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I don't understand why you'd be downvoted, this is feasible: see the illegal sand mining operations in India for instance [0]. [0]: https://www.nytimes.com/201

• thatcat 10y ago
  Some people might see it as sort of a defeatist stance to take. Is it harder to detect illegal mine or to regulate all mining? Seems they would be easy to find from satallite images.
  • badosu 10y ago
    Wouldn't a stance be to use the argument above to support a set of (in)actions? The argument by itself is not moot, and the writer did not explicitly support an agenda.
    • thatcat 10y ago
      It implies (correctly) that the legislation will lead to more problems. That the comment doesn't suggest action is the form of defeatism I was refering to. Defeatists don't normally call for inaction they just present all the problems that action leads to promote inaction.
      • badosu 10y ago
        I understand what you mean, but I think you're putting more meaning to it than it has. > Defeatists don't normally call for inaction they just present all the problems that action leads to promote inaction. Suppose someone called for prohibition again as an action to reduce the incidence of alcohol-related car accidents and domestic abuse. You have the information that this leads to a lot of money flowing into the hands of criminals. How is stating that defeatism?
        • y4mi 10y ago
          they're not outlawing metal, they're outlawing mining. you don't do mining for fun, nor does anyone get the urge to suddenly mine something. outlawing alcohol was/is pretty useless because pretty much everyone and their mother wants to drink some alcohol every so often.
        • thatcat 10y ago
          Not really fair to compare common social activity to industrial pollution. The context of the comment is why it is defeatist, we're in a world with cheaper sensors than ever. Environmental pollution regulation enforcement is therefore cheaper than ever. Stating that "people will just illegally mine which will pollute more" makes it seem like legislation paradoxically leads to more pollution, when regulating this behavior is an easier problem to solve than ever.
          • badosu 10y ago
            I can't agree that if you can detect illegal activity you invariably will act against it efficiently, one of the examples from the top of my head is the Amazon Deforestation. You're conflating a simple statement that presents factual information to a mindset. One in fact can use that information to try influencing people to be scared™. However that is not always the case, and people can for example offer an alternative. The case in point is not that I agree or not with the passing of the law, but that passing it may have unintended consequences, so that you need to account for that. The analogy was intended to be used as a context for a debate against decision makers using factual data, the fact that it's mining or liquor does not make difference. It was devised to counter-attack your understanding that just by warning of something bad if you do something else you're being defeatist. > Some people might see it as sort of a defeatist stance to take. Is it harder to detect illegal mine or to regulate all mining? Since you're assuming something implicit in our discussion maybe you can answer the question yourself.
            • thatcat 9y ago
              Op didnt state a fact, he made a somewhat cynical prediction, based on his belief that restriction of pollution generating activity leads to more pollution. Its only true if no one enforces the law, which can be easily done in this case. That is as clearly as i can explain why that seemed defeatist imho which I thought explained the downvotes. I'm not trying to make implicit assumptions, that question was rhetorical and answered in the next sentence.