6bb26ec559294f7f

6bb26ec559294f7f t1_jdw8u1z wrote

> Doctors are bad because their existence incentivizes people to take risks they might shy away from if there were no doctors.

I haven't seen any seriously make this argument for doctors because they are too far removed from decision making, but it is a discussion when adding new safety features to a dangerous activity. If the new safety feature encourages more dangerous behavior, then the safety needs to be worth the increase in dangerous behavior. Generally it is. Sometimes it isn't but it is added for legal/liability reasons; that's another case of perverse incentives.

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6bb26ec559294f7f t1_jdt9wci wrote

The problem is incentives. If you make a charity to buy child slaves and free them, you create an incentive to produce more child slaves. Even though you are directly helping children, literally saving child slaves, you create an economic incentive for more child slaves. This isn't purely hypothetical, anti-slavery charities don't spend money directly buying and freeing slaves for this very reason.

I'm not saying the same does apply here, only raising an example to show that it is possible that helping to solve a problem can instead make it worse.

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