141–150 of 157 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I haven't made any personal remarks about you. I've just observed that you've devoted more than 50% of your comment above to argument about irrelevant topics, and that those arguments rest on inaccurate assumptions, such as the inevitable expansion of government.
Actually, it sound like he's agreeing with you. Be gracious and accept that. Good job.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 4. Your conclusion: government rule making is bad. Feel free to provide 3 examples where there's significant regulation AND little/no regulatory capture.
1. Laws against murder. 2. Laws against theft. 3. Contract law. 4. Traffic laws (right of way, behavior at stop signs and traffic lights, etc.). None of the above are perfect; all of the above have been used abusively at times; all of the above are needed to some degree for the smooth functioning of society. There are some debates in the area of traffic regulations about whether some situations would be safer with a…
As to contract-law, mandatory arbitration is getting "interesting".
After spending way too much time on this thread here's my parting thought: Some choose to believe that corporate greed is the cause of issues such as that highlighted by this article. Others believe that the political and legal system in place has flaws that create the conditions necessary for such things to happen. And some are in between these two schools of though. Here's the kicker: While we live within and with…
I don't know. If decentralisation of control, increased use of bottom up feedback, and less corruption to increase the innovation cycle is really the way forward, I don't feel that the current Chinese model of government has any significant advantages Currently they rely on the rest of the world to find the best designs and practices, then cherry pick the good parts and make the whole thing efficient with centralised…
It's interesting to see how in China a "benevolent" (using the term loosely) dictatorship is able to push billions of people forward. One could of course argue about a million things they are doing wrong and there would be no doubt that the charges would be on point. However, what they seem to be doing very well is taking their time to become a super power in their own right. At our expense as well as others.
After spending way too much time on this thread here's my parting thought: Some choose to believe that corporate greed is the cause of issues such as that highlighted by this article. Others believe that the political and legal system in place has flaws that create the conditions necessary for such things to happen. And some are in between these two schools of though. Here's the kicker: While we live within and with…
Thanks, robomartin, for your thoughtful commentary. You are right 100%, through and through. Unfortunately, as I learned long time ago, it seems to me that much of the people on HN believe that gov't is never at fault. That regulation, taxation, and other forms of gov't oppression are good things. Ever. Especially, when reassured by a politician. Today's progressives are just sheeple. They will believe blindly any po…
Regrettably the governing class in a country like the US knows this very well and has learned how to pander and manipulate the masses in their favor. This is also a fact.
Then you have the media. Most people will subscribe to one ideology and set forth to consume media that aligns with this ideology as closely as possible. This is comfortable and easy to chew on. No gag reflex involved. This is another fact.
The media know this, and feed that need. They report with overblown outrage about mostly unimportant stories. They go on and on all day long beating the same dumb story to death until they can't flatten it any more. They cater to the audience that, due to ideology, will stay with them. It's SEO, TV style. This is also a fact.
All of this leads to great levels of polarization. How else would you have huge chunks of the population self-identify with one party or another? They buy into a "tribe" and stick with it, no matter what. Tribal behavior is a most fundamental human trait. This, also, is fact.
Those in the middle of all of this, a group of which I consider myself a member, are willing to stop and think for a moment and not rattle off what others are saying without some thought and consideration. This is hard. This requires work. This requires rejecting years of unintentional indoctrination and trying to see the world for what it is. This is about the Allegory of the Cave in more ways than one (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_Cave). It requires consciously refraining from the most fundamental human impulse to be tribal and believe what has been pounded into your brain. This is hard (I repeat) and this is why most people don't do it.
At home we make it a point to learn about multiple points of view. We watch CNN and FOX. We also watch Al Jazeera and LinkTV. We are also fortunate enough to speak more than a couple of languages, so we consume international news from more than one perspective as well. It's amazing what you can learn this way.
I don't know where I am going with this except to say that there are a lot of voting groups that, just like Plato's cave, have been living and looking at the shadows in their own caves. And virtually nothing more than that. Government workers, Politicians and Unionized workers (to be brutal in my generalization) are examples of such groups. Individually none of them are bad people. As a voting and acting block they can be absolute morons, but only because all they've been willing to consider are the shadows.
I don't know how to fix it. I don't know if it's even possible.
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Name one regulated market in the us that have fair competition. Btw. It's not only in the us. Regulation today is the most secure form of monopoly
Uh, regulation often prevents monopolies. See: anti-trust regulation.
Most of the teeth I've seen in the anti-trust regulation is the ability to break up companies after they have monopolized.
When people complain about entrepreneurs building social networks instead of curing cancer, they need to understand that this is a big part of the reason. The internet attracts so much innovation in large part because it's very open to innovation. In more regulated/corrupt (the two are closely related) fields, such as health care, there are many barriers to competition that kill innovative new companies. Mobile was a…
Wish I could double-upvote you, Paul. Health care has been regulatory-captured for a long time now. (Obligatory blog link to relevant anecdote: http://www.whattofix.com/blog/archives/2010/06/if-we-told-yo... ) I don't know if anybody has read Thomas Kuhn, but this has a parallel in how science works. Science gets "stuck" in one way of thinking. During this time, people work on small details and innovate in tiny ways…
The next time someone suggests antitrust laws are uniformly bad and should be abolished due to their (mis)application in tech, this is a great counterpoint.
When people complain about entrepreneurs building social networks instead of curing cancer, they need to understand that this is a big part of the reason. The internet attracts so much innovation in large part because it's very open to innovation. In more regulated/corrupt (the two are closely related) fields, such as health care, there are many barriers to competition that kill innovative new companies. Mobile was a…
God I hate the healthcare industry. This was on my mind this morning because my girlfriend isn't rich and relies on Lunesta to sleep (I'll leave the fact that her doctor is advising her to take this indefinitely for another day). It's extortionately priced - something like $6 a pill - enough to gouge insurance companies thoroughly and enough to wreck havoc on the finances of someone that's not rich and lacks insuranc…
Why can't she take the generic drug? Also, $180/month is not really what people mean by "high healthcare costs". They mean something like a $50,000/day hospital stay. $180 is a lot if you don't have a lot of money, but it's hardly backbreaking.