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Who exactly would write these forward-looking regulations? Who is competent enough to foresee years in the future what car manufacturers might want to do, and t
by mseebach 11y ago
Who exactly would write these forward-looking regulations? Who is competent enough to foresee years in the future what car manufacturers might want to do, and then imagine how that might go wrong, and then regulate it? Any why would (indeed, should) these people not work for the auto industry, applying these competences in actually developing these new technologies?
And who checks these people's work? How do we make sure they don't risk outlawing ABS and ESP before they're invented?
For a relevant case study, compare and contrast with how heavy regulation, also plenty of forward-looking stuff, totally failed to predict or prevent the financial crash.
The, there's the issue of how the industry would actually adhere to these speculative regulations. You'd have plausibly millions of pages of regulation to evaluate every new development against. In practise, this means the lawyers are running the show. Just like in the banks.
Also, before your righteous anger gets the better of you, let's remember that nobody has actually been hurt due to these problems yet, except of course the manufacturer who must issue extreme expensive recalls. In the meantime, Toyota built cars with a gas pedal that stuck - this issue actually killed people. It was a purely mechanical problem - would these hypothetical forward-looking regulators have caught that issue?
Finally, I'm not one to throw around words like "communism" where they don't apply, and communists certainly didn't and don't care one bit for consumer safety or comfort - but severe overconfidence in the ability of government to plan, predict and prevent things is a central problem with communism.
- toyg 11y agoI would suggest someone else should keep his own righteous anger in check, considering he replied to a simple quip with a comment that is eight times as long. I won't even bother to fight your strawmen (the financial crash could not be helped by better laws, really?), tbh it's just boring. You are right, why have laws at all? Car manufacturers are so enlightened, they obviously work for the greater good rather than simple profit, I apologize for my stupid remark. Have a good day.
- unethical_ban 11y agoBecause your quip shows an astonishing amount of deference to an often incompetent and power hungry government. At least I can choose my vehicle.
- jdmichal 11y agoPassive-aggressive much? Sometimes a simple quip requires a long response to accurately address multiple potential issues. In speaking about forward-looking government regulation, bringing up how forward-looking government regulation failed in other cases is pretty relevant. And never was the idea mentioned that these things should not be governed at all, which is you throwing out a strawman. Simply that the nature of modern regulation is to restrict possible outcomes, and that also has negative externalities. "Good" advancements can be just as restricted as "bad" advancements, and it's extremely difficult to tell the difference years or even decades before they happen.
- toyg 11y ago> Sometimes a simple quip requires a long response to accurately address multiple potential issues. Not sprayed with gratuitous ad-hominems, not really. > bringing up how forward-looking government regulation failed in other cases is pretty relevant. I struggled to consider it relevant, considering how it's widely accepted that reduction in regulation is one of the main causes of the recent financial crash. Forward-looking regulation was there and was removed. I think that particular example doesn't make the point he thinks it makes. > And never was the idea mentioned that these things should not be governed at all It was basically inferred. If you take his points to the logical conclusions, there is no point in regulating the car industry, they hire the best minds so they will know what to do. > "Good" advancements can be just as restricted as "bad" advancements Of course; but it's extremely difficult to prove whether the advantages of outlawing both outweigh the advantages of allowing both. So we came up with this rule that "we legislate only after shit happens". Is it crazy to think this arrangement could be sub-optimal, and there might be a better compromise?