matt comments on Mandating Information Disclosure vs. Banning Deceptive Contract Terms - Less Wrong
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But ignorance in rational agent models of asymmetric information don't cause people to be tricked, so it's can't be ignorance of that sort.
It seems perfectly plausible to me that people understand that the deck is stacked against them, while at the same time not knowing exactly how to protect themselves and so falling for some of the tricks, and would be perfectly happy to have a government they trusted simply remove the bad stuff from the menu. I know that's how I see it.
Ooo - sign me up for that! A government I trust that will remove the bad stuff from the menu, and... ohh, hang on. What will the credit card companies, who are a concentrated, highly incentivesed interest group, do next? How will they act on our democratically elected representatives? When we present our carefully thought out policy recommendations to parliament, and the parliament passes the details through to committee... what will happen next? What's likely to come out the other end of the legislative sausage machine?
When we then try to organize the millions of self-identified likely victims of complexity, and the hundreds of thousands of wise altruists who want to help the likely victims, for all of whom this is a fairly unimportant matter... when we array them against the lobbiests... who's likely to stay the course and win the regulation that'll help their tribe?