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That's a shame really, because I'm sure most of us would prefer companies weren't restricted by regulation and were just sensible and ethical by default, so law

That's a shame really, because I'm sure most of us would prefer companies weren't restricted by regulation and were just sensible and ethical by default, so laws weren't necessary. Interesting. I prefer regulation by default to be honest. Possibly shows my biases from growing up and living in Europe. I see regulation as something you should start with not something you should end up having to do. Just like I prefer civil laws to be in place by default rather than leaving it to people to be good to each other. Maybe I'm in the minority here.

toyg 10y ago
> I see regulation as something you should start with not something you should end up having to do. That's the Platonic/Napoleonic mindset right there :) It's one of the Great Philosophical Questions - do we build society from first principles, or do we just react to what people do as they get together? The latter is the current fashion, at least in theory - in practice, the former keeps coming up over and over, because lawmaking is fundamentally a prescriptive action that instinctively moves from first principles (and it's the only way that lawmakers can forever justify their role: if we ever figured out a society working so well that no reaction or correction is necessary, what would lawmakers do? Write law covering behaviour in places where humans could only potentially exist, i.e. prescribe from first principles). TBH I rarely ever thought about this sort of thing until I moved to the UK, where the average mindset is deeply anti-Napoleonic/anti-Roman.