What America looked like before the EPA, in photos • Hacker News Board

Re: What America looked like before the EPA, in photos

#171

Post by zaarn » Mon, Mar 19, 2018, 7:31 AM UTC

ekianjo wrote: post #166

zaarn wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corporations have incentives to maximize short-term profits at the sacrifice of environmental resources and common decency (dump the chemical waste in the river and pay your employees the lowest possible wage). This obviously means the company will quickly run out of resources and employees but depending on the severity of the deployed sacrifice, this can take decades, a time span that corporations have shown on seve…

My point was, make the river a private resource worth money to some organization or someone, and they will fight that corporation where it matters. Counter-balancing incentives work best, and we have already seen this kind of system work better than regulations.

As a public utility, the river is worth money to the government. If it goes to waste, less people will be able to use it to make money, which leads to less taxes.

Any agency brought up to protect the environment has per it's mission an incentive to protect the environment and doesn't suffer the problems of a corporation, namely limited funding. A government agency doesn't need to make profit to receive lots of funding if it's important enough.

Re: What America looked like before the EPA, in photos

#172

Post by Strang » Mon, Mar 19, 2018, 1:08 PM UTC

bosie wrote: post #170

Strang wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keep in mind that in the US, the Federal Government is not the only game in town. The EPA as currently constituted is not the only possible way for our society to protect our environment. It seems to me that conservatives often make the case that "The Federal Government should not do ," but others instead hear, "we as a society don't need to do ."

what's the non-government solution for an implementation of the EPA?

I was mostly referring to state and local government as an alternative to the Federal Government.

Re: What America looked like before the EPA, in photos

#173

Post by tacomonstrous » Tue, Mar 20, 2018, 1:08 AM UTC

ekianjo wrote: post #168

tacomonstrous wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Protect them with what authority and with what resources? Everyone raises their own militia against bad actors? What if the bad actor owns half the land in the region and all the guns?

There is something called Rule of Law. That is where the government intervenes if someone or some organization fails to follow the Law. > What if the bad actor owns half the land in the region and all the guns? As far as I know the government has the biggest guns.

>As far as I know the government has the biggest guns.

Not in the mythical libertarian paradise where all property is privately owned.

Re: What America looked like before the EPA, in photos

#174

Post by circlefavshape » Tue, Mar 20, 2018, 3:42 PM UTC

zaarn wrote: post #62

circlefavshape wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Animals have territories too (some collective, some individual), and defend them. I expect our notions of 'property rights' evolved from that

Maybe, yes, but it doesn't make property right an inherent part of nature, merely a rather popular tactic for higher-evolved animes (I don't see mold taking territories, it grows where it grows and doesn't have any intelligence to defend it or see it as it's own).

I'm not arguing the case for property rights, merely pointing out they have a precedent in the natural world