[WalterBright]

> possible alternatives

Asteroids, vulcanism are the usual culprits. There also could be cosmic ray bursts from exploding stars.

> the Oxygen Catastrophe

There seem to be many hypotheses about that:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxidation_Event

and it isn't clear to me there was a collapse, but a gradual replacement.

[ClumsyPilot]

"Asteroid and vulcanism are the usual culprits"

That is nature, thats my point - it is brutal and murderous.

If you don't want to die from them you don't rely on Darwinism and if you don't want economic collapse and famine every time a new strain of flue evolves you dont wait for 'muh free market' to save you.

[nickpp]

Nature is unpredictable and always changing. This is why any attempt at planning markets is destined to fail. And it has - the specter of famine was always-present during my life under communism.

Darwinism means adaptation. In markets, when people are free and allowed to keep their (majority of) gains, they will struggle to learn, change and adapt. Planners are neither motivated nor able to do either. They are the ones bringing the economic collapse. Look at the ham-fisted way they "avoided" last year's crash: not only we all paid a 9% tax, but we are now in a more fragile position than ever, dependent on a monetary policy we know is completely unsustainable at best.

[ClumsyPilot]

"Planners are neither motivated nor able to do either. They are the ones bringing the economic collapse."

Erm, no, its the briliant free market optimised supply chains that have failed and gave us this inflation.

The free-market has ensured that the entire continent of North America produced Zero medical masks in the first year of the pandemic because there is no meltblown production on the entire continent. There was zero stock because everyone is 'just in time manufacturing'

It is also free market that controls the velocity of money, and when people can't get the goods they need because they are all stuck on the other side of the olanet, they start outbudding each-other and yiu get inflation. Eve all central bankers stopped existing before this crisis, the inflation of consumer economy would be exactly the same

[nickpp]

There is no free market when it comes to producing and selling medical equipment in the US. I remember reading about a business able and willing to start mask production but choosing not to because of the onerous requirements and not being allowed to raise price to the required levels.

In other, less-regulated countries, KN95 masks where missing for just a brief period of time in March then they were readily available again for the rest of the pandemic, of course at a higher price reflecting the demand.

> briliant free market optimised supply chains that have failed and gave us this inflation

Such a statement is quite funny in the context of the FED printing a fifth of all USD supply just in 2020.

Even funnier is to comply about disrupted supply chains in the context of countless heavy restrictions imposed by... you know... governments.

[ClumsyPilot]

"In other, less-regulated countries, KN95 masks where missing for just a brief period of time"

"heavy restrictions imposed by... you know... governments."

I don't think we live on the same planet, UK government was trowing tens of billions at anyone who could supply masks, it took almost a year to fix supply while frontline doctors and nurses were dying. You could literally sell them masks that didn't actually work and they would take em.

I am not getting the feeling we are having reasonable discourse, it doesnt matter what happens, you always blame 'regulation', did regulation get millions of containers stuck in US, causing shortage of containers in China? Did regulation make it so you only have 2 ports that can unload giant container ships?

[nickpp]

I live on the planet Eastern Europe and we had all the KN95 masks we needed from sometime around May 2020. In June people were vacationing in Greece. Don't know about UK, but in US I know ppl were complaining about not even finding surgical masks (which don't even compare).

> Did regulation...

Well I am no expert in those specific cases and I agree that there may be other forces at work as well, but I am betting there are tons of regulations about opening and operating ports unloading ships and tons of politics like unions and local administration to appease. So I do not know if regulation did it, but it sure isn't free market's fault.

[WalterBright]

You might want to investigate the economic collapses caused by government run monetary systems. Like the Weimar Republic you mentioned - that collapse led to Nazism. Not a ringing endorsement for central banking, amirite?

BTW, are you enjoying the 9% haircut we all got in the last year courtesy of central banking?

[ClumsyPilot]

"Not a ringing endorsement for central banking, amirite?"

Which type of spherical cow free-market economy should i compare it too? No matter what system i pick, from medieval gold based systems to modern floating currency, someone goes "ThaTs NoT Real Free MaRKet!" It's like communism, not real life system was ever the real deal.

[WalterBright]

> Which type of spherical cow free-market economy should i compare it too?

The US system of free banking before 1914.

[confidantlake]

You can't, it is a religion.

[ClumsyPilot]

I really think it is, amits ironic because they are ideologically oppose communists but act in the same way. Horseshoe effect in real life!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_theory#:~:text=In%....

[WalterBright]

P.S. Evolution is not a stable system, and free markets aren't stable, either. Socialism promises stability, but history shows it's even less stable, as it is unresponsive to market changes.