10 ms·
While it's cool and all that this has been done, it's many years after credible people started warning about the dangers of these products. The fact that manufa
by SwellJoe 11y ago
While it's cool and all that this has been done, it's many years after credible people started warning about the dangers of these products. The fact that manufacturers kept making this stuff with knowledge of the damage it was causing is pretty damning, and is the kind of thing that makes me mistrustful of arguments that the free market will sort things like this out. There's just no good mechanism to stop massive harm to common resources (even now, we don't have a good mechanism to stop this kind of thing, since it took years to do so, even for something as uncontroversial as this...our system barely even puts a dent in the ecological harm of fossil fuels, animal agriculture, etc.).
- pvnick 11y agoI'm a big free-market guy, but I agree that sometimes there are items which need regulation to prevent massive environmental damage. CFCs are the classic example, since they were eating a hole in the ozone layer.
- markdown 11y agoCFC's, leaded fuel, cigarettes...
- 7952 11y agoA lot of these products feel mildly deceptive. When I buy a face cream I should not have to worry that it may be killing sea creatures. If that unexpected harm in unavoidable they should have to be honest about it and put it on the label.
- lincoln84 11y agoThis is why Native Deodorant (www.nativecos.com) uses 10 simple ingredients that are entirely natural.
- fahim305 11y agoI actually used Native because it was legitimately natural, not the "natural" claim that Unilever/P&G make but still pack it with chemicals that shouldn't be in my body. Would also like other recommendations for other bathroom products that are truly natural
- qzxvwt 11y agoBaking soda is pretty versatile. I wash my face with it, and I bet one could use it in combo with some other natural minerals or oils to make an effective toothpaste.
- undersuit 11y agoI've used baking soda and vinegar to replace shampoo and conditioner for three years now, great cost savings and I've finally learned to shave my face after I rinse the vinegar from my hair.
- Domenic_S 11y agoYou don't even need "10 simple ingredients" - just use an alum block!
- TeMPOraL 11y ago> When I buy a face cream I should not have to worry that it may be killing sea creatures. Exactly. But having to put such things on the label is a failure. We pay taxes so that the government can set up agencies ensuring, by means of regulation, that what we can legally buy is environmentally ok. If we have to worry if our face creams are bad for the environment, someone is not doing their job.
- pbhjpbhj 11y agoGovernment will never be perfect, in view of that why not regulate and inform the consumer? Allowing companies to do things like change product sizes (hidden by using the same size package) and alter ingredients without informing the consumer means that companies can more easily avoid backlash over their negative actions.
- jmstickney 11y agoI'm pretty libertarian myself so I understand your concern, but only if the "market" actually knew about this. The point I'm trying to make is that this article (posted here and Reddit) is the first time I'd ever heard of this. I'd say I'm a pretty average person so I don't think the masses had a clue about microbeads. What I believe and hope is that if the masses did know about this, the market would have reacted and forced action.
- andrewvc 11y agoThe point here is that the government can be smarter than the market. The effort required to educate enough members of the public that microbeads are bad to the point that they become unprofitable is WAY larger than the point required to convince legislators and regulators to outlaw them.
- alanh 11y agoI think this is really naïve. The masses knowingly engage in a hell of a lot of wasteful and/or harmful behavior. I know flying uses a lot of hydrocarbons and literally affects global temperature [1], yet I still fly. A minority are much worse than average. I live in SF and I once had a roommate who “couldn't be arsed” to put recyclables in the recycle bin (which was literally next to the rubbish bin), for example. This man is well-traveled and is educated enough to be a private-school teacher. [1]: http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/science/08/07/contrails.climate/index.html?_s=PM:TECH http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/science/08/07/contrails.climate...
- mac01021 11y agoPartly true. There are degrees of awareness. Most people are not at all aware of microbeads. Most people know they are supposed to recycle, but are unable to comprehend the negative consequences of not doing it. It's even harder for people to be aware of their carbon footprints and the consequences of global warming. It never enters the brain of anyone I know that they might be increasing their footprint by flying. And they could tell you by what percent, even approximately, if you asked them. You know and still fly. I literally feel nausea when I think about what I do when I fly, but I still do it to make my family happy. If anyone is behaving criminally you and I may be among the worst.
- rconti 11y agoIt's a kind of abstracted version of the tragedy of the commons, which is known specifically as an exception that the free market does not handle well (that is, assuming the pollution is being done to a shared resource rather than a private one.. If it was 'polluting' my septic tank and causing some kind of damage, I'd have a market-style incentive to fix it).
- dnautics 11y agoIn reality, the market is usually the solution to the tragedy of the commons. In the case of the original, creating a propertization scheme and allowing the market to trade on the property and giving individual owners the responsibility for stewardship gives people incentive to not have their sheep overgraze, and this is better than having a central authority decide how the land should be used, which buts against the knowledge problem, or worse, capture. The tragedy of the commons is somewhat distinct to regulation of things which directly cause harm (in the extreme example, murder) which we generally don't consider to be part of the 'free market'.
- bduerst 11y agoI think you're confusing free markets with artificial markets. There are many shared resources that are easily exploitable by the free market. A central authority can create artificial markets on that resource to combat the exploitation by the free market, but it's still being heavily regulated which is not a free market characteristic. One example of this is carbon credits with global warming, another is the Alaskan tradeable fishing quotas. Even following the common example of the Pilgrims, it was the enforcement of property regulations that solved the free-market exploitation of the land.
- dnautics 11y agoI think most free marketers would lump (certain) fishing quotas and property rights under "free markets", artificial though they may be. SOX and NOX markets as well. Carbon markets (as they exist), not so much, but mostly because of completely insane equivalencies baked in, and weird credit schemes.
- DigitalJack 11y agoThe free market is about efficiency. Regulation is about safety.
- betteringred 11y ago> mistrustful of arguments that the free market will sort things like this out. There's just no good mechanism to stop massive harm to common resources Most arguments that the free market can handle these problems start out with the recommendation that the resources involved (rivers, lakes, ocean) should be privatized. Economist Walter Block and others have written about ways this could be done. To fault free market arguments for not working when the waterways aren't privatized is to misrepresent the arguments. Most people aren't arguing that the free market is going to solve problems relating to unowned, unownable, or government owned property without first recognizing private property rights in those resources. Governments often protects polluters by limiting their liability. If that were changed, and assuming these resources (bodies of water) were privatized so non-governmental parties had standing to sue, if you have an argument why a class action lawsuit or something like that can't handle these problems, then that would be an interesting comment. But just saying the free market doesn't solve problems where there are no property rights is rather uninteresting, because free marketers agree with that. Also it's pretty amusing that a failure of government (who owns the waterways, and most of the sewer systems) to solve this problem sooner somehow gets twisted into a failure of the free market (who doesn't own these resources). Without property rights there's no free market. I agree that governments, who subsidize animal feed, water, land, and waste, and prosecute activists, do a great deal of harm to the environment by promoting and protecting animal exploitation. I'm fine with banning animal exploitation, even on private property, and I see that as no more anti-free market than banning slavery on private property.
- koube 11y agoI think if you're going to claim that we're not taking one part of a philosophy into account, that part needs to be remotely possible, or you need to show how we can privatize the ocean.
- bpodgursky 11y agoSelling ownership of fishing rights over tracts of the ocean, while it has flaws, would be infinitely better than the free-for-all we have now, where nobody has an incentive to preserve any fish stocks.
- ksk 11y agoWell the free-market is a-moral, and as humans we much prefer things to be moral; like not letting homeless people die or not letting banks swindle retirees. In limited situations, concentration of wealth can produce good things. Pure free-markets have never worked because they've never existed, probably because people don't want them to begin with. Obtain your free-market, socialist, communist, etc policy proposals at the government cafeteria. A well balanced meal is the best meal.
- WalterBright 11y ago> There's just no good mechanism to stop massive harm to common resources In economics, this is called "internalizing the externalities". There is a good mechanism that works very well, it's taxation. Instead of taxing productive things people do, tax the polluting things. Also, the most polluted countries in the world tend to be the ones with centrally planned economies. There's nothing inherently environmentally conscious about central planning.
- WalterBright 11y agoTaxing is also better than banning, because: 1. there are always uses of something that makes sense, and may contribute only insignificant downsides. Getting a regulatory exception is slow and expensive. 2. they produce revenue for the government, whereas banning is a cost sink
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- Altay- 11y agoI believe I have the right to gather a group and attack, say, a coal fired power plant that is lowering the quality of my air. Each and every employee and shareholder of that plant is assaulting me and I thus have a right to shoot them on sight. For this reason, a true free market would actually have almost no fossil fuel emissions.
- betteringred 11y agoYou can believe whatever you want, but most systems of justice recognize things like proportionality and imminence. While a nearby coal power plant is likely to harm your health, it's unlikely to kill you, so killing someone over it would be disproportional. Also, even if it were going to kill you, it's not going to kill you right now, so shooting on sight instead of exhausting other avenues would be avoidable and hence not self-defense or justifiable. Most people would sympathize with you as a victim of this coal plant, but find you guilty of a crime.
- redthrow 11y agoThe Moral Case for Fossil Fuels http://www.moralcaseforfossilfuels.com/ http://www.moralcaseforfossilfuels.com/
- jensen123 11y agoIt's weird how people's brains work. Some people are quite capable of seeing all the bad things governments do, but are like totally blind when looking at the bad things corporations do (many of the free-market people, libertarians etc.). But you also have many people who see perfectly well all the unsavory things private corporations do, but who seem utterly incapable of seeing the negative aspects of governments (socialists, many liberals etc.).
- icebraining 11y agoMost free-market people are not incapable of seeing all the unsavory things private corporations do, they just disagree with the solution, contending that the State is often ineffective and regularly makes things worse, by protecting those companies from litigation (a cornerstone of most free-market theories) and preventing property rights that would incentivize people to defend the lakes and sea. There are also many anarcho-socialist branches, which obviously see plenty of wrong with the State, preferring to do away with it; and even among the statist, many would tell you that the current capitalist states must be done away to bring a real solution. After all, it was Marx who wrote "The existence of the state is inseparable from the existence of slavery".