Hacker News Reader

Comment by eigenvector | Hacker News Reader

A significant gap in culture between the United States and many other developed countries is the idea that there can ever be an "entirely you thing".

Even your own health and well-being is not entirely you. Whatever you do to yourself has ripple effects on society. You go without health insurance, but when you fall ill or die prematurely, who takes care of your dependants?

Or more to the point, you sign up for Griddy and turn off your main breaker because the price went too high, then your pipes freeze and damage neighbouring properties or even worse, you freeze to death or die from carbon monoxide poisoning.

No man is truly an island.

View on HN

No man is an island, but you need to draw the line somewhere. The consequences of all bad decisions can't be socialized.

Also worth pointing out that dying is still a "you" problem. Obviously I'd prefer it if people didn't die, but again, if you're actually dying the solution is to switch your power back on and only use it for essentials and take the hit. Debts can be paid off, and should be. Again, I was straight up without power for > 72hrs. I would've actually enjoyed the choice to pay an insane rate for some electricity rather than not having a choice at all.

A problem with this is most places have drawn the line in a much better place than you are describing.

Did other places have outages? Yeah. They also had more severe weather. With fewer deaths, it seems.

I think you're conflating two different things. You prevent situations like this from happening by ruggedizing the Texas Interconnection. That doesn't have anything to do with allowing people to pay wholesale rates for electricity and holding them to such when the prices fluctuate.

Sorta. As a thought experiment, consider a place that allowed all of their drivers to not have insurance. Specifically, it was setup as a place that advertised "come live here if you don't want to spend money with car insurance." That is, everyone living here does so making the personal choice that this is ok.

In the framing you have given, this should be fine. The amount of damage you have personally caused can easily be seen as a wholesale price.

My assertion is that either the cost of cars and driving would have to go up to actually price in the cost of failure. Cars would have to be seriously reworked such that they were much safer. Or you would find that insurance is a great idea.

To be clear, this isn't that far fetched. I live somewhere that lets me bike more. Unless I'm ignorant of some laws, I do not have to have insurance.

Dying isn’t a “you problem” when those dying aren’t adventurers.

I’m not talking about bleeding heart stuff. This is the same as like in Latin America where the poor are literally allowed to die. Guess what? They get guns, knives, whatever and kill in much higher numbers.

> This is the same as like in Latin America where the poor are literally allowed to die. Guess what? They get guns, knives, whatever and kill in much higher numbers.

Are you talking about zombies?

To the original point,there is a very strong culture gap. The US really is odd place for significant portion of the world. Your healthcare, gun love, political madness, etc and now this weird argument around electricity price responsibility. It's baffling really, almost looks uncivilized.

>Or more to the point, you sign up for Griddy and turn off your main breaker because the price went too high, then your pipes freeze and damage neighbouring properties or even worse, you freeze to death or die from carbon monoxide poisoning.

How would this happen? Everyone's breakers would be popping at the same time. This would cause a massive decrease in demand until the price crashes back to sustainable levels. People can then turn their breakers on and only use the electricity for essentials, like keeping your pipes warm and preventing you from freezing to death.

This assumes a rational population, which as we know, doesn’t exactly exist.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com