Comment by P5fRxh5kUvp2th

I'm not a fan of the whole "the market will deal with it" thing. Here's my analogy (I was talking about this as far back as the late 90's).

1. Assume global warming is happening.

2. Assume that global warming is going to start causing problems for humans.

Humans will start using technology to deal with these problems. And they'll be successful. This is going to have the harmful effect of making global warming worse before humans truly start trying to solve the root issue (because they can continue to live without being affected by it).

There are two lines here. Passing the first line starts affecting humans, and passing the second line ends in catastrophe (humans can no longer exist on earth).

In a well functioning system, as we pass the first line, humans will start taking notice and we will _naturally_ start trying to avoid the second line. The space between these two lines is our buffer.

As we use technology to keep the warming from affecting us, we will push the first line back while avoiding any true behavior changes that would ultimately keep us from the second line. This decreases our buffer and increases the danger. At some point the technology will either fail or completely remove the second line (one can imagine building a bubble around the earth ala space balls so we can very explicitly regulate the environment).

To use technology in this manner is to invite catastrophe and to gamble that technology will never fail us. It may, or it may not.

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This is how I feel about "the market". In theory, the market should naturally push towards an equilibrium and correct so as to avoid true disaster. Humans are involved, technology is involved, causing the market to be unnatural and affected by forces outside of that market. In the case of markets, catastrophe isn't the extinction of all human life, but it IS untold horrors. People are currently using technology to force the market to be what they want. This will break at some point.

This is why the market needs to be regulated, to control how much of an effect both humans and technology have on it. Not because the market will never self-correct, but because of the untold pain when it does.

And I understand the argument against it, this is not about controlling the market, it's about _PROTECTING_ the market from undue influence by those with more power than others. The alternative to too much regulation isn't "no regulation", it's "less regulation". Of course, you also have the classic problem of "who watches the watchers" and there's no good answer for solving THAT problem, but I don't think the right answer is "fuck it, just let it play out".