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"Although surely not serious ..." Not your parent but I took it seriously and I think "skin in the game" structures like this should be taken very seriously -

by rsync 8y ago

"Although surely not serious ..." Not your parent but I took it seriously and I think "skin in the game" structures like this should be taken very seriously - they are likely the best mechanisms for aligning interests. "This assumes everyone values personal health over financial health." Very easy to solve this one - the elected official doesn't eat the fish and drink the water, their children do. "This prevents anyone from wanting to get elected to fix an existing problem." This is a good and important point - you would scare away potential candidates for office if existing systems are already broken/unsafe. I don't know how to arrange a neat solution to this.

resters 8y ago
Very well put. Newly elected officials could be given a six month grace period to get any remediation efforts underway before their first tasting. Incumbents would not be eligible for a grace period. One other point to add to rsync's comment: One other point to mention is that rational choices cannot be made about things like pollution when measurement methods can be fudged and the health effects of specific pollutants are not necessarily well studied. Bottom line, putting it in one's own body is the best way to determine whether a sensible person would feel comfortable with the environmental exposure being forced upon citizens due to lax or imperfect regulation, or even imperfect science. Do I want to drink this discolored, foul smelling water just because it does not test positive for known carcinogens? Common sense is actually a surprisingly helpful guide here. All that would happen is that regulations would begin to be enforced or modified to match the improved perception of reality informed by the tasting. Think about it this way, climate change is a fairly abstract concept that is much easier to ignore than the fish dinner sitting in front of you that was caught in water your administration declared safe.
- woolvalley 8y ago
  Thats not really fair if you have a superfund lake from the 1950s that nobody uses water from, eats fish in it or has the budget to fix. And is in the middle of nowhere at some desert.
  - resters 8y ago
    The notion of an appropriate budget to fix these kinds of things usually omits the full cost of neglect. The article linked above describes a massive plume of cancer-causing pollution spreading through underground waterways. All we need to do to find and justify the budget is accurately quantify the human cost.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
icebraining 8y ago
Joke's on you, I'm childless.
avar 8y ago
> Very easy to solve this one - the elected official doesn't eat the fish and drink the water, their children do. Are you trying to setup some breeding program for building a better psychopath? :) "Here's this high-status high-paying job, that people with a sense of ethics aren't taking because of the Flint-like water that can't be fixed on budget in any reasonable amount of time. No problem, just adopt a few orphans, score political brownie points in the process by seeming caring, and have them drink all the pollution!"
graphememes 8y ago
I wonder what would happen should private schools be forced to use the same food that public schools have.
UnFleshedOne 8y ago
This is easy to fix for motivated parties though. Imagine that pro wrestling circus but with fish and water and better staged.
geomark 8y ago
""This assumes everyone values personal health over financial health." Very easy to solve this one - the elected official doesn't eat the fish and drink the water, their children do." Even that doesn't seem to work in a very large number of cases. Look at how many people choose to locate their families in polluted cities for the financial benefits when the deleterious effects on health are so well studied and documented. There's just not enough immediacy of the effects of breathing polluted air or eating a fish contaminated with carcinogens.

by rsync 8y ago

resters 8y ago

Very well put. Newly elected officials could be given a six month grace period to get any remediation efforts underway before their first tasting. Incumbents would not be eligible for a grace period. One other point to add to rsync's comment: One other point to mention is that rational choices cannot be made about things like pollution when measurement methods can be fudged and the health effects of specific pollutants are not necessarily well studied. Bottom line, putting it in one's own body is the best way to determine whether a sensible person would feel comfortable with the environmental exposure being forced upon citizens due to lax or imperfect regulation, or even imperfect science. Do I want to drink this discolored, foul smelling water just because it does not test positive for known carcinogens? Common sense is actually a surprisingly helpful guide here. All that would happen is that regulations would begin to be enforced or modified to match the improved perception of reality informed by the tasting. Think about it this way, climate change is a fairly abstract concept that is much easier to ignore than the fish dinner sitting in front of you that was caught in water your administration declared safe.

woolvalley 8y ago
Thats not really fair if you have a superfund lake from the 1950s that nobody uses water from, eats fish in it or has the budget to fix. And is in the middle of nowhere at some desert.
- resters 8y ago
  The notion of an appropriate budget to fix these kinds of things usually omits the full cost of neglect. The article linked above describes a massive plume of cancer-causing pollution spreading through underground waterways. All we need to do to find and justify the budget is accurately quantify the human cost.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

icebraining 8y ago

Joke's on you, I'm childless.

avar 8y ago

> Very easy to solve this one - the elected official doesn't eat the fish and drink the water, their children do. Are you trying to setup some breeding program for building a better psychopath? :) "Here's this high-status high-paying job, that people with a sense of ethics aren't taking because of the Flint-like water that can't be fixed on budget in any reasonable amount of time. No problem, just adopt a few orphans, score political brownie points in the process by seeming caring, and have them drink all the pollution!"

graphememes 8y ago

I wonder what would happen should private schools be forced to use the same food that public schools have.

UnFleshedOne 8y ago

This is easy to fix for motivated parties though. Imagine that pro wrestling circus but with fish and water and better staged.

geomark 8y ago

""This assumes everyone values personal health over financial health." Very easy to solve this one - the elected official doesn't eat the fish and drink the water, their children do." Even that doesn't seem to work in a very large number of cases. Look at how many people choose to locate their families in polluted cities for the financial benefits when the deleterious effects on health are so well studied and documented. There's just not enough immediacy of the effects of breathing polluted air or eating a fish contaminated with carcinogens.