The Goldilocks Game

It’s fun and anyone can play! All you need to do is complain that such a such a policy wasn’t effective because it was too heavy. Or too light. Not enough money was spent. Too much force was used. Not enough. It’s an all-purpose response and can be used on foreign policy (the war in Afghanistan) or domestic policy (fiscal stimulus).

For some reason practitioners of the Goldilocks Game never seem to realize that in making such claims they have undertaken an intellectual obligation to present empirical evidence that their preferred strategy will work. I.e. that there is some level of application at which your preferred strategy is effective. In the absence of that it’s just another vapid, unprovable claim.