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I love that regulations kill people through both excessive mental distress and false peace of mind. That’s wonderful.

jongjong 3y ago
Regulations are anti-competitive as they prevent people from successfully bootstrapping their startups and becoming entrepreneurs. It forces ambitious people without capital to be wage slaves which causes substantial mental distress. False peace of mind harms people because it makes people assume that all products on the shelves are safe by default which isn't always the case and drives harmful behaviors on a massive scale. Take the adoption of Glyphosate for example. Had people not been reassured by the government that it was 100% safe, many people would not have used it. Consumers outsourcing trust to the government instead of the individuals who produce the goods is harmful because it creates an environment which gives untrustworthy people a competitive edge and a certain degree of protection from liability. It shifts some responsibility away from producers who understand the product best and towards government agencies whose interest is to help large private companies maintain market dominance.
- danielbln 3y ago
  Someone drank the libertarian cool aid. I'll take my toasters certified and regulated, they might not be 100% safe, but they sure as hell will be safer than what most garage entrepreneurs will cobble together. Details matter, standards matter, and regulation is a way to enforce those.
- autoexec 3y ago
  Today having quality standards means that people have some amount of faith in the products sold on shelves. The alternative doesn't mean that the bad products go away, or that everyone would just "be careful" somehow and find ways to guess at how safe things are. We know we can't trust everything sold to us, and we really have no ability to tell what's killing us or our family. If we could all just always look out for ourselves we'd never have kids dying because of heavy metals in their applesauce. It's a weird thing when people are convinced that the solution to snake oil salesmen and serial murderers are making those very things commonplace and perfectly legal. There are times when corporations abuse regulations to add excessive burdens on their would-be competitors, but making sure your toasters don't electrocute you or burn your house down isn't one of those situations. There are also times when our government and their regulations don't protect people as well as they should. That's a sign that we need more regulations and better enforcement/accountability, not an indication that we should give up trying to hold anyone to any kind of standards in the first place. Honestly, we want the responsibility to be on government agencies because when they fail to protect our interests we at least have the option to vote them out and replace them with people who will do their job. You don't get to vote out the CEO or shareholders who decide to become serial killers so that they can make a little extra money on top of the millions/billions they already make in profits. Why would you want to limit your own power so that others can exploit you more easily? Companies have shown time and time again that they will knowingly poison you, kill you even, if they think it will make them more money. They'll spend tons of time and money trying to cover it up too. You'd rather trust them than your own elected representatives? Maybe you've been voting for the wrong people...
- jIyajbe 3y ago
  "All right; but apart from the sanitation, education, medicine, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?"

Regulations are anti-competitive as they prevent people from successfully bootstrapping their startups and becoming entrepreneurs. It forces ambitious people without capital to be wage slaves which causes substantial mental distress. False peace of mind harms people because it makes people assume that all products on the shelves are safe by default which isn't always the case and drives harmful behaviors on a massive scale. Take the adoption of Glyphosate for example. Had people not been reassured by the government that it was 100% safe, many people would not have used it. Consumers outsourcing trust to the government instead of the individuals who produce the goods is harmful because it creates an environment which gives untrustworthy people a competitive edge and a certain degree of protection from liability. It shifts some responsibility away from producers who understand the product best and towards government agencies whose interest is to help large private companies maintain market dominance.

danielbln 3y ago
Someone drank the libertarian cool aid. I'll take my toasters certified and regulated, they might not be 100% safe, but they sure as hell will be safer than what most garage entrepreneurs will cobble together. Details matter, standards matter, and regulation is a way to enforce those.
autoexec 3y ago
Today having quality standards means that people have some amount of faith in the products sold on shelves. The alternative doesn't mean that the bad products go away, or that everyone would just "be careful" somehow and find ways to guess at how safe things are. We know we can't trust everything sold to us, and we really have no ability to tell what's killing us or our family. If we could all just always look out for ourselves we'd never have kids dying because of heavy metals in their applesauce. It's a weird thing when people are convinced that the solution to snake oil salesmen and serial murderers are making those very things commonplace and perfectly legal. There are times when corporations abuse regulations to add excessive burdens on their would-be competitors, but making sure your toasters don't electrocute you or burn your house down isn't one of those situations. There are also times when our government and their regulations don't protect people as well as they should. That's a sign that we need more regulations and better enforcement/accountability, not an indication that we should give up trying to hold anyone to any kind of standards in the first place. Honestly, we want the responsibility to be on government agencies because when they fail to protect our interests we at least have the option to vote them out and replace them with people who will do their job. You don't get to vote out the CEO or shareholders who decide to become serial killers so that they can make a little extra money on top of the millions/billions they already make in profits. Why would you want to limit your own power so that others can exploit you more easily? Companies have shown time and time again that they will knowingly poison you, kill you even, if they think it will make them more money. They'll spend tons of time and money trying to cover it up too. You'd rather trust them than your own elected representatives? Maybe you've been voting for the wrong people...
jIyajbe 3y ago
"All right; but apart from the sanitation, education, medicine, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?"