Comment by jeremyt | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jeremyt | Hacker News Reader

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I'm sorry, i'm just laughing.

I appreciate your response, and I'm struggling to take it seriously, but I think you just admonished me for being one of those knee-jerk deregulationists while in the same breath suggesting that you can replace 5000 pages of regulation with two sentences.

I'll do my best to add a serious comment though:

The government has no business defining products. The government doesn't know what the market wants or what companies can offer, and it has no idea what the appropriate supply and demand curves look like or what features people value or not.

Again, we just witnessed a situation in which an unregulated part of the market bit United in the ass and cost them a few million dollars, and now are they are rushing to fix it, along with all of the other airlines. No intervention from the government was needed, and now the problem no longer exists. I don't understand why you think the government stepping in and "defining" a product is going to help.

There are many reasons why, but I'll just pull one out of my head: Governments have no idea what's coming. Any regulations or definitions for service unavoidably make it harder for new entrants to offer unique services and products.

Maybe one of the airlines wants to move to your two-tiered system. If the government mandates it, then we have one choice, whether it is the best or not.

I struggle to lay out my argument any more clearly, but I feel like you still, deep down, believe that the government has this secret cabal of smart people who are going to step in and, for example, sensibly define all of our products for us. Who are these people?

/edit In the spirit of trying to agree on something, I will agree that regulations are too complex across the board. It's one of my personal causes. That said, calling for "smarter" regulation is not going to help.

Ok, I give up.

I ventured into this to try to show my fellow libertarians that most times we are our own worst enemy. We can find common ground and make progress without having to break out Hayek every five minutes. I still believe that, but I've had enough for one day.

"...I feel like you still, deep down, believe that the government has this secret cabal of smart people who are going to step in and, for example, sensibly define all of our products for us...."

No. I do not. I believe in consent of the governed, and making progress through reaching agreement on items that both sides can accept. That's it. Thanks for the chat.

What's weird to me is you seem to keep trying to play this off as you being the reasonable one here, as if i'm being frustratingly obtuse.

Frankly, I don't understand what your argument is, because "I believe in consent of the governed, and making progress through reaching agreement on items that both sides can accept" doesn't mean anything.

I mean, consent of the governed usually means representative democracy, which is what we have. So, if that's what you're for, then all the regulations we have are perfectly reasonably determined. If that's not what you mean, I don't know what you mean. How would the system specifically change to be more "consent of the governed"?

We also have a system where we "reach agreement on items that both sides can accept". That's the problem with regulatory capture. We have lobbyists on one side and politicians on the other, and they both agree on things and then we get regulations. Ostensibly, politicians are acting on behalf of their constituents. If they are not, then you have a problem with our structure of government, not the regulatory system.

So far, your only concrete suggestion is that we replace 5000 lines of regulations with two sentences of regulation, which I've already explained why I think is a bad idea. Everything else you said is just feel good words that could mean anything to anyone.

You also seem to be assuming what my position is. My position is that in order to justify a regulation, we have to find a true and significant market failure. In such case, the first option should be investigating ways that the market failure could be addressed without regulation. And before a regulation is promulgated, we should require a cost-benefit analysis that results in the calculation that the regulation will create more benefit for society than it costs.

Your regulation suggestion would fail both of my tests. First, because the problem you're trying to fix is already fixed. Second because your proposed solution would cost much more than we are actually paying in inconvenience right now.

I have a lot of experience working in complex systems, and I have some government experience, and I know that systems are always much more complex than we think they are. I have an extreme amount of modesty toward thinking that I can introduce easy solutions to problems in complex systems. Government workers, most of the time are ill-equipped to step into a market and make it better.

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