Technology in cars can be rapid but seems to ignore those externalities
Many regulated risks in automobiles are not external, which is I think where they're out of bounds. I think a certain amount of regulation to ensure consumers are informed of the internal risks of an automobile is reasonable; but the government really oughtn't tell you how safe your car must be for you. Externalities, as you say, are the appropriate domain of regulation.
For some people, it may be preferable to have better fuel economy at a lower price (i.e. Honda can make the Honda Insight again) even if the operator risk is higher; but they should not be allowed to drive a vehicle without adequate stopping, acceleration, and speed, or one which poses excessive risk to fire and rescue workers, other motorists, or pedestrians, or has excessive emissions in their use case.
Right now, emissions regulations on automobiles focus on manufacturer fleet emissions (which is an unabashed pro-incumbent regulation), and emissions on a fixed test cycle; but this means you can pay for the privilege of being in the upper section of a fleet's emissions. Similar with the regulations on stopping speed, acceleration, and pedestrian safety: it seems to often depend on the class of vehicle, and so you can pay for the privilege of worse safety externalities.
My point was that automotive manufacturers are not particularly incentivized to improve on areas that don't align with their bottom line. Are you advocating for more regulation in terms of performance parameters?
I'm saying I'd prefer consistent (between vehicle classes) regulation of performance parameters which have externalities; and the abolition of non-normalized fleet-based targets (since they privilege the largest manufacturers). If the goal is to reduce external risk, the threshold of acceptable risk should be the same for all motorists as a matter of fairness.
A possible alternative to CAFE is a specialized cap and trade market. I get that they did think a bit about this stuff when they implemented it, but I feel like it has weird effects in practice, especially when gaming it enters medium-long term corporate strategy.
I think it would be spectacular if inefficiency was purchased on a per-vehicle or per-lot basis from manufacturers who exceed the target, and efficiency was sold in turn to those. Not sure how these transactions would be cleared, but I'm sure something reasonable could be worked out. This would do away with adjustments/exemptions based on vehicle footprint (CAFE targets currently differ based on mean vehicle footprint).
In the abstract, if conditions A, B, and C are stated as required to achieve a desired outcome, the fact there happen to be examples of undesirable outcomes with condition A (but implicitly lacking conditions B and/or C) is not enough to prove that condition A is NOT a necessary condition for a desired outcome.
History shows regulation speeds technical progress.
- Manhattan Project
- Apollo program
- Public university research
- ARPANET
- Aircraft
- Spacecraft
...This. Sure I would like some protection for our food but i hate the too much protection that currently US government has right now.
What system would you prefer to protect your food?
It's all well and good that you believe you have the faculty to distinguish improperly prepared fish from properly prepared fish, but many people do not, and improperly prepared fish will be sold cheaper than the prepared variety, which means that people who want fish but can't afford to pay much for it will be the ones buying the improperly prepared stuff. You can already see this at some level today when poorer people tend to buy a lot of junk food that's cheaper (speaking in terms of opportunity cost here too) than healthier alternatives, and a variety of other unhealthy things (cigarettes, alcohol).
I'm not saying unhealthy things should be banned, I'm saying that deadly things absolutely should be. If you want to take the risk of killing yourself (it's absolutely absurd that you mention this) then there are probably more fun ways to do it than arguing the government should allow people to sell potentially deadly food.
Even then, you've selected a weird subset of dangerous food - everyone knows pufferfish is dangerous, far fewer people know which specific compounds that may be in food sold in an unregulated food market can lead to cancers and other diseases in the long term. You need to ask what the advantage of an unregulated food market is outside of a very specific conception of freedom which entails "I should be able to do anything I want to and you can't stop me.", which is (1) not the only conception of freedom around (2) is unworkable in a society with rich and poor, educated and uneducated, critical and uncritical, disabled and able bodied, etc.
No, I don't believe that I neccessarily have that faculty. I just want to be able to bet on it anyway.
> and improperly prepared fish will be sold cheaper than the prepared variety, which means that people who want fish but can't afford to pay much for it will be the ones buying the improperly prepared stuff.
Yup. I remember my mom and dad arguing about whether it was okay to serve us rotten broccoli (she'd cut most of the rotten parts off, he only noticed because she missed some). I think that was something she'd done out of ignorance, and if she understood how bad it is to serve rotten broccoli she wouldn't have bought it even at a discount. I wish she had been better educated, but I don't wish that the government had enough power to uniformly enforce the food laws they already had in place. They were right in this case, but sometimes they're wrong. I've bought homemade food from some individuals that I trusted more than I trust the vast majority of government-licensed restaurants.
> You can already see this at some level today when poorer people tend to buy a lot of junk food that's cheaper (speaking in terms of opportunity cost here too) than healthier alternatives, and a variety of other unhealthy things (cigarettes, alcohol).
Uhh, yeah. Being poor sucks. People do drugs about it. You want to deny those who are denied everything else the solace of escapism?
> If you want to take the risk of killing yourself (it's absolutely absurd that you mention this) then there are probably more fun ways to do it than arguing the government should allow people to sell potentially deadly food.
This is both literally and figuratively a matter of taste. Why should your views of absurdity and fun affect my ability to enjoy a cullinary experience?
> Even then, you've selected a weird subset of dangerous food - everyone knows pufferfish is dangerous, far fewer people know which specific compounds that may be in food sold in an unregulated food market can lead to cancers and other diseases in the long term.
Yup, I selected an example that would clearly demonstrate my point. You caught me.
> You need to ask what the advantage of an unregulated food market is outside of a very specific conception of freedom which entails "I should be able to do anything I want to and you can't stop me.", which is (1) not the only conception of freedom around
I said I should be able to do anything I want to myself. I understand freedom-ofs and freedom-froms, you're welcome to share the word freedom with me. Just don't take my freedom of self destruction. It's an important one to me, whether or not you feel the same.
> (2) is unworkable in a society with rich and poor, educated and uneducated, critical and uncritical, disabled and able bodied, etc.
I'm just trying to eat a hypothetical pufferfish, maaaan. Yes, society has problems. No, that isn't a good reason to arrest me for buying or selling a fish. The most ridiculous laws you people make are the ones that make parts of nature illegal, like fish and flowers and fungi. Such oppression, much wow.
You have that freedom regardless of whether the government allows deadly food to be sold or not. A famous libertarian economist once said that we can't only consider the ideal in isolation from the actual policies that are enacted toward that ideal - his main consideration was the capitalist idea of freedom, but mine is the idea of public health and harm due to negligence.
>I'm just trying to eat a hypothetical pufferfish, maaaan.
No you're not, you're arguing for society to be structured in such a way that companies are allowed to use dangerous products in what they sell to people. You can eat the pufferfish (and I must say that I urge you to) but that doesn't mean others should have to bear the cost of fearing if their next meal will kill them.
>No, that isn't a good reason to arrest me for buying or selling a fish.
This is about as reductionist as the claim that knife murder is simply the actuation of muscles and the thrusting of a metal object. How can you illegalise moving metal objects?
>The most ridiculous laws you people make are the ones that make parts of nature illegal
Plenty of things part of nature are illegal, including (but not limited to) rubbing the back of a frog that produces deadly toxins onto all the objects in your home.
Ahaha, just like a statist to wish death upon their enemies. You really took the high road there, buddy.
> Plenty of things part of nature are illegal, including (but not limited to) rubbing the back of a frog that produces deadly toxins onto all the objects in your home.
See, this is what I'm talking about; you guys wanna take all of the coolest frogs away!