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We started writing this essay about 3 years ago (and first read Seeing Like a State about 15 years ago -- it's a book that should be read and re-read many times). It takes time to write something this long, and if I could have I would have kept editing it for another year.

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This is one of my favourite books.

Covid response is a perfect modern day example.

This book also convinced me that all that net zero interventions and other related exercises will end in a disaster.

> will end in a disaster

Sadly, not before migration of earnings and control.

early stringent covid responses(such as in China) probably saved millions of lives in the responsive countries, but i guess post-covid will be litigated with vibes not numbers

We have enough cross-sectional variation in response and results that disprove your claim. So, no!

> cross-sectional variation in response and results that disprove your claim

What do you mean? The spread was low enough during the period where it was high mortality that in China, we can lower bound at 1 million even with best case assumptions about mortality compared to the US that likely wouldn't have been true in a still developing country.

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