In The Face of Fires
Principles of Public Policy, Psychology, and Economics after the 2025 CA Wildfires
If you want a detention given, I'm your guy. If you want someone to explain slope-intercept form, I'm happy to volunteer. If you want an essay on policy, you can count on me.
But when it comes to practical endeavors like fixing dishwashers, hunting game, or lifting heavy things, I'm pretty much useless.
Or in the midst of terrible fires.
I've watched the fires in LA with a grieving heart. I can pray, I can give to the occasional GoFundMe that comes across my feed. I can do a few things. It's not enough, but it's a little.
I suspect everyone feels inadequate to the need in the face of tragedy--but it's a unique thing when your professional expertise is talking. You would not, it appears, want me on your team during the zombie apocalypse.
And yet, despite it all, I feel the need to write this post. I can think of three reasons.
First, I write selfishly. Writing is cheaper than therapy. It feels good to do something, even if that something isn’t enough. We all want catharsis, and mine will only hurt those who choose to continue reading.
Secondly, I am praying—and whenever I pray, I feel some obligation to ask “is thy faith without works?” I believe in prayer—but I believe it is only efficacious when I do something more than pray. This post is one part of that "something more."
Finally, I am writing this post because doing what you can is something we should model more, even—and perhaps especially—when what you can is utterly insufficient.
I am a professional talker; fortunately, there are some words that might be of use. There are a few things I know decently well, and they are psychology, economics, and public policy. Some "talking," as it were—with a focus on the counterintuitive.
Here, then, are a few thoughts in the aftermath of the California fires of 2025.
May they be of some help.
1. Do Not Be Too Eager to Find a Villain.
Keith Wasserman put out a plea on social media:
“Does anyone have access to private firefighters to protect our home in Pacific Palisades? Need to act fast here. All neighbors houses burning. Will pay any amount.”
It was not good timing, and it was not well phrased. Keith was not exactly reading the room.
But neither is Keith Wasserman the villain here. He didn’t start the fire.
On the topic of things that are cheaper than therapy, my sense of psychology is that our brains feel some level of catharsis over a tragedy when we can pin it on a culprit. We're quick to find "bad guys" not because we want them held accountable, but because the world is a little neater, tidier, and more just when we can blame someone. Make social media the judge, and we can all be the jury and executioner.
It’s hard to think straight when our brains urge: “Break out the pitchforks!”
It is worth resisting that urge.
Daniel Kahneman is the one who first introduced me to the idea that our brains think in two ways: System 1 (the associative, effortless, and intuitive) and System II (the algorithmic, effortful, and deliberate). My only ask is that we pause System I so we can use System II when the time is right.
Instead of finding villains, some of us will be driven to act—to do something so that such a horror never happens again. I have written on this before. I am not convinced that such a world is possible—but I am quite convinced that hasty legislation is more likely to make future problems worse rather than better.
Obviously, I'm not suggesting that irresponsible people should evade accountability. I am currently watching the HBO miniseries “Chernobyl.” Irresponsibility exacts its price in treasure, blood, and raw horror. We ought to prosecute incompetence and irresponsibility because they lead quite directly to suffering.
All in due time, however.
Not only can you keep from contributing another ounce of fury into an already saturated world, you can actually make it better. The primary difference between the liberal tradition that I hope to live up to and the leftist tradition which I fiercely oppose is that the liberals believe in humanity dignity for every soul, whereas the left believes in dignity for every soul with a notable asterisk excepting the rich—or any other who is not actually deserving of such dignity. Do something brave, then: stand up for every brother or sister traveling the path alongside you.
Should we let the tragedy spur us to legislative or policy action? In a way, yes. Use every ounce of anger and fury—but at the right time and in the right way. Pause the initial impulse at retribution. When you get ready for policy, do it with a clear mind and clear eyes, lest you make matters worse; lest you exchange one fire for another. You will make the best policy when you can be sure you are in it to help others rather than policy-as-therapy.
2. Stop Subsidizing Risk
This Atlantic article says it better than I can:
The real story of the wildfires isn’t about malice or incompetence. It’s about well-intentioned policies with unintended consequences.
Take insurance—a trillion-dollar industry built to identify risks, particularly from disasters such as wildfires. Insurance companies communicate this risk to homeowners through higher premiums, providing them with useful information and incentives. People may think twice about moving to a fire-prone area if they see the danger reflected in a fee.
But in 1988, California voters passed Proposition 103, arbitrarily reducing rates by 20 percent and subjecting future rate increases to public oversight. Nobody likes high premiums, of course. But the politicization of risk has been a catastrophe. Artificially low premiums encouraged more Californians to live in the state’s most dangerous areas. And they reduced the incentive for homeowners to protect their houses, such as by installing fire-resistant roofs and siding materials.
One of the best and most honest things policy-makers can do is communicate risk clearly, and that means allowing markets to signal (in the form of higher premiums) when you are doing something that increases your chances of future suffering.
California has legislated against this very solution.
There is a longstanding consensus among economists that price controls and subsidies are bad. I agree. But there seems to be a massive blindspot in the public consciousness regarding risk. Risk has a price. and we ask the government to hide it, obscure it, and eventually, to pay it.
There is no world in which we end every environmental disaster—but there is a world in which people know if they are moving to areas with big risks. That is a better world, and it is within grasp.
3. Private Fire-Fighting is a Great Idea
Keith Wasserman’s initial social media post generated controversy in part because people wanted to be mad, and wanted to find a villain. But in addition to being mad, they were also wrong: paying “any amount” for additional firefighters is a great idea. Firefighting is what economists call a public good, and is typically underproduced. If he is willing to help pay for his own way, that will make everyone better off. This is a well-studied area of economics, and counterintuitive enough to be worth rethinking: We should have been encouraging him and putting him in touch with out-of-state firefighters rather than tsk-tsking.
We’re have strong cultural defaults, and one is that certain things are to be offered publicly (that is, by government). Except that in many cases, private provision is a part of the solution: would any of you have such zeal for the US Postal Service that you would swear off FedEx and UPS?
If by his wealth, Wasserman could have flown in a brigade to protect his home, everyone would have been better off, including his neighbors (because fire suppression has positive effects on third parties) and firefighters (who can now focus on other areas to get relief from a second string).
The World I Can Promise
I would not dare promise paradise. The world will continue having tragedies.
But there is a world within our grasp that is marginally better than the world we now enjoy: more informed people, a little less destruction, and a little more dignity.
The perfect world is not in our grasp, but the marginally better world is. And that is, after all, the path to the perfect world anyhow.