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Comment by jychang | Hacker News Reader

Market value != worth, unless you believe that market capitalism is the only way to determine worth

The value of those houses (as a place to live) is $0 to anyone who cares about not consuming PFAS, and thus should be $0 until the problem is fixed. I guess you can rent them out to people you don’t care about, which would make them worth >$0, but also clearly unethical.

In a society that’s functioning correctly, sane people would pass a law prohibiting consumption of water with PFAS; those houses would be declared uninhabitable, the same way a fire marshal now can declare a building uninhabitable as it violates a fire code.

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You don't have to drink the water where you live. Where I L live everyone drinks bottled water.

If that's a result of some organization contaminating the local water supply, then I'd call it "secondary damage" and vote billing said org for it.

Otherwise, you either live in an unusual location that makes any kind of water-related infrastructure projects very expensive - like, idk., a small settlement at a summit of a mountain, or in the middle of a desert - or something is very much broken about that place.

Doesn't mean there are no PFAs in the bottled water.

https://www.consumerreports.org/health/bottled-water/pfas-in...

No, true, but that's separate to the issue of PFAS in my drinking water making my house worthless. Presumably if there are PFAS is bottled water then everyone's water is contaminated as I'm not aware of anywhere people don't drink bottled water.

> bottled water

You do understand that that’s worse for you, right?

You're suggesting that bottled water is worse for me than non-drinking water from the tap? Billions of people in the world don't have access to clean drinking water. You're lucky if you do.

Yes but you still use tap water for cooking I presume. And it's used for agriculture. So you'd still end up ingesting PFAS if the water supply is contaminated, since it does not break down with heat.

I personally use bottled water for cooking. Agriculture mostly doesn't happen where my house is so is unrelated to the house price.

lol like there isn't PFAS in the plastic that houses that bottled water. esp. if it sat in the sun for a while, since plastics don't biodegrade they photodegrade.

Do you brush your teeth with bottled water? Do your kids?

Yes. In plenty of places people use bottled water even to brush their teeth.

bro I can't tell if you're being sarcastic but your answers make it seem like you're living in a contaminated hellhole and terrified of contact with the local water

it's not a good defense for indiscriminate contamination of water, if that's what you're trying for

I'm not defending anything. Just saying that drinkable tap water doesn't exist in many countries, bro. And many people don't even have taps.

> Market value != worth, unless you believe that market capitalism is the only way to determine worth

When someone sells their house, the price is an agreed upon valuation by buyer and seller. It’s probably the closest to true value we’ll ever get.

How do you propose to value better?

If they are selling for more than $0, then someone values them.

… I already proposed a better system. Let the government adjust market values via passing laws as needed.

Obviously humans aren’t rational actors, so assuming as much would be dumb to use as the basis of an economic system. People generally are shortsighted- they build on flood plains, for example, or use toxic building materials that cause damage long term (ex: asbestos), or whatever.

Nor should humans be expected to be rational actors. (!) You shouldn’t need a PhD in biochemistry in order to evaluate water quality impact to health, in order to buy a home. If we require people like software engineers to be full blown doctors just to rationally evaluate a place to live, we have failed as a society.

Allowing the government to declare homes uninhabitable is clearly better than a pure market based system.

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