5 ms·

Sure, are you assuming I'm not similarly opposed to that authority? If I crash without a seatbelt on and die, my going through the windshield harms only myself

Sure, are you assuming I'm not similarly opposed to that authority? If I crash without a seatbelt on and die, my going through the windshield harms only myself. The government shouldn't have any mandating what we can and can't do if the only victim in said crime would be the same person doing that thing.

iAMkenough 4mo ago
Are you assuming I don’t agree with you? I just stated a fact. People can interpret that fact however they’d like. When someone else crashes into you on the street your tax dollars paid for, you should be free to not agree with seatbelts.
- _heimdall 4mo ago
  I don't follow, sorry. What does someone else crashing into me have to do with seat belts? We do require car insurance for just such an occasion as one driver harms another.
teh64 4mo ago
This is why the libertarian argument does not make sense to me. You crashing without a seatbelt and dying harms others as well: 1. Your body as a projectile could harm others. 2. The emotional harm of others seeing your dead body and the horrific injuries. Also the emotional harm on your friends and family. 3. The increase to my taxes and healthcare costs because people have to deal with your dead body. Also, if you almost die when going through the windshield, the costs are much greater trying to save your life than if you wore a seatbelt, as the injuries will be greater and could require things like air ambulances etc... 4. Your body being unrestrained means that your car can cause way more damage, including hitting other cars or pedestrians and injuring and killing them. It is not a victimless crime.
- toss1 4mo ago
  Add also the cost of healthcare when you do NOT die but are only severely injured. You cannot have any honest libertarian lifestyle à la carte. I'd be OK with libertarians opting out — but to be true they must opt out of EVERYTHING. You want to smoke, drink raw milk, and not take your vaccines? Fine, you can organize your own self-insured healthcare too. And you go to the back of the queue and not get treated when a participating member of society has a health issue. The problem is those "free" "do my own research" types feel no responsibility for maintaining the wellness of their neighbors or even themselves, but DO still show up at the emergency room and expect full medical treatment when the DO get sick/injured from raw milk, no vaccines, no seatbelts, or whatever. They are not libertarians, they are freeloaders, lying to themselves about libertarian "philosophy" to justify freeloading on the systems and herd immunity built and maintained by their smarter and more conscientious peers.
  - _heimdall 4mo ago
    I said this in a sibling comment, but when do we begin regulating other personal choices in the name of shared health care costs? I see the problem there as being a society wholely dependent on a risk sharing insurance scheme, not any one particular factor that can raise rates. Edit: its also worth noting that health insurance, and all insurance in the US unless I'm mistaken, is something you choose to use. You don't have to have health insurance at all, meaning you are choosing to take on the risk that others' decisions impact your rates and decided that is worth the benefits you gain from the coverage.
    - czl 4mo ago
      > You don't have to have health insurance at all, There are (or were) tax time penalties for failing to have healthcare coverage. Possible USA laws have changed recently.
      - _heimdall 4mo ago
        I'm not sure if those were ever enforced, but I could be wrong. More importantly though, I disagree strongly with that rule when they either tried to, or did, implement and enforce it with the ACA.
- throw0101a 4mo ago
  Which is also why I don't think motorcycle helmet optionality makes sense from a "freedom" point of view either: 1. If your melon hits the ground and splatters open, there's going to a crash scene investigation that closes down the road for many hours, causing traffic chaos. As opposed to a helmet protecting you, where you're more likely to survive, and hobble off the road and get of the way of traffic. 2. Insurance companies generally do not have policies that offer helmet-optional and helmet-mandatory options, so if a motorcyclist who does not wear a helmet gets into a crash and needs a payout (life, or medical treatment), then those riders who do wear a helmet (which tend to have less severe injuries, and thus smaller payouts) have larger premiums through no fault of their own. At the very least there need two different types of policies.
- _heimdall 4mo ago
  1. I'm not sure how that would happen in practice. If my body is the projectile, they would have to be immediately in front of my vehicle as it slams into whatever it hit. My body is likely the least of their problems in that scenario. 2. Emotional harm is a very difficult thing to protect against. In no way am I waving it off as unimportant, but people can be emotionally harmed by literally anything. We can care about that, but we can't easily regulate for it. 3. There is much lower hanging fruit if you are concerned with the societal cost of an unhealthy population. If we get to body disposal as top of the list I'll feel pretty damn good about where were at. 4. Isn't 4 the same as 1?
  - teh64 4mo ago
    1. What if you hit a barrier? They are literally designed so that a person behind the barrier does not get hit, but normally they are lower than the car, so you would still hit them. 2. Proving my point that it is not a victimless crime. 3. What is this lower hanging fruit? Putting on a seatbelt seems very simple. 4. No, this is not your body as a projectile hitting someone, but you being unrestrained prevents you from staying seated and so can't brake or steer effectively. This can even happen even when do not hit something, but just hydroplane or skid.
    - _heimdall 4mo ago
      1. Yeah that's a good example when it could happen. I expect that is rare enough that it would reasonably fall to insurance rather than regulation. We simply can't regulate every small chance event that could impact others. 2. Victimless here matters in context of regulation. It seems reasonable to consider someone emotionally harmed is a victim, though its important to decide whether emotional harm felt by one is a direct action caused by the other. For example, if someone emotionally responds to seeing my dead body I didn't directly force that reaction on them and I wouldn't say there is direct responsibility for it. 3. We aren't talking about the act of wearing seat belts, everyone should choose to because it is easy. We're talking about regulation and government authority. Regulating sugary drinks, for example, would almost certainly be more impactful. 4. Brakes aren't the problem if the vehicle stopped quickly enough to make me a projectile. And to be clear, I to wear a seat belt and want everyone to choose to. I just don't want a government to have the authority to require it and fine us if we don't do it.
Hizonner 4mo ago
> If I crash without a seatbelt on and die, my going through the windshield harms only myself. Mostly, yes. Whereas if you fail to get vaccinated and therefore spread a disease, you are harming others.
- _heimdall 4mo ago
  That's a very deep rabbit hole to go down, to deep for this conversation. Suffice it to say that if a pathogen has a vaccine that is proven safe and effective there's a reasonable case to be made for requiring it. It gets very murky when we try to define "safe" and "effective" though.

iAMkenough 4mo ago

Are you assuming I don’t agree with you? I just stated a fact. People can interpret that fact however they’d like. When someone else crashes into you on the street your tax dollars paid for, you should be free to not agree with seatbelts.

_heimdall 4mo ago
I don't follow, sorry. What does someone else crashing into me have to do with seat belts? We do require car insurance for just such an occasion as one driver harms another.

teh64 4mo ago

This is why the libertarian argument does not make sense to me. You crashing without a seatbelt and dying harms others as well: 1. Your body as a projectile could harm others. 2. The emotional harm of others seeing your dead body and the horrific injuries. Also the emotional harm on your friends and family. 3. The increase to my taxes and healthcare costs because people have to deal with your dead body. Also, if you almost die when going through the windshield, the costs are much greater trying to save your life than if you wore a seatbelt, as the injuries will be greater and could require things like air ambulances etc... 4. Your body being unrestrained means that your car can cause way more damage, including hitting other cars or pedestrians and injuring and killing them. It is not a victimless crime.

toss1 4mo ago
Add also the cost of healthcare when you do NOT die but are only severely injured. You cannot have any honest libertarian lifestyle à la carte. I'd be OK with libertarians opting out — but to be true they must opt out of EVERYTHING. You want to smoke, drink raw milk, and not take your vaccines? Fine, you can organize your own self-insured healthcare too. And you go to the back of the queue and not get treated when a participating member of society has a health issue. The problem is those "free" "do my own research" types feel no responsibility for maintaining the wellness of their neighbors or even themselves, but DO still show up at the emergency room and expect full medical treatment when the DO get sick/injured from raw milk, no vaccines, no seatbelts, or whatever. They are not libertarians, they are freeloaders, lying to themselves about libertarian "philosophy" to justify freeloading on the systems and herd immunity built and maintained by their smarter and more conscientious peers.
- _heimdall 4mo ago
  I said this in a sibling comment, but when do we begin regulating other personal choices in the name of shared health care costs? I see the problem there as being a society wholely dependent on a risk sharing insurance scheme, not any one particular factor that can raise rates. Edit: its also worth noting that health insurance, and all insurance in the US unless I'm mistaken, is something you choose to use. You don't have to have health insurance at all, meaning you are choosing to take on the risk that others' decisions impact your rates and decided that is worth the benefits you gain from the coverage.
  - czl 4mo ago
    > You don't have to have health insurance at all, There are (or were) tax time penalties for failing to have healthcare coverage. Possible USA laws have changed recently.
    - _heimdall 4mo ago
      I'm not sure if those were ever enforced, but I could be wrong. More importantly though, I disagree strongly with that rule when they either tried to, or did, implement and enforce it with the ACA.
throw0101a 4mo ago
Which is also why I don't think motorcycle helmet optionality makes sense from a "freedom" point of view either: 1. If your melon hits the ground and splatters open, there's going to a crash scene investigation that closes down the road for many hours, causing traffic chaos. As opposed to a helmet protecting you, where you're more likely to survive, and hobble off the road and get of the way of traffic. 2. Insurance companies generally do not have policies that offer helmet-optional and helmet-mandatory options, so if a motorcyclist who does not wear a helmet gets into a crash and needs a payout (life, or medical treatment), then those riders who do wear a helmet (which tend to have less severe injuries, and thus smaller payouts) have larger premiums through no fault of their own. At the very least there need two different types of policies.
_heimdall 4mo ago
1. I'm not sure how that would happen in practice. If my body is the projectile, they would have to be immediately in front of my vehicle as it slams into whatever it hit. My body is likely the least of their problems in that scenario. 2. Emotional harm is a very difficult thing to protect against. In no way am I waving it off as unimportant, but people can be emotionally harmed by literally anything. We can care about that, but we can't easily regulate for it. 3. There is much lower hanging fruit if you are concerned with the societal cost of an unhealthy population. If we get to body disposal as top of the list I'll feel pretty damn good about where were at. 4. Isn't 4 the same as 1?
- teh64 4mo ago
  1. What if you hit a barrier? They are literally designed so that a person behind the barrier does not get hit, but normally they are lower than the car, so you would still hit them. 2. Proving my point that it is not a victimless crime. 3. What is this lower hanging fruit? Putting on a seatbelt seems very simple. 4. No, this is not your body as a projectile hitting someone, but you being unrestrained prevents you from staying seated and so can't brake or steer effectively. This can even happen even when do not hit something, but just hydroplane or skid.
  - _heimdall 4mo ago
    1. Yeah that's a good example when it could happen. I expect that is rare enough that it would reasonably fall to insurance rather than regulation. We simply can't regulate every small chance event that could impact others. 2. Victimless here matters in context of regulation. It seems reasonable to consider someone emotionally harmed is a victim, though its important to decide whether emotional harm felt by one is a direct action caused by the other. For example, if someone emotionally responds to seeing my dead body I didn't directly force that reaction on them and I wouldn't say there is direct responsibility for it. 3. We aren't talking about the act of wearing seat belts, everyone should choose to because it is easy. We're talking about regulation and government authority. Regulating sugary drinks, for example, would almost certainly be more impactful. 4. Brakes aren't the problem if the vehicle stopped quickly enough to make me a projectile. And to be clear, I to wear a seat belt and want everyone to choose to. I just don't want a government to have the authority to require it and fine us if we don't do it.

Hizonner 4mo ago

> If I crash without a seatbelt on and die, my going through the windshield harms only myself. Mostly, yes. Whereas if you fail to get vaccinated and therefore spread a disease, you are harming others.

_heimdall 4mo ago
That's a very deep rabbit hole to go down, to deep for this conversation. Suffice it to say that if a pathogen has a vaccine that is proven safe and effective there's a reasonable case to be made for requiring it. It gets very murky when we try to define "safe" and "effective" though.