If I try to imagine myself going through this analysis and coming to the conclusion that I’m ‘pro-preschool’, I imagine myself subtly assuming two things:
The relevant thing when I’m talking through my views on this, is what I’m signalling politically about what idea we should coordinate around
The people who are paying attention to what ideas we should politically coordinate around are unable to coordinate around new and slightly complex ideas.
Then I can fairly straightforwardly imagine myself saying
I see that the substance of pre-schools has zero positive effect, but that the overall scheme is helpful for families, so… I guess my main message if anyone asks will have to remain that I’m pro-preschool.”
And of course two more things: That taking the better short-term of the two sides is the best way to interact with such a supremely broken system, despite the fact that it strengthens the system and makes it that much less likely to improve, and that you prefer a hugely inefficient transfer (that likely leads over time to even less efficient similar things) to doing nothing—transfers are most certainly not free even in the best of cases, and this is not that.
If I try to imagine myself going through this analysis and coming to the conclusion that I’m ‘pro-preschool’, I imagine myself subtly assuming two things:
The relevant thing when I’m talking through my views on this, is what I’m signalling politically about what idea we should coordinate around
The people who are paying attention to what ideas we should politically coordinate around are unable to coordinate around new and slightly complex ideas.
Then I can fairly straightforwardly imagine myself saying
And of course two more things: That taking the better short-term of the two sides is the best way to interact with such a supremely broken system, despite the fact that it strengthens the system and makes it that much less likely to improve, and that you prefer a hugely inefficient transfer (that likely leads over time to even less efficient similar things) to doing nothing—transfers are most certainly not free even in the best of cases, and this is not that.