4 ms·

Based on the libertarians I've talked with about seat belt laws, their argument would probably be to hand-wave it away with "It would have happened anyway thank

Based on the libertarians I've talked with about seat belt laws, their argument would probably be to hand-wave it away with "It would have happened anyway thanks to the magic of the market."

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
kauffj 9y ago
Individuals have immediate, direct incentive to wear seat belts. Seat belts are not a collective action problem the way climate change is.
- barrkel 9y ago
  When health costs are socialised - and insurance is a way of socialising costs - it does become a collective action problem, because the negligence of the few increases the costs of the many.
  - conanbatt 9y ago
    That is applicable to alcohol, unhealthy foods, lack of exercise, improper sleep, smoking, etc. Should we ban all those too?
    - azinman2 9y ago
      At some point unhealthy foods might get banned, or other mechanisms like the soda tax put in place to help push things in the right way. You can't take an all-in or all-out approach to things. Each case is its own contextual matter that must be independently considered. If you want to see an example of where anything goes, the world has many examples of lawless societies. Not somewhere I'd want to live.
      - conanbatt 9y ago
        > You can't take an all-in or all-out approach to things Sure, but its important to notice that the grave inconsistency with the which we apply policy has to be a consequence of systemic failures. For example, cigarettes have to show pictures of diseased people, but cheese doesnt have to show pictures of obese or diabetic people. Cars dont have to make a diclosure that "you might kill people with this" and show you pictures of that. The picture policy on cigarettes is pretty morbid to me. And then the defense for it is that "its good for people". Doing the wrong thing for the right reasons does not provide me satisfaction.
    - barrkel 9y ago
      This is one of the downsides to socialised medicine - people feel the right to judge people for their weight, for example. Taxes are high on tobacco because of the harms. Here in the UK, there's support for minimum alcohol prices, to stop alcohol getting too cheap. We already have loads of bans on smoking in different contexts. If politicians could find an easy way to try and force poor people to eat less fast food, they would; they don't have much moral compunction stopping them, rather they feel they have the right, because obesity etc have costs that need to be managed.
      - conanbatt 9y ago
        > Taxes are high on tobacco because of the harms. Here in the UK, there's support for minimum alcohol prices, to stop alcohol getting too cheap. I will argue that the reason taxes are high on tobacco is because its become social suicide to defend tobacco. The taxes are high on tobacco because its an easy case to make that gets no opposition. Alcohol is next in line. I'd argue that if something is bad but popular its hard totax (i.e. special TV tax, special Netflix tax, special Facebook tax), or that something is good but unpopular its too easy to tax (tax foreigners, tax the poor, etc).
jrs95 9y ago
I think the argument would probably be more like "New cars would be substantially cheaper if it weren't for these regulations." Their preferred means of dealing with the pollution problem would be something like a carbon tax (assuming they're the type to actually believe it exists, anyways)
refurb 9y ago
So when gas prices went through the roof in the 1970's and there was rationing, you don't think that created consumer demand for more fuel efficient cars?
- orf 9y ago
  Clearly not, or not enough to make a difference. America didn't stop producing gas guzzlers after the 70's. If anything mpg went down as trucks got bigger
  - ajross 9y ago
    The article clearly shows mpg getting rapidly better in the 1970's, with an inflection point right at the passage of the mileage target.
    - VintageCool 9y ago
      Moreover, as soon as the government-imposed target was met, carmakers stopped improving mpg fuel efficiency and made no progress on that front for 20 years.
  - refurb 9y ago
    Average fuel economy almost doubled from 1975 to the late 80's.[1] I agree that trucks hurt that trend overall, but there are a lot of consumers who value fuel economy even in the absence of gov't regulations. [1]https://i0.wp.com/www.curbsideclassic.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/EPA-fuel-economy.jpg https://i0.wp.com/www.curbsideclassic.com/wp-content/uploads...
  - seanmcdirmid 9y ago
    Gas got really cheap in the mid/late 80s after it got really expensive in the late 70s.
conanbatt 9y ago
The seatbelt argument is not about saving people's lives, its about not forcing people to do a precaution. If you can make the argument that you can force someone to use a seatbelt for his own protection, can you ban alcohol? loud music? driving altogether? bad food? Bathtubs? What is fundamentally different of the seatbelt than the other million things that endanger our lives everyday and we live with ?
- azinman2 9y ago
  I'm guessing the probability for death is far higher, or rather, the public safety benefit greatly outweighs the tiny cost. We also have regulations on building safety and construction, or would you rather not force people to have the precaution of getting a structural engineer when building homes and buildings? Alcohol has been banned for a while, but eventually it was decided as a society that we were willing to accept that risk and negative outcome. Bad food is also banned via food safety standards via the FDA. I could keep going on... but ultimately everything comes down to a cost : benefit analysis that's done collectively as a society. Recently we have the example of marijuana being rethought as a society and now those bans are largely going away. Things can shift in either direction.
  - conanbatt 9y ago
    > I'm guessing the probability for death is far higher, or rather, the public safety benefit greatly outweighs the tiny cost. The tiny cost? First, its a tremendous cost! Why allow any 2 types of cars with different safety features? If safety is paramount on a car, then we should only one model: the safest. Second, the probability of death varies wth many activities. For example, biking is very dangerous in SF. So are many outdoor activities like mountain climbing. Or diving. There is a case for the seatbelt because when people die in a car accident, there are externalities, but forcing the seatbelt to protect someone is a paternalistic idea. > We also have regulations on building safety and construction, or would you rather not force people to have the precaution of getting a structural engineer when building homes and buildings? In this case, this is the safety of others. Very different to the safety of yourself: the whole concept of libertarianism is self-posession,that who you are is only owned by yourself. It is surely acceptable to use the powers of the state to protect one from others. > Alcohol has been banned for a while, but eventually it was decided as a society that we were willing to accept that risk and negative outcome. We have countries in the modern world that have banned alcohol still. Its purely cultural, its not a foundational moral or economical trade-off. And the negatives of alcohol are pretty bad! > Bad food is also banned via food safety standards via the FDA Depends on the definition of bad: if you mean toxic, sure. If you mean food that degenerates health, definitely the opposite. Sugar for example, could simply be banned to a very positive result in public health. > Recently we have the example of marijuana being rethought as a society and now those bans are largely going away. Things can shift in either direction. This is the appealing point from the libertarian stance: you dont need to depend on the mood of the moment for the direction of policy to benefit you. Marijuana would have never been banned under a libertarian conception. And neither would cocaine and other drugs, provided the harm is done only tos elf, and not to other.

Based on the libertarians I've talked with about seat belt laws, their argument would probably be to hand-wave it away with "It would have happened anyway thanks to the magic of the market."

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

kauffj 9y ago

Individuals have immediate, direct incentive to wear seat belts. Seat belts are not a collective action problem the way climate change is.

barrkel 9y ago
When health costs are socialised - and insurance is a way of socialising costs - it does become a collective action problem, because the negligence of the few increases the costs of the many.
- conanbatt 9y ago
  That is applicable to alcohol, unhealthy foods, lack of exercise, improper sleep, smoking, etc. Should we ban all those too?
  - azinman2 9y ago
    At some point unhealthy foods might get banned, or other mechanisms like the soda tax put in place to help push things in the right way. You can't take an all-in or all-out approach to things. Each case is its own contextual matter that must be independently considered. If you want to see an example of where anything goes, the world has many examples of lawless societies. Not somewhere I'd want to live.
    - conanbatt 9y ago
      > You can't take an all-in or all-out approach to things Sure, but its important to notice that the grave inconsistency with the which we apply policy has to be a consequence of systemic failures. For example, cigarettes have to show pictures of diseased people, but cheese doesnt have to show pictures of obese or diabetic people. Cars dont have to make a diclosure that "you might kill people with this" and show you pictures of that. The picture policy on cigarettes is pretty morbid to me. And then the defense for it is that "its good for people". Doing the wrong thing for the right reasons does not provide me satisfaction.
  - barrkel 9y ago
    This is one of the downsides to socialised medicine - people feel the right to judge people for their weight, for example. Taxes are high on tobacco because of the harms. Here in the UK, there's support for minimum alcohol prices, to stop alcohol getting too cheap. We already have loads of bans on smoking in different contexts. If politicians could find an easy way to try and force poor people to eat less fast food, they would; they don't have much moral compunction stopping them, rather they feel they have the right, because obesity etc have costs that need to be managed.
    - conanbatt 9y ago
      > Taxes are high on tobacco because of the harms. Here in the UK, there's support for minimum alcohol prices, to stop alcohol getting too cheap. I will argue that the reason taxes are high on tobacco is because its become social suicide to defend tobacco. The taxes are high on tobacco because its an easy case to make that gets no opposition. Alcohol is next in line. I'd argue that if something is bad but popular its hard totax (i.e. special TV tax, special Netflix tax, special Facebook tax), or that something is good but unpopular its too easy to tax (tax foreigners, tax the poor, etc).

jrs95 9y ago

I think the argument would probably be more like "New cars would be substantially cheaper if it weren't for these regulations." Their preferred means of dealing with the pollution problem would be something like a carbon tax (assuming they're the type to actually believe it exists, anyways)

refurb 9y ago

So when gas prices went through the roof in the 1970's and there was rationing, you don't think that created consumer demand for more fuel efficient cars?

orf 9y ago
Clearly not, or not enough to make a difference. America didn't stop producing gas guzzlers after the 70's. If anything mpg went down as trucks got bigger
- ajross 9y ago
  The article clearly shows mpg getting rapidly better in the 1970's, with an inflection point right at the passage of the mileage target.
  - VintageCool 9y ago
    Moreover, as soon as the government-imposed target was met, carmakers stopped improving mpg fuel efficiency and made no progress on that front for 20 years.
- refurb 9y ago
  Average fuel economy almost doubled from 1975 to the late 80's.[1] I agree that trucks hurt that trend overall, but there are a lot of consumers who value fuel economy even in the absence of gov't regulations. [1]https://i0.wp.com/www.curbsideclassic.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/EPA-fuel-economy.jpg https://i0.wp.com/www.curbsideclassic.com/wp-content/uploads...
- seanmcdirmid 9y ago
  Gas got really cheap in the mid/late 80s after it got really expensive in the late 70s.

conanbatt 9y ago

The seatbelt argument is not about saving people's lives, its about not forcing people to do a precaution. If you can make the argument that you can force someone to use a seatbelt for his own protection, can you ban alcohol? loud music? driving altogether? bad food? Bathtubs? What is fundamentally different of the seatbelt than the other million things that endanger our lives everyday and we live with ?

azinman2 9y ago
I'm guessing the probability for death is far higher, or rather, the public safety benefit greatly outweighs the tiny cost. We also have regulations on building safety and construction, or would you rather not force people to have the precaution of getting a structural engineer when building homes and buildings? Alcohol has been banned for a while, but eventually it was decided as a society that we were willing to accept that risk and negative outcome. Bad food is also banned via food safety standards via the FDA. I could keep going on... but ultimately everything comes down to a cost : benefit analysis that's done collectively as a society. Recently we have the example of marijuana being rethought as a society and now those bans are largely going away. Things can shift in either direction.
- conanbatt 9y ago
  > I'm guessing the probability for death is far higher, or rather, the public safety benefit greatly outweighs the tiny cost. The tiny cost? First, its a tremendous cost! Why allow any 2 types of cars with different safety features? If safety is paramount on a car, then we should only one model: the safest. Second, the probability of death varies wth many activities. For example, biking is very dangerous in SF. So are many outdoor activities like mountain climbing. Or diving. There is a case for the seatbelt because when people die in a car accident, there are externalities, but forcing the seatbelt to protect someone is a paternalistic idea. > We also have regulations on building safety and construction, or would you rather not force people to have the precaution of getting a structural engineer when building homes and buildings? In this case, this is the safety of others. Very different to the safety of yourself: the whole concept of libertarianism is self-posession,that who you are is only owned by yourself. It is surely acceptable to use the powers of the state to protect one from others. > Alcohol has been banned for a while, but eventually it was decided as a society that we were willing to accept that risk and negative outcome. We have countries in the modern world that have banned alcohol still. Its purely cultural, its not a foundational moral or economical trade-off. And the negatives of alcohol are pretty bad! > Bad food is also banned via food safety standards via the FDA Depends on the definition of bad: if you mean toxic, sure. If you mean food that degenerates health, definitely the opposite. Sugar for example, could simply be banned to a very positive result in public health. > Recently we have the example of marijuana being rethought as a society and now those bans are largely going away. Things can shift in either direction. This is the appealing point from the libertarian stance: you dont need to depend on the mood of the moment for the direction of policy to benefit you. Marijuana would have never been banned under a libertarian conception. And neither would cocaine and other drugs, provided the harm is done only tos elf, and not to other.