[verisimi]

You're right - but also wrong.

Governments built the roads - other solutions are conceivable. Tax payers paid once for the roads to be built, and are now paying for roads to made unusable for cars (lane restrictions, pedestrianisation, etc). That's a waste.

Did you know that electric cars were very popular 100 years ago - but because of the oil industry + government, they were quashed?

Government waves through unacceptable, unenvironmental behaviour by corporations. However, it does want the consumer who bought the fridges, to foot the bill! Consumers are ignorant of course of the unenvironmental impact of the products they were being sold - that's what government was ostensibly there for - all those agencies were meant to assure that we were getting decent products.

It hasn't worked as we thought - but it has worked out as corporations planned.

A bigger governance system is not the answer.

[lm28469]

> Did you know that electric cars were very popular 100 years ago - but because of the oil industry + government, they were quashed?

Er this is extremely simplistic. Electricity wasn't as common as now and battery tech was extremely shitty (requiring maintenance every few days, handling acids, &c.)

[nonrandomstring]

> > Did you know that electric cars were very popular 100 years ago - but because of the oil industry + government, they were quashed?

> Electricity wasn't as common as now and battery tech was extremely shitty (requiring maintenance every few days, handling acids, &c.)

When automobiles first appeared, gasoline was not as common as now and internal combustion technology was primitive, requiring almost constant maintenance, handling flammable liquids etc.

The modern IC automobile is unrecognisable from those of the Benz/Ford era. Had electrical vehicles been preferred for 100 years of government financial and policy support they'd be equal or superior to combustion technology, and vastly superior to Tesla and other EV's around now which are catching up on decades of lost development.

(but then neither of us have a time-machine to prove our post-facto fantasies about alternative histories)

[lm28469]

> When automobiles first appeared, gasoline was not as common as now and internal combustion technology was primitive, requiring almost constant maintenance, handling flammable liquids etc.

Yeah and one ended up easier to develop than the other. Even when we started producing proper batteries they were not good enough for cars (80s, 90s, 2000s), it took a few decade to get good engines, it took a century for proper batteries

[nonrandomstring]

> one ended up easier to develop than the other.

Because many hundreds of millions in research money went into doing so. Science and technology are not blind pursuits whereby we stumble across answers handed down by the gods. We progress according to our motivations.

This is the difference between so-called "technological determinism" which is an ignorant quasi-religious shrugging abdication of reason, and "science as agency", which is instrumental reason. It has it's down-sides, but the latter is infinitely preferable to the former, which, perhaps to labour the car-analogy painfully, is like taking your hands off the steering wheel.

[throwaway0a5e]

>Because many hundreds of millions in research money went into doing so.

Because that's where the progress was. They simply couldn't make progress on batteries at the time.

Making better engines is a question of manufacturing and metallurgy, stuff that is well within scope for the world as it existed 100yr ago. Making better batteries requires a much higher state of technological progress because you first need to understand chemistry at a much greater level and the fairly finicky chemistry involved has a lot of manufacturing progress as a prerequisite.

There's a reason we didn't get economically viable and high enough performance batteries for consumer electronics (say nothing of power tools and cars) until after we developed computer controlled industrial manufacturing processes.

Basically all the stuff you need to build good ICE cars you will need to develop on your way to developing good batteries. They built engines instead of batteries for the same reason the Romans built with stone instead of steel.

[nonrandomstring]

> Because that's where the progress was. They simply couldn't make progress on batteries at the time.

That's a descent into circular arguments and post-facto analysis.

The early twentieth century was a golden age of chemistry. We had the technology to do fractional distillation of petrochemicals and synthesise complex organics. To suppose that we could not have punched gigantic breakthroughs in ionic electro-chemistry is blinkered. Motor technology equally so. Sintering, rare-earth alloys, elaborate windings, and complex field analysis was well within the metallurgy and other technologies you describe, without computers.

But there can be no meaningful argument around it if you only hark back to "what was", instead of analysing the interplay between economic motives and progress. We're arguing at cross purposes if you're bringing up "facts" of history, and I'm talking about socio-economic dynamics.

And, more importantly, why?

So we can preserve a comfort that a 100 year journey into fossil fuels was not a colossal human mistake? Rationalising away the narrative that plausible alternative technological pathways existed achieves what exactly?

It's not like can change the past. So what is going on?

> There's a reason we didn't get economically viable and high enough performance batteries for consumer electronics

We didn't get anything. We didn't want them.

I appreciate this philosophy of technology stuff can be disorientating. It is scary stuff. Because if we admit that there are alternatives, that this is not a Panglossian universe and that we've made gigantic errors in the past, that opens up the terrifying possibility that we're making grave errors right now (which I believe we are). The myth of technology as a deterministically unfolding, monotonic mechanism is very comforting in that world.

[verisimi]

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

"In 1828, the Hungarian priest and physicist Ányos Jedlik invented an early type of electric motor, and created a small model car powered by his new motor."

1828!!

"Rechargeable batteries that provided a viable means for storing electricity on board a vehicle did not come into being until 1859, with the invention of the lead–acid battery by French physicist Gaston Planté.[17][18] Camille Alphonse Faure, another French scientist, significantly improved the design of the battery in 1881; his improvements greatly increased the capacity of such batteries and led directly to their manufacture on an industrial scale."

"Electric battery-powered taxis became available at the end of the 19th century."

"To overcome the limited operating range of electric vehicles, and the lack of recharging infrastructure, an exchangeable battery service was first proposed as early as 1896.[41] The concept was first put into practice by Hartford Electric Light Company through the GeVeCo battery service and initially available for electric trucks."

It was viable technology!

[lm28469]

> It was viable technology!

Both were viable, one was much more easily developed. We can talk viability all day long, sadly it's history and there isn't much to discuss.

Solar panels are also viable and cheap right now, yet we don't use them much. Something existing and working doesn't mean it scales as easily as the alternatives.

If electricity storage is still a problem in 2022 you can imagine that it would be extremely hard in 1922. You can store gas in a bucket if needs be

[calvano915]

The viability was not properly assessed in regards to externalities of the targeted tech. Climate change, security related to oil, etc was not properly priced in.

[ben_w]

I think everyone who had a vote in 1922 and thought “Climate change? That won’t affect me!” (and almost everyone who also said “or my children or grandchildren”) would have been correct.

What are we doing wrong today with that level of disregard for things that may affect our great-great-grandchildren, and why?

[newsclues]

ICE vehicles are and were extremely shitty as well.

[coderenegade]

Electric vehicles weren't quashed, they were outcompeted by a more capable product. And to be honest, that's still pretty much the case even a century later. BEVs still don't have the range or the towing capacity of conventional vehicles, and charging one is still nowhere near the power transfer of a standard petrol bowser. That's not to say they don't work for a large chunk of the population -- I think it's pretty clear that they can and do -- but petrol cars are ubiquitous because they're capable of tremendous up-time, in any environment, require relatively little maintenance, and they'll perform for hundreds of thousands of kilometers even on an ordinary maintenance schedule.

I mean, I'd like to see the world move away from fossil fuels as well, but acting like BEVs are somehow universally better than ICEVs without acknowledging the tremendous ability and success of regular cars, and the shortcomings of BEVs, doesn't really help the cause, because in certain regions, applications, and for certain individuals, BEVs really are the wrong choice. There needs to be more acknowledgement of this, and acceptance of the fact that maybe a one-size-fits-all solution won't be the future of automobile propulsion.

[axiomsEnd]

Ok, but how removing the goverment will change that we have massive industries? Small groups of consumers will held accounrable companies?

[verisimi]

You say remove - I say rollback.

The sentiment should be that we have less government - we should empower individuals, not monolithic state apparatus.

It would ideally be rolled back slowly, keeping a steady focus where governmental power is continuously eroded. However, I also think that things are so wildly out of kilter now, that it is far more likely that things could become even more tumultuous.

I even think the tumult is planned for - we are in a somewhat artificial and managed crisis - the co-ordinated global response to the virus, was calculate to devastate Western economies.

The plan - as I understand it - is for us to be brought to our knees so that we accept/want even global governance as an end to our suffering. At that point, when the deal is done, the crises will disappear as the global technocratic goals will have been achieved.

[748]

I understand your distrust towards "Big Corporations" aimed at maximizing profit.. But I wouldn't trust individuals with many things govmnts regulate. We may be talking in different contexts, but as it was mentioned above, almost all aspects need a governing body that has the overview of the general state of things in order to properly "reduce damage". Same thing with speed limits - some people claim there should be no speed limits at night. If assigned to individuals to decide on this, well, there will be no speed limits. I understand your frustration with dysfunctional govmnts, but it is important to remember that we live in a non-perfect world and most "individuals" are not trustworthy either. And if we have to chose between two evils - the govmnts and "individuals" - it is reasonable to chose the least evil, which is the govmnt. At least in present times, what will be in the future - I don't know. However I am in no way a politician or sociologist so I have no actual knowledge in this, I am just writing my opinion here and it is not my intention to change your mind.

[verisimi]

> And if we have to chose between two evils - the govmnts and "individuals" - it is reasonable to chose the least evil, which is the govmnt.

Although that may appear to be the choice it isn't in reality. If you believe that government is a real thing the answer is always more government. However, the reality is that you are an individual. Government is an idea we can believe, a means whereby the individual can pretend to hand over their personal authority, as a child does with its parents. In fact, as an adult, you are autonomous. You don't have to do what other entities tell you to do, unless you agree. Well, you might have to do it on account of the use of force (actual or implied), but if you think it is wrong it cannot become right. Implied use of force is what government does!

So, if some group writes a bunch or laws, and calls them 'the Law' and says it is 'good', and even appears to be subject themselves to it, if you think the law is wrong you do not have to follow it. You are in fact an individual, and only have to answer to yourself and your conscience.

'Government' has no interest in helping you become a fully fledged individual, hence we are all indoctrinated from day 0. They have us believing that the infrastructure they provide is good, the best we can do, etc - even if they couch it as 'government is a terrible system except for all the others'. Anarchy has such a bad name - why? Because it actively holds 'no leaders' as its central tenet.

Ultimately, we are individuals living in a moral world. We have been miseducated and misled into authorising others to do things on our behalf - this is government acting in a self-serving way, that ensures it gains ever increasing amount of power at individual's expense. And then I say the 'government acting in a self-serving way' I really mean those individuals that manage and benefit from the parasitic governance system.

Morality itself, comes down to the golden rule, which I think is best stated as:

Do not treat others in ways that you would not like to be treated.

This basically says, everything you want to do is fine - as long as you are not harming others. And it is fine to protect others who are being harmed.

For fun, here is a story that attempts to imagine an alternative reality:

https://www.corbettreport.com/mp3/andthentherewerenone.mp3

(Its great if you can get past the wierd narration, which I think works..)

[heavenlyblue]

> we should empower individuals

Does that mean that I now have to spend my time in the evening doing the "monolithic state apparatus'" job instead of going for a meal with my partner?

[nonrandomstring]

> Does that mean that I now have to spend my time in the evening doing the "monolithic state apparatus'" job instead of going for a meal with my partner?

Yes. Because we are all responsible. But guess what, you'd be sharing the job with 7 billion other people, so the total workload would be like 5 minutes on a Thursday morning every other month. Could you spare that?

Please read a book called "Leviathan" [1] by Thomas Hobbes and maybe a little of Jean Jacques Rousseau's "The Social Contract" [2] to balance it up.

The state is not your enemy, but also it is not your nanny, there to wipe your bottom and hold your feeding bottle because you "pay taxes".

There's plenty of time for dining out and being a responsible, participating citizen.

[1] https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3207/3207-h/3207-h.htm

[2] https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/46333

[heavenlyblue]

> Please read a book called "Leviathan" [1] by Thomas Hobbes and maybe a little of Jean Jacques Rousseau's "The Social Contract" [2] to balance it up.

The fact that you can bring up two books to support your opinion doesn't mean I agree with it. They are pretty much classics and anybody who was interested in philosophy would have already been familiar with it.

> Yes. Because we are all responsible. But guess what, you'd be sharing the job with 7 billion other people, so the total workload would be like 5 minutes on a Thursday morning every other month. Could you spare that?

You can't do serious politics spending 5 minutes on Thursday morning every other month. It takes me more time to plan my night commute back home on a Friday night.

[nonrandomstring]

> The fact that you can bring up two books to support your opinion doesn't mean I agree with it.

Of course. Besides, they are faulted books (and thinkers). It's not really my "opinion" I'm trying to get across so much as the "Western Ideal" (the thing we're all assumed to believe in and accept as a foundation of life). A pillar of that is shared responsibility through the proxy of the State.

Namely that the "State" is there to serve us because it is us. The ideas of a General Will, Social Contract etcetera are the reason we give legitimacy to parliaments, congress, politicians, local councils and even monarchs. They are servants.

Otherwise they're just "people in power to be fought". The only alternatives, understood since Aristotle, are undesirable forms of tyranny where armed revolution is the latent objective of all free men. The deal/contract is that we are also those servants ourselves )we share power and responsibility* to a proxy or figurehead in which we invest loyally/trust and some temporary decision making powers. That's the sense in which the state takes away the burden of daily politics, freeing us for work and living.

> You can't do serious politics spending 5 minutes on Thursday morning every other month.

Not literally. I was joking a little. That's a metaphor for the small effort required by all people to maintain a democratic government of the people.

If anything, internet communication has saddled us with the worry of global affairs and economics that the social contract was supposed to unburden us of. You spend far more time concerned with the affairs of monolithic governance than enjoying nice dinners out - just by reading the "news", and a give it much more mind than a peasant from 300 years ago ever would have.

Another problem is that people are told they have ever more responsibility (through markets) and are stripped of ever more power. Our governments shrug while we are helpless to change things.

In that sense the "Social Contract" is broken. In order to fix it we ought to to know at least what it is (because we've forgotten), hence I make the effort to explain that where I can.

[mort96]

Don't dodge the topic. Propose how leaded gasoline would have been phased out earlier if only governments didn't make them illegal. Answer the same question for HCFCs.

[fzeroracer]

Are you going to actually answer the question of how corporations would've phased out leaded gas versus the government declaring it illegal due to the harms it posed?

You can't address the rollback of government without addressing the corresponding power increase in corporations.

[hnbad]

Government bad! Here's an example of businesses using their power over the government to do bad things. Let's deregulate businesses further so they don't need to use the government to do bad things because they can do them themselves.

Did I miss anything?

[verisimi]

Not really - but I think its a message that bears repeating.

Most people have been through the governmental education process and have been taught that the government is the only fair/legal/possible answer to all our ills. That 10+ formative years of propaganda to counter. Even more if you go to university and licensed to do your job - you are now vested in an exploitative system, that initiates harm against others.

Understandably people will want to stick with the devil they know until a/ they have worked through the alternatives and b/ understood that the problems commonly blamed on people are actually the natural outcomes of government policies.

[hnbad]

You're making an excellent argument why centralised power is bad. You're not addressing how those same power dynamics won't be recreated with "smaller government" if large businesses are already so powerful they can influence governments. It sounds like you're arguing the problem isn't the amount of power being centralised but who gets to control it and your solution is to replace any semblance of equal democratic control with unevenly distributed capital. So in other words, feudalism with extra steps, but instead of the divine right of kings we have a supposed meritocracy built on generational wealth.

Now, I'm with you that representative systems are undemocratic and centralised power leads to corruption and is a bad idea. Where we apparently differ is that my answer would also dissolve corporations by eliminating the concept of private property and use the minimalist government structures to provide social services and infrastructure rather than to protect private property.

[verisimi]

One thing at a time! I don't even think that most people are even on board with the idea that big government might not be the answer to all of our problems - most people like the way government is acting!

Things that I think should be mandatory is a lot more freedom of information. I'm absolutely not a fan of gatekeepers of information (eg the media) nor of any policies to manage 'misinformation'. At the present we don't even know what we don't know..

Given government is purportedly working for us, surely it should be the case that the info that is collected and gathered should be freely available to all of us, that would be great start. Eg with the covid info, why is this not available in real time to us all? What information does the government use to base their decisions on?

I think it is a small and simple step to take (provide information immediately) so we can see wtf is even going on. Let's also stop this 'misinformation' mud slinging, but level ourselves up to try to make sense of whatever info there is.

Re the point about private property. I love the way indigenous American tribes did not even have that concept. But, if we were to implement that, all that would happen is that no one would care. I'm totally fine with people owning property that they use.

I would approach this problem differently. If I were king (and obv. I'm not!) I would make all ownership fully traceable back to the specific individuals. Because, in fact, individuals are all that matters! Corporations/Trusts/Offshore arrangement/etc are just bits of legal paper, concepts. If we knew who owned what, I suspect that this would illuminating. Again, this would be just an information gathering exercise. I'm sure there would be lots of issues with that! but again, in the first place, all I'd want to do is have the information.

In general, I'm most interested in a calculated rollback away from monolithic institutions towards the individual. The general direction of travel is entirely the opposite though - and accelerating!