Comment by sneak | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sneak | Hacker News Reader

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> But if the last year has taught us anything, it is that any government action is likely to be met with equal and opposite reaction (in the west), a reaction that seems to stem in large part and primarily from a section of society that lives by the adage "Après moi, le déluge", and secondarily from the section of the populace that has been spoon-fed conspiracy theories (by the former?) about the government and its nefarious nature.

I think this is perhaps a vast oversimplification, driven by a desire to attribute to nilhilism and idiocy/impressionability what may actually be deeper philosophical differences, held sincerely by intelligent people.

It seems pretty common these days to ascribe people's differing philosophical viewpoints to misinformation, conspiracy theories, foreign influence, or whatever.

It's possible that reasonable, intelligent people, just like you, simply disagree on the best ways to address these problems, and that it's not as simple as that they've been "spoon-fed conspiracy theories".

(Source: I'm one of the people in that camp. Government regulation is one tool in the drawer, but it's not a very good one for causing sweeping societal change, IMO. Tesla, for example, did vastly more for the move to automotive electrification than all of the previous US government attempts up to that point.)

Tesla and Apple did everything /s

This giants are building on the back of research done in Universities all over the world and Tesla benefited by government money (so how the f** Tesla gets the praises and the government gets the reverse m the exact funcking thing with God, you get ill blame it on the Devil or yourself, you get saved by doctors and science then go thank God because of the miracle he did)

All companies had the incentives, only Tesla delivered so completely.

Government, and Elon, and our whole system were needed to make it happen. Seems like “both” arguments are mostly right, but overlook key information

Probably both are needed, just makes no sense that Tesla fanboys would try to spin a governments are bad while Tesla is sucking a lot of money from many governments programs around the world and the green electricity was made possible by the green programs and taxes on polution.

Good point. And perhaps government could learn from this that taxes and incentives are their most powerful tools to fight global warming. A carbon tax (which starts small but over the years becomes punitive) would be the most powerful move of all

> Government regulation is one tool in the drawer, but it's not a very good one for causing sweeping societal change

So you at least acknowledge a role for the government in this. Just as I acknowledge that private companies can have a positive impact. Maybe what we both need to do is to isolate the hardline extremists in each camp (people that can only see government solutions in one, and people that can only see private solutions in the other), and find rational solutions to the problem. Which is sort of what I want to accomplish with this thread, sorry if it was over the top provocative.

> So you at least acknowledge a role for the government in this.

No.

I mean, "attempt to kill everyone who doesn't agree precisely with me, and take over the whole world and run it precisely the way I see fit" is also a tool in the drawer. Acknowledging the fact that some people choose to take that path, and that it is a tool that this tool-using species uses sometimes, does not in any way signal my acceptance or endorsement of such a choice.

I don't think that everyone that is entirely opposed to government-based solutions to the problem (or even entirely opposed to the concept of a government or a state in general) is a "hardline extremist".

Aha, I see. Well, extremism is a relative term, depending on environment. In certain cryptocurrency circles I'm sure your stance is normal, in society at large it's rather extreme though, as is equating "kill everyone who doesn't agree with me" with government action in any way.

The problem with this line of argument from my point of view is you oppose and obstruct highly needed government action on principle, without providing an alternative solution. The plan to offer billionaires a new start on other planets doesn't count as an alternative, sorry.

But as mentioned before, if you have an alternative solution to the problem of the constantly accumulating toxins in the environment that subtracts government action from the equation up your sleeve, I'm all ears.

I really appreciate that you’re open to a conversation, it made for an interesting thread.

I can offer an alternate solution to accumulating toxins, which may or may not be comprehensive: Property rights.

Pollution is a tragedy of the commons situation. If people owned, not just land, but whatever encompasses the pollution, there would be incentive not to pollute their own property.

So my proposed solution would require defining property in a way that includes ownership of the pollution.

Government enforces property rights, so this does rely partly on government.

Alright, let’s say it was possible to track all pollution to its polluter, and you could assign ownership. Then what? Tax or fine the polluters? Isn’t that basically the same as regulating the polluting industries in the first place?

> Well, extremism is a relative term, depending on environment

Sure, but "hardline extremist" means something in particular, and is not a generic term to refer to any outlying behavior or view.

You can't label someone a "hardline extremist" (with all of the associated connotation that entails) for having reasonable views shared by many millions of others, and then pedal it back with "it's a relative term".

> is you oppose and obstruct highly needed government action

Nobody's obstructing anything, first off, but I absolutely oppose action that's undertaken at gunpoint (or threat of same). There are vastly better ways (from a standpoint of morality, efficiency, and effectiveness) of getting people to act in coordination in their own interests than threatening them with guns and cages, which is the only authority a government has to achieve things.

> I don't think that everyone that is entirely opposed to government-based solutions to the problem (or even entirely opposed to the concept of a government or a state in general) is a "hardline extremist".

It sort of does though... for the purpose of this discussion the spectrum runs from: all-government-regulated to all-individually-accomplished. So basically falling into either extreme of the spectrum (which by definition declines any other mid-point solution) is exactly the definition of “hardline extremist”.

Arguing otherwise seems to me more like you haven’t made your peace with it.

...in my personal opinion such views still have a very valid role to play in the discussion, but any successful solution will lie somewhere in the middle.

> for the purpose of this discussion the spectrum runs from: all-government-regulated to all-individually-accomplished.

I've spotted the issue. This is a false dichotomy. The government is just an abstraction over a group, like any other; literally nobody who is suggesting that government-based solutions aren't good are advocating for individual accomplishment outside of groups.

The government has no hands and no brain; all actions undertaken under color of the state are carried out by "individual" humans.

Nobody's saying that coordination amongst people in large groups isn't required.

If there is a 'spectrum', it's "individuals" vs "groups", or it's "compulsory groups, on threat of violence" (the state) vs "voluntary association" (how almost every other group in our society works - and 100% of the effective ones).

You can't meaningfully threaten world-class, creative, hardworking people into being maximally efficient and effective. You need a carrot, not a stick, and the only solutions the state provides are based on their ability to print cash (already not a problem if you're effective and productive), or a stick.

So what tool would you rather use, rather than our special-purpose tool for collective action?

How is "don't have the government regulate anything and hope that individuals spontaneously organize into a solution with no input" any different than not doing anything at all?

>I don't think that everyone ...entirely opposed to the concept of a government or a state in general is a "hardline extremist".

Oh. Oddly, most people do find anarchy an extreme position.

Government is not an effective tool for societal change in democracies because, by definition, they require society to want those changes. For instance, although homosexuality has been a political issue for decades, gay marriage was never legalized until a majority of the population supported it. Private enterprise provided support for "significant others" long before this happened. Private enterprise is on the leading edge of many changes today: How many genders can you identify as on Facebook? ...how about at the DMV?

> Tesla, for example, did vastly more for the move to automotive electrification than all of the previous US government attempts up to that point.

A tax on fossil fuels raising the price multiple fold would quickly align everyone’s incentives to create less pollution. The parameters of the world don’t necessarily allow for the time required for market participants to come up with solutions or care about future generations.

The difference is a tax on fossil fuels reduces quality of life for sufficient people that exist now. Therefore it’s unpopular, and not even possible to enact unless in a dictatorship or the populace accepts the idea that they need to reduce their consumption to benefit future generations.

CA has the most expensive gas. It's extremely unpopular, yet everyone in the state pays it.

What does that have to do with anything? Unless consumption is curbed to the levels required to affect environmental change, the tax is too low.

Please tell me when in history it was companies leading the way into better working conditions, equal access to healthcare, better representation in government?

I am also interested how you propose that sweeping societal change can come from something different than a elected representative government by the people, for the people?

Tesla got a large amount of government subsidies and tax incentives, both federally and at the state level. Tesla would have gone bankrupt many years ago without the government.

https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hy-musk-subsidies-201...

Government regulation is precisely the thing that accelerates societal change. It's maybe the sharpest tool for that. Remember CFCs and the ozone layer? If you manage to point a government in the right direction it's a juggernaut. The problem is that by design it's hard to steer.

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