The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature

by Steven Pinker

And since no one is smart enough to predict the behavior of a single human being, let alone millions of them interacting in a society, we should distrust any formula for changing society from the top down, because it is likely to have unintended consequences that are worse than the problems it was designed to fix. The best we can hope for are incremental changes that are continuously adjusted according to feedback about the sum of their good and bad consequences. It also follows that we should not aim to solve social problems like crime or poverty, because in a world of competing individuals one person’s gain may be another person’s loss. The best we can do is trade off one cost against another.

On social problems - Tragic vision