4 ms·

> it's plausible that cost disease is largely a result of government regulation, but it's not a result of a specific government regulation Yes, but each indivi

> it's plausible that cost disease is largely a result of government regulation, but it's not a result of a specific government regulation Yes, but each individual regulation that is contributing to this aggregate cost disease has varying degrees of value. Even if a specific regulation contributes +1 to the overall cost disease, it may also contribute +2 of positive value elsewhere that makes it net worthwhile, all things considered. So we're back to where we started. Each distinct thing needs to be considered on its own merits without trying to automatically judge it based on what category it belongs to. Aside from that, I could not agree more with your overall view. It's a good distillation of the broader concept of thinking things through from first principles. I don't want more or less regulations. I want more good regulations, and less bad regulations. In some areas (e.g. carbon emissions), I only want more regulations. In other areas (e.g. housing construction), I only want less regulations. I think these conclusions come from starting with the desired end goal (e.g. less pollution) and working backwards. Many people wrongly start with an ideology (e.g. regulations are good) and work forwards from that.

AnthonyMouse 3y ago
> Even if a specific regulation contributes +1 to the overall cost disease, it may also contribute +2 of positive value elsewhere that makes it net worthwhile, all things considered. That's assuming they're not in competition for scarce resources, which they are. For example, it's more efficient to do something with fewer people than to do the same thing with more people. Not just for the directly proportional efficiency reason, but because larger teams have higher coordination costs and management overhead, and will tend to increase average entity size leading to market consolidation which is very bad. So you get a certain regulatory budget before your regulations induce the regulated entity to increase the size of the team. At which point your regulation that was contributing +1 cost to achieve +2 benefit would then contribute +25001 cost to achieve +2 benefit. (This is especially true for regulations that apply to small entities, because the cost of increasing the number of workers from 1 to 2 is drastic, often to the point of destroying the business.) Which means you have to start throwing out regulations that in isolation have +1 cost and +2 benefit so you have the budget left for the regulations that have +1 cost and +10 benefit.

AnthonyMouse 3y ago

> Even if a specific regulation contributes +1 to the overall cost disease, it may also contribute +2 of positive value elsewhere that makes it net worthwhile, all things considered. That's assuming they're not in competition for scarce resources, which they are. For example, it's more efficient to do something with fewer people than to do the same thing with more people. Not just for the directly proportional efficiency reason, but because larger teams have higher coordination costs and management overhead, and will tend to increase average entity size leading to market consolidation which is very bad. So you get a certain regulatory budget before your regulations induce the regulated entity to increase the size of the team. At which point your regulation that was contributing +1 cost to achieve +2 benefit would then contribute +25001 cost to achieve +2 benefit. (This is especially true for regulations that apply to small entities, because the cost of increasing the number of workers from 1 to 2 is drastic, often to the point of destroying the business.) Which means you have to start throwing out regulations that in isolation have +1 cost and +2 benefit so you have the budget left for the regulations that have +1 cost and +10 benefit.