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Pollution of almost all forms should eventually be made illegal. There is no reason the broader population should have to suffer from the externalities of profi

Pollution of almost all forms should eventually be made illegal. There is no reason the broader population should have to suffer from the externalities of profit seeking companies. What other countries are doing in this regard is irrelevant. The U.S. is largely considered the leader of the free world. We need to start acting like it and set examples the rest of the world can follow.

archseer 6y ago
> The U.S. is largely considered the leader of the free world. I can assure you the rest of the world doesn't see it that way.
- yostrovs 6y ago
  The rest of the free world would be investing a bit more into defense if what you say is true.
  - IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago
    "To lead" has nothing to do with that metal, "lead". The US hegemony has always relied on science and culture more than brute force. Proof: during the Cold War, both sides had about equal militaries. Or, at least, equal for all practical purposes, i. e. killing everyone and everything 20-times over. And yet it were eastern regimes that had to build walls to keep their citizens from stampeding westwards. Nobody in West Germany was prosecuted for watching the East German TV channel. Not just because it wasn't illegal, but mostly because it was done rarely, and mostly ironically. The reverse landed quite a few people in jail. Judging by peoples' actions immediately after the fall of the wall, they weren't afraid of anything American. Or else it's hard to explain how about half of them used their first trip across the border to get a Big Mac.
    - yostrovs 6y ago
      Are you saying it has more to do with chairing meetings?
      - IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago
        No idea what you're insinuating. I believe most international meetings are run with rotating chairs. The concept is called "soft power". Practically, it means that when the US asked for something before, say, 2016, they'd get their wish, as long as it wasn't entirely unreasonable and/or didn't cost others too much. Nowadays, they have trouble getting other countries to pick up the phone. And while that is likely to improve somewhat within a month or so, it isn't ever going to go back to where it was. You think you can get the French to agree to, say, extended copyright terms that benefit Disney and Microsoft with military threats? How does that work, exactly? Even born-again christians are going to have a hard time to justify mass murder with some marginal economic utility.
rayiner 6y ago
> Pollution of almost all forms should eventually be made illegal. You can’t do anything without generating pollution. None of the things that enable this interaction on HN exist without pollution. > There is no reason the broader population should have to suffer from the externalities of profit seeking companies. Sure—the reason is that nearly everyone uses the things that are produced as a byproduct of this pollution. And these industries are highly competitive. Just as rising prices of crude oil quickly get passed along to consumers, so do the rising costs of environments compliance. Rising environmental standards also accelerate the exodus of manufacturing jobs to places like China with less stringent regulations. > What other countries are doing in this regard is irrelevant. The U.S. is largely considered the leader of the free world. We need to start acting like it and set examples the rest of the world can follow. Governance isn’t an exercise in moral posturing. It’s about making various trade-odds in a finite world governed by brutal laws of physics and economics. When you increase pollution standards, you save some lives, but increase people’s cost of living, and push more jobs to China. How other countries make these trade-offs is highly relevant.
- zug_zug 6y ago
  >>> You can’t do anything without generating pollution. None of the things that enable this interaction on HN exist without pollution. Uh, you can absolutely be pollution neutral. You can be carbon neutral, and I don't buy for one microsecond that there are 0 technologies that could filter soot from smokestacks. In fact, we could recapture all of it. If you read about the history of pollution, you'll see that the "informed tradeoffs" is a complete fairy-tale. It's mostly ignorance and abuse of the poor by the wealthy (who put polluting factories in poor areas like West Virginia). Some reading: https://www.ehn.org/dupont-c8-parkersburg-2644262065.html https://www.ehn.org/dupont-c8-parkersburg-2644262065.html
  - rayiner 6y ago
    > Uh, you can absolutely be pollution neutral. You can be carbon neutral, and I don't buy for one microsecond that there are 0 technologies that could filter soot from smokestacks. In fact, we could recapture all of it. You said “pollution” should be banned. That includes a whole lot more than soot. And no, you can’t recapture “all” of the soot from a smokestack. Filtering particulates out of flue-gas stacks is a whole field of engineering. And that’s just one source. PM2.5 is produced by a huge variety of human activity: https://www.pca.state.mn.us/air/sources-air-pollution-most-impact-health https://www.pca.state.mn.us/air/sources-air-pollution-most-i.... The dominant source is actually residential wood burning. > If you read about the history of pollution, you'll see that the "informed tradeoffs" is a complete fairy-tale. It's mostly ignorance and abuse of the poor by the wealthy (who put polluting factories in poor areas like West Virginia). I focused on environmental policy in law school. It is absolutely about informed trade-offs, within an economic framework. Equity is one part of policy, but the field is not “mostly” about that. Of course that aspect of it gets a lot of press, because it makes for easy narratives for liberal arts major journalists who have trouble with science and economics.

archseer 6y ago

> The U.S. is largely considered the leader of the free world. I can assure you the rest of the world doesn't see it that way.

yostrovs 6y ago
The rest of the free world would be investing a bit more into defense if what you say is true.
- IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago
  "To lead" has nothing to do with that metal, "lead". The US hegemony has always relied on science and culture more than brute force. Proof: during the Cold War, both sides had about equal militaries. Or, at least, equal for all practical purposes, i. e. killing everyone and everything 20-times over. And yet it were eastern regimes that had to build walls to keep their citizens from stampeding westwards. Nobody in West Germany was prosecuted for watching the East German TV channel. Not just because it wasn't illegal, but mostly because it was done rarely, and mostly ironically. The reverse landed quite a few people in jail. Judging by peoples' actions immediately after the fall of the wall, they weren't afraid of anything American. Or else it's hard to explain how about half of them used their first trip across the border to get a Big Mac.
  - yostrovs 6y ago
    Are you saying it has more to do with chairing meetings?
    - IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago
      No idea what you're insinuating. I believe most international meetings are run with rotating chairs. The concept is called "soft power". Practically, it means that when the US asked for something before, say, 2016, they'd get their wish, as long as it wasn't entirely unreasonable and/or didn't cost others too much. Nowadays, they have trouble getting other countries to pick up the phone. And while that is likely to improve somewhat within a month or so, it isn't ever going to go back to where it was. You think you can get the French to agree to, say, extended copyright terms that benefit Disney and Microsoft with military threats? How does that work, exactly? Even born-again christians are going to have a hard time to justify mass murder with some marginal economic utility.

rayiner 6y ago

> Pollution of almost all forms should eventually be made illegal. You can’t do anything without generating pollution. None of the things that enable this interaction on HN exist without pollution. > There is no reason the broader population should have to suffer from the externalities of profit seeking companies. Sure—the reason is that nearly everyone uses the things that are produced as a byproduct of this pollution. And these industries are highly competitive. Just as rising prices of crude oil quickly get passed along to consumers, so do the rising costs of environments compliance. Rising environmental standards also accelerate the exodus of manufacturing jobs to places like China with less stringent regulations. > What other countries are doing in this regard is irrelevant. The U.S. is largely considered the leader of the free world. We need to start acting like it and set examples the rest of the world can follow. Governance isn’t an exercise in moral posturing. It’s about making various trade-odds in a finite world governed by brutal laws of physics and economics. When you increase pollution standards, you save some lives, but increase people’s cost of living, and push more jobs to China. How other countries make these trade-offs is highly relevant.

zug_zug 6y ago
>>> You can’t do anything without generating pollution. None of the things that enable this interaction on HN exist without pollution. Uh, you can absolutely be pollution neutral. You can be carbon neutral, and I don't buy for one microsecond that there are 0 technologies that could filter soot from smokestacks. In fact, we could recapture all of it. If you read about the history of pollution, you'll see that the "informed tradeoffs" is a complete fairy-tale. It's mostly ignorance and abuse of the poor by the wealthy (who put polluting factories in poor areas like West Virginia). Some reading: https://www.ehn.org/dupont-c8-parkersburg-2644262065.html https://www.ehn.org/dupont-c8-parkersburg-2644262065.html
- rayiner 6y ago
  > Uh, you can absolutely be pollution neutral. You can be carbon neutral, and I don't buy for one microsecond that there are 0 technologies that could filter soot from smokestacks. In fact, we could recapture all of it. You said “pollution” should be banned. That includes a whole lot more than soot. And no, you can’t recapture “all” of the soot from a smokestack. Filtering particulates out of flue-gas stacks is a whole field of engineering. And that’s just one source. PM2.5 is produced by a huge variety of human activity: https://www.pca.state.mn.us/air/sources-air-pollution-most-impact-health https://www.pca.state.mn.us/air/sources-air-pollution-most-i.... The dominant source is actually residential wood burning. > If you read about the history of pollution, you'll see that the "informed tradeoffs" is a complete fairy-tale. It's mostly ignorance and abuse of the poor by the wealthy (who put polluting factories in poor areas like West Virginia). I focused on environmental policy in law school. It is absolutely about informed trade-offs, within an economic framework. Equity is one part of policy, but the field is not “mostly” about that. Of course that aspect of it gets a lot of press, because it makes for easy narratives for liberal arts major journalists who have trouble with science and economics.