4 ms·

It's sad when otherwise mostly-free countries do things like this. If you don't understand why this is bad, imagine if the people in charge had the opposite pre

It's sad when otherwise mostly-free countries do things like this. If you don't understand why this is bad, imagine if the people in charge had the opposite preferences and instead banned going by train between cities linked by commercial flights.

jeffbee 3y ago
That didn't make obvious sense to me. It makes as much sense as "It's bad to regulate cigarettes. Imagine what would happen if the government regulated apples."
- josephcsible 3y ago
  But cigarettes and apples aren't substitutes for each other. A better analogy would be a country banning emacs and mandating vi, or vice versa.
  - jeffbee 3y ago
    Is emacs powered by kerosene?
    - josephcsible 3y ago
      It's not like kerosene has been banned completely, though, and the right solution for something that you want people to avoid using but not ban completely is a tax on it, not selectively banning certain uses.
      - injb 3y ago
        It's hard to imagine how that would work. Airline routes are usually based on a use-it-or-lose-it slot. So either the tax will have the desired effect and make the flight uneconomical, in which case it'll be discontinued, or it won't in which case the flight will continue as normal and the government will have an incentive to keep it going, having found some pre-existing use for the extra money that they now can't imagine not having! I can't read the original source: can anyone confirm if this bans private flights or only scheduled flights? I mean could Elon Musk still fly between rail-linked cities in France if he wanted to?
        josephcsible 3y ago
        The point is that the market would decide which uses of kerosene are important enough to keep using, rather than the government deciding.
        jeffbee 3y ago
        I generally agree that it is better to tax emissions and let consumers decide where to spend their carbon budgets. For example, I don't support the idea that we should ban beef, because there are people who want to eat a hamburger and never burn motor fuel, and good for them. But, in this case, that logic doesn't seem to apply. There is nothing "free market" about either air or rail travel. Both exist within and only because of the structure of government, and would not exist without regulation and subsidy.
        josephcsible 3y ago
        I know rail is heavily subsidized, but aren't most airline routes (with the exception of EAS for really rural places) not subsidized at all?
        jeffbee 3y ago
        The government of France owns a third of Air France and 10% of Airbus and half of Aéroports de Paris. I fail to see any rational reason to conclude that domestic air travel within France is "not subsidized at all".
        injb 3y ago
        Right but the only possible outcomes of the move you're proposing are: * the situation they're trying to bring about with this law or * the same situation we have now except the gov't is taking more of people's money
      - abdullahkhalids 3y ago
        What about DDT or asbestos? Should we have banned them or just put a tax on them? In case of taxing, these would continued to have been used, and people and animals not using them would have experienced acute health externalities associated with these substances.
        josephcsible 3y ago
        DDT is actually a great example. Consider how many people died of malaria who could have been saved by its continued use.
        themoonisachees 3y ago
        What?! DDT was banned because it was killing people. Consider how many people would have died because a corporation would happily sell them poison for profit
  - DirkH 3y ago
    A better analogy might be cigarettes or psychedelics. I believe mountains of evidence strongly suggest cigs are worse for us and cause a much worse net negative harm on society via increased long-term strain on our healthcare sector. But, just like planes, people hold onto cigarettes as a right to freedom and attach unwarranted stigma on psychedelics (just like some attach unwarranted stigma on using trains). Banning cigs in some circumstances where the other is allowed makes sense if we just think about overall human welfare, insofar as that is our goal. Same goes for planes.
simmerup 3y ago
It's probably related to this context: https://www.sciencealert.com/france-prepares-for-4-c-rise-we-cant-escape-the-global-reality https://www.sciencealert.com/france-prepares-for-4-c-rise-we... France's national conversation seems to be increasingly realising that we're heading towards a difficult future and pre-empting it. Anglo societies seem to find this much harder to reckon with.
- jeffbee 3y ago
  > Anglo societies seem to find this much harder to reckon with. It's because of our astonishingly bad common law system. The worst thing that England gave to the world.
  - dmichulke 3y ago
    What about the imperial system of units?
    - dolmen 3y ago
      What about driving on the left side of the road?
  - theonemind 3y ago
    What problem do you see with the common law system in this context? I do like the principle that all things being equal, cases should get decided the same way, and we technically have the option of amending the law for clarity if courts seem to interpret it strangely. It does seem like it can slow laws down, which seems like a possible advantage in some contexts for the stability and continuity of society, but possibly a major downside if you need to act quickly.
  - simmerup 3y ago
    To be honest, for the UK at least I've always thought it was because as an English speaking country we have no moat from American media. So we're way more susceptible to the propaganda pumped out by big corporations. I think our common law system is one of the best things about our country
Semaphor 3y ago
I have no strong opinion either way, but your comment sounds a bit like "imagine they made saving lives illegal instead of murdering people" and then expecting us to agree with you.
- josephcsible 3y ago
  My whole point is it's not like that. Saving lives is unambiguously good and murdering people is unambiguously bad. Planes and trains are similar and accomplish the same thing, and neither is inherently good or bad.
  - Semaphor 3y ago
    But aren't planes unambiguously bad compared to take from an ecological perspective?
  - jpgvm 3y ago
    There are however measurable impacts of both. France's high speed train network is powered by electricity which is primarily provided by it's nuclear energy power plants. When viewing it through this lens then it becomes obvious trains have less climate impact. If that is what you are optimising for then one is better than the other. You have to choose some metric, this just seems to be the one they have chosen.
    - josephcsible 3y ago
      > When viewing it through this lens then it becomes obvious trains have less climate impact. > If that is what you are optimising for then one is better than the other. Yes, if the goal is to minimize climate impact at the expense of everything else, then this is logical, but that's not all that governments are supposed to care about.
      - jpgvm 3y ago
        I guess that really depends on what their analysis was. If their analysis says something along the lines of "if we don't optimise for climate we all die" then I think it becomes pretty obvious what you optimise for. However we don't have this information, we can only speculate.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
DirkH 3y ago
It's not a preference though is it? Isn't this a data and evidence-based decision based on what policy-makers believe is bad for environmental and economical reasons? Imagine if all evidence pointed to train travel between cities being much worse than air travel. Then yes, banning the trains could be the right call.
- jrpt 3y ago
  Instead of banning things you don't like, pass a carbon tax then to account for externalities. As a bonus, it could be revenue neutral so that your average person actually ends up ahead (while frequent fliers or polluting industries end up paying more).
  - Timon3 3y ago
    Doing so would increase negative feelings in the population about these things being reserved for rich people only.
  - raffraffraff 3y ago
    Externalities never really get covered because there isn't somebody using that money to actually capture that CO² and reverse the damage. It's just a hairshirt that affects the poor most. Rich people still won't care. You could quadruple the price of a flight and affluent people wouldn't notice. Moderately wealthy people would, and they'd bitch about it, but still fly. Actually, if carbon taxes kept poor people off planes, rich folks could network! "Hey, I'm Jonathan. I work for one of the big four." How about allocating carbon credits to people, annually? No trading. You have to budget. From the poorest hobo to Jeff Besos, everybody gets the same. But even that doesn't work. People will use their carbon! It would be like allocated PTO: none will be left on the table at the end of the year. So by setting a budget you are simultaneously ensuring that it becomes the minimum carbon emissions per person, unless you let people cash in unused carbon credits! The hobo gets a Christmas bonus from the CO² man! But the whole system would be impossible to track and police. This thing the French are doing, works.
    - DirkH 3y ago
michael1999 3y ago
Wait until you learn about GSM.
thiht 3y ago
This is not just a matter of preference though. Nothing to do with freedom either, I know Americans have trouble defining this notion but don’t be ridiculous.
rsynnott 3y ago
And imagine if people with the opposite preferences, instead of banning smoking in restaurants, made it MANDATORY! This isn't really a great argument. "Good regulation is bad actually, because if the opposite of the good regulation was done, that would be bad" isn't particularly coherent. This isn't a preference thing.

jeffbee 3y ago

That didn't make obvious sense to me. It makes as much sense as "It's bad to regulate cigarettes. Imagine what would happen if the government regulated apples."

josephcsible 3y ago
But cigarettes and apples aren't substitutes for each other. A better analogy would be a country banning emacs and mandating vi, or vice versa.
- jeffbee 3y ago
  Is emacs powered by kerosene?
  - josephcsible 3y ago
    It's not like kerosene has been banned completely, though, and the right solution for something that you want people to avoid using but not ban completely is a tax on it, not selectively banning certain uses.
    - injb 3y ago
      It's hard to imagine how that would work. Airline routes are usually based on a use-it-or-lose-it slot. So either the tax will have the desired effect and make the flight uneconomical, in which case it'll be discontinued, or it won't in which case the flight will continue as normal and the government will have an incentive to keep it going, having found some pre-existing use for the extra money that they now can't imagine not having! I can't read the original source: can anyone confirm if this bans private flights or only scheduled flights? I mean could Elon Musk still fly between rail-linked cities in France if he wanted to?
      - josephcsible 3y ago
        The point is that the market would decide which uses of kerosene are important enough to keep using, rather than the government deciding.
        jeffbee 3y ago
        I generally agree that it is better to tax emissions and let consumers decide where to spend their carbon budgets. For example, I don't support the idea that we should ban beef, because there are people who want to eat a hamburger and never burn motor fuel, and good for them. But, in this case, that logic doesn't seem to apply. There is nothing "free market" about either air or rail travel. Both exist within and only because of the structure of government, and would not exist without regulation and subsidy.
        josephcsible 3y ago
        I know rail is heavily subsidized, but aren't most airline routes (with the exception of EAS for really rural places) not subsidized at all?
        jeffbee 3y ago
        The government of France owns a third of Air France and 10% of Airbus and half of Aéroports de Paris. I fail to see any rational reason to conclude that domestic air travel within France is "not subsidized at all".
        injb 3y ago
        Right but the only possible outcomes of the move you're proposing are: * the situation they're trying to bring about with this law or * the same situation we have now except the gov't is taking more of people's money
    - abdullahkhalids 3y ago
      What about DDT or asbestos? Should we have banned them or just put a tax on them? In case of taxing, these would continued to have been used, and people and animals not using them would have experienced acute health externalities associated with these substances.
      - josephcsible 3y ago
        DDT is actually a great example. Consider how many people died of malaria who could have been saved by its continued use.
        themoonisachees 3y ago
        What?! DDT was banned because it was killing people. Consider how many people would have died because a corporation would happily sell them poison for profit
- DirkH 3y ago
  A better analogy might be cigarettes or psychedelics. I believe mountains of evidence strongly suggest cigs are worse for us and cause a much worse net negative harm on society via increased long-term strain on our healthcare sector. But, just like planes, people hold onto cigarettes as a right to freedom and attach unwarranted stigma on psychedelics (just like some attach unwarranted stigma on using trains). Banning cigs in some circumstances where the other is allowed makes sense if we just think about overall human welfare, insofar as that is our goal. Same goes for planes.

simmerup 3y ago

It's probably related to this context: https://www.sciencealert.com/france-prepares-for-4-c-rise-we-cant-escape-the-global-reality https://www.sciencealert.com/france-prepares-for-4-c-rise-we... France's national conversation seems to be increasingly realising that we're heading towards a difficult future and pre-empting it. Anglo societies seem to find this much harder to reckon with.

jeffbee 3y ago
> Anglo societies seem to find this much harder to reckon with. It's because of our astonishingly bad common law system. The worst thing that England gave to the world.
- dmichulke 3y ago
  What about the imperial system of units?
  - dolmen 3y ago
    What about driving on the left side of the road?
- theonemind 3y ago
  What problem do you see with the common law system in this context? I do like the principle that all things being equal, cases should get decided the same way, and we technically have the option of amending the law for clarity if courts seem to interpret it strangely. It does seem like it can slow laws down, which seems like a possible advantage in some contexts for the stability and continuity of society, but possibly a major downside if you need to act quickly.
- simmerup 3y ago
  To be honest, for the UK at least I've always thought it was because as an English speaking country we have no moat from American media. So we're way more susceptible to the propaganda pumped out by big corporations. I think our common law system is one of the best things about our country

Semaphor 3y ago

I have no strong opinion either way, but your comment sounds a bit like "imagine they made saving lives illegal instead of murdering people" and then expecting us to agree with you.

josephcsible 3y ago
My whole point is it's not like that. Saving lives is unambiguously good and murdering people is unambiguously bad. Planes and trains are similar and accomplish the same thing, and neither is inherently good or bad.
- Semaphor 3y ago
  But aren't planes unambiguously bad compared to take from an ecological perspective?
- jpgvm 3y ago
  There are however measurable impacts of both. France's high speed train network is powered by electricity which is primarily provided by it's nuclear energy power plants. When viewing it through this lens then it becomes obvious trains have less climate impact. If that is what you are optimising for then one is better than the other. You have to choose some metric, this just seems to be the one they have chosen.
  - josephcsible 3y ago
    > When viewing it through this lens then it becomes obvious trains have less climate impact. > If that is what you are optimising for then one is better than the other. Yes, if the goal is to minimize climate impact at the expense of everything else, then this is logical, but that's not all that governments are supposed to care about.
    - jpgvm 3y ago
      I guess that really depends on what their analysis was. If their analysis says something along the lines of "if we don't optimise for climate we all die" then I think it becomes pretty obvious what you optimise for. However we don't have this information, we can only speculate.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

DirkH 3y ago

It's not a preference though is it? Isn't this a data and evidence-based decision based on what policy-makers believe is bad for environmental and economical reasons? Imagine if all evidence pointed to train travel between cities being much worse than air travel. Then yes, banning the trains could be the right call.

jrpt 3y ago
Instead of banning things you don't like, pass a carbon tax then to account for externalities. As a bonus, it could be revenue neutral so that your average person actually ends up ahead (while frequent fliers or polluting industries end up paying more).
- Timon3 3y ago
  Doing so would increase negative feelings in the population about these things being reserved for rich people only.
- raffraffraff 3y ago
  Externalities never really get covered because there isn't somebody using that money to actually capture that CO² and reverse the damage. It's just a hairshirt that affects the poor most. Rich people still won't care. You could quadruple the price of a flight and affluent people wouldn't notice. Moderately wealthy people would, and they'd bitch about it, but still fly. Actually, if carbon taxes kept poor people off planes, rich folks could network! "Hey, I'm Jonathan. I work for one of the big four." How about allocating carbon credits to people, annually? No trading. You have to budget. From the poorest hobo to Jeff Besos, everybody gets the same. But even that doesn't work. People will use their carbon! It would be like allocated PTO: none will be left on the table at the end of the year. So by setting a budget you are simultaneously ensuring that it becomes the minimum carbon emissions per person, unless you let people cash in unused carbon credits! The hobo gets a Christmas bonus from the CO² man! But the whole system would be impossible to track and police. This thing the French are doing, works.
  - DirkH 3y ago

michael1999 3y ago

Wait until you learn about GSM.

thiht 3y ago

This is not just a matter of preference though. Nothing to do with freedom either, I know Americans have trouble defining this notion but don’t be ridiculous.

rsynnott 3y ago

And imagine if people with the opposite preferences, instead of banning smoking in restaurants, made it MANDATORY! This isn't really a great argument. "Good regulation is bad actually, because if the opposite of the good regulation was done, that would be bad" isn't particularly coherent. This isn't a preference thing.