New Defaults
This post unfortunately fails to honestly engage with its own counterarguments. Note to the author: you can&#x27;t make a thinkpiece balanced by bringing up opposing points if you&#x27;re just going to dismiss them out-of-hand.<p>&gt;Second, it should be the default that the status quo is a bad thing; instead of justifying why something should be done, the burden of proof should rest on those who believe things should remain the same.<p>This is ignorant of the cost of change. That cost is the main reason why society collectively assumes that &quot;the system works&quot;. Arguments for change have to first attack that notion - as communists, fascists, and all other kinds of anti-conservatives do. None of them believe that change, in and of itself, is valuable.<p>Likewise, the author&#x27;s talk of opportunity cost neglects the price of failure - in doing a retrospective analysis (like the one of vaccine development), it&#x27;s easy to ignore the counterfactuals that never actually happened. But leaving them out means that your analysis is meaningless. Would the author be convinced to write the same article if the vaccine had been rolled out in January, and as a result the world suffered a second thalidomide scandal?