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Who regulates the regulators? We need to go beyond review-and-approval

rootsofprogress.org

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Re: Who regulates the regulators? We need to go beyond review-and-approval

#71

Post by firstlink »

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #65
firstlink wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As readers we are supposed to learn that we are being misled. One hopes GP commenter would learn they cannot always get away with this sort of deception. What, if anything, are we supposed to get out of your comment, which seems to question the value of critical reading?

If you disagree, you can reply as to why you disagree, or you can silently disagree and move on. You've added no reasoning beyond the disagreement that slavboj brought up, only that you think it's not just wrong but... misleading? Of what? Why is it motte-and-bailey? Why would it be doublethink? What are you adding to the disagreement? rt4mn clearly states what they disagree about, namely their belief that a non-vota…

You could have just admitted that you're incapable of critical reading and moved on, instead of that wall of text.

Re: Who regulates the regulators? We need to go beyond review-and-approval

#72

Post by youainti »

pjscott wrote: post #5
majormajor wrote: post #2

So, summarizing the timeline here: Bad things happened. Review-and-approve regulation happened, things improved. Another bad thing happened, at a much lower scale. Regulators cracked down, professional admins replaced experts, things got buried in red tape. The author argues against review-and-approve but they don't present a better alternative than that first review-and-approve. They mention, but don't really endors…

> They mention, but don't really endorse, liability law models. But today's adversarial legal model in the US is also slow, expensive, and results in tons of cover-your-ass legalese at large places. They allude to no-fault workman's compensation laws, discussed at greater length in this excellent article: https://rootsofprogress.org/history-of-factory-safety The trick there was to take the liability out of the advers…

Thanks for the link, that was a fascinating read.

Re: Who regulates the regulators? We need to go beyond review-and-approval

#73

Post by rt4mn »

firstlink wrote: post #50
rt4mn wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like thats a deliberate misreading of the parent comment. Of course the FDA is not, itself, a democratic instution. But then neither is your local police department or NASA. The reason those institutions are accepted despite the lack of direct democratic accountability is because they are still situated within the larger democratic institution (the US government) and subject to oversight by those elected repre…

> Groups like the FDA are democratic institutions > deliberate misreading of the parent comment > Of course the FDA is not, itself, a democratic instution. Can't tell if doublethink or just motte-and-bailey.

Perhaps they misspoke, or perhaps they misunderstood, or perhaps their usage of the term is different then yours or mine. I understood them to mean it in the sense that the FDA holds democratic legitimacy by nature of its assistance as an org within the US government, which is by any reasonable definition a democratic institution.

The point is that its not really relevant to the point they are making, which is that the FDA as an institution has some weird incentives.

> motte-and-bailey.

I'm not familiar with this idiom so I cant say.

Re: Who regulates the regulators? We need to go beyond review-and-approval

#74

Post by Camouflager »

Regulations really don't work when you're dealing with adults. Anti-social behaviors cannot be regulated. That's actually the point of being anti-social.

Throughout history, every time you start to count on regulations, the whole thing falls apart pretty quickly. LOOK ELSEWHERE. We didn't have this much regulations 30 years ago and things were great.

Re: Who regulates the regulators? We need to go beyond review-and-approval

#75

Post by harimau777 »

pjscott wrote: post #4
lacker wrote: post #3

I think the core problem is the incentives of the regulators. Groups like the FDA are democratic institutions, but if their only goal is to have the approval of national politicians, the feedback they get is either negative if there's a bad product released, or neutral if there is no terrible product released. The FDA must have done something right - what have they done right? We don't even know. Their incentives are…

> The regulator can still set legal penalties high enough to stop any innovation, if they want to. A liability model has a couple of advantages despite this: 1. The regulator has some slack to not set penalties insanely high. As long as they're seen enforcing those penalties against someone periodically, and as long as the penalties sound like a big number to the general public, they can look like Stern Serious Regul…

Isn't #1 a downside? Regulators can impose penalties that sound like a big number but which corps just treat as a cost of doing business.

Re: Who regulates the regulators? We need to go beyond review-and-approval

#76

Post by harimau777 »

roenxi wrote: post #68
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That only applies to large rare risks. If a risk is common, anyone who ignores it quickly goes out of business from the liability, so anyone still in business is taking effective measures. If a risk is rare and has a low impact, ignoring it frequently is the right thing to do. You're left with things like plane crashes, which have to be minimized even if they're already rare. But that kind of regulation is extraordin…

> You're left with things like plane crashes, which have to be minimized even if they're already rare. I know we're all trying to be moderate here, but I'm not very good at that: 1) It is irrational. The cost-benefits of aircraft safety make no sense. Planes are held to a standard that we don't hold buses and trains to. We should strive to make rational decisions as a matter of policy. 2) There is no reason to think…

I think it's worth keeping in mind that the Asian growth has often occurred due to their governments placing little value on human life and/or wellbeing. I'm not sure that's something that the US should aspire to emulate.

I'm not sure of a good way to have a middle ground between excessive regulation and devaluing human wellbeing. In that case, I'd rather that we err on the side of excessive regulation; especially since there are already powerful financial interests advocating for the other side.

Re: Who regulates the regulators? We need to go beyond review-and-approval

#77

Post by harimau777 »

aero142 wrote: post #22
konschubert wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is where mandatory liability insurance comes into play. Because the insurer will check... and if the people in charge are idiots, the insurance will charge them high premiums. I am not sure how well this works in practice - but I think the idea has real merit.

There is an issue with correlated vs uncorrelated risks. This is the reason that only the federal government can offer FDIC insurance for banks and disaster insurance in Florida. When banks fail, they tend to all fail at the same time and there is no insurer that could hold enough reserves to actually pay out if they all fail together. Private insurance can cover fire insurance for homes, but is unlikely to have enou…

To make sure that I'm following, is what you are saying that the risk is that there's a big enough disaster that the insurance company(s) can't pay everything that's owed to those who have been harmed?

Re: Who regulates the regulators? We need to go beyond review-and-approval

#78

Post by harimau777 »

Camouflager wrote: post #74

Regulations really don't work when you're dealing with adults. Anti-social behaviors cannot be regulated. That's actually the point of being anti-social. Throughout history, every time you start to count on regulations, the whole thing falls apart pretty quickly. LOOK ELSEWHERE. We didn't have this much regulations 30 years ago and things were great.

I'm not sure that things were really great 30 years ago with respect to things that have been regulated. For example, greenhouse gas emissions and discrimination against LGBTQ people were both much worse than they are now. Just slightly more than 30 years ago (33 years) we didn't have the Americans with Disabilities Act so it was much more difficult for disabled people to get accommodations.

Re: Who regulates the regulators? We need to go beyond review-and-approval

#79

Post by harimau777 »

majormajor wrote: post #2

So, summarizing the timeline here: Bad things happened. Review-and-approve regulation happened, things improved. Another bad thing happened, at a much lower scale. Regulators cracked down, professional admins replaced experts, things got buried in red tape. The author argues against review-and-approve but they don't present a better alternative than that first review-and-approve. They mention, but don't really endors…

Perhaps the difference with traffic regulations is that both the benefits and drawbacks of regulation are experienced directly by many regular people. Whereas the benefits and drawbacks of corporate regulation are most directly experienced by the upper levels of corporate leadership.

Granted, even then I'm not sure what the solution is. (Well, at least assuming that employee owned corporations are mostly a non-starter in the US.)

Re: Who regulates the regulators? We need to go beyond review-and-approval

#80

Post by doctor_eval »

Camouflager wrote: post #74

Regulations really don't work when you're dealing with adults. Anti-social behaviors cannot be regulated. That's actually the point of being anti-social. Throughout history, every time you start to count on regulations, the whole thing falls apart pretty quickly. LOOK ELSEWHERE. We didn't have this much regulations 30 years ago and things were great.

I don’t know what to say. 1993 was definitely not better than 2023.

The world moves forwards, three steps forward and two steps back. Human rights have progressed enormously since 1993 and that’s largely due to regulation. Deaths from smoking have been reduced. Deaths from car accidents have declined. Incredible, life changing drugs have been developed. And, of course, things have become worse in other ways. Wealth inequality being a very big one.

Things might have been great if you were healthy and wealthy in 1993, but I’d definitely not want to go back there.

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