Comment by AnthonyMouse | Hacker News Reader

Comment by AnthonyMouse | Hacker News Reader

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> No, if that was my position, you would've found out by me saying that was my position.

That was the contrary to the thing you were originally incredulous about.

> Why would they have such an incentive?

Why would members of the government have a structural incentive to pass laws at the behest of special interests? Because they get money for it.

> It really isn't. Its expensive to test cars, and its also necessary for safety.

If it's worth more to the public than it costs then the public should pay for it. If it isn't worth more than it costs then it shouldn't be done. Why would either of these be a problem?

> Yes, which get codified as regulation.

If the bank takes your money and loses it at the casino, they're going to be in trouble, and they're supposed to be in trouble.

If the bank takes your money and it's all still in the vault and was never at any risk, but the government wants to punish them for letting you open an account in the name of your dog, or for not filing enough suspicious activity reports even if it requires filing them against innocent people, the government is wrong and the bank should not be in trouble for that.

> Again, if my argument was something you would find out.

Apparently I wouldn't, because there are only three options and you're not revealing which one you believe. Is it:

a) an unfunded mandate

b) not mandated

c) the government is funding it

That is the entire solution space, it has to be at least one of those, so which one is your position?

> That was the contrary to the thing you were originally incredulous about

Indeed, and not everything or everybody in the world consists of completely contrarian opposite opinions :-)

> Why would members of the government have a structural incentive to pass laws at the behest of special interests? Because they get money for it.

Not in a functioning democratic government, i.e most of them.

> If it's worth more to the public than it costs then the public should pay for it.

I think you should write a 10 page book that solves all the worlds problem by just taking surface-level obvious directions on big nuanced topics, I'm sure it will be transformational.

> and they're supposed to be in trouble.

Again simplified, the bank doesn't do this. It does things similar to it, how similar is too similar? That's what regulation tells you.

> because there are only three options

Again, no there aren't. I understand that you feel this way, but things can differ on a case by case basis without being hypocritical. The world is complex, unique circumstances require unique responses. Overly unique responses create bureaucracy and overhead and edge cases. Neither is ideal. Walk the line, balance it out, that's governments' job. Do they always succeed? No. Can the problem be solved by a two paragraph simplified solution on an online board? Also no.

Needlessly polarizing every topic into dogmatic rules is exactly the thing you are accusing governments of, and are yourself now doing. Reality is harder than mathematical or rhetorical logic, because of ethics, because of complex interacting systems, because people don't act rationally, because people don't act in their own interest etc etc etc.

There are plenty of governments that use tools to overstep their bounds, yours included, those same governments are also using tools to protect people from harm. Both tools are the same tools.

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