The not-so-hidden message is, "Interventions don't do anything, so make the government smaller, and let corporations do whatever they want."

This really is not the message though. From the post:

“That’s why the worst possible reaction to a failed intervention is resignation. We may not know enough to improve our lot right now, but perhaps we could figure it out, if we tried.”

From reading the whole post, I gather that he’s truly not advocating some libertarian angle, he really is writing on the observation that policy is hard, and it’s nearly impossible to actually predict all the effects of societal intervention.

From my reading, I’m not sure even sure that he’s advocating caution or reluctance to social policy. Just goat sacrifices!

Well, my assumption was he doesn't really want more goat sacrifices but rather less interventions. Otherwise, what does he have against goats?

I think neither you nor the comment you are replying to are understanding what the article is trying to say.

It is saying, acts must be done to reaffirm the commitment to the goal, the goat is a litmus test as to whether the goal is worth it. Not to abandon the goal, some things are worth the sacrifice, but to be aware of it.

"Because there are sometimes unintended consequences to doing stuff, we should never do anything" is a great motto to live by. (/S)

Wow. So we must not ask if any govt interventions work for fear that the wrong answer will empower political groups disfavoured by the govt and govt staff?

We should not cherry pick interventions that don't work and misleadingly show that interventions meant for one purpose did not work for another purpose in order to advance a narrative that no interventions work.

If you read more of the author's stuff it'll be obvious to you why this is wrong.

His whole thing is "we don't understand the world remotely as well as we think we do, and we need to be trying more diverse things (and reliably measuring the outcomes) so that we can understand it better"