| ▲ | SunshineTheCat 3 hours ago |
| > they pass laws to regulate things they have zero clue about While you are correct with this statement in this context, I would say it applies to most things in government in general. The vast majority of lawmakers have zero experience solving any real world problems and are content spending everyone else's money to play pretend at doing so. The reality is, most government "solutions" cause more problems than they solve, after which, they blame their predecessors for all the problems they caused and the cycle continues. |
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| ▲ | wredcoll 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| > The reality is, most government "solutions" cause more problems than they solve The "reality" is that propaganda heavily encourages you to ignore the government successes and only focus on the failures. I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to determine who benefits from that. |
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| ▲ | SunshineTheCat 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | > "government successes" Please, name for me one product or service that the US government has created, that people willingly buy, that has made your life tangibly better. I can list a billion made by businesses. Please, go for it. Just one. | | |
| ▲ | mbgerring 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | USPS Medicaid The National Park System I know that the next step is you explaining why these don’t count, or saying “wow only 3” or whatever, but | | |
| ▲ | palmotea an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | > I know that the next step is you explaining why these don’t count, or saying “wow only 3” or whatever, but Oh, there's more: Medicare, Social Security, the highway system. The whole food/medicine regulatory system is also a big one, and it's the reason a lot of US (and European) products like baby formula are imported into China, because they can be more trusted. My bet is the GP's going to weasel out using his "that people willingly buy" language. The flawed assumption there is the government should be conceptualized as just another company selling in the market, when the government's actual role is very different. | | |
| ▲ | SunshineTheCat an hour ago | parent [-] | | As with anything, they are all things that could be done better by a company. Airlines are a great example of this. They have changed very little in the last 30 years (again, thanks to all the government regulation and red tape). Smartphones, TVs, (and literally anything else not in the hands of the government) has also seen rapid improvements. Anything the government handles is always rife with overspending, inefficiency, and corruption. A company must maintain profitability to stay alive. The government on the other hand, is $38 TRILLION dollars in the red. Yes, the things that "people willingly buy" are the literal engine that makes all of this possible. It is not the reverse. | | |
| ▲ | cyberax 24 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Oh yeah. I feel sooooo good dealing with Comcast. At this point in life, I spent more time on the phone with Comcast support than I ever spent time in various DMV offices. > A company must maintain profitability to stay alive. Yeah. And once it becomes a monopoly (like Comcast), it can just keep raising prices. | | |
| ▲ | cucumber3732842 15 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Have you ever called the DMV? In my state it's worse than Comcast. 45min wait time when the lines open in the morning, only increasing from there. I "owe" Comcast $200. They say I didn't cancel at an old apartment. I say I did. I have the email. They insist. They've sent me a letter once a year for a decade. About 2yr in it went to collections. They're still trying. Imagine the consequences if I did that with government. Say nothing of the fact that if I tried to pay it, Comcast would be able to take my money no problem. The government would take a check, ACH or charge me $5 to use a buggy 3rd party CC processing service. |
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| ▲ | SunshineTheCat an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | Every single thing you just mentioned is insolvent. | | |
| ▲ | wredcoll 4 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Like, even if that was true, which super blatantly they are not, they are not intended to make a profit, they are intended to accomplish a goal. |
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| ▲ | hash872 an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | The proto-Internet. GPS. Nuclear energy. MRIs. Fracking. The Human Genome Project. Fiber optics. Optical data storage. Jet engines. Heck, the entire space industry. Lithium ion batteries. Radar. Night vision technology. Modern lower limb prosthetics. Just off the top of my head | | |
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| ▲ | ericb 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I see Massachusetts as sort of the non-insane liberal counterpoint to California. Things work here and nobody seems to be passing the "oops my unintended side effects and clueless regulations messed things up horribly." Or, if they do, it is at something like 1/10th the level. We didn't start warning label spam everywhere. We don't have weird propositions that are causing run-away housing prices. There aren't bar codes on our 3d printers, or cookie banner requirements on every website. Well, ok we do, but that nonsense all came in from other places. We did pass laws to lower PFAS/PFOAS. That seems reasonable. Government can work. |
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| ▲ | wredcoll 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > We don't have weird propositions that causing run-away housing prices. Most of those are a reaction rather than the cause. People want to move to california, it creates a different set of problems for california vs Massachusetts | |
| ▲ | cucumber3732842 7 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | MA legislature is too busy enriching themselves with back room dealing to f the state up too much. I wish I was joking. They get audited yet? Pretty sure that was a ballot measure that passed by a huge margin years back and last I checked they were stalling... | |
| ▲ | dlev_pika an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | I like MA, but you realize the challenges are vastly different, right? The sheer size, economic volume and cultural diversity of CA presents a pretty unique set of issues. | | |
| ▲ | ericb 42 minutes ago | parent [-] | | I mean, sure, but all those things I named don't seem to be scale induced? They seem to all stem from clueless regulation, which is as simple as not not signing silly laws? I'm missing where scale plays into the items I mentioned. |
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| ▲ | alistairSH 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| most government "solutions" cause more problems than they solve Zero basis in fact. We’re in the wealthiest nation on the planet. Most of us live better than any previous generation. To claim all that success is completely in spite of government is ridiculous. |
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| ▲ | Hammershaft 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| It's true, and yet there are real market failures that even a very ineffective government can improve on dramatically, like innovation & research output via basic science. |
