4 ms·

I forget the exact wording, but the seat belt law are a good example of it. Laws are passed to protect the populace from self harm so that society doesn't suffe

I forget the exact wording, but the seat belt law are a good example of it. Laws are passed to protect the populace from self harm so that society doesn't suffer from it. It probably doesn't apply here because home distillation is very niche. However, if a bunch of people show up in emergency rooms and it drives up health care costs then expect a quick reversal in policy.

vladvasiliu 6mo ago
Right, and I, as someone living in France and paying a hefty part of my income to fund public healthcare, understand that the state would want to limit people doing stupid shit costing the society a fortune in fixing them (though, of course, this just creates a debate on where to draw the line). But isn't the point of non-socialized healthcare, like in the US, that you pay for care out of pocket? Or maybe via your insurance, which will probably increase your premium if you repeatedly engage in stupid actions that need expensive fixing?
- vkou 6mo ago
  > Or maybe via your insurance, which will probably increase your premium if you repeatedly engage in stupid actions that need expensive fixing? US insurers can only discriminate by age and smoking status.
- lores 6mo ago
  Society still has paid at least for your education, depends on your working power to at least fund your dependents, and at least on some degree of reasonableness from you not to raise everyone's insurance premiums. There's a line to draw somewhere, but even the most ra-ra-individualist heavily depends on society, and has/should have obligations in turn.
  - functionmouse 6mo ago
    Either pay for my health care or get your nose out of it. If my healthcare is going to be my own private matter, then it should be just that. How insulting.
    - stalfie 6mo ago
      One problem with this mentality is that reality doesn't really make the ideological distinction between whats private and what isn't, or who pays for what. Healthcare is not an intersubjective field, and so actions have consequences, no matter what you think about them. Vaccines are a good example of this, herd immunity is needed for many of them to work. Antibiotic stewardship is another, unregulated usage of antibiotics risks breeding superbugs. More generally, "private" ideas are rarely private. Kids born to idiots practicing alternative medicine often die. This scales to societal effects if you have enough idiots. Even though capitalism makes this very fuzzy, many resources in medicine are in fact finite, meaning that time and money spent on one person might mean that another dies. Sometimes that other person is in another, usually poorer country. COVID vaccine availability illustrated that effect nicely. Essentially what you are advocating is widespread natural selection, with potential consequences affecting anywhere from small local communities to the entire planet in rare cases (COVID is a good one, look up Trichophyton Indotineae for a recent example). And even if you actually do want that, unless you truly follow through, this also comes a huge amount of waste of very limited resources. That is unless you are willing to go the distance and advocate that unvaccinated kids with pneumonia from a measles infection should just go ahead and die because of their parents or neighbors stupid choices. If you take Kants approach to ethics, that you should only act on principles that you would want to become a universal law, then the principle of healthcare being a private matter is a bit of a non-starter, at least by most ethical systems.
  - cwmoore 6mo ago
    Insurance, alcohol, and other lobbies pay for our laws in the US.
  - eru 6mo ago
    > Society still has paid at least for your education, [...] Against my will! > There's a line to draw somewhere, but even the most ra-ra-individualist heavily depends on society, and has/should have obligations in turn. That's why I pay for stuff, and other people pay me. That's how money is supposed to work. It coordinates communities.
- gadflyinyoureye 6mo ago
  Let's be honest here: there is no benefit to alcohol (for example wine) and is only detrimental. As a true French person who does want the government paying for "stupid shit" you need to call for the end of wine making and its consumption. But I guess that might be the debate line of which you spoke.
  - decimalenough 6mo ago
    You must be fun at parties? Some forms of alcohol are tasty and all of them loosen inhibitions, which is beneficial for both recreation and procreation. Obviously there are downsides too, but booze is popular for very good reasons.
    - bluGill 6mo ago
      You don't need alcohol to be silly or talk to people. Various religions reject alcohol completly and yet manage just fine.
  - robbomacrae 6mo ago
    "Let's be honest here: there is no benefit to alcohol (for example wine) and is only detrimental." - That is a pretty extreme statement and easily falsifiable. There are many studies a quick google away that show a much more nuanced take ie [0] and [1]. But the strongest evidence is our most successful societies and civilizations have been intentionally drinking alcohol for ~10000 years [2]. If it was only detrimental then I'm pretty sure it would have worked its way out by now. I acknowledge there are negative issues. [0]: https://www.webmd.com/diet/ss/slideshow-skinny-cocktails https://www.webmd.com/diet/ss/slideshow-skinny-cocktails [1]: https://nutritionsource.hsph.harvard.edu/healthy-drinks/drinks-to-consume-in-moderation/alcohol-full-story/ https://nutritionsource.hsph.harvard.edu/healthy-drinks/drin... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_alcoholic_beverages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_alcoholic_beverages
    - thebigspacefuck 6mo ago
      Your fist link is to “10 skinny cocktails”. As far as I know there is no safe amount of alcohol. https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/04-01-2023-no-level-of-alcohol-consumption-is-safe-for-our-health https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/04-01-2023-no-level-of-...
- MikeNotThePope 6mo ago
  Dumb people doing dumb stuff incur a cost for all of us, whether it's through taxpayer-funded healthcare or higher premiums for private insurance.
  - eru 6mo ago
    > whether it's through taxpayer-funded healthcare or higher premiums for private insurance. Insurance should insure your risk, and that's fairly independent of what other people are doing. (Of course, other people driving dangerously can endanger your health, and thus drive up your health insurance costs.) What you have in mind is probably a consequence of forbidding insurance companies from charging people according to risk, and forcing them to charge people some average of a pool they are placed in?
    - btreecat 6mo ago
      You want the best spread possible, by having the largest pool possible. We can all debate and discuss the best way to get there, but mathematically it's a pool that includes most everyone.
- cmiles8 6mo ago
  Individual heath insurance premiums aren’t linked to your behavior or health or activities (apart from smoking). Most of that was made illegal by the insurance reforms in the “ObamaCare” bill. If many people started doing stupid things though then yes it would raise premiums for all.
  - eru 6mo ago
    Well, that's an argument against that particular method of regulation. Not against people doing stupid stuff.
- deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]
daveidol 6mo ago
Seat belt laws are an interesting example though because they only apply when driving on public roads. You can drive your car with no seat belt on a private track all day if you want to.
someothherguyy 6mo ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paternalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paternalism
_heimdall 6mo ago
There's a whole ball of wax here that boils down to whether a society would rather be individualistic or collectivist. Its a chicken and egg problem as well, the way we regulate and manage health care and health insurance (at least in the US) allows for costs to pretty easily bleed out to the rest of society. That implies that we must then be collectivist in other policies, though that is counter to many of the original goals of our country and the question is whether we changed those goals or inadvertantly built a system that requires changing gials after the fact. We have a similar problem with immigration laws. Our immigration laws today are completely counter to what they once were, and counter to what is still written on the Statue of Liberty. We have immigration laws now that are necessary because of the welfare programs we implemented, even if we wanted to live up to the older ideals we couldn't without abandoning those welfare programs entirely.
- yonaguska 6mo ago
  The statue of liberty poem was never a legally binding immigration policy. Not to detract from your point, which I agree with.
  - rayiner 6mo ago
    It was marketing that was installed on the statute of liberty in 1903, when the U.S. was already fully developed. It doesn’t reflect the original intent at all.
    - AlotOfReading 6mo ago
      It was written in 1883, as part of fundraising for the pedestal. It might not reflect precisely the "original intent" of the statue, but it's very much in line with all of the other context.
      - rayiner 6mo ago
        The statute of liberty was from a french admirer of the constitution and abolitionist. It was conceived at a time when Napoleon III had declared himself emperor. The connection to immigration was a completely unrelated glomming-on.
cucumber3732842 6mo ago
> However, if a bunch of people show up in emergency rooms and it drives up health care costs then expect a quick reversal in policy. How about just don't pay for it? Why is everyone in such a hurry to take people's freedom based on a spreadsheet no less.
rootusrootus 6mo ago
I don't like using seat belt laws as an example of preventing people from harming themselves. The most important justification for seat belt laws is ensuring that drivers can maintain control when things get spicy and keep a minor event from escalating into a collision that will harm bystanders. And other innocent people in the same car who will be injured by the unbelted person being thrown around.

vladvasiliu 6mo ago

Right, and I, as someone living in France and paying a hefty part of my income to fund public healthcare, understand that the state would want to limit people doing stupid shit costing the society a fortune in fixing them (though, of course, this just creates a debate on where to draw the line). But isn't the point of non-socialized healthcare, like in the US, that you pay for care out of pocket? Or maybe via your insurance, which will probably increase your premium if you repeatedly engage in stupid actions that need expensive fixing?

vkou 6mo ago
> Or maybe via your insurance, which will probably increase your premium if you repeatedly engage in stupid actions that need expensive fixing? US insurers can only discriminate by age and smoking status.
lores 6mo ago
Society still has paid at least for your education, depends on your working power to at least fund your dependents, and at least on some degree of reasonableness from you not to raise everyone's insurance premiums. There's a line to draw somewhere, but even the most ra-ra-individualist heavily depends on society, and has/should have obligations in turn.
- functionmouse 6mo ago
  Either pay for my health care or get your nose out of it. If my healthcare is going to be my own private matter, then it should be just that. How insulting.
  - stalfie 6mo ago
    One problem with this mentality is that reality doesn't really make the ideological distinction between whats private and what isn't, or who pays for what. Healthcare is not an intersubjective field, and so actions have consequences, no matter what you think about them. Vaccines are a good example of this, herd immunity is needed for many of them to work. Antibiotic stewardship is another, unregulated usage of antibiotics risks breeding superbugs. More generally, "private" ideas are rarely private. Kids born to idiots practicing alternative medicine often die. This scales to societal effects if you have enough idiots. Even though capitalism makes this very fuzzy, many resources in medicine are in fact finite, meaning that time and money spent on one person might mean that another dies. Sometimes that other person is in another, usually poorer country. COVID vaccine availability illustrated that effect nicely. Essentially what you are advocating is widespread natural selection, with potential consequences affecting anywhere from small local communities to the entire planet in rare cases (COVID is a good one, look up Trichophyton Indotineae for a recent example). And even if you actually do want that, unless you truly follow through, this also comes a huge amount of waste of very limited resources. That is unless you are willing to go the distance and advocate that unvaccinated kids with pneumonia from a measles infection should just go ahead and die because of their parents or neighbors stupid choices. If you take Kants approach to ethics, that you should only act on principles that you would want to become a universal law, then the principle of healthcare being a private matter is a bit of a non-starter, at least by most ethical systems.
- cwmoore 6mo ago
  Insurance, alcohol, and other lobbies pay for our laws in the US.
- eru 6mo ago
  > Society still has paid at least for your education, [...] Against my will! > There's a line to draw somewhere, but even the most ra-ra-individualist heavily depends on society, and has/should have obligations in turn. That's why I pay for stuff, and other people pay me. That's how money is supposed to work. It coordinates communities.
gadflyinyoureye 6mo ago
Let's be honest here: there is no benefit to alcohol (for example wine) and is only detrimental. As a true French person who does want the government paying for "stupid shit" you need to call for the end of wine making and its consumption. But I guess that might be the debate line of which you spoke.
- decimalenough 6mo ago
  You must be fun at parties? Some forms of alcohol are tasty and all of them loosen inhibitions, which is beneficial for both recreation and procreation. Obviously there are downsides too, but booze is popular for very good reasons.
  - bluGill 6mo ago
    You don't need alcohol to be silly or talk to people. Various religions reject alcohol completly and yet manage just fine.
- robbomacrae 6mo ago
  "Let's be honest here: there is no benefit to alcohol (for example wine) and is only detrimental." - That is a pretty extreme statement and easily falsifiable. There are many studies a quick google away that show a much more nuanced take ie [0] and [1]. But the strongest evidence is our most successful societies and civilizations have been intentionally drinking alcohol for ~10000 years [2]. If it was only detrimental then I'm pretty sure it would have worked its way out by now. I acknowledge there are negative issues. [0]: https://www.webmd.com/diet/ss/slideshow-skinny-cocktails https://www.webmd.com/diet/ss/slideshow-skinny-cocktails [1]: https://nutritionsource.hsph.harvard.edu/healthy-drinks/drinks-to-consume-in-moderation/alcohol-full-story/ https://nutritionsource.hsph.harvard.edu/healthy-drinks/drin... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_alcoholic_beverages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_alcoholic_beverages
  - thebigspacefuck 6mo ago
    Your fist link is to “10 skinny cocktails”. As far as I know there is no safe amount of alcohol. https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/04-01-2023-no-level-of-alcohol-consumption-is-safe-for-our-health https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/04-01-2023-no-level-of-...
MikeNotThePope 6mo ago
Dumb people doing dumb stuff incur a cost for all of us, whether it's through taxpayer-funded healthcare or higher premiums for private insurance.
- eru 6mo ago
  > whether it's through taxpayer-funded healthcare or higher premiums for private insurance. Insurance should insure your risk, and that's fairly independent of what other people are doing. (Of course, other people driving dangerously can endanger your health, and thus drive up your health insurance costs.) What you have in mind is probably a consequence of forbidding insurance companies from charging people according to risk, and forcing them to charge people some average of a pool they are placed in?
  - btreecat 6mo ago
    You want the best spread possible, by having the largest pool possible. We can all debate and discuss the best way to get there, but mathematically it's a pool that includes most everyone.
cmiles8 6mo ago
Individual heath insurance premiums aren’t linked to your behavior or health or activities (apart from smoking). Most of that was made illegal by the insurance reforms in the “ObamaCare” bill. If many people started doing stupid things though then yes it would raise premiums for all.
- eru 6mo ago
  Well, that's an argument against that particular method of regulation. Not against people doing stupid stuff.
deleted 6mo ago
[deleted]

daveidol 6mo ago

Seat belt laws are an interesting example though because they only apply when driving on public roads. You can drive your car with no seat belt on a private track all day if you want to.

someothherguyy 6mo ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paternalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paternalism

_heimdall 6mo ago

There's a whole ball of wax here that boils down to whether a society would rather be individualistic or collectivist. Its a chicken and egg problem as well, the way we regulate and manage health care and health insurance (at least in the US) allows for costs to pretty easily bleed out to the rest of society. That implies that we must then be collectivist in other policies, though that is counter to many of the original goals of our country and the question is whether we changed those goals or inadvertantly built a system that requires changing gials after the fact. We have a similar problem with immigration laws. Our immigration laws today are completely counter to what they once were, and counter to what is still written on the Statue of Liberty. We have immigration laws now that are necessary because of the welfare programs we implemented, even if we wanted to live up to the older ideals we couldn't without abandoning those welfare programs entirely.

yonaguska 6mo ago
The statue of liberty poem was never a legally binding immigration policy. Not to detract from your point, which I agree with.
- rayiner 6mo ago
  It was marketing that was installed on the statute of liberty in 1903, when the U.S. was already fully developed. It doesn’t reflect the original intent at all.
  - AlotOfReading 6mo ago
    It was written in 1883, as part of fundraising for the pedestal. It might not reflect precisely the "original intent" of the statue, but it's very much in line with all of the other context.
    - rayiner 6mo ago
      The statute of liberty was from a french admirer of the constitution and abolitionist. It was conceived at a time when Napoleon III had declared himself emperor. The connection to immigration was a completely unrelated glomming-on.

cucumber3732842 6mo ago

> However, if a bunch of people show up in emergency rooms and it drives up health care costs then expect a quick reversal in policy. How about just don't pay for it? Why is everyone in such a hurry to take people's freedom based on a spreadsheet no less.

rootusrootus 6mo ago

I don't like using seat belt laws as an example of preventing people from harming themselves. The most important justification for seat belt laws is ensuring that drivers can maintain control when things get spicy and keep a minor event from escalating into a collision that will harm bystanders. And other innocent people in the same car who will be injured by the unbelted person being thrown around.