Laughing Wolf links to an interesting article looking at some aspects of current social policy in terms of predator/prey dynamics:
Whatever the stated intentions of the social experiment are – and they’re always stated to be of the loftiest and noblest of goals – the observed effects are a bit different than avowed.
And there’s no longer the social environment that provides external reinforcement for what little internal civilizing factors seep through.
[We are] breeding our own predators, in several varieties, from the lone hunters – the serial killer: equivalent to the big cats – to the pack hunters and the scavengers that feed off of them.
On this theme, I am often bemused by lamets about the worsening quality of education, and calls for new and improved methodologies. If education is worse now than it was then, logically we should apply the methodologies in use then instead of trying yet more untried schemes.
The principle applies in many areas, I think.
There’s a lot to be said for going back to something that worked, and then means testing new systems before implementation. ;]
I don’t see it happening at this point though, do you? Buckle in – it’ll be an interesting ride from here on out.
Yeah, when I’m dictator I’ll insist that all legislation come with metrics to measure success and automatic recall if they don’t measure up.