3 ms·

£4m penalty for discarding one hard drive is "not-unreasonable"? boggle You weren't on the Apple-Samsung or Newegg juries, were you?

by kbutler 13y ago

hnha 13y ago
£4m in bitcoin today might just be £40 tomorrow
akkartik 13y ago
1. I believe penalties for polluting our externalities should be greater, yes. As evidence I cite the fact that people keep polluting with existing penalties/enforcement. The tragedy of the commons is a very real thing. 2. I wasn't recommending that be the legal penalty. But if karma decides to be a bitch to this guy, hey I ain't complainin'. 3. I was exaggerating for effect. Seemed for a good cause: We human beings are total bastards towards the environment.
- baddox 13y ago
  I wonder what the negative externalities of a 4 million pound fine for minor littering would be.
  - akkartik 13y ago
    Penalties work best when they are large enough to hurt, but without causing irreversible harm. There's lots of research on what humans find pleasant and unpleasant (Thinking: Fast and Slow, etc.), which is often unrelated to any actual damage. This seems like an example of one such idea that I'll call unrealized opportunity cost. Seeing what might have been won't matter in the long run, but perhaps it'll rise up in people's psyche enough to alter their behavior.
- thaumasiotes 13y ago
  > I believe penalties for polluting our externalities [sic] should be greater, yes. As evidence I cite the fact that people keep polluting with existing penalties/enforcement. This is a neat example of contemporary use of the externalities concept in political discourse. First, although the word appears in your statement like a totem, you're not using it correctly. Second, your second sentence doesn't support your first, unless you assume that the harm from polluting the environment is infinite. If we priced pollution perfectly for everyone, people would keep polluting because society would rather have some pollution and some products than no pollution and no products. Raising the cost of polluting will lower the amount of pollution, but there is no reason to expect that it will lower the amount of pollution to zero, and the position "keep raising the cost until the activity disappears" is grounded in religion, not economics. It requires you to assume that the harm of the taboo activity is so great that no amount could ever be desirable.

£4m penalty for discarding one hard drive is "not-unreasonable"? boggle You weren't on the Apple-Samsung or Newegg juries, were you?

by kbutler 13y ago

£4m penalty for discarding one hard drive is "not-unreasonable"? boggle You weren't on the Apple-Samsung or Newegg juries, were you?

hnha 13y ago

£4m in bitcoin today might just be £40 tomorrow

akkartik 13y ago

1. I believe penalties for polluting our externalities should be greater, yes. As evidence I cite the fact that people keep polluting with existing penalties/enforcement. The tragedy of the commons is a very real thing. 2. I wasn't recommending that be the legal penalty. But if karma decides to be a bitch to this guy, hey I ain't complainin'. 3. I was exaggerating for effect. Seemed for a good cause: We human beings are total bastards towards the environment.

baddox 13y ago
I wonder what the negative externalities of a 4 million pound fine for minor littering would be.
- akkartik 13y ago
  Penalties work best when they are large enough to hurt, but without causing irreversible harm. There's lots of research on what humans find pleasant and unpleasant (Thinking: Fast and Slow, etc.), which is often unrelated to any actual damage. This seems like an example of one such idea that I'll call unrealized opportunity cost. Seeing what might have been won't matter in the long run, but perhaps it'll rise up in people's psyche enough to alter their behavior.
thaumasiotes 13y ago
> I believe penalties for polluting our externalities [sic] should be greater, yes. As evidence I cite the fact that people keep polluting with existing penalties/enforcement. This is a neat example of contemporary use of the externalities concept in political discourse. First, although the word appears in your statement like a totem, you're not using it correctly. Second, your second sentence doesn't support your first, unless you assume that the harm from polluting the environment is infinite. If we priced pollution perfectly for everyone, people would keep polluting because society would rather have some pollution and some products than no pollution and no products. Raising the cost of polluting will lower the amount of pollution, but there is no reason to expect that it will lower the amount of pollution to zero, and the position "keep raising the cost until the activity disappears" is grounded in religion, not economics. It requires you to assume that the harm of the taboo activity is so great that no amount could ever be desirable.