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Because these "fools" once they run out of money will be out on streets taking social security. Then it becomes our problem again.

• Zarath 9y ago
  Isn't moral hazard awesome?
  • Nursie 9y ago
    Yup, it is. Without something akin to moral hazard, we'd have a much more risk averse society, much slower economy etc. We'd also have hoards of people starving in the street, as humans are not good at long term planning, or risk assessment. So yeah, I'm all for "moral hazard".
• CryptoPunk 9y ago
  Then force them to save a certain amount per month. What they do with their disposable income should be left to their discretion.
  • Nursie 9y ago
    So now you are going to decide what consenting adults can do with their money, by deciding they can't invest in ICOs and other scam^H^H^H^H unregulated schemes until they have put enough away to satisfy you. I'm not sure this is qualitatively different to a ban, really.
    • CryptoPunk 9y ago
      Better to force them to save a minority of their income than start micromanaging their entire spending with laws banning this or that spending.
      • Nursie 9y ago
        I'm really not sure I see a difference, if you're going to start from the absolutist position that the state needs to butt out. Either way, bans or forcing provision for retirement etc, you're taking the position that someone else does know best, and that they need protecting from their own spending behaviour. After that it's just a matter of degree.
        • CryptoPunk 9y ago
          My position is that there should be no social safety net provided at the taxpayer's expense. If one is going to argue that we ought to provide a safety net, and ought to limit people's right to decide how to live their own life to prevent this safety net from being unduly burdened, then I would respond that even if one were to accept that assumption, a less disruptive way of meeting this goal would be with a forced saving mandate, rather than trying to prevent them from bankrupting themselves in a roundabout way, through laws that prevent spending on allegedly frivolous/addictive ends. But of course I don't accept their underlying argument at all. Just making the point that even if one did, their solution is not optimal.
          • Nursie 9y ago
            Personally I don't want to live in a society without a safety net, or the other niceties of a modern civil society. I also don't really consider it a trade-off - regardless of a social safety net, we ought to be restricting borderline scams. A lot of people aren't very smart, or are only smart in very specific directions. And they don't know they're not that smart. They can be taken in, scammed and fleeced, and this creates a problem not just for them but for lots of others too. This is why we restrict things like pyramid schemes.
            • CryptoPunk 9y ago
              I would love voluntary safety nets. I just don't like compulsory ones paid for at the taxpayers expense. It reduces choice, breeds corruption and unaccountability, and does not offer people the option to opt-out. But this is not really the forum to debate that, as it can get quite detailed. As for those not capable of fending for themselves in a free market: maybe it would be a better idea to have a new class of citizen that, after passing a rationality test, is allowed to buy/invest-in whatever they want, while making the rest of the population in some sense wards of the state, with safety guards on their smartphones and PCs, and a state-appointed counseler greenlighting all of their financial transactions, or at least all of the entities they are allowed to transact with. As for token sales, you can't categorise them all as borderline scams. It depends on the token sale.