Comment by anoplus | Hacker News Reader

Comment by anoplus | Hacker News Reader

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I would be interested to know what is the current trust level of the residents on the gov and EPA in the different states.

Not far from my living area a new gas rig started operating where the gov, contractor company and EPA (EPA of my country that is) argue the chemical emissions doesn't pose health risks (same for sea water pollution risk), while self-funded environmental organizations argue otherwise and show inconsistencies and omissions of real-time data in air monitoring stations. They compare the owners' claims with their assertions.

The interesting story is about trust crisis in the system. The public reached a point where they started crowd-funding independent air monitoring system to put pressure on EPA to "do its job" and enforce the standards. EPA already announced a nice mobile app showing monitored air data on the map to provide public sense of security. I hope the data is genuine.

There are more and more examples of crowd-funded projects as alternatives to governmental components expressing decline of public trust.

It seem to happen globally on many levels. Is it possible the crowd-funded organizations will one day replace the government?

Air-quality safety (among other things) is assured by the EPA, and it's done a lot to undermine that trust in the last couple of decades.

Electronics safety is assured by UL, a private company. To date, they've maintained the public's trust in their services.

If Consumer Reports publishes an exposé of UL taking kickbacks to certify substandard equipment, I'd become very interested in buying gear certified by a competitor.

With the EPA, I mean... I can't vote out the leadership of the EPA. I can very indirectly vote for a change there, and hope it happens, if that vote happens to align with my other interest, but there's no granularity, no way to hit them in their pocketbook, which I line once a year regardless of my feelings on the matter.

Now, there are some immediate differences between the two, which are obvious enough that I'm not going to bother elucidating them. But it's an instructive comparison. I'd say the UL model is underutilized.

> I'd become very interested in buying gear certified by a competitor.

UL’s main competitor is ETL. I can tell you that you very much should prefer products tested by UL. I work for a company that makes wire and it’s widely know inside our industry that ETL does nothing to ensure that products being sold with their mark are products they actually tested. There are lots of issues with UL’s enforcement of their mark, but ETL just doesn’t care at all.

Most people don't know what UL is or that they even exist. Of the few who do, many probably believe it's some government mandated thing.

Regardless, just because UL seems to be doing a decent job (I'm not really qualified to comment on that, just going on an assumption here), there have been other industry groups that were supposed to do the same thing and were basically utter failures. For example, the EnergyStar organization giving certification for a gasoline powered alarm clock[0].

[0] https://gizmodo.com/a-fake-gas-powered-alarm-clock-once-got-...

> Energy Star was started in 1992 by the EPA as a voluntary labeling program to encourage the consumption of more energy-efficient appliances.

Huh! TIL.

I find this comparison dead on arrival. Full stop.

UL, a private company, can only exist because they charge manufacturers of electronics for their certification.

No one is manufacturing the air we breathe (at least not yet...) so there is no revenue source for this kind of testing outside of public funding.

Your whole comment is a classic example of attempting to apply market forces to a problem that has no market.

I'll be blunt - Capitalism is a nifty trick for situations where there's a market and low barrier to entry. IT IS NOT A SILVER BULLET.

Air safety certification could be seen as a market, with the buyers being localities (towns, cities, city-states, counties, etc).

I don’t think the issue is so much “markets vs govt” as it is accountability vs impunity. The issue with single-payer, nationalized air protection is that there’s a single point of failure and there’s no reasonable means of individual dissent (pulling funding, voting with one’s feet, etc).

Of course this line of thinking leads to some very politically incorrect conclusions.

Taxes are the original crowd funding

Right, but I think modern crowd-funding is inherently designed for trust, otherwise people won't fund. Taxes are not an option for the payer - for a reason - but still I think its lacking on the trust element, which is fundamental to a functioning society. Maybe then the crowd-funded bodies are meant to keep an eye on the government to do its job.

Trust? How many crowd funded campaigns fail to deliver on their products? Even to their initial backers?

Yes, but at least people can choose whether to back or not.

I think a lot of crowd funding is for hucksters who abuse trust.

Yeah, they’re like a kickstarter campaign, except if you don’t support it they send guys with guns to your house to threaten you and take your stuff.

I don't think crowd-funded organizations will totally replace the government, I do think they will start taking action where the government has failed or enables the bad actors. I feel that there are plenty of business opportunities for companies that want to improve the world instead of destroying it. Your example is a great example.

I've been thinking a lot lately about starting a company that focuses on improving water quality, working with waste water treatment, and working on CO2. Going forward I think this problem will continue to get worse and there needs to be companies that are trying to solve these issues.

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