Originally Posted by
ian maybury
Just to be clear - I'm not unduly concerned about the issue, and for sure it's only a straw poll.
That said there's a gazillion things we get up to as societies that probably an even more powerful anti case can be made against on economic grounds - speculative banking activities, smoking, alcohol, sports, risky food additives, poor dietary habits, gambling with climate, biospheric and environmental risks to name but a few.
I doubt that politically the average Joe would be very happy to accept that level of false firings (for which he gets to pay) for the greater good.
There's also the little problem of moving goalposts - as discussed before when you dumb down things people proportionately drop their awareness to the level of risk they perceive as being personally acceptable. With the result that accident levels tend to remain constant.
Not to mention that rules tend by definition to target extreme behaviours at the expense of the majority that behave reasonably.
Add the fact that every time we run with rules that we tend to mobilise a whole slew of competing vested interests. Once implemented and staffed we've very definitely created a pro lobby that mostly doesn't care about the rights and the wrongs - and the lesson of successive societies is that reversal becomes almost impossible.
Worst of all this same self interest means that organisational systems in general never truly solve problems when a lack of care for self and others is at their root - the best they can hope for is to achieve some sort of temporary stasis.
Meaning that while it's tough to argue for the complete elimination of regulation it's dodgy territory needing a lot more care than the usual camel type solutions the dog fight tends to deliver...
ian