Re:The Worst Ideas of the Decade - Sarbanes-Oxley
by mnemonicsloth on Monday December 21, 2009 @11:52PM
(#1009449)
The two of you agree on everything that sane and rational people should. Fraud bad. Innovation good. Prevent fraud good. Hinder innovation bad.
You've just got different internal estimates of the prevalence of fraud, the ease of deterring innovation, and the costs associated with each.
Interestingly, when people disagree like this they almost always either start talking about principles, generalities, or hypotheticals that are obviously very good or very bad. They never say "let's start with some numbers we can both agree on and see if we can figure it out together."
I think that's because people are wired to think with representative symbols (genius inventor, robber baron, welfare queen), and to weight their judgments according to their loyalty to various ideology brands.
You've just got different internal estimates of the prevalence of fraud, the ease of deterring innovation, and the costs associated with each.
Interestingly, when people disagree like this they almost always either start talking about principles, generalities, or hypotheticals that are obviously very good or very bad. They never say "let's start with some numbers we can both agree on and see if we can figure it out together."
I think that's because people are wired to think with representative symbols (genius inventor, robber baron, welfare queen), and to weight their judgments according to their loyalty to various ideology brands.