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Comment by skosch | Hacker News Reader

That's a false dichotomy. We don't need your technocratic oligarchy.

Most people already do agree on what's "good" and what isn't, and yet they (rationally) choose to put their money elsewhere, because they have no guarantee that everyone else won't freeload off of their contribution. If I invest $100 in protecting a public good (like the climate), I only get one seven-billionth of the benefit; the rest goes to all of the other people on the planet. So I'll only invest if everyone else chips in, too.

The easiest solution to force cooperation like that is called ... taxation. The more difficult, but perhaps closer-to-ideal solution involves more math, see e.g. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3243656

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> If I invest $100 in protecting a public good (like the climate), I only get one seven-billionth of the benefit; the rest goes to all of the other people on the planet. So I'll only invest if everyone else chips in, too.

I used to think like this, but I'm fed up of taking "economic maxims" that I read on the Internet as being actually true.

I don't believe this to be the case. I think that taking action, being public about taking action, and ultimately standing behind what you think is right, taxes and others be damned, is the way to go.

Yes, there will be free riders. That's inevitable in anything you do. People "free ride" on software I write all the time. I can shoulder it.

Oh I agree, it absolutely is the way to go! If you haven't heard of it, take a look at the Giving What We Can pledge [0].

But most people aren't like you and me. I've had conversations about this with many others, and the most prevalent attitude is the one I described: ask them to buy the more expensive, environmentally friendly product, and they'll decline; ask them whether they would support a law that would require all products to be environmentally friendly, and they'll enthusiastically agree.

If that's how people work, then that's how we have to make policy.

My.....technocratic oligarchy? Sure, yeah.

Notice you have to assume that most people agree on what's good and that you know what that is. It's a solved problem, it's just a matter of implementing it.

> If I invest $100 in protecting a public good....So I'll only invest if everyone else chips in, too.

Public goods are non-rivalrous, another person consuming the good has no effect on you. So out of spite you're going to go against your own best interest because you think it's better to punish other people than to purchase a good that you would purchase if you could just figure out how to exclude them from using it. That's valuing the suffering of others over your own well-being. Going back to how hard it is to figure out what people think is "good".....

This is a false assumption as well.

If people decide to not invest to clean energy/climate-neutrality/reducing waste, it might be fear of freeloading, but it can be billions of other reasons. But most reasons will have something in common.

And it is not fear of freeloading.

It is a list of priorities. When something is really important for people, they do it, they invest time and money into it.

If people don't invest their time nor money, it is in fact not important for them.

So why tax something that isn't important for people (because if it was important, they everybody would buy clean energy, would stop using plastic & other things)?

It wasn’t important for people in medieval cities to have a working sewer. Nobody would invest in such a thing. But the benefits are obvious.

It wasn’t clear to people that putting on a seatbelt saves their lives. Maybe, because there was no seatbelt in the first place.

What’s important to people is sometimes a matter of marketing.

What’s important to people requires that "the right stuff" is offered.

People want to save the environment, but also want to save money. Only way this can work is if products get the damage they cause taxed in. Because right now, the environmentally friendly products are more expensive. It should be the other way around.

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