[madsbuch]

Yep, let's wing serving 400 million sandwiches - whatever the risk that the US population dies of salmonella or listeria.

Anyways, one of the things about growing up is realizing that there is more to the world than just innovation.

[enriquec]

I think one of the things about growing up is accepting personal responsibility and not looking at the government/daddy to protect you from everything. If I sell 400 million skateboards - do we need a regulatory board to approve skateboard design changes?

I'm sure millions of people make unregulated sandwiches at home just fine.

[_Algernon_]

>I think one of the things about growing up is accepting personal responsibility and not looking at the government/daddy to protect you from everything. If I sell 400 million skateboards - do we need a regulatory board to approve skateboard design changes?

Yes, especially if your target market for those skateboard are kids / minors.

>I'm sure millions of people make unregulated sandwiches at home just fine.

If someone makes a sandwich for themselves incentives are aligned to prevent unhygienic practices. I'm not going to cut corners to maximize some different measure. If some restaurant produces food for me, they are incentivized to maximize profit margin, which is not directly aligned with my desire for non-dangerous food.

[jppittma]

What I hate about this argument is that the FDA does not predate civilization. In fact, it's a relatively recent development. Not only has this idea been tried, but throughout most of human history, people lived in the world you describe, died of salmonella, and the people who lived in that world decided they'd be better if that wasn't a thing anymore.

[madsbuch]

In the world predating didn't have single factories serving hundreds of millions of people - such a concentration of risk very much merits a FDA.

It is all about risk.

FDA enables civilization to grow above a certain threshold.

[danlivingston]

Yeah, making sure there's a standard of cleanliness or food safety in restaurants seems kind of pointless, right? If the consumer eats that food, it's their fault for sure.

[cylemons]

Well, even without regulations, restaurants that poison their customers will have bad reputation and go out of business.

So the market incentivizes cost cutting but not too much of it.

[rsoto2]

I mean, I didn't get poisoned my whole life! Let's get rid of all the regulations obviously they are useless.

[andruby]

> I'm sure millions of people make unregulated sandwiches at home just fine.

Very little about that sandwich is unregulated. The bread they bought in the store is regulated. Whatever they put on the sandwich is regulated.

Without the FDA, companies would put profits above food safety.

[baby_souffle]

> I think one of the things about growing up is accepting personal responsibility

What could I have done here to know that the sandwich is contaminated with salmonella before eating it?

[jppittma]

I can see a world where there's a private alternative to the FDA going around and certifying that food is safe for consumption. I just know that the world before the FDA didn't have one, and the FDA works well enough that I'm not willing to find out. I think this has a lot of parallels to software - if it ain't broke don't fix it.

[DrFalkyn]

And that organization would be bought off by Big Food quickly

[cylemons]

That is a really good point, what would be the business model of such an organization? Who funds them?

If it is the government, then that is just the FDA with extra steps

I could imagine food companies funding it to keep their competitors in check, don't know how likely that is in practice

Maybe there could be a way to make the consumer pay for the service. Provide a website where customers pay a fee, enter the name of the product/restaurant then get their safety levels. You could even include fancy graphs and charts to sweeten the deal. How to do that profitably I dont know.

[rsoto2]

Part of the thing about growing up is realizing that you are a PRIVELEGED little product of a stable society. And maybe it's worth caring about others in that society instead of "corporate innovation" that threatens to fully destabilize said society.

[enriquec]

You don't know anything about me. By the way, how many regulators/states have "fully destabilized" society through war and genocide?

[rsoto2]

Do you seriously think corporate "innovation" isn't involved in wars and genocide?

[CaptArmchair]

> personal responsibility

A sense of personal responsibility dilutes very quickly as more people get involved. This is a well researched dynamic in groups and collectives.

As it turns out, it's very easy to rationalize your own actions if you can defer your responsibility to a wider context. On an operational level: "My job - HR, SRE engineering, project management,... - didn't hurt anyone.", "I received an industry award last year for my work",... On a strategic level: "Too many people rely on us, so we can't fail.", "Our original mission didn't change.", "Our mission was, is and will be a net positive", ... Not just that, actually being convinced that those rationalizations are 100% true, and not being able to consciously notice how your own actions in a small, or large, way contribute to a negative impact. Just listen to testimonies of these people, the truly are convinced to their core that their work is a net positive for humanity.

> If I sell 400 million skateboards - do we need a regulatory board to approve skateboard design changes?

Suppose your design involves a wonky wheel. If you sell 10 skateboards, and 1 person falls, breaks their leg and decides to sue you for damages: that's a private problem between you and that person. If you sell 400 million skateboards, and millions of people people break their leg: that's a problem for the entirety of society.

Safety is also why car design is heavily regulated. Not necessarily to ensure individual safety, but to make sure that society, as a whole, isn't crippled by hundreds of thousands of people requiring care or getting killed in car accidents.

If you are able to sell 400 million skateboards, I sure hope there are regulations that enforce the safety of your product design.

[snozolli]

I'm sure millions of people make unregulated sandwiches at home just fine.

You're on the verge of uncovering the actual meaning of personal responsibility.

[meigwilym]

The market doesn't protect all those kids who were maimed or died trying out your regulation-free skateboard.

A basic level of safety might mean that your skateboards sell faster, now that parents don't have to risk the health of their offspring.

[sensanaty]

This is a nice fantasy, it's just a shame we live in a world full of psychotic C-suites that would do anything and everything they could if it meant the magic line goes up half a percentage point. I guess you could just "take personal responsibility" to not drink polluted water tainted by unfiltered chemical dumps, but I'd much rather we tell companies to get bent when they try pollute rivers and lakes en-masse to save a buck.

[madsbuch]

There is a concept I'd recommend you to get familiar with: Systemic risk.

Nobody really cares about you and your sandwich.

But whenever we introduce single point of risk into the society these needs to be managed.

Fair enough, you are personally responsible and don't eat the sandwich.

The rest of the US was not.

- at least you retain your right to claim "What did I say".

[insane_dreamer]

> do we need a regulatory board to ...

yes, because it's clear from history that companies can't be trusted to not cut corners to boost profits at the expense of consumer safety

[bugglebeetle]

What I always find hilarious about these naive libertarian types is they never even bother to check their hypotheticals against reality. For example, FutureMotion had to have a regulatory body intervene because they were killing and injuring people with their skateboard designs:

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2023/oct/03/future-motion-...

So the answer to your question is, “yes, that needs to and did happen.”

[rsoto2]

google survivorship bias