Comment by joe_the_user
9 days ago
What makes you think that what's cost effective (in terms of money, of course) for a given company involves optimally conserving resources?
The obvious counter-example is that polluting is very cost-effective in an unregulated environment there are others - such as this.
> What makes you think that what's cost effective...involves optimally conserving resources
The words "cost" and "effective "perhaps?
> Polluting
Pollution is an economic externality. If I buy a shift and throw it out unworn, I've wasted only my own resources. (I'm paying for the landfill of course.)
You could argue that my wasting that shirt hurt you because I could have instead spent those resources on productive activity that benefits you, and therefore I had a duty to keep it -- but that's just communism with extra steps.
Are you under the impression that the planet has effectively infinite carrying capacity and ability to support an "optimal market" indefinitely?
I am of the opinion that markets and prices, not EU regulators, should tell us where scarcity is. We're bad at optimizing manually for the same reason we're bad at guessing where program hotspots are. The market is a profiler.
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What if I dump toxic industrial waste in the river upstream of your house? I pay for access to the river. Does that hurt you?