7 ms·

Because some of us want our government not to protect our Food and Cars as well. Data is one area where humanity has made the fastest progress compared to Cars

by Fakira 7y ago

Because some of us want our government not to protect our Food and Cars as well. Data is one area where humanity has made the fastest progress compared to Cars and Food.

bumby 7y ago
Care to elaborate? Outside of unleaded gas, most externalities in the car industry seem to progress slowly in the absence of regulation. Technology in cars can be rapid but seems to ignore those externalities
- microcolonel 7y ago
  > Technology in cars can be rapid but seems to ignore those externalities Many regulated risks in automobiles are not external, which is I think where they're out of bounds. I think a certain amount of regulation to ensure consumers are informed of the internal risks of an automobile is reasonable; but the government really oughtn't tell you how safe your car must be for you. Externalities, as you say, are the appropriate domain of regulation. For some people, it may be preferable to have better fuel economy at a lower price (i.e. Honda can make the Honda Insight again) even if the operator risk is higher; but they should not be allowed to drive a vehicle without adequate stopping, acceleration, and speed, or one which poses excessive risk to fire and rescue workers, other motorists, or pedestrians, or has excessive emissions in their use case. Right now, emissions regulations on automobiles focus on manufacturer fleet emissions (which is an unabashed pro-incumbent regulation), and emissions on a fixed test cycle; but this means you can pay for the privilege of being in the upper section of a fleet's emissions. Similar with the regulations on stopping speed, acceleration, and pedestrian safety: it seems to often depend on the class of vehicle, and so you can pay for the privilege of worse safety externalities.
  - bumby 7y ago
    I think the issue is one of pragmatism. CAFE standards are meant to be an average to allow some vehicles to be designed to meet very different end use needs. Same with the test beds. There's definitely room for improvement. My point was that automotive manufacturers are not particularly incentivized to improve on areas that don't align with their bottom line. Are you advocating for more regulation in terms of performance parameters?
    - microcolonel 7y ago
      > Are you advocating for more regulation in terms of performance parameters? I'm saying I'd prefer consistent (between vehicle classes) regulation of performance parameters which have externalities; and the abolition of non-normalized fleet-based targets (since they privilege the largest manufacturers). If the goal is to reduce external risk, the threshold of acceptable risk should be the same for all motorists as a matter of fairness. A possible alternative to CAFE is a specialized cap and trade market. I get that they did think a bit about this stuff when they implemented it, but I feel like it has weird effects in practice, especially when gaming it enters medium-long term corporate strategy. I think it would be spectacular if inefficiency was purchased on a per-vehicle or per-lot basis from manufacturers who exceed the target, and efficiency was sold in turn to those. Not sure how these transactions would be cleared, but I'm sure something reasonable could be worked out. This would do away with adjustments/exemptions based on vehicle footprint (CAFE targets currently differ based on mean vehicle footprint).
      - bumby 7y ago
        I think I agree in an idealized sense, but also think if this approach was taken it would decimate the ability to create certain vehicles, especially those used in heavy-duty applications. I don't know the history of CAFE standards but it may very well have been a practical choice...either get some form of progress or dig our heels in on an idealized version that never gets adopted.
journalctl 7y ago
Progress for whom?
jonahx 7y ago
> not to protect our Food What system would you prefer to protect your food?
- temac 7y ago
  If you are any good you can afford food taster who work for you and die if the food was not good. If you are not good enough and are forced to work as a food taster, bad for you, but that's just survival of the fittest and will eventually make the human race stronger.
  - notacoward 7y ago
    What's scary is that there are plenty of people - especially here - who would say that without meaning it as satire.
  - blotter_paper 7y ago
    Lulzy parody. Here's an actual take: I would like to accept the risk of eating a pufferfish if I want to. If somebody wants to sell me a prepared pufferfish, and they haven't been authorized to do so by the government, I would like to make my own decision about whether I trust that person to prepare a pufferfish correctly. If I die from eating that pufferfish, I'm okay with that; I accepted the risk. I want the right to commit suicide on purpose, and I want the right to take risks which might result in my unindented but reasonably likely death. I don't see why a bureaucrat should have anything to do with me making potentially dumb decisions and accepting the consequences for myself.
    - claudiawerner 7y ago
      A parody for sure, but apparently not as "lulzy" as you're making it out to be. It's all well and good that you believe you have the faculty to distinguish improperly prepared fish from properly prepared fish, but many people do not, and improperly prepared fish will be sold cheaper than the prepared variety, which means that people who want fish but can't afford to pay much for it will be the ones buying the improperly prepared stuff. You can already see this at some level today when poorer people tend to buy a lot of junk food that's cheaper (speaking in terms of opportunity cost here too) than healthier alternatives, and a variety of other unhealthy things (cigarettes, alcohol). I'm not saying unhealthy things should be banned, I'm saying that deadly things absolutely should be. If you want to take the risk of killing yourself (it's absolutely absurd that you mention this) then there are probably more fun ways to do it than arguing the government should allow people to sell potentially deadly food. Even then, you've selected a weird subset of dangerous food - everyone knows pufferfish is dangerous, far fewer people know which specific compounds that may be in food sold in an unregulated food market can lead to cancers and other diseases in the long term. You need to ask what the advantage of an unregulated food market is outside of a very specific conception of freedom which entails "I should be able to do anything I want to and you can't stop me.", which is (1) not the only conception of freedom around (2) is unworkable in a society with rich and poor, educated and uneducated, critical and uncritical, disabled and able bodied, etc.
dlp211 7y ago
I just don't get where this type of ideaology comes from. There are plenty of countries with weak governments and not one of them is successful.
- bhupy 7y ago
  I think OP might have meant that weaker regulation/government is a necessary condition, not necessarily a sufficient one.
  - dlp211 7y ago
    Then I would expect to see a counterexample to my point.
    - bhupy 7y ago
      I don’t follow? It could be that your counterexamples include the necessary condition, but don’t have the sufficient conditions. In the abstract, if conditions A, B, and C are stated as required to achieve a desired outcome, the fact there happen to be examples of undesirable outcomes with condition A (but implicitly lacking conditions B and/or C) is not enough to prove that condition A is NOT a necessary condition for a desired outcome.
mch82 7y ago
Is it true regulation slows progress? History shows regulation speeds technical progress. - Manhattan Project - Apollo program - Public university research - ARPANET - Aircraft - Spacecraft ...
matz1 7y ago
>Because some of us want our government not to protect our Food and Cars as well. This. Sure I would like some protection for our food but i hate the too much protection that currently US government has right now.

by Fakira 7y ago

Because some of us want our government not to protect our Food and Cars as well. Data is one area where humanity has made the fastest progress compared to Cars and Food.

bumby 7y ago

Care to elaborate? Outside of unleaded gas, most externalities in the car industry seem to progress slowly in the absence of regulation. Technology in cars can be rapid but seems to ignore those externalities

microcolonel 7y ago
> Technology in cars can be rapid but seems to ignore those externalities Many regulated risks in automobiles are not external, which is I think where they're out of bounds. I think a certain amount of regulation to ensure consumers are informed of the internal risks of an automobile is reasonable; but the government really oughtn't tell you how safe your car must be for you. Externalities, as you say, are the appropriate domain of regulation. For some people, it may be preferable to have better fuel economy at a lower price (i.e. Honda can make the Honda Insight again) even if the operator risk is higher; but they should not be allowed to drive a vehicle without adequate stopping, acceleration, and speed, or one which poses excessive risk to fire and rescue workers, other motorists, or pedestrians, or has excessive emissions in their use case. Right now, emissions regulations on automobiles focus on manufacturer fleet emissions (which is an unabashed pro-incumbent regulation), and emissions on a fixed test cycle; but this means you can pay for the privilege of being in the upper section of a fleet's emissions. Similar with the regulations on stopping speed, acceleration, and pedestrian safety: it seems to often depend on the class of vehicle, and so you can pay for the privilege of worse safety externalities.
- bumby 7y ago
  I think the issue is one of pragmatism. CAFE standards are meant to be an average to allow some vehicles to be designed to meet very different end use needs. Same with the test beds. There's definitely room for improvement. My point was that automotive manufacturers are not particularly incentivized to improve on areas that don't align with their bottom line. Are you advocating for more regulation in terms of performance parameters?
  - microcolonel 7y ago
    > Are you advocating for more regulation in terms of performance parameters? I'm saying I'd prefer consistent (between vehicle classes) regulation of performance parameters which have externalities; and the abolition of non-normalized fleet-based targets (since they privilege the largest manufacturers). If the goal is to reduce external risk, the threshold of acceptable risk should be the same for all motorists as a matter of fairness. A possible alternative to CAFE is a specialized cap and trade market. I get that they did think a bit about this stuff when they implemented it, but I feel like it has weird effects in practice, especially when gaming it enters medium-long term corporate strategy. I think it would be spectacular if inefficiency was purchased on a per-vehicle or per-lot basis from manufacturers who exceed the target, and efficiency was sold in turn to those. Not sure how these transactions would be cleared, but I'm sure something reasonable could be worked out. This would do away with adjustments/exemptions based on vehicle footprint (CAFE targets currently differ based on mean vehicle footprint).
    - bumby 7y ago
      I think I agree in an idealized sense, but also think if this approach was taken it would decimate the ability to create certain vehicles, especially those used in heavy-duty applications. I don't know the history of CAFE standards but it may very well have been a practical choice...either get some form of progress or dig our heels in on an idealized version that never gets adopted.

journalctl 7y ago

Progress for whom?

jonahx 7y ago

> not to protect our Food What system would you prefer to protect your food?

temac 7y ago
If you are any good you can afford food taster who work for you and die if the food was not good. If you are not good enough and are forced to work as a food taster, bad for you, but that's just survival of the fittest and will eventually make the human race stronger.
- notacoward 7y ago
  What's scary is that there are plenty of people - especially here - who would say that without meaning it as satire.
- blotter_paper 7y ago
  Lulzy parody. Here's an actual take: I would like to accept the risk of eating a pufferfish if I want to. If somebody wants to sell me a prepared pufferfish, and they haven't been authorized to do so by the government, I would like to make my own decision about whether I trust that person to prepare a pufferfish correctly. If I die from eating that pufferfish, I'm okay with that; I accepted the risk. I want the right to commit suicide on purpose, and I want the right to take risks which might result in my unindented but reasonably likely death. I don't see why a bureaucrat should have anything to do with me making potentially dumb decisions and accepting the consequences for myself.
  - claudiawerner 7y ago
    A parody for sure, but apparently not as "lulzy" as you're making it out to be. It's all well and good that you believe you have the faculty to distinguish improperly prepared fish from properly prepared fish, but many people do not, and improperly prepared fish will be sold cheaper than the prepared variety, which means that people who want fish but can't afford to pay much for it will be the ones buying the improperly prepared stuff. You can already see this at some level today when poorer people tend to buy a lot of junk food that's cheaper (speaking in terms of opportunity cost here too) than healthier alternatives, and a variety of other unhealthy things (cigarettes, alcohol). I'm not saying unhealthy things should be banned, I'm saying that deadly things absolutely should be. If you want to take the risk of killing yourself (it's absolutely absurd that you mention this) then there are probably more fun ways to do it than arguing the government should allow people to sell potentially deadly food. Even then, you've selected a weird subset of dangerous food - everyone knows pufferfish is dangerous, far fewer people know which specific compounds that may be in food sold in an unregulated food market can lead to cancers and other diseases in the long term. You need to ask what the advantage of an unregulated food market is outside of a very specific conception of freedom which entails "I should be able to do anything I want to and you can't stop me.", which is (1) not the only conception of freedom around (2) is unworkable in a society with rich and poor, educated and uneducated, critical and uncritical, disabled and able bodied, etc.

dlp211 7y ago

I just don't get where this type of ideaology comes from. There are plenty of countries with weak governments and not one of them is successful.

bhupy 7y ago
I think OP might have meant that weaker regulation/government is a necessary condition, not necessarily a sufficient one.
- dlp211 7y ago
  Then I would expect to see a counterexample to my point.
  - bhupy 7y ago
    I don’t follow? It could be that your counterexamples include the necessary condition, but don’t have the sufficient conditions. In the abstract, if conditions A, B, and C are stated as required to achieve a desired outcome, the fact there happen to be examples of undesirable outcomes with condition A (but implicitly lacking conditions B and/or C) is not enough to prove that condition A is NOT a necessary condition for a desired outcome.

mch82 7y ago

Is it true regulation slows progress? History shows regulation speeds technical progress. - Manhattan Project - Apollo program - Public university research - ARPANET - Aircraft - Spacecraft ...

matz1 7y ago

>Because some of us want our government not to protect our Food and Cars as well. This. Sure I would like some protection for our food but i hate the too much protection that currently US government has right now.