All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with reason. There is nothing higher than reason.
One should proceed with caution. We may simply not be wise enough to do some of the kinds of engineering things that people are talking about doing.
I suspect that one of capitalism’s crucial assets derives from the fact that the imagination of economists, including its critics, lags well behind its own inventiveness, the arbitrariness of its undertaking and the ruthlessness of the way in which it proceeds.
Most people sell their souls, and live with a good conscience on the proceeds.
Nature does not proceed by leaps and bounds.
Why did human development proceed at such different rates on different continents for the last 13,000 years?
Because mechanism designers do not generally know which outcomes are optimal in advance, they have to proceed more indirectly than simply prescribing outcomes by fiat; in particular, the mechanisms designed must generate the information needed as they are executed.
The problem is, I think, that so many of us pray as if we are ordering groceries. We pick up the telephone and say, ‘Is this the right place to place my order?’ and we proceed right to dictating our order. When we have then ended that list, we hang up.
