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Isn't "x is evil/bad/harmful. Government needs to regulate x." basically the entire purpose of society? I enjoy living in a society, and not having to worry ab

Isn't "x is evil/bad/harmful. Government needs to regulate x." basically the entire purpose of society? I enjoy living in a society, and not having to worry about if every food I eat might poison me, or every bridge I walk over might fall down. If we decide, as a society, it would be better to ban Facebook, why shouldn't we?

passivate 5y ago
Banning things is a bit short-sighted and misses the point. IMHO, Its better to think about types of long-term incentive structures that we can create so that more companies will be incentivized to do the right thing - or at least behave in a way that we agree as a society.
themacguffinman 5y ago
If we decide as a society that certain races are evil/bad/harmful and should have fewer rights, would that make it okay? Just because a lot of people agree on something doesn't make it right or good. I'm not sure where you get the idea that society is just a platform for banning unpopular things. A lot of modern civics was designed specifically to counter that actually, things like constitutional laws, representative democracy, high courts, political parties; they all serve to counterbalance and moderate the pure majority opinion on how to run society. You know, I also enjoy living in a society and not having to worry if any media I want to use or any business I ran might be banned because someone somewhere didn't like it.
- heavyset_go 5y ago
  People can't choose their race, and one's race doesn't impact other people negatively. People can and do choose to engage in exploitative business practices for profit, despite any negative externalities those practices have on other people. We, as a society, have tomes of legislation and case law that regulate business practices and their negative impacts on individuals or society as whole.
  - themacguffinman 5y ago
    > one's race doesn't impact other people negatively Racists would say otherwise. If racists were a majority of society, would you agree that we as a society are right to govern that way? You know, we also have tomes of legislation about what we don't regulate. In most Western societies, speech has pretty big tomes on that.

passivate 5y ago

Banning things is a bit short-sighted and misses the point. IMHO, Its better to think about types of long-term incentive structures that we can create so that more companies will be incentivized to do the right thing - or at least behave in a way that we agree as a society.

themacguffinman 5y ago

If we decide as a society that certain races are evil/bad/harmful and should have fewer rights, would that make it okay? Just because a lot of people agree on something doesn't make it right or good. I'm not sure where you get the idea that society is just a platform for banning unpopular things. A lot of modern civics was designed specifically to counter that actually, things like constitutional laws, representative democracy, high courts, political parties; they all serve to counterbalance and moderate the pure majority opinion on how to run society. You know, I also enjoy living in a society and not having to worry if any media I want to use or any business I ran might be banned because someone somewhere didn't like it.

heavyset_go 5y ago
People can't choose their race, and one's race doesn't impact other people negatively. People can and do choose to engage in exploitative business practices for profit, despite any negative externalities those practices have on other people. We, as a society, have tomes of legislation and case law that regulate business practices and their negative impacts on individuals or society as whole.
- themacguffinman 5y ago
  > one's race doesn't impact other people negatively Racists would say otherwise. If racists were a majority of society, would you agree that we as a society are right to govern that way? You know, we also have tomes of legislation about what we don't regulate. In most Western societies, speech has pretty big tomes on that.