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You need to accept that everything has a tradeoff and some amount of drama just seems to be built into the system. Take sex work, for example. Legalizing it le
by pmarreck 3y ago
You need to accept that everything has a tradeoff and some amount of drama just seems to be built into the system.
Take sex work, for example. Legalizing it leads to an overall increase in sex trafficking. But it also does this: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/07/17/when-rhode-island-accidentally-legalized-prostitution-rape-and-stis-decreased-sharply/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/07/17/when-...
My personal opinion is that if something is going to find a way to conduct itself in secret anyway (at high risk and cost) if it is banned, it is always better to just suck it up and permit it and regulate it in the open instead. Trafficked people are far easier to discover in an open market than a black one. Effects of anything (both positive and negative) are far easier to assess when the thing being assessed is legal.
Should we ban cash because it incentivizes mugging and pickpocketing and theft? (I've been the victim of pickpocketing. The most valuable thing they took was an irreplaceable military ID I carried (I was long since inactive)... Not the $25 in cash in my wallet at the time.) I mean, there would literally be far fewer muggings if no one carried cash. Is it thus the cash's "fault"?
- consumer451 3y agoBut there have to be specific trade-offs, in each case. I am reminded of the words of "a wise man." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39874049 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39874049 Captain's Log: This entire branch of comments responding to OP is not helping advance humanity in any significant way. I would appreciate my statement of protest being noted by the alien archeologists who find these bits in the wreckage of my species.
- Dalewyn 3y agoI think drunk driving being an oil that keeps society lubricated cannot and should not be understated. Yes, drunk driving kills people and that's unacceptable. On the other hand, people going out to eat and drink with family, friends, and co-workers after work helps keep society functioning, and the police respect this reality because they don't arrest clearly-drunk patrons coming out of restaurants to drive back home.
- brailsafe 3y agoWhat is more depressing is how we can acknowledge that reality and continue to do absolutely nothing to mitigate it but punish it, in many cases. The more people practically need to drive, the more people will drunk drive and kill people, yet in so many cases we just sort of stop there and be like "welp, guess that's just nature" instead of building viable alternatives. However the other theoretical possibly is that if people didn't need to drive, they might end up drinking more.
- Karrot_Kream 3y agoThis is such a deeply American take that I can't help but laugh out loud. It's like going to a developing nation and saying that, while emissions from two stroke scooters kills people there's no alternative to get your life things done.
- pierat 3y agoYou can laugh out loud all you want, but there are mandatory parking minimums for bars across the USA. Yes, bars have parking lots, and a lot of spaces. The intent is to *drive* there, drink and maybe eat, and leave in some various state of drunkenness. Why else would the spacious parking lots be required?
- Dalewyn 3y agoIt certainly isn't just America, though we're probably certainly the most infamous example. I was in France for business once in the countryside (southern France), and the host took everyone (me, their employees, etc.) out to lunch. Far as I could tell it was just an everyday thing. Anyway, we drove about an hour to a nearby village and practically partied for a few hours. Wine flowed like a river. Then we drove back and we all got back to our work. So not only were we drunk driving, we were drunk working. Even Americans usually don't drink that hard; the French earned my respect that day, they know how to have a good time. Also many times in Japan, I would invite a business client/supplier or a friend over for dinner at a sushi bar. It's not unusual for some to drive rather than take the train, and then of course go back home driving after having had lots of beer and sake. Whether any of us like it or not, drunk driving is an oil that lubricates society.