[bananabreakfast]

You're actually proving yourself wrong here.

Regulation and regulation alone provided us with seatbelts and safety glass. Car companies even ran a massive lobbying and advertising campaign to convince America seatbelts weren't necessary with slogans calling drivers in car accidents "the nut behind the wheel" https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/nut-behind-wheel/

[enriquec]

No, Volvo gave us seatbelts and the Tucker gave us safety glass. 9 years after the free market created seatbelts, the government mandated it. Mandates have never and will never manifest technological/scientific advancements out of nowhere.

[nswest23]

> Mandates have never and will never manifest technological/scientific advancements out of nowhere.

I don't think that anyone is arguing that. I think the point is that the free market doesn't deliver these kind of safety features w/o the "incentive" of government mandates. Whether that is b/c the market doesn't demand those safety features in the absence of a mandate is another issue.