4 ms·

I find it disturbing that when "both sides of the debate have perfectly reasonable arguments" the knee-jerk response is "Let's regulate the fuck out of it!"

timr 17y ago
It's not a knee-jerk response. For future reference, a good indication of a knee-jerk response is a remark that reduces an opponent's arguments to seven-word soundbites involving profanity.
- apotheon 17y ago
  > It's not a knee-jerk response. How else would you describe a response that doesn't even take into account the possibility that one could avoid government regulation when there's apparently no solid proof that regulation is better than the lack of regulation? It sounds like a knee-jerk response to me. Why don't you default to "We shouldn't spend a bunch of extra money on regulation when we don't have any reason to believe regulation will help, or even won't hurt!" instead? If you have some meaningful, reasonable explanation for that choice, I guess I might have been mistaken about the idea that it's a knee-jerk response, but you haven't shared any reasons so far, and there aren't any obvious explanations for why wasting resources on regulation that might just make things worse is better than avoiding that regulation.
  - timr 17y ago
    Being "knee-jerk" means being reactionary and reckless, whereas I am making a single, limited argument: the law prohibits unpaid labor uniformly in all situations. It does not require a regulatory value judgment to make a decision. You may not like the values the law represents, but you can't attack its implementation as subjective.
    - apotheon 17y ago
      Are you now saying that all you did in the first place is affirm that something exists -- something we all know already exists -- in the midst of discussion of whether it should exist? WTF is the point of that?

4 ms·

I find it disturbing that when "both sides of the debate have perfectly reasonable arguments" the knee-jerk response is "Let's regulate the fuck out of it!"

by apotheon 17y ago

timr 17y ago
It's not a knee-jerk response. For future reference, a good indication of a knee-jerk response is a remark that reduces an opponent's arguments to seven-word soundbites involving profanity.
- apotheon 17y ago
  > It's not a knee-jerk response. How else would you describe a response that doesn't even take into account the possibility that one could avoid government regulation when there's apparently no solid proof that regulation is better than the lack of regulation? It sounds like a knee-jerk response to me. Why don't you default to "We shouldn't spend a bunch of extra money on regulation when we don't have any reason to believe regulation will help, or even won't hurt!" instead? If you have some meaningful, reasonable explanation for that choice, I guess I might have been mistaken about the idea that it's a knee-jerk response, but you haven't shared any reasons so far, and there aren't any obvious explanations for why wasting resources on regulation that might just make things worse is better than avoiding that regulation.
  - timr 17y ago
    Being "knee-jerk" means being reactionary and reckless, whereas I am making a single, limited argument: the law prohibits unpaid labor uniformly in all situations. It does not require a regulatory value judgment to make a decision. You may not like the values the law represents, but you can't attack its implementation as subjective.
    - apotheon 17y ago
      Are you now saying that all you did in the first place is affirm that something exists -- something we all know already exists -- in the midst of discussion of whether it should exist? WTF is the point of that?