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Streamlining the State

Building a nimble and effective government

J.K. Lund
7 min readJan 2, 2025

Risk & Progress| A hub for essays that explore risk, human progress, and your potential. My mission is to educate, inspire, and invest in concepts that promote a better future. Subscriptions are free, paid subscribers gain access to the full archive, including the Pathways of Progress and Realize essay series.

In 19th century Britain, shortly after the introduction of some of the first “automobiles,” its Parliament passed the Red Flag Act. This law required a crew of three to operate all autos; one person for fueling, another to drive, and one more walking ahead of the vehicle waving a red flag to warn others as it plodded forward at 2 mph. Ostensibly a safety regulation in the public’s interest, in reality, the “The Red Flag Act” resulted from intense lobbying from the stagecoach industry, which was threatened by the invention. The Act stifled Britain’s nascent auto industry; ideas only flower when allowed room to grow.

As we learned at the outset of our study of human progress, we are biologically predisposed to risk aversion. We have great difficulty weighing risk through the lens of our innate “reality distortion field.” Thus, we tend to give great deference to rules and regulations created under claims of “safety” and “security.” Often, as we have seen, this “precautionary…

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J.K. Lund
J.K. Lund

Written by J.K. Lund

Founder of Lianeon Ventures | Chief Editor at Risk & Progress | My mission is to educate, inspire, and invest in concepts that promote a better future.

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