4 ms·

You can exactly ban what emerges naturally. That's the whole point of regulations.

by dtech 2y ago

shrimp_emoji 2y ago
[dead]
EGreg 2y ago
Okay. Ban farting. Ban acne. Ban sex. Go ahead. Even drugs are tough to ban, and we’re talking about natural emergent human behavior. In polygamous countries, they are able to enforce laws against adultery, for example. But they can’t change the 80/20 pareto distribution of 80 percent of the women being attracted to 20 percent of the men. They can’t change the fact that men can have multiple children at a time and repopulate after a war, while women cannot (I am not talking about triplets here). Any society in history that tried to enforce equality for men and women in, say, the armed forces, would be weeded out through natural selection. Men are just more expendable, and also more polygamous etc. This is all due to evolutionary selection pressures on societies. And polygamous societies have more war because they have a lot more frustrated young men (literal not figurstive incels due to the law polygamy and anti adultery law enforcement, who then join some movement led by old men etc partly to get women). Western liberal societies have decriminalized adultery and premarital sex. They unsqueezed the balloon in one area and so have less violence. But now the same pareto distribution plays out, just in the premarital years. 20% of the men sleep with 80% of the women, unofficially and hush hush. Then most people eventually pair off “having sown their wild oats” and raise children together for a while. You can replace the war with business, brawn with money, but the natural results will still be there. Banks will still lend easiest to those who need it the least. Investors will still invest in startups because others do. Money won’t be allocated to the many startups that need it. Try to ban it. See what happens.
EGreg 2y ago
This being HN, let me give you a relevant example. Can you ban investors “colluding” to all invest in a startup? They do it for many reasons: Signaling (social proof) Reducing risk (other investors are likely to top up if needed) Network opportunities (if others are opening doors for this startup, it’s more likely to succeed) Networking opportunities (getting into the same round as a famous VC) Strength in numbers (banding together) As we found out, half the VCs in Silicon Valley even banked at the same bank! Even the government overseers supposed to oversee these industries (eg Wall Street, Big Pharma etc) are also part of the revolving door. But nevermind all that. I have that simple question. There are many reasons why emergent behavior occurs among investors who collude to invest in the same startups, the old boys’ clubs, the demo days. What will you do to ban all that natural emergent behavior, to “prevent emergent collusion”?
- Jensson 2y ago
  They didn't say we should ban all naturally occurring behaviors, just that some naturally occurring behaviors are worth banning and them being naturally emergent behaviors doesn't mean you can't or shouldn't ban them.
  - EGreg 2y ago
    By what criterion do you propose we make the decision which naturally occurring behaviors are worth banning? And more importantly — who determines how to enforce the ban? Because usually “those with the gold make the rules” and ask for more legislation to pull the ladder up behind them. Why is collusion of GameStop or AMC Wall Street Bets meme investors to drive up the price of a stock against hedge funds not worthy of banning? It was cut short in a way, by RobinHood which quickly stopped living up its “for the people” namesake. Why is collusion of investors to drive up the price of certain startups in private rounds, like Adam Neumann’s WeWork or Travis Kalanick’s Uber not worthy of banning? Or banking at the same Silicon Valley bank? Or Peter Thiel starting a run on this bank and many of them in unison pulling money out and wiping out the shareholders in a bank that served Silicon Valley for decades? I mean, I don’t think any of that should be illegal, but what is your consistent criterion and why should others go with whatever your criterion is, versus something else? Or is it just all about “I don’t like that particular thing?”

You can exactly ban what emerges naturally. That's the whole point of regulations.

by dtech 2y ago

You can exactly ban what emerges naturally. That's the whole point of regulations.

shrimp_emoji 2y ago

[dead]

EGreg 2y ago

Okay. Ban farting. Ban acne. Ban sex. Go ahead. Even drugs are tough to ban, and we’re talking about natural emergent human behavior. In polygamous countries, they are able to enforce laws against adultery, for example. But they can’t change the 80/20 pareto distribution of 80 percent of the women being attracted to 20 percent of the men. They can’t change the fact that men can have multiple children at a time and repopulate after a war, while women cannot (I am not talking about triplets here). Any society in history that tried to enforce equality for men and women in, say, the armed forces, would be weeded out through natural selection. Men are just more expendable, and also more polygamous etc. This is all due to evolutionary selection pressures on societies. And polygamous societies have more war because they have a lot more frustrated young men (literal not figurstive incels due to the law polygamy and anti adultery law enforcement, who then join some movement led by old men etc partly to get women). Western liberal societies have decriminalized adultery and premarital sex. They unsqueezed the balloon in one area and so have less violence. But now the same pareto distribution plays out, just in the premarital years. 20% of the men sleep with 80% of the women, unofficially and hush hush. Then most people eventually pair off “having sown their wild oats” and raise children together for a while. You can replace the war with business, brawn with money, but the natural results will still be there. Banks will still lend easiest to those who need it the least. Investors will still invest in startups because others do. Money won’t be allocated to the many startups that need it. Try to ban it. See what happens.

EGreg 2y ago

This being HN, let me give you a relevant example. Can you ban investors “colluding” to all invest in a startup? They do it for many reasons: Signaling (social proof) Reducing risk (other investors are likely to top up if needed) Network opportunities (if others are opening doors for this startup, it’s more likely to succeed) Networking opportunities (getting into the same round as a famous VC) Strength in numbers (banding together) As we found out, half the VCs in Silicon Valley even banked at the same bank! Even the government overseers supposed to oversee these industries (eg Wall Street, Big Pharma etc) are also part of the revolving door. But nevermind all that. I have that simple question. There are many reasons why emergent behavior occurs among investors who collude to invest in the same startups, the old boys’ clubs, the demo days. What will you do to ban all that natural emergent behavior, to “prevent emergent collusion”?

Jensson 2y ago
They didn't say we should ban all naturally occurring behaviors, just that some naturally occurring behaviors are worth banning and them being naturally emergent behaviors doesn't mean you can't or shouldn't ban them.
- EGreg 2y ago
  By what criterion do you propose we make the decision which naturally occurring behaviors are worth banning? And more importantly — who determines how to enforce the ban? Because usually “those with the gold make the rules” and ask for more legislation to pull the ladder up behind them. Why is collusion of GameStop or AMC Wall Street Bets meme investors to drive up the price of a stock against hedge funds not worthy of banning? It was cut short in a way, by RobinHood which quickly stopped living up its “for the people” namesake. Why is collusion of investors to drive up the price of certain startups in private rounds, like Adam Neumann’s WeWork or Travis Kalanick’s Uber not worthy of banning? Or banking at the same Silicon Valley bank? Or Peter Thiel starting a run on this bank and many of them in unison pulling money out and wiping out the shareholders in a bank that served Silicon Valley for decades? I mean, I don’t think any of that should be illegal, but what is your consistent criterion and why should others go with whatever your criterion is, versus something else? Or is it just all about “I don’t like that particular thing?”