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Comment by code4life | Hacker News Reader

The more drunk people take public transportation, the more I'd want to avoid it. The more I'd want my wife to avoid it.

Private business is good at solving problems with out the need for government intervention and higher taxes. If you are going to get drunk and you need to get from point A to point B, use Uber or call a taxi.

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Public transport is quite a lot cheaper than Uber or taxi where I am. The difference would pay for 2 pints of beer and some bar snacks.

I will make my own mind up about which mode of transport to take ;)

I agree with your former and latter point, but since I heard the middle point plenty (private business good at etc. without intervention and taxes) at BEST that's a very optimistic generalization. Taxis in fact are a _result_ of govt intervention (medallions) and uber's business practices, regardless of what you feel on the company, have not always been the solution people want (see many threads on "contractor" treatment, etc; not necessarily my own opinion but in this context the broader sentiment seems more relevant).

Govt intervention results in certain downsides, private business implementation others, I don't even have a great thought as to which is better or worse (yes, it's a cop out, but I'll defend that cop out as that it's the "great question of most governments" that I'm dodging), but it seems shortsighted to state "A does it better" (for either side)

(I hope this doesn't read as shutting down any rebuttal, not my intention. Feel free to challenge any of the above)

Have you considered approaching your dilemma from a moral perspective rather than a utilitarian/efficiency one? It may very well be that the two sides have different efficiency profiles, but one outweighs the other in terms of being more moral.

At the risk of driving this question into the bowels of philosophy, I'm VERY hesitant to drive anything from a moral argument, because I don't trust most judgements of morality, my own included. I can establish the empirical success of certain things by many metrics, a moral metric is not one of them. (I have and do regularly approach the question of "what is the utility / what should be my preference in terms of a moral metric", but again this seems to be like the prior "great question of X" but where X is religion/philosophy instead of govt.)

There are certainly times when a moral argument is attractive (and which I would pragmatically chose, especially in the many cases when there are material impacts against which a certain moral stance would oppose) but if we're having a conceptual discussion, I generally avoid that, and even in the cases when I would support a moral argument, I often seek other justifications of more utilitarian nature to try and support the moral suggestion.

> Have you considered approaching your dilemma from a moral perspective rather than a utilitarian/efficiency one?

There are an infinite number of possible moral perspectives; utilitarianism is one of them.

You are talking about the difference between $25 and $2.50.

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