6 ms·

Or, to sum up even more succinctly: - Government regulations have stifled innovation, thereby making existing products less safe, less comfortable, and less us

by mbroshi 12y ago

Or, to sum up even more succinctly: - Government regulations have stifled innovation, thereby making existing products less safe, less comfortable, and less used than they would be otherwise. In other words, nothing new.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
jfuhrman 12y ago
That doesn't explain why the innovation didn't happen in, say Somalia, where there are no government regulations to speak of.
- baddox 12y ago
  The situation in Somalia can be readily explained by low incomes and decades of violence.
  - foldr 12y ago
    Which in turn can readily be explained by the lack of a strong government.
    - icebraining 12y ago
      Can it? On what do you base that opinion? What particular facts from the modern history of Somalia have you used to support it?
      - foldr 12y ago
        The fact that it's currently in a state of near anarchy and has been for a while.
        icebraining 12y ago
        That's not an explanation, that's restating the fact.
        foldr 12y ago
        Your comment was ambiguous. I thought you were asking me for the basis of my claim that Somalia lacks a strong government. If you think the civil war doesn't have anything to do with Somalia's current problems, I'm open to being persuaded.
        icebraining 12y ago
        The civil war and the lack of a strong government are not the same. It's the former, and not the latter, which maintains them in poverty.
        foldr 12y ago
        A civil war happens precisely because there is no strong government. It's completely bizarre to claim that there's no link between the two.
        baddox 12y ago
        How do you explain the improvements that have occurred since the collapse of Barre's regime? That seems to indicate that anarchy cannot be blamed for the poor conditions in Somalia compared to, say, wealthy Western nations.
        foldr 12y ago
        I'm not defending the hypothesis that any government is better than no government. So sure, having a really really bad government could be worse for Somalia than having none at all.
    - puredemo 12y ago
      That's a pretty facile response. Lots of African countries with "strong" governments still have tons and tons of violence.
      - foldr 12y ago
        Somalia went through a civil war in recent history. That's about the best possible example of violence caused by the lack of a strong government. Of course, violence can occur for other reasons too, so merely having a strong government is no guarantee of its absence.
    - baddox 12y ago
      I presume you know very little about Somalia's recent history. It had a strong government from 1969 to 1991. It was a military dictatorship with a centrally planned economy ("scientific socialism"). After the regime's collapse in 1991, Somalia was essentially stateless, and there was dispersed fighting between various groups for control of various areas of Somalia. Yet, perhaps surprisingly to many people, it's not clear that things were worse under "anarchy" than under Barre's regime. For instance, life expectancy improved dramatically, as did access to health care and technology.
      - foldr 12y ago
        You appear to be confusing strength with brutality. The military dictatorship was not strong. That’s why it collapsed. In general, dictatorships tend to be weak and unstable in comparison to more democratic forms of government.
        baddox 12y ago
        I'm not confusing the two. The government was brutal, and it was also strong. It censored the media. It nationalized all major industries. It carried out large scale terror campaigns against political dissidents and Somali clans. It suppressed civil liberties on a very wide scale.
    - moron4hire 12y ago
      Right, because Somalia has never had a government, or the lack thereof today has nothing to do with the previous government.
      - foldr 12y ago
        We really are going down the libertarian rabbit hole when even the absence of government is blamed on government.
        moron4hire 12y ago
        I'm not trying to paint all governments with the same brush. I'm just saying that, perhaps, you don't know anything about Somalia and are just using it as a strawman against small government. edit: it's one, single country that has had a very violent history, not a case study in deregulation of markets.
        foldr 12y ago
        I didn’t say anything about small government or market deregulation. Small vs large is orthogonal to strong vs. weak.
        deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
        baddox 12y ago
        You don't have to be libertarian to recognize that Barre's military dictatorship was not an example of a good government. From Wikipedia: > The United Nations Development Programme stated that "the 21-year regime of Siyad Barre had one of the worst human rights records in Africa." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siad_Barre#Human_rights_abuse_allegations http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siad_Barre#Human_rights_abuse_a...
    - retardedelk 12y ago
      ...And an abundance of strong governments who are willing to fund various factions to kill other various factions to fight a proxy war over natural resources.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - s73v3r 12y ago
    But if there's no government intervention, then why are incomes so low, and why is there so much violence?
    - baddox 12y ago
      After the collapse of the Somali Democratic Republic in 1991, incomes increased and violence decreased.
  - anigbrowl 12y ago
    That's why they don't have an industry there. But any western manufacturer could go to some lightly-regulated place, start handing out Better Condoms (tm) like candy, and then point to major improvements in user satisfaction, disease transmission rates, and so on in order to create pressure for a more careful evaluation in other markets like the US or EU. Think back to news you've read about the deployment of improved mosquito netting and the like, which is tried out in Africa because that's where the greatest need exists.
  - protomyth 12y ago
    ...which means they will need children and are not focused on prevention technology
IanDrake 12y ago
You aren't allowed to criticize government regulation on HN.
- icebraining 12y ago
  You are, you just can't be lazy about it.
  - IanDrake 12y ago
    Pretty sure it was clear. Government is lazy and callus about updating regulations regarding to development and testing of prophylactics. Innovative and better alternatives were taken off the market due to said regulations. The commentary was spot on. The point of the original comment was to provide bullets without lengthy justification and citation and it was upvoted. Then this "lazy" bullet was added and all the sudden the author needs to back up his assertion with detailed arguments? The pro-government bias here is insane. As I said, don't be critical of government on HN unless you don't care about the group think popularity karma contest going on here.
    - icebraining 12y ago
      Oh, I'm not saying there isn't a pro-government bias. I'm saying that it's just a bias, not a complete rejection. If you're pro-government, you can be lazy, but if you're against it, you can still be upvoted, you just have to work a little harder to overcome the bias.
    - fobcat 12y ago
      Totally agree with your statement regarding the HN pro-gov't bias, unfortunately. Such is life. Without the FDA and its outmoded regulations, there would be a flourishing of condoms for people to choose from, instead of just the three entrenched companies that can afford to deal with the gov't. If nothing else, the article details the fact that there are a LOT of people who care deeply about and are trying to solve this problem (and should be left largely unconstrained to do so).
wdewind 12y ago
> Government regulations have stifled innovation, thereby making existing products less safe, less comfortable, and less used than they would be otherwise. The article implied this in tone, but in facts reported within did not make a slam dunk case. Latex is probably significantly safer in terms of blocking STD transmission, and it's also heavily understudied whether or not the sizing differences matter. I wouldn't say it's obvious government regulation is really the devil here.
pdabbadabba 12y ago
There's some truth to this, but your tone makes it a little hard to spot. I'm not sure that the article provides much support for the broad claim, implied by your comment, that government regulation is always a bad idea, or that the government should get out of the condom regulation business. I for one think it's a pretty good idea for a regulator to ensure that condoms (like other health-related products) perform up to some minimum standard. The social impact of sub-standard products is too significant to leave to the market and there is good reason to think that the market would not adequately communicate the signals that consumers need in order to make rational condom-purchasing decisions in the absence of regulation. I agree with your narrower claim that the existing condom regulations seem to be badly in need of reform. But I'm not at all convinced that they are worse than having no regulations at all.

by mbroshi 12y ago

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

jfuhrman 12y ago

That doesn't explain why the innovation didn't happen in, say Somalia, where there are no government regulations to speak of.

baddox 12y ago
The situation in Somalia can be readily explained by low incomes and decades of violence.
- foldr 12y ago
  Which in turn can readily be explained by the lack of a strong government.
  - icebraining 12y ago
    Can it? On what do you base that opinion? What particular facts from the modern history of Somalia have you used to support it?
    - foldr 12y ago
      The fact that it's currently in a state of near anarchy and has been for a while.
      - icebraining 12y ago
        That's not an explanation, that's restating the fact.
        foldr 12y ago
        Your comment was ambiguous. I thought you were asking me for the basis of my claim that Somalia lacks a strong government. If you think the civil war doesn't have anything to do with Somalia's current problems, I'm open to being persuaded.
        icebraining 12y ago
        The civil war and the lack of a strong government are not the same. It's the former, and not the latter, which maintains them in poverty.
        foldr 12y ago
        A civil war happens precisely because there is no strong government. It's completely bizarre to claim that there's no link between the two.
      - baddox 12y ago
        How do you explain the improvements that have occurred since the collapse of Barre's regime? That seems to indicate that anarchy cannot be blamed for the poor conditions in Somalia compared to, say, wealthy Western nations.
        foldr 12y ago
        I'm not defending the hypothesis that any government is better than no government. So sure, having a really really bad government could be worse for Somalia than having none at all.
  - puredemo 12y ago
    That's a pretty facile response. Lots of African countries with "strong" governments still have tons and tons of violence.
    - foldr 12y ago
      Somalia went through a civil war in recent history. That's about the best possible example of violence caused by the lack of a strong government. Of course, violence can occur for other reasons too, so merely having a strong government is no guarantee of its absence.
  - baddox 12y ago
    I presume you know very little about Somalia's recent history. It had a strong government from 1969 to 1991. It was a military dictatorship with a centrally planned economy ("scientific socialism"). After the regime's collapse in 1991, Somalia was essentially stateless, and there was dispersed fighting between various groups for control of various areas of Somalia. Yet, perhaps surprisingly to many people, it's not clear that things were worse under "anarchy" than under Barre's regime. For instance, life expectancy improved dramatically, as did access to health care and technology.
    - foldr 12y ago
      You appear to be confusing strength with brutality. The military dictatorship was not strong. That’s why it collapsed. In general, dictatorships tend to be weak and unstable in comparison to more democratic forms of government.
      - baddox 12y ago
        I'm not confusing the two. The government was brutal, and it was also strong. It censored the media. It nationalized all major industries. It carried out large scale terror campaigns against political dissidents and Somali clans. It suppressed civil liberties on a very wide scale.
  - moron4hire 12y ago
    Right, because Somalia has never had a government, or the lack thereof today has nothing to do with the previous government.
    - foldr 12y ago
      We really are going down the libertarian rabbit hole when even the absence of government is blamed on government.
      - moron4hire 12y ago
        I'm not trying to paint all governments with the same brush. I'm just saying that, perhaps, you don't know anything about Somalia and are just using it as a strawman against small government. edit: it's one, single country that has had a very violent history, not a case study in deregulation of markets.
        foldr 12y ago
        I didn’t say anything about small government or market deregulation. Small vs large is orthogonal to strong vs. weak.
        deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
      - baddox 12y ago
        You don't have to be libertarian to recognize that Barre's military dictatorship was not an example of a good government. From Wikipedia: > The United Nations Development Programme stated that "the 21-year regime of Siyad Barre had one of the worst human rights records in Africa." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siad_Barre#Human_rights_abuse_allegations http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siad_Barre#Human_rights_abuse_a...
  - retardedelk 12y ago
    ...And an abundance of strong governments who are willing to fund various factions to kill other various factions to fight a proxy war over natural resources.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- s73v3r 12y ago
  But if there's no government intervention, then why are incomes so low, and why is there so much violence?
  - baddox 12y ago
    After the collapse of the Somali Democratic Republic in 1991, incomes increased and violence decreased.
- anigbrowl 12y ago
  That's why they don't have an industry there. But any western manufacturer could go to some lightly-regulated place, start handing out Better Condoms (tm) like candy, and then point to major improvements in user satisfaction, disease transmission rates, and so on in order to create pressure for a more careful evaluation in other markets like the US or EU. Think back to news you've read about the deployment of improved mosquito netting and the like, which is tried out in Africa because that's where the greatest need exists.
- protomyth 12y ago
  ...which means they will need children and are not focused on prevention technology

IanDrake 12y ago

You aren't allowed to criticize government regulation on HN.

icebraining 12y ago
You are, you just can't be lazy about it.
- IanDrake 12y ago
  Pretty sure it was clear. Government is lazy and callus about updating regulations regarding to development and testing of prophylactics. Innovative and better alternatives were taken off the market due to said regulations. The commentary was spot on. The point of the original comment was to provide bullets without lengthy justification and citation and it was upvoted. Then this "lazy" bullet was added and all the sudden the author needs to back up his assertion with detailed arguments? The pro-government bias here is insane. As I said, don't be critical of government on HN unless you don't care about the group think popularity karma contest going on here.
  - icebraining 12y ago
    Oh, I'm not saying there isn't a pro-government bias. I'm saying that it's just a bias, not a complete rejection. If you're pro-government, you can be lazy, but if you're against it, you can still be upvoted, you just have to work a little harder to overcome the bias.
  - fobcat 12y ago
    Totally agree with your statement regarding the HN pro-gov't bias, unfortunately. Such is life. Without the FDA and its outmoded regulations, there would be a flourishing of condoms for people to choose from, instead of just the three entrenched companies that can afford to deal with the gov't. If nothing else, the article details the fact that there are a LOT of people who care deeply about and are trying to solve this problem (and should be left largely unconstrained to do so).

wdewind 12y ago

> Government regulations have stifled innovation, thereby making existing products less safe, less comfortable, and less used than they would be otherwise. The article implied this in tone, but in facts reported within did not make a slam dunk case. Latex is probably significantly safer in terms of blocking STD transmission, and it's also heavily understudied whether or not the sizing differences matter. I wouldn't say it's obvious government regulation is really the devil here.

pdabbadabba 12y ago

There's some truth to this, but your tone makes it a little hard to spot. I'm not sure that the article provides much support for the broad claim, implied by your comment, that government regulation is always a bad idea, or that the government should get out of the condom regulation business. I for one think it's a pretty good idea for a regulator to ensure that condoms (like other health-related products) perform up to some minimum standard. The social impact of sub-standard products is too significant to leave to the market and there is good reason to think that the market would not adequately communicate the signals that consumers need in order to make rational condom-purchasing decisions in the absence of regulation. I agree with your narrower claim that the existing condom regulations seem to be badly in need of reform. But I'm not at all convinced that they are worse than having no regulations at all.