If government isn’t protecting the people it represents, why have one?

It's not like the people are asked, or have a choice on the matter of having a government

Lots of things pre-date their users: plates, wheels, farming, aeroplanes. The lack of choice in the matter isn’t in itself a reason to discount the phenomenon. The nature of the phenomenon is more important. In the case of government (or lack), its nature should inform its form and behaviour.

My earlier point was more like “what is this government doing if not looking after those it represents?” If its not doing as it should, we should change it.

(I’m open to ideas of anarchistic self determination. Most “good” implementations seem to have some form of coalition and/or committee-with-sphere-of-responsibility which looks like government if you squint so I’m a bit hazy how you do it. Happy to learn)

Forcing companies to label things is government over-reach.

Who said the US is a free market? you consistently have Biden playing God and distributing EV tax credit, $10k for first home buying, student loan forgiveness randomly in an election year. There is consistent interference with the free market as it is politically favorable in the US.

And this isn't even limited to Biden. The Trump presidency enacted a variety of protectionist measures.

Protections is not the same as buying votes by paying off someones student debt with tax payers money.

You could classify any government action that actually benefits people as “buying votes”. This a thought-terminating do-nothing argument.

Protectionism buys campaign contributions for your next election. All those companies whose market is protected by a tariff suddenly magically decide to contribute to the politician they asked nicely for it at the next election or they find he flip flops on it.

Should governments not set policy backed with incentives?

Can’t tell whether this is ironic or not.

In case it isn’t: the US has the best politicians money can buy.

So things that are bad for the general public but good for a certain minority of wealthy individuals take longer to take effect than in other countries. But most eventually do pass.

EPA isn't run by politicians but by normal workers also known as buerocrates.

While I'm no expert, I'm under the impression that the leadership of most 3 letter agencies can participate in the "revolving door", where bought and paid for politicians can extend their own benefits and the benefits to their owners by taking high paid, leadership roles in certain agencies. This leads to most agencies having the same kind of "is someone paying me not to do this" culture around actually fixing things.

> If you believe in free market fundamentalism, why regulate anything? Just label things.

I'll answer like you're not sarcastic.

In the free market, things won't be labeled. Why? "Just don't buy the products without labels!". What if 100% of the available products isn't labelled, because you have no one in position of power (those who sell those products or houses) that benefits from it. You have to buy homes anyway, it's not something you can skip.

Also, realistically, no actor in the free market has 100% of the knowledge in existence at any moment. Some (and probably most TBH) people will not know that asbestos is carcinogen.

Now, I believe you were sarcastic, because I can't think you imagined that there are no power dynamics at play.

I'm not sarcastic, why would I? I really don't understand how you can be for free market fundamentalism and for regulation of asbestos at the same time.

From watching the US from the outside and from several visits, it looks like a huge amount of people in the US are free market fundamentalists. People did label me socialist for suggesting market regulation.

You're right. I haven't thought that one through.

Consumers could band together and pay labs for lists of products, or subscribe to a labeling service.

Or if there is a market, companies will label their products for a segment.

(If it isn't clear, I'm no free market fundementalist)

> From watching the US from the outside and from several visits, it looks like a huge amount of people in the US are free market fundamentalists. People did label me socialist for suggesting market regulation.

Honestly there’s a very loud vocal minority here on things like this. Most people in the US are not free market fundamentalists.

There are still things sold in the US that are harmful for you. Look at cigarettes. Smoking in the US is at an all-time low; part of that is e-cigarettes, but a large part is the constant education and reminders here that it’s bad for you. If it were up to the free market, as it used to be, cigarette manufacturers would not label their products at all. That’s what they used to do, and far more people smoked back then—sans forced education and labeling.

And the so-called free market fundamentalists rarely follow free market principles.

Yes and:

Open markets require rules. And some referees.

Fair rules and impartial referees are anathema to the plantation class. They prefer incumbency protection enforced by the government at the expense of everyone else.

Regulation is a scary word for rules.

Socialism is a scary word for collective action.

"Free markets" is doublespeak for might makes right; with the "freedom" to act without consequences.

Hey. I'm sorry for bothering you in this thread. I found your old comment about your business processes built around literate programming and I can't reply there: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35988792

Is this approach documented anywhere? Honestly, this would be a cool blog post. I'd love to know more. I use org-mode for literate programming, but jupiter would do as well I guess.

So, my question is more about the business side of it.

People in favor of the most free market possible will always blame individuals for making bad choices. You're in a bad health, because you're overweight? It's your fault.

But I don't believe in that. I believe it's structures fault. I believe that there are already people who are more powerful than others, because they're shareholders, they already have money or their parents do, they own physical properties such as lands or houses, etc. And those people in power, if you make the market even more free, they will just increase the power they have over others. Some other will randomly (because they're lucky) also aquire wealth sometimes, and become more powerful, but it's highly unlikely according to many scientific studies.

And I didn't even talk about other kind of things that can lead to more inequalities, such as the skin color, your gender, whether you're trans or not, etc. It has been shown (in the US) that even well born black people are disavantaged at school compared to white people. So being rich alone isn't enough. You just have to check the top 10 of richest people in the world, and see how similar they are: cis, white, men.

So that's where I believe they're wrong: the "free market" isn't free (or as they say meritocratic) if you don't first do a big reset, and make everyone equal first. Which can't happen realistically.

Are you trolling, or what? The US has mountains and mountains of regulations about every possible thing. You can't even receive money to cut someone's hair without a certification. Just because other countries have yet more doesn't mean it's surprising that one more thing is banned.

Asbestos is a wonder material, and insanely cheap. They put it in everything from roads to siding for homes to insulation for ventilation ducts, and everything inbetween. And it's "totally safe" for these purposes - so long as it is never touched again. Once a housing siding tile is cracked or broken by say, a baseball, it degrades and starts being released into the local environment.

So you have a highly toxic material, but it's encapsulated and totally safe for 30 years, well past the average age of home ownership. "It's somebody elses problem"! So the result is, every house built in 1940-1970 has asbestos in it, and while their children weren't directly exposed to asbestos, now it is breaking down and our generation (and future generations, asbestos sticks around for a very, very long time - that's part of it's "wonder material" story) now have to deal with the problem.

So yes, just label it "hey this stuff is crazy toxic, but not for your family, and not the family after, so there's no risk to you, and no economic downside since it won't impact your property value" so it ends up being purchased as both the best and cheapest building material, but now you're building 250,000 houses that double as toxic waste dumps for future generations

Just labeling asbestos as toxic and letting the market decide, in this specific situation, is peak boomerism.