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Comment by jceg | Hacker News Reader

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That works in a world where everyone has equal knowledge and ability all of the time. Unfortunately, when that is not the case, sometimes humans have been known to take advantage of others. Due to this, every society on earth has created rules against various types of these situations.

> That works in a world where everyone has equal knowledge and ability all of the time.

That ^ is mostly true today.

If you have access to Polymarket or Kalshi, you have internet access. If you have internet access, you have access to more public knowledge than any previous generation.

Whether you use the internet to educate yourself or to gamble should be your choice. But starting today, it is no longer your choice in Spain.

In 1997 that's the effect we thought the internet was going to have -- soon everyone would be smart and nobody would get scammed!

That didn't happen. The internet didn't solve disability, it didn't solve education, it didn't solve misinformation, didn't stop scams. In fact, it has made some of these things worse.

A robust and aggressive consumer protections bureau is a handy way for me to feel secure while doing basic economic operations, without having to handle a ton of one-off research on my own. For example I'm strongly in favor of medical licensure, it seems nuts to me to say like "if an adult consented to a surgery who's the state to quibble over whether the surgical tools were properly sterilized". Similarly gambling licenses seem like a reasonable regulation to ensure honest behavior in an industry with many avenues for corruption and double-dealing (or at least provide legal avenues for recompense in cases where the house deviates from the guidelines required by their licensure).

I agree with this.

Pretty shocking to see all the replies you got though. Over the last 10-20 years there seems to be a drastic increase of people who think government control is a good idea.

> Over the last 10-20 years there seems to be a drastic increase of people who think government control is a good idea.

I haven't noticed an increase - roughly half the country tends to be in favor of this at any given time. Perhaps you've just widened your circles a little?

100%. It's sad to see that this attitude has spread to HN

It could have something to do with the really bad evil and stupid ideas that people like Peter Thiel propagate with the immense wealth they've accumulated. If the Venn diagram of billionaire nerds and fascists were less of a circle you might have a point.

If Spain hadn't been blocking critical internet infrastructure whenever a LaLiga game is played you might have a point.

You do realize we are talking about Spain here. A place which is a case study in the staggering amount of damage too much government control can have. Both left and right wing governments over many decades have contributed to these problems. The thing in Spanish politics that the right and left have in common is a strong tendency towards authoritarianism.

PS If we are going to talk about Spain, calling Americans fascists doesn't really work. They have actual Fascists there and their government policies are far (far far far far far far far) closer to the blue team. Anyone with even a passing familiarity with Spanish politics would know that.

Yeah great idea! Let’s also just legalise recreational fentanyl while we’re at it

As long as it's safely overseen and accessible to be administered as well as having treatments on standby, it would actually be much safer and kill far fewer people than today.

Yes

You can see this idea in action right now if you search “usa drug zombies” or similar thing on the internet.

Drugs are very well known for being deregulated. How's the "War on Drugs" going?

Should there be taxes on alcohol and cigarettes? Should there be warnings on them? What about on heroin?

As someone that works large events on weekends, holy fuck alcohol should not be legal. Nearly every single problem we get is because of alcohol. Someone on heroin or weed or e is almost certainly less problematic.

Next time there is a fire at your house I will say "he's an adult who should have been careful playing with dangerous things like fire, we shouldnt waste society's money and resources on saving his house"

Sure! I can also be an adult, have fire detectors and insure my property against fires instead of hoping for the goodwill of the community or the government.

Fire insurance doesn't do anything for your house regarding it being on fire.

Fire departments are good for the community at large as well so the fire at your house doesn't become the fire at my house.

It's not goodwill though, I'm paying for public services like the fire department through my taxes. I like them to be owned by the government instead of a private entity because I don't want to pay the capitalist rent for borrowing their money; if we pool our resources we can cut out the middle-man and just fund it ourselves. Very typical human living arrangement I believe.

Just one thing: the government is a massive private entity and a middle man. The closest thing to the stated goal would be a contract between other insterested parties to pool resources for funding. The next one would be a local consumer co-op explicitly formed for that specific purpose.

Besides fire detectors you might also want some fire putter-outers as well. Oh, wait...

There are entirely practical reasons that "private decisions of adults" can worsen society as a whole. We need laws and we can debate about nudging that line back and forth, the answers aren't easy. But acting like there shouldn't be a line is nonsensical.

Acting like taking action doesn't have negative consequences is also nonsensical. There is a reason why we consider (Alcohol) Prohibition bad public policy. It was a complete disaster. Somehow those that wish to control others always forget this. These are literally the situations for which the phrase, "the cure is worse than the disease" was coined.

yeah, lets make a government to enforce that.

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