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"Folks often try on these arguments: it'll cost too much (to save all our lives). Or 'it got terribly hot before so somehow it's natural and ok'." This is a st

by loceng 3y ago

"Folks often try on these arguments: it'll cost too much (to save all our lives). Or 'it got terribly hot before so somehow it's natural and ok'." This is a straw man argument. I didn't say it costs too much, I was stating options for how and where money may be better spent. And if you haven't observed yet that the free market - save for regulatory capture - is far more efficient than government at most efficiently distributing resources where needed, then "you" aren't paying enough attention.

JoeAltmaier 3y ago
The free market is crippled by 'the tragedy of the commons' when it comes to anything whatsoever that isn't simple self-interest. "Somebody else should do that" is typical, or more likely "If I spend anything on a social good, I will be less competitive and go out of business" Solving problems like this are precisely where government, with all its flaws, is essential to doing it at all.
- loceng 3y ago
  It goes one step further than you're thinking though: the government will become corrupted by the worst of the worst for-profit tyrannical bad actors, which is precisely why it's the free market - people en mass - who must actually address these common issues and right the ship. It starts with industrial complexes forming an unfair advantage, leading to regulatory capture that selfishly sets up rules to benefit the industry's profits at the cost of people, society, the environment. As part of that regulatory capture the industries lobby to get politicians of their choosing into positions of decision making, those politicians progressively are more clever-deceptive and more authoritarian. These two sides of the same coin is fascism.
  - JoeAltmaier 3y ago
    Got to admit, reading that, I thought it was describing the free market failure to 'right the ship'. The bad actors are not actually bad; they're just responding to market forces. They cannot choose to do otherwise, else they simple go out of business because they are uncompetitive. The namecalling and villain-choosing is pointless. It's a system that must be designed, one that works with rules and forces in a useful direction.
    - loceng 3y ago
      "The bad actors are not actually bad; they're just responding to market forces." You seem to be assuming, and wrongly assuming who I'm including in my referencing bad actors. Where did I name call? Saying bad actors isn't name calling, firstly, and where the terminology to differentiate who exactly I'm referencing isn't clear enough - and you want to just jump to designing a system, but you need to base that design on who is either forced to into certain behaviour to maintain competing vs. those who are doing far more than just forced into certain behaviours, let's say a scenario where politicians are assassinated in worst case scenario - or where prior to that the bad actors fund politicians who will do exactly as they say if/when elected.

by loceng 3y ago

JoeAltmaier 3y ago

The free market is crippled by 'the tragedy of the commons' when it comes to anything whatsoever that isn't simple self-interest. "Somebody else should do that" is typical, or more likely "If I spend anything on a social good, I will be less competitive and go out of business" Solving problems like this are precisely where government, with all its flaws, is essential to doing it at all.

loceng 3y ago
It goes one step further than you're thinking though: the government will become corrupted by the worst of the worst for-profit tyrannical bad actors, which is precisely why it's the free market - people en mass - who must actually address these common issues and right the ship. It starts with industrial complexes forming an unfair advantage, leading to regulatory capture that selfishly sets up rules to benefit the industry's profits at the cost of people, society, the environment. As part of that regulatory capture the industries lobby to get politicians of their choosing into positions of decision making, those politicians progressively are more clever-deceptive and more authoritarian. These two sides of the same coin is fascism.
- JoeAltmaier 3y ago
  Got to admit, reading that, I thought it was describing the free market failure to 'right the ship'. The bad actors are not actually bad; they're just responding to market forces. They cannot choose to do otherwise, else they simple go out of business because they are uncompetitive. The namecalling and villain-choosing is pointless. It's a system that must be designed, one that works with rules and forces in a useful direction.
  - loceng 3y ago
    "The bad actors are not actually bad; they're just responding to market forces." You seem to be assuming, and wrongly assuming who I'm including in my referencing bad actors. Where did I name call? Saying bad actors isn't name calling, firstly, and where the terminology to differentiate who exactly I'm referencing isn't clear enough - and you want to just jump to designing a system, but you need to base that design on who is either forced to into certain behaviour to maintain competing vs. those who are doing far more than just forced into certain behaviours, let's say a scenario where politicians are assassinated in worst case scenario - or where prior to that the bad actors fund politicians who will do exactly as they say if/when elected.