4 ms·

Why do you think the government regulates food labels? Clearly, no one wants to buy food with standardized labels, the government is just forcing it on us poor

Why do you think the government regulates food labels? Clearly, no one wants to buy food with standardized labels, the government is just forcing it on us poor citizens, right? If you are actually arguing that any government policy that requires companies to modify their products in a way that they weren't already doing is bad, you have created a very difficult position for yourself to defend.

twblalock 10y ago
> If you are actually arguing that any government policy that requires companies to modify their products in a way that they weren't already doing is bad, you have created a very difficult position for yourself to defend. I don't know why you interpret my argument that way. It's not a blanket statement against government regulation of products, and none of what I wrote can logically necessitate or lead to that position. Government regulations can be good or bad, and it is entirely logical to oppose some and not others. My argument is that the government should not regulate products on the basis of made-up "rights" that are really proxies for personal preference, e.g. "I like to be able to repair products I buy, therefore the government should force companies to make their products easy for me to repair, because so few consumers share my preference that the companies won't do it on their own volition."
- ryandrake 10y ago
  The "right" to repair one's own stuff is as made-up as the "right" to encumber products with repair-resistant features. This is not a question of what's etched into stone tablets somewhere, it's a question of what we value as society. When what people want to do conflicts with what companies want people to do, who gets to win? The simplistic answer is to just throw your hands up and "let the market decide." But the market is not always correct, which is why we have warning labels on cigarettes and why companies can't dump industrial waste into the closest river. Society decided that we have a made-up right to be informed about dangerous products and a made-up right to not have to drink arsenic. The argument put forward here is that our made-up right to be able to repair our own stuff is more valuable than some company's made-up right to stop us.
  - twblalock 10y ago
    All rights are manmade. Rights are social constructs. I'm not looking for stone tablets anywhere. But simply saying that a right exists does not make it so. If that is all it takes, please excuse me for a moment while I go declare, and then exercise, my right to rob a bank. Like any social construct, a right exists when it is broadly accepted as a fact and is operational within society. It helps if you make it a law, too. Don't provide truisms about why the market is not always correct. That doesn't prove anything. You need to prove that this particular circumstance, of repairability in products, is one of the times when the market is not correct. On the contrary, a company's right to encumber products with repair-resistant features is not a imaginary or asserted right -- it is protected by laws which have been passed for that purpose, such as the DMCA in the case of DRM, which have been challenged and upheld in court. So this is really about an imaginary right to repair versus an actual, legal, broadly recognized right to encumber.
    - pessimizer 10y ago
      As you say, all rights are social constructs. Therefore you don't "prove" a right exists, as you demanded, you make a right exist by discussing it and lobbying for it. That's what happening here. I say that the market is not correct because it leads to bad outcomes. You seem to be saying that the outcome isn't bad because the market doesn't lead to it. I'm making an assertion that I believe the right to repair is a positive (for many reasons.) You seem to be making an assertion that markets are always right. I just have to convince - because I'm making a statement about what I think we should prefer in society. You have to prove, because you're making a claim of objective fact.
      - twblalock 10y ago
        What is happening here is that people are claiming that the right to repair already exists, and is being violated by companies. If they think it should exist, that's what they should have argued. But that isn't what they wrote. They wrote that the right does exist. Almost everyone in this thread used that language. That's what I'm arguing against. I'm not saying that market outcomes are good or bad in general -- they are just there, as the pre-existing default position that may or may not demand a regulatory response. Any action taken should be on the basis that the default position is suboptimal in some way, and that regulation will make a positive difference. Otherwise, it is best to leave things as they are by default, especially when you consider the expense and unintended side effects that accompany regulation. It seems to me that the only problem with the market outcome in this particular discussion is that some people aren't happy that the products being produced do not have a certain feature they like, namely repairability. This is clearly not the personal preference of most consumers, because if it was, companies would produce products to appeal to that preference. So clearly we are dealing with a small number of consumers who want this feature. That's not a strong case to change the outcome.

twblalock 10y ago

> If you are actually arguing that any government policy that requires companies to modify their products in a way that they weren't already doing is bad, you have created a very difficult position for yourself to defend. I don't know why you interpret my argument that way. It's not a blanket statement against government regulation of products, and none of what I wrote can logically necessitate or lead to that position. Government regulations can be good or bad, and it is entirely logical to oppose some and not others. My argument is that the government should not regulate products on the basis of made-up "rights" that are really proxies for personal preference, e.g. "I like to be able to repair products I buy, therefore the government should force companies to make their products easy for me to repair, because so few consumers share my preference that the companies won't do it on their own volition."

ryandrake 10y ago
The "right" to repair one's own stuff is as made-up as the "right" to encumber products with repair-resistant features. This is not a question of what's etched into stone tablets somewhere, it's a question of what we value as society. When what people want to do conflicts with what companies want people to do, who gets to win? The simplistic answer is to just throw your hands up and "let the market decide." But the market is not always correct, which is why we have warning labels on cigarettes and why companies can't dump industrial waste into the closest river. Society decided that we have a made-up right to be informed about dangerous products and a made-up right to not have to drink arsenic. The argument put forward here is that our made-up right to be able to repair our own stuff is more valuable than some company's made-up right to stop us.
- twblalock 10y ago
  All rights are manmade. Rights are social constructs. I'm not looking for stone tablets anywhere. But simply saying that a right exists does not make it so. If that is all it takes, please excuse me for a moment while I go declare, and then exercise, my right to rob a bank. Like any social construct, a right exists when it is broadly accepted as a fact and is operational within society. It helps if you make it a law, too. Don't provide truisms about why the market is not always correct. That doesn't prove anything. You need to prove that this particular circumstance, of repairability in products, is one of the times when the market is not correct. On the contrary, a company's right to encumber products with repair-resistant features is not a imaginary or asserted right -- it is protected by laws which have been passed for that purpose, such as the DMCA in the case of DRM, which have been challenged and upheld in court. So this is really about an imaginary right to repair versus an actual, legal, broadly recognized right to encumber.
  - pessimizer 10y ago
    As you say, all rights are social constructs. Therefore you don't "prove" a right exists, as you demanded, you make a right exist by discussing it and lobbying for it. That's what happening here. I say that the market is not correct because it leads to bad outcomes. You seem to be saying that the outcome isn't bad because the market doesn't lead to it. I'm making an assertion that I believe the right to repair is a positive (for many reasons.) You seem to be making an assertion that markets are always right. I just have to convince - because I'm making a statement about what I think we should prefer in society. You have to prove, because you're making a claim of objective fact.
    - twblalock 10y ago
      What is happening here is that people are claiming that the right to repair already exists, and is being violated by companies. If they think it should exist, that's what they should have argued. But that isn't what they wrote. They wrote that the right does exist. Almost everyone in this thread used that language. That's what I'm arguing against. I'm not saying that market outcomes are good or bad in general -- they are just there, as the pre-existing default position that may or may not demand a regulatory response. Any action taken should be on the basis that the default position is suboptimal in some way, and that regulation will make a positive difference. Otherwise, it is best to leave things as they are by default, especially when you consider the expense and unintended side effects that accompany regulation. It seems to me that the only problem with the market outcome in this particular discussion is that some people aren't happy that the products being produced do not have a certain feature they like, namely repairability. This is clearly not the personal preference of most consumers, because if it was, companies would produce products to appeal to that preference. So clearly we are dealing with a small number of consumers who want this feature. That's not a strong case to change the outcome.