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Even without addressing the majority of the substance that the parent comment is trying to portray, there should be one major takeaway: Unregulated markets don
by 1propionyl 6y ago
Even without addressing the majority of the substance that the parent comment is trying to portray, there should be one major takeaway:
Unregulated markets don't work, except in the way that cancer works to propagate itself before its host dies. They're not self-balancing ecosystems. After all, they're comprised of people.
Completely managed and controlled markets similarly don't work, and for largely the same reasons. After all, they're comprised of people.
Humanity has a unique knack for at least these two things: 1) constructing games, 2) cheating those games it has created for itself to play.
It's no longer enough to hedge against the risks of idealized perfectly spherical and rational actors bouncing about. We have to begin to take into account our own complexity and how we subvert the rules we lay out for ourselves.
- AshWolfy 6y agoThe idea we can regulate bad systems into being good is just dumb
- jbay808 6y agoNo, it's not. It's pretty much what regulation is for. CFCs: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreal_Protocol https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreal_Protocol Asbestos: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asbestos_and_the_law https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asbestos_and_the_law Lead paint: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead-based_paint_in_the_United_States#State_action_against_the_lead_paint_industry https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead-based_paint_in_the_Unit... Leaded gasoline: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraethyllead#Phaseout_and_ban https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraethyllead#Phaseout_and_ba...
- AshWolfy 6y agoWe knew asbestos was bad since the 1890s and it wasnt regulated until 1967, lead was known to be bad since the mid 1800s while lead paint wasnt banned until 1978 and leaded gas wasnt banned until 2000, lead paint and pipes are still plentiful across the US. Cigarettes were known to be harmful since the 1890s, and the government didnt do anything about it until 1964. Regulation can be successful, but at best its slow and incremental, and in the long term corporations will weaken and subvert them. Just having a system which incentivizes good behavior in the first place would be better than trying to regulate bad systems
- SAI_Peregrinus 6y agoRegulations are inherently a system that incentivizes good behavior. That's their entire purpose!
- AshWolfy 6y agoRegulations are an attempt to correct for bad incentives.
- brnt 6y agoThe idea that you cant is precisely the defeatist attitude some of your industrial overlords were hoping for.
- AshWolfy 6y agowhat they really dont want is for us to consider alternative systems
- sthnblllII 6y agoYea its easy to say that and then you end up with Love Canal and quack doctors injecting people with bleach to cure their cancer. People do things. Laws and morals stop them from doing bad things. Pray your country doesnt have many people no morals.
- ulucs 6y agoCan I interest you in incentive-compatible mechanism design and implementation theory? They are well-established economy fields and do work that you proposed.