Hacker News Reader

Comment by kelseyfrog | Hacker News Reader

This conversation ultimately leads to "We cannot ban anything because someone people might eventually ban the wrong thing", so it's not terribly interesting. It is a garden path argument toward a discussion destination about negative liberties that ultimately rests on framing negative outcomes as, "Look at all this terrible outcomes, but at least we were free to do it." I'm not sure what's appealing about that. It's ok to say, "This is currently a bad thing, let's address it now." Anyone can come up with what-if scenarios that ultimately paralyze any action from being taking. This whether deliberate, or unintentional is a strategy for maintaining the status quo.

View on HN

This discussion seamlessly slided from "severely limited marketing" to "We cannot ban anything" in a 2 comment span.

I kinda feel this is the kind of escalation that also paralyses discourse when dealing with corporate behavior that affects society as a whole. We would really benefit a from "nudge"/"don't promote" approach to first limit impacts, without bringing all the ban and censorship drama in it as long as the option is not on the table.

No, we should not let a monopoly like the government banning stuff. If some groups believe this censorship better for them (or people they care for) they are free to do so, and if they are a large group a market solution will be offered to them.

It would take a lot for me to agree that market solutions optimize for just outcomes. Effecient outcomes, sure, but not just outcomes. And before Winston Churchill quotes get involved, no, absence of alternatives are not a valid justification for existence.

Yeah banning stuff is silly. I should be able to drive and practice medicine without a license, sell toxic baby formula, build houses with asbestos. The magic market will provide a solution for anyone who wants different. #Murica

PS we should ban the Wikipedia article on market failures though, can't have people reading that.

Banning by a monopoly dude. Maybe I trust a Canadian organization to regulate baby formulas better, a german one for diapers and no regulation for my hairdresser.

Yeah duh because those countries don't subscribe to brain dead free market absolutism.

A Canadian organization, not the Canadian monopoly.

"Not terribly interesting" often seems to me to mean that an argument is so direct and clear that there's really no reason to argue about it, i.e. one has already accepted as a principle that the argument must be dismissed in order to continue doing things that we deem necessary.

I don't think cigarette advertising is worse than either cigarette selling or cigarette smoking. Under the rubric of "this is currently a bad thing, lets address it now" there's actually no escaping a slippery slope.

And "We cannot ban anything because someone people might eventually ban the wrong thing" is a strawman. The people doing the banning will think it's the right thing.

It's just that a slippery slope can be constructed for any problem. The ability to universally construct a slippery slope results in absurd conclusions. Either no changes can be effected(a universal maintenance of the status quo), or slippery slopes are an invalid method at making conclusions. That's why they are categorically uninteresting.

I'll use this conversation as an example to demonstrate the absurdity. If you accept someone's argument on one topic then you may find yourself agreeing with other things they say including some terrible conclusions. Therefore, it's better to never accept anyone's argument. There are much better ways to discern whether to accept or reject an argument.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com