petty tyranny. What makes the difference is the access to and influence of divine wisdom versus corruption and distortions of thinking arranged by those in power to corrupt ongoing planning and the function of society. This is not surprising for those few who know who truly runs the world, because it is not human beings who are in charge but the ruthless extraterrestrial predators.