3 ms·

Regulations? You mean the same mechanism ISPs, food companies, "sin taxable" companies, etc use to capture entire segments of the market and price fix their way

Regulations? You mean the same mechanism ISPs, food companies, "sin taxable" companies, etc use to capture entire segments of the market and price fix their way to a billion dollar profit? Or the regulations that nearly sank Tesla in the cradle that existed for no reason other than politicians are as corrupt, if not more, than the worst CEOs? 99.9% of the time regulation is unnecessary. Over-regulation is a huge problem and one that only an actual theoretical free market could address. I see people on HN complaining about last mile politics often. Yet people seem hard pressed to look to the free market for a solution. I'd rather deal with a corrupt CEO whose power will end when their life does, rather than a politician whose power will continue for centuries until someone with a few more brain folds steps in and stops it.

astrange 4y ago
If you didn’t have regulations you wouldn’t be able to consume or produce any modern product. It’s not worth making electronics if your users all have randomly shaped random voltage power sockets installed by whoever built their house, uncontrolled RF emissions, and want to pay you in private bank currencies you can’t spend. This is an example of the article - libertarianism requires people to replace how things actually work with brief inaccurate summaries of how it works they fit in their heads, and the smarter you are the more incorrect information you can fit in your head and the more wrong you are.
- WalterBright 4y ago
  > It’s not worth making electronics if your users all have randomly shaped random voltage power sockets installed by whoever built their house, And yet nearly all electronics standards arose through voluntary cooperation. Ever notice the USB socket on your computer? The audio jack? The HDMI port? etc. Did you know that Edison standardized the Edison lightbulb socket, not the government? > uncontrolled RF emissions, Again, the free market does not allow one to interfere with other peoples' property. > and want to pay you in private bank currencies you can’t spend. Banks solved that problem long ago. The free banking system worked. BTW, we still mostly use PRIVATE BANK CURRENCIES all the time! Amazing, but true. They're called credit cards, bank checks, paypal, venmo, wire transfers, money orders, cashier's checks, etc. Even store coupons are private currency. > libertarianism requires people to replace how things actually work with brief inaccurate summaries of how it works they fit in their heads, and the smarter you are the more incorrect information you can fit in your head and the more wrong you are. Have fun debating with me. Good luck!
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - Test0129 4y ago
    > Banks solved that problem long ago. The free banking system worked. BTW, we still mostly use PRIVATE BANK CURRENCIES all the time! Amazing, but true. They're called credit cards, bank checks, paypal, venmo, wire transfers, money orders, cashier's checks, etc. Even store coupons are private currency. To reiterate this point the current US dollar is a private dollar issued by a private bank and funded (essentially) by congress and the treasury. The last time the US had a public dollar was prior to the American revolution. A lot of people make the mistake of conflating The Fed with the government but it is federal in name only. It is owned by private shareholders no different than any other corporation.
    - WalterBright 4y ago
      > the current US dollar is a private dollar issued by a private bank LOL. The Federal Reserve System is a sham "private" bank used to get around the Constitution that does not empower the government to print money. You should check to see who appoints the people that run the Fed.
  - astrange 4y ago
    > And yet nearly all electronics standards arose through voluntary cooperation. Ever notice the USB socket on your computer? The audio jack? The HDMI port? etc. Did you know that Edison standardized the Edison lightbulb socket, not the government? How do you know the USB shaped sockets on your chargers are actually implementing USB, and not something that either doesn't work or burns your house down? It's partly private enforcement and partly customs blocking imports of things found to be dangerous, but you didn't ask customs to do that. > Again, the free market does not allow one to interfere with other peoples' property. This seems like a posthoc principle but isn't proven to be one you could actually build a working government on. ie you're saying "private standards are fine" and "this principle can replace FCC radio regulation", but a government only implementing the NAP is just as capable of banning your "private standards" by declaring them harmful. USB is a kind of cartel after all, it's just one we happen to like. > BTW, we still mostly use PRIVATE BANK CURRENCIES all the time! Amazing, but true. They're called credit cards, bank checks, paypal, venmo, wire transfers, money orders, cashier's checks, etc. Even store coupons are private currency. Yes, and why isn't that a problem? Because all those private dollars magically have 1:1 exchange rates to other kinds of dollars. That doesn't happen on its own. (There are other currencies in the world, and currently a bunch of private ones like stablecoins, and you can read in Matt Levine about how they're constantly blowing up and losing investors' life savings and the inventors are on the run from Interpol.)
- Test0129 4y ago
  > If you didn’t have regulations you wouldn’t be able to consume or produce any modern product. It’s not worth making electronics if your users all have randomly shaped random voltage power sockets installed by whoever built their house, uncontrolled RF emissions, and want to pay you in private bank currencies you can’t spend. This isn't true at all. You basically backed this entire point up with "company store money is bad" which is true. But The Fed issues "Company Store" money that just so happens to be accepted widely. We don't have a public currency. Without a private corporation (The Fed) we would have no money because congress relinquished it's power several hundred years ago, and in 191x they sealed the deal with the Aldrich Bill. If you want to have a truly regulated socialist utopia you're going to need to go back about 200 years to stop the banksters. "No regulations" does not mean "no standards". The difference is the onus is on the agreement between the company and user. In a theoretical free market (just like your theoretical land where regulation works) companies would cooperate for base goods like sockets, because by standardizing along sockets, other companies would be able to sell more products. Then they can sell more sockets, and the cycle continues. In fact regulation doesn't guide standardization except in the most surface-level sense. Uncontrolled RF emissions is another strawman. The free market doesn't mean that BigCo. can drop a 5G tower in my backyard. Again, killing people is STILL bad in the libertarian world and exposing people to danger is similarly bad. As a counter-example, EPA regulations have done very little to stop chemical spills. EPA is an "after-the-fact" regulatory agency and companies have incentive to either buy them out (DuPont) or only fix exactly what they say (BP). There's no indication regulation fixed anything. In fact all regulatory agencies can only act after-the-fact. This makes them fundamentally useless towards protecting people before danger strikes. Do you know what spurs regulatory agencies into action? Wide, large scale, protests. These would also work in a free market. If BigCo's towers are microwaving birds the people have a responsibility to stop them. In the current over-regulated environment BigCo simply defers to the agency, which then drags it's feet for 10 years, and then comes up with a half-baked solution that the company finds another end-around for. You are conflating "regulation" with "standardization" in order to make a point about how libertarians are smooth brained pseudointellectuals but you ended up hurting yourself in the process.

astrange 4y ago

If you didn’t have regulations you wouldn’t be able to consume or produce any modern product. It’s not worth making electronics if your users all have randomly shaped random voltage power sockets installed by whoever built their house, uncontrolled RF emissions, and want to pay you in private bank currencies you can’t spend. This is an example of the article - libertarianism requires people to replace how things actually work with brief inaccurate summaries of how it works they fit in their heads, and the smarter you are the more incorrect information you can fit in your head and the more wrong you are.

WalterBright 4y ago
> It’s not worth making electronics if your users all have randomly shaped random voltage power sockets installed by whoever built their house, And yet nearly all electronics standards arose through voluntary cooperation. Ever notice the USB socket on your computer? The audio jack? The HDMI port? etc. Did you know that Edison standardized the Edison lightbulb socket, not the government? > uncontrolled RF emissions, Again, the free market does not allow one to interfere with other peoples' property. > and want to pay you in private bank currencies you can’t spend. Banks solved that problem long ago. The free banking system worked. BTW, we still mostly use PRIVATE BANK CURRENCIES all the time! Amazing, but true. They're called credit cards, bank checks, paypal, venmo, wire transfers, money orders, cashier's checks, etc. Even store coupons are private currency. > libertarianism requires people to replace how things actually work with brief inaccurate summaries of how it works they fit in their heads, and the smarter you are the more incorrect information you can fit in your head and the more wrong you are. Have fun debating with me. Good luck!
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- Test0129 4y ago
  > Banks solved that problem long ago. The free banking system worked. BTW, we still mostly use PRIVATE BANK CURRENCIES all the time! Amazing, but true. They're called credit cards, bank checks, paypal, venmo, wire transfers, money orders, cashier's checks, etc. Even store coupons are private currency. To reiterate this point the current US dollar is a private dollar issued by a private bank and funded (essentially) by congress and the treasury. The last time the US had a public dollar was prior to the American revolution. A lot of people make the mistake of conflating The Fed with the government but it is federal in name only. It is owned by private shareholders no different than any other corporation.
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    > the current US dollar is a private dollar issued by a private bank LOL. The Federal Reserve System is a sham "private" bank used to get around the Constitution that does not empower the government to print money. You should check to see who appoints the people that run the Fed.
- astrange 4y ago
  > And yet nearly all electronics standards arose through voluntary cooperation. Ever notice the USB socket on your computer? The audio jack? The HDMI port? etc. Did you know that Edison standardized the Edison lightbulb socket, not the government? How do you know the USB shaped sockets on your chargers are actually implementing USB, and not something that either doesn't work or burns your house down? It's partly private enforcement and partly customs blocking imports of things found to be dangerous, but you didn't ask customs to do that. > Again, the free market does not allow one to interfere with other peoples' property. This seems like a posthoc principle but isn't proven to be one you could actually build a working government on. ie you're saying "private standards are fine" and "this principle can replace FCC radio regulation", but a government only implementing the NAP is just as capable of banning your "private standards" by declaring them harmful. USB is a kind of cartel after all, it's just one we happen to like. > BTW, we still mostly use PRIVATE BANK CURRENCIES all the time! Amazing, but true. They're called credit cards, bank checks, paypal, venmo, wire transfers, money orders, cashier's checks, etc. Even store coupons are private currency. Yes, and why isn't that a problem? Because all those private dollars magically have 1:1 exchange rates to other kinds of dollars. That doesn't happen on its own. (There are other currencies in the world, and currently a bunch of private ones like stablecoins, and you can read in Matt Levine about how they're constantly blowing up and losing investors' life savings and the inventors are on the run from Interpol.)
Test0129 4y ago
> If you didn’t have regulations you wouldn’t be able to consume or produce any modern product. It’s not worth making electronics if your users all have randomly shaped random voltage power sockets installed by whoever built their house, uncontrolled RF emissions, and want to pay you in private bank currencies you can’t spend. This isn't true at all. You basically backed this entire point up with "company store money is bad" which is true. But The Fed issues "Company Store" money that just so happens to be accepted widely. We don't have a public currency. Without a private corporation (The Fed) we would have no money because congress relinquished it's power several hundred years ago, and in 191x they sealed the deal with the Aldrich Bill. If you want to have a truly regulated socialist utopia you're going to need to go back about 200 years to stop the banksters. "No regulations" does not mean "no standards". The difference is the onus is on the agreement between the company and user. In a theoretical free market (just like your theoretical land where regulation works) companies would cooperate for base goods like sockets, because by standardizing along sockets, other companies would be able to sell more products. Then they can sell more sockets, and the cycle continues. In fact regulation doesn't guide standardization except in the most surface-level sense. Uncontrolled RF emissions is another strawman. The free market doesn't mean that BigCo. can drop a 5G tower in my backyard. Again, killing people is STILL bad in the libertarian world and exposing people to danger is similarly bad. As a counter-example, EPA regulations have done very little to stop chemical spills. EPA is an "after-the-fact" regulatory agency and companies have incentive to either buy them out (DuPont) or only fix exactly what they say (BP). There's no indication regulation fixed anything. In fact all regulatory agencies can only act after-the-fact. This makes them fundamentally useless towards protecting people before danger strikes. Do you know what spurs regulatory agencies into action? Wide, large scale, protests. These would also work in a free market. If BigCo's towers are microwaving birds the people have a responsibility to stop them. In the current over-regulated environment BigCo simply defers to the agency, which then drags it's feet for 10 years, and then comes up with a half-baked solution that the company finds another end-around for. You are conflating "regulation" with "standardization" in order to make a point about how libertarians are smooth brained pseudointellectuals but you ended up hurting yourself in the process.