Comment by SunshineTheCat
1 day 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.
> 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.
> "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.
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
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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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Didn't gov funded science invent MRIs?
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.
> 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
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...
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.
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.
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.
Are you under the impression that the government created all that wealth?
Without nukes to keep away the Soviets I wouldn’t be wealthy
Not at all. But it enabled it. Or at worst didn’t prevent it.
Have you ever looked at a dollar bill in your life.
Who do you think printed it. Who signed the bill?
The US can just print money and receive goods in exchange of literal paper. Or just put an extra zero in a bank account and receive goods in exchange.
And if a certain yahoo decides they want in the money printing scheme...who do you think is going to send the goons with guns to prevent the government monopoly in creating literal wealth.
The government literally enforces capitalism with guns and bombs lol
Wealthiest nation? More like unwealthiest of all nations.
U. S. by far the largest current-account deficit (over $1.2 trillion).
U.S. has the largest goods trade deficit (over $1 trillion).
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.