I'm not claiming you are wrong, or that the person you responded to is wrong. As mentioned, that discussion does not change or solve our current problems so it's unprovable conspiracy theory for now. If you want to study a bit of that conspiracy Mark Dice's books do a decent job of it. "Illuminati Fact vs. Fiction" is interesting not just for the luciferian connecting conspiracy, but points at hundreds of other books that go back to the 1800s showing similar conspiracy discussions.
A few things on your points: 1. It does not take a large sect or group of people to want shitty conditions to get us shitty conditions. The state of politics in most places should make that apparent. 2. I personally don't know crap about the current teaching of luciferian cults. Reading some of the documents confiscated in the 1700s and assuming similarity to their teachings today, you can't compare them to what you know of Religions. 3. See item 2.
Corruption, as in caring only about oneself and fuck everyone else, is a natural instinct. Unethical behavior is fair game if you can get away with it. The animal world works almost exclusively on this principle. Why is it any wonder that people accept corruption as normal?
Humans have a learning potential that animals do not. If you buy into the bullshit that 'you are just an animal" then shame on you. I'm guessing that you have never or read some very critical Philosophy work, or never quite grasped the full meaning if you did. Spend some time studying the whole of Plato's "The Republic". No, reading the Wiki page does not count.
While I agree with your statements, I will point out that we have had a solution for a couple thousand years. Socrates' Allegory of the Artisan explains the problem and solution very well, and assigns the "Government of the People" as responsible to ensure that we don't see the crap we have today.
Simple question: How much money is too much money? The answer to that question from just about everyone today will be "no such thing". If there is no cap or control, you end up with people that hoard and gain control of everything while the rest of society gets buy on scraps.
Up until the 70s this was mostly controlled by taxes. Rich people paid between 80 and 90% in taxes. It still allowed wealth accumulation without the extreme monopolization we have today. Was that the best answer? I have not heard any alternatives only denial that it's beneficial, contrary to reality we saw with "Reaganomics".
I still can't believe that people buy into "Trickle Down Economics" after 3 decades of it being proven wrong (not that you believe it, but see how many do in responses).
Capitalism was designed and discussed as the economic form for this shiny new "Democratic Republic" form of Government. They have to go hand in hand, or you miss the whole point. The principles in Capitalism are very sound, just like the principles of a Democratic Republic are sound. Government is not the answer to the problems, but needs to be a regulating and enforcement body when things get out of hand. Adam Smith was pretty clear that for Capitalism to work, monopolies could not be allowed to be formed. Well, if that whole concept has not gone to hell in a hand basket because our corrupt Government is not doing their job.
So I agree that "Government" does not solve all problems, but some Government is needed to keep _any_ economy from going to the shitter. Too much, or a corrupt Government gets us to the shitter much faster, as the last 30 years of economic disparity charts easily show.
To the AC that follows, there is no magic bullet in a Government agency. Don't just listen to Adam Smith, but Milton Friedman who says the same things with a more modern twist.
There really was not a personal attack, I was pointing out what would be obvious if you were not guilty of what you claim I need to do. Put your energy into deeper thinking. I gave the examples, you refuse to attempt comprehension.
If what you stated was true, hundreds of millions of Catholics would have been involved in raping children and covering up the crimes. What is there, about a billion registered Catholics in the world? (Rough guess, I'm not going to waste time on digging up that stat for your ludicrous line of thinking.)
In reality, there were a hundred or so priests over a couple of decades engaged in the acts and probably a few hundred higher level clergy (bishop/cardinal/pope) that knew about the crimes and facilitated the cover ups. Meanwhile, the billion or so (roughly) Catholics had no idea so could not have learned from the example.
It's either you are wrong, or by your reasoning if you work in a company that has a criminal that you don't know about, you are going to be guilty of the the same crimes because you can learn by osmosis and don't actually have to see an example to learn from it. I believe you realize how stupid that would be, but would probably have difficulty putting your own bigotry in that example because, well, it's bigotry.
While an interesting line of conspiracy to study, it's also not relevant to the root cause. Remove the corruption and the problem is solved, argue about it being a luciferian conspiracy and you get nowhere.
Poor logic, glad to see you play the game certain people want you to play. You can only teach by example when people can see the example. In the case of Catholic priests raping children, it was actively hidden.
Depends. The majority of Slashdot? The majority of the World? The majority of the US? I have no confidence that the majority of Slashdot is atheist, but the mod system ensures that people rarely speak of Religion or creation. If you are talking about the majority of the population, the majority is Religious in one form or another.
Great point! Actually you mention something I forgot in my post, but the single subject per email kind of makes it mandatory. Everything you want to say should be in the first paragraph. Any extrapolations if they are needed can follow, but with 1 subject per email things tend to remain 1 paragraph
I know a lot of people are going to downvote the hell out of this, but it is a sad truth.
Did you forget what site you are on? This is Slashdot, any pro atheist comment gets +5 informative/insightful and anything discussing not just a Religion, but contemplation of a "Creator" gets you -234 Flamebait/Troll.
Wrong, the problem today is corruption and people accepting corruption as the normal. Our current shitty state of the union is not due to any Religion, it's due to corrupt people in power. The only thing mentioning Religion does is to show that religion is not above or beyond being corrupted.
Fact: The Catholic Church never taught people that pedophilia was correct, or good, or just. In fact they taught (and teach) their followers that it was bad, illegal, and that they would spend the rest of their lives in hell if they were to commit these acts. Meanwhile a bunch of corrupt leaders sat in a back room committing the crimes or covering up for those that did. That's not "Religion", that is "Corruption".
As long as you have biases and bigotry it's hard to see where the real problems are. While you bitch about "Religion A" being bad, the same corrupt fuckers are sitting behind a corrupted government, doing the same corrupt things. They laugh at how ignorant the masses are, and how easily they are fooled by bullshit propaganda.
"The Noble Lie" is not something that only "Good" can use, it's also something that corrupt evil people use.
Oh, and Bill Gates is corrupt lying fuck that I would not trust with my used toilet paper, let alone tell us what changes we need to make in the world or what sciences we should be studying.
I believe I'm older than the average/. person by at least a full generation:) My mistake on the assumed first message in addition to confusing you with the previous discussion. It was a good discussion.
I think you cover a some important aspects, but I do have a couple things to add.
Communications can not only be lacking, but contain too much information. I had a manager long ago that told me to use Word's grammar check and don't produce anything over an 8th grade reading level when communications were going to non-technical staff. He also told me to limit emails to one topic, even dealing with technical issues, so that people could not confuse issues. That has turned out to be very sage advice in my career, and I have since adapted my own style for technical emails where management is included. I add technical notes after my signature, and in the summary email I tell people to review "technical details" if they need or desire the technical details. That habit saves me writing two emails for everything, but does not confuse the non-technical people.
Something else I do with certain management types is to simply set a reminder to send out a periodic status update on large projects. If you have your head buried in your work, but nobody is aware of what you are doing, you are not seen as really working. A very simple status message helps people gain and keep confidence in your work ethics.
Lastly, periodically ask for assistance with small things. Even if you don't need the assistance, it lets people know you are there and working for a "team" as opposed to being the guy with the "Red Stapler".
I think we agree for the most part, but I'm not sure my point was very clear.
If marijuana, cocaine, and opium were legal everywhere would drug use increase? I think you state what studies show. Temporarily there may be an increase as people experiment. Society would not see more addiction because of legalization. A person may choose to go to the bar on Friday night and use a drug vs. using alcohol, but money and responsibility would keep most from using the drugs any differently than they use alcohol today.
If those things were legal, would we need to have designer drugs in society and how much "science" would there be in those designer drugs? I don't believe there would be much need to develop those things since much of the reason the designer drugs come out today is due to other drugs being prohibited. Designer drugs largely come from people trying to circumvent the current laws.
Looking at the rates of "regular" use of illegal drugs they tend to come from areas where people lack upward mobility in society. They are sold for money where legitimate jobs are lacking. Many urban areas see drug sales as their only way out of a crime ridden society, or the only way to gain any financial security in society. Legalization of drugs without any upward mobility would simply trade off illegal drugs for some other illegal activity needed to gain that same security and upward mobility.
The history of Opium and the Opium wars is no different in my opinion than we have currently with the "War on Drugs". Drugs are used to pacify a certain demographic with use, generate income for a few in that same demographic, makes police lots of money in busts which removes that money from that same demographic, gives people free labor with prisons, etc... A large part of the "war on drugs" relates to an economy that a few people benefit from while the majority pay into the system.
You completely ignore statements you don't like and pick apart irrelevant minutia and argue things that were never stated. I never once said anything about cars having air bags in 1963. I stated 1973 as GM had the option for several models for the 1974 production year, which would have started shipping in late 1973.
You made a couple statements that mixed seat belt and air-bag points, and a couple more that jumped around in dates. I wanted it to be clear that until the 70s there were no working air bags even in Mercedes and Volvo cars which were thought of as being safer than US cars. Seat belts were still not seen as truly safe then either. I based the air-bag time line paragraph mostly on this statement. There had been several cars prior to the 1970's that touted remarkable safety features. Guess what, no body bought them because styling was much more important than safety.
Nothing was ignored, I try to get points lined up and gain clarity where it's lacking.
I will say that I was defensive as the point you came into the discussion was where the other person claimed that the Government made the technology advance. I believe we agree on an opinion that that is not true. I agree with your point that adoption was increased due to regulation/law. I still don't know how much, nor do I think we could come to terms with how much would have happened naturally from public awareness campaigns vs. the adoption of laws. Sure, the laws made adoption happen faster but adoption would have happened in time without the laws for the majority.
Remember that the market pressure was not simply Ford or GM, or even a collusion of US automakers. The same is true for the advancements in technology, many of which came from foreign auto makers. I'm not sure the documentary you are talking about, but remember that early air bags killed many people. Also remember that US automakers were worried about costs because if the US Government forced them to include air-bags it would increase the manufacturing costs at a time when foreign competition was hurting their market share.
I'll give that regulations sped up people's adoption of the technology. I vehemently deny that the Government did anything that improved the technology or shortened development time. That was happening at Mercedes, BMW, Volvo, etc.. so the US had to compete.
Some things simply should not be produced, or studied beyond a certain point for that matter, because they harm society much more than they help society. If a guy develops a cure to heal you of an alcohol addition and provides you a nice fat dose of daily PCP have they helped, harmed, or have things stayed the same?
Historically drugs have been used by people in power as a method of control. Simply teaching people about that aspect is not enough to cure the abuse of substances, but it's a start. A lack of upward mobility in society ensures they are still used today.
Did you miss speak about the Brady bunch movies? I was talking about the TV series from the 70s. Do I think seat belt usage was greater in Detroit/Michigan than it was in CA? During those years maybe as CA during that time was not the Nanny state it has become, it was more rebellious and "tough" in the 70s. The Nanny state CA came when Silicon Valley exploded at the start of the.com bubble.
All that is besides the original point, though an interesting discussion. If your position is only that the government has helped increase usage I'll agree. How much vs. natural progression and ad campaigns? I don't believe there is a fair way to measure that. Various advertising agencies have done at least as much. Civil Lawsuits also played a huge role in car makers fixing what was broken.
Last point on the diversion, in the early 60s there were no working air bags. At least to the point where you would have been safer in a car with them. Early development would have killed people if the airbag worked at all. Natural progression however got us working products later. You can try to claim that Kobori's invention was it in 63 so we had them, but that was lacking the proper mechanism to detect a crash and inflate in time. The detection mechanism and inflate mechanisms came toward the end of the 60s. Given production cycles, it was not until the very early 70s that people started talking about air bags. Since seat belts were still being questioned people didn't trust the technology, they were not something people wanted. The stories about people killed by early air-bags didn't help either. We still lacked numerous other protections for a wide scale adoption, such as methods of disabling them for passengers that were more risk from death by air-bag than death by wreck.
How in the hell was I proven wrong when I wasn't even part of this discussion until my previous post?
You are correct, I was mistaken. Since the post is a bit older I assumed you were the person I had responded to previously. That said, if you read the dialogue your position is the same as theirs at least with the technology not being available without the Government, you just jump in pretty late in the conversation.
You were the one who stated that "most cars already had seat belts and most people used them" I'm telling you that most people did not use them.
As with your citation required for my comment about idiots being the minority I say the same. Perhaps in your area seat belts were not normal, but in Detroit where I was the majority wore them. The majority did, because we knew we were safer with. Call that portion a draw at 50/50 and it does not matter to the point I made and you denied: Which is that Seat Belts and Air-bags were already in existence and being improved prior to the laws.
Government mandates and regulations may have expedited some of the enhancements, but in the early 70s there was a whole lot of dialogue on how unsafe numerous safety belts were. That fact became a talking point and feature point for automotive companies. Maybe because I grew up in Detroit, I heard lots of stories about seat belts and safety. The same can be said with air-bags. The big 3 was trying to compete back then with foreign companies that had much safer vehicles. Since sales were just starting to decline against imports, it was a huge area of discussion.
Yes, and he was the exception. Since you seemed to miss that point.
He was the exception or the normal? As you mentioned with maybe where you lived in regards to public ad campaigns that was the normal and you only remember the exception. Wholly fuck, look at "The Brady Bunch" and see who drove without a seat and shoulder belt on. That was the "Family Normal" back then. Okay, maybe not in 1968 but in the 70s the majority of TV shows all had people wearing seat belts.
Last, I never said brakes were optional. I stated that automatic brakes used to be optional. It became more expensive for the factories to have so many options so they became standard. Same as transmissions. On some vehicles you can still get a standard transmission, but you normally have to pay extra for them. At least I did in my last 3 GM cars, and the 4th of the lot had no option for manual.
You just changed the argument from "Car makers didn't have safety gear" to "People didn't use the safety gear" simply because you proven wrong! As stated correctly, car makers _did_ have safety gear and it was being improved every year long before Government requirements.
Your next paragraph is backing that point. The safety existed, and improved. Your dad (by your story) used the equipment decades before any "click-it or ticket" laws existed.
As to the auto makers wanting to have people pay for air-bags, I agree with your point to an extent. However, you continue to present the argument as though air-bags didn't exist before Government regulation. That is factually incorrect!
To claim that without law the air-bags would not be included is speculation without historical merit. People that had families in the 70s wore seat belts because of public ad campaigns, not because of the laws passed decades later. As people's awareness of air-bags increased the demand was also increasing. If public demands increased all automakers would have included them, just like they did with seat belts. If it starts to cost more money to give people the option than it does to include the feature, it becomes standard. That same evolution happened with "Standard" vs. "Automatic" transmissions and brakes, and countless other technologies.
The point I would agree with is that the Government has tried to take the idiocy away from idiots. Whether that is truly good or not is a different question. The idiots are a minority of the population. For every one idiot that says "screw the gubbermint I ain't wearing a seat belt" there are at least 99 others that wear them because it makes them safer.
There will always be a black market underlying any economy, and I'm betting there will be an internet version of one going forward.
That statement is only true for as long as we allow prohibitions and remain an "ignorant" bunch of sheople. I think the hope long long ago was that humanity would be educated and included in their own societies. Both of those things have become laughable concepts to today's "elite" class.
That said, I too welcome Dread Pirate Roberts! If people can realize how asinine prohibition is, we have a chance to gain intellect discussing alternatives.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not claiming you are wrong, or that the person you responded to is wrong. As mentioned, that discussion does not change or solve our current problems so it's unprovable conspiracy theory for now. If you want to study a bit of that conspiracy Mark Dice's books do a decent job of it. "Illuminati Fact vs. Fiction" is interesting not just for the luciferian connecting conspiracy, but points at hundreds of other books that go back to the 1800s showing similar conspiracy discussions.
A few things on your points: 1. It does not take a large sect or group of people to want shitty conditions to get us shitty conditions. The state of politics in most places should make that apparent. 2. I personally don't know crap about the current teaching of luciferian cults. Reading some of the documents confiscated in the 1700s and assuming similarity to their teachings today, you can't compare them to what you know of Religions. 3. See item 2.
Corruption, as in caring only about oneself and fuck everyone else, is a natural instinct. Unethical behavior is fair game if you can get away with it. The animal world works almost exclusively on this principle. Why is it any wonder that people accept corruption as normal?
Humans have a learning potential that animals do not. If you buy into the bullshit that 'you are just an animal" then shame on you. I'm guessing that you have never or read some very critical Philosophy work, or never quite grasped the full meaning if you did. Spend some time studying the whole of Plato's "The Republic". No, reading the Wiki page does not count.
While I agree with your statements, I will point out that we have had a solution for a couple thousand years. Socrates' Allegory of the Artisan explains the problem and solution very well, and assigns the "Government of the People" as responsible to ensure that we don't see the crap we have today.
Simple question: How much money is too much money? The answer to that question from just about everyone today will be "no such thing". If there is no cap or control, you end up with people that hoard and gain control of everything while the rest of society gets buy on scraps.
Up until the 70s this was mostly controlled by taxes. Rich people paid between 80 and 90% in taxes. It still allowed wealth accumulation without the extreme monopolization we have today. Was that the best answer? I have not heard any alternatives only denial that it's beneficial, contrary to reality we saw with "Reaganomics".
I still can't believe that people buy into "Trickle Down Economics" after 3 decades of it being proven wrong (not that you believe it, but see how many do in responses).
Smart enough or crooked enough? There is a big difference, and a person can get rich either way.
Capitalism was designed and discussed as the economic form for this shiny new "Democratic Republic" form of Government. They have to go hand in hand, or you miss the whole point. The principles in Capitalism are very sound, just like the principles of a Democratic Republic are sound. Government is not the answer to the problems, but needs to be a regulating and enforcement body when things get out of hand. Adam Smith was pretty clear that for Capitalism to work, monopolies could not be allowed to be formed. Well, if that whole concept has not gone to hell in a hand basket because our corrupt Government is not doing their job.
So I agree that "Government" does not solve all problems, but some Government is needed to keep _any_ economy from going to the shitter. Too much, or a corrupt Government gets us to the shitter much faster, as the last 30 years of economic disparity charts easily show.
To the AC that follows, there is no magic bullet in a Government agency. Don't just listen to Adam Smith, but Milton Friedman who says the same things with a more modern twist.
There really was not a personal attack, I was pointing out what would be obvious if you were not guilty of what you claim I need to do. Put your energy into deeper thinking. I gave the examples, you refuse to attempt comprehension.
If what you stated was true, hundreds of millions of Catholics would have been involved in raping children and covering up the crimes. What is there, about a billion registered Catholics in the world? (Rough guess, I'm not going to waste time on digging up that stat for your ludicrous line of thinking.)
In reality, there were a hundred or so priests over a couple of decades engaged in the acts and probably a few hundred higher level clergy (bishop/cardinal/pope) that knew about the crimes and facilitated the cover ups. Meanwhile, the billion or so (roughly) Catholics had no idea so could not have learned from the example.
It's either you are wrong, or by your reasoning if you work in a company that has a criminal that you don't know about, you are going to be guilty of the the same crimes because you can learn by osmosis and don't actually have to see an example to learn from it. I believe you realize how stupid that would be, but would probably have difficulty putting your own bigotry in that example because, well, it's bigotry.
While an interesting line of conspiracy to study, it's also not relevant to the root cause. Remove the corruption and the problem is solved, argue about it being a luciferian conspiracy and you get nowhere.
So every member of a Church is a Priest? If that is not true, then your "Actually it does" is contradicted by your next statement.
Poor logic, glad to see you play the game certain people want you to play. You can only teach by example when people can see the example. In the case of Catholic priests raping children, it was actively hidden.
Depends. The majority of Slashdot? The majority of the World? The majority of the US? I have no confidence that the majority of Slashdot is atheist, but the mod system ensures that people rarely speak of Religion or creation. If you are talking about the majority of the population, the majority is Religious in one form or another.
Great point! Actually you mention something I forgot in my post, but the single subject per email kind of makes it mandatory. Everything you want to say should be in the first paragraph. Any extrapolations if they are needed can follow, but with 1 subject per email things tend to remain 1 paragraph
I know a lot of people are going to downvote the hell out of this, but it is a sad truth.
Did you forget what site you are on? This is Slashdot, any pro atheist comment gets +5 informative/insightful and anything discussing not just a Religion, but contemplation of a "Creator" gets you -234 Flamebait/Troll.
Wrong, the problem today is corruption and people accepting corruption as the normal. Our current shitty state of the union is not due to any Religion, it's due to corrupt people in power. The only thing mentioning Religion does is to show that religion is not above or beyond being corrupted.
Fact: The Catholic Church never taught people that pedophilia was correct, or good, or just. In fact they taught (and teach) their followers that it was bad, illegal, and that they would spend the rest of their lives in hell if they were to commit these acts. Meanwhile a bunch of corrupt leaders sat in a back room committing the crimes or covering up for those that did. That's not "Religion", that is "Corruption".
As long as you have biases and bigotry it's hard to see where the real problems are. While you bitch about "Religion A" being bad, the same corrupt fuckers are sitting behind a corrupted government, doing the same corrupt things. They laugh at how ignorant the masses are, and how easily they are fooled by bullshit propaganda.
"The Noble Lie" is not something that only "Good" can use, it's also something that corrupt evil people use.
Oh, and Bill Gates is corrupt lying fuck that I would not trust with my used toilet paper, let alone tell us what changes we need to make in the world or what sciences we should be studying.
I believe I'm older than the average /. person by at least a full generation :) My mistake on the assumed first message in addition to confusing you with the previous discussion. It was a good discussion.
Haha! It took me a second.
I think you cover a some important aspects, but I do have a couple things to add.
Communications can not only be lacking, but contain too much information. I had a manager long ago that told me to use Word's grammar check and don't produce anything over an 8th grade reading level when communications were going to non-technical staff. He also told me to limit emails to one topic, even dealing with technical issues, so that people could not confuse issues. That has turned out to be very sage advice in my career, and I have since adapted my own style for technical emails where management is included. I add technical notes after my signature, and in the summary email I tell people to review "technical details" if they need or desire the technical details. That habit saves me writing two emails for everything, but does not confuse the non-technical people.
Something else I do with certain management types is to simply set a reminder to send out a periodic status update on large projects. If you have your head buried in your work, but nobody is aware of what you are doing, you are not seen as really working. A very simple status message helps people gain and keep confidence in your work ethics.
Lastly, periodically ask for assistance with small things. Even if you don't need the assistance, it lets people know you are there and working for a "team" as opposed to being the guy with the "Red Stapler".
But then they referenced Excel as the other method. In other words "Google search Lyrics", dumped to CSV, then SORT->A.
I think we agree for the most part, but I'm not sure my point was very clear.
If marijuana, cocaine, and opium were legal everywhere would drug use increase? I think you state what studies show. Temporarily there may be an increase as people experiment. Society would not see more addiction because of legalization. A person may choose to go to the bar on Friday night and use a drug vs. using alcohol, but money and responsibility would keep most from using the drugs any differently than they use alcohol today.
If those things were legal, would we need to have designer drugs in society and how much "science" would there be in those designer drugs? I don't believe there would be much need to develop those things since much of the reason the designer drugs come out today is due to other drugs being prohibited. Designer drugs largely come from people trying to circumvent the current laws.
Looking at the rates of "regular" use of illegal drugs they tend to come from areas where people lack upward mobility in society. They are sold for money where legitimate jobs are lacking. Many urban areas see drug sales as their only way out of a crime ridden society, or the only way to gain any financial security in society. Legalization of drugs without any upward mobility would simply trade off illegal drugs for some other illegal activity needed to gain that same security and upward mobility.
The history of Opium and the Opium wars is no different in my opinion than we have currently with the "War on Drugs". Drugs are used to pacify a certain demographic with use, generate income for a few in that same demographic, makes police lots of money in busts which removes that money from that same demographic, gives people free labor with prisons, etc... A large part of the "war on drugs" relates to an economy that a few people benefit from while the majority pay into the system.
You completely ignore statements you don't like and pick apart irrelevant minutia and argue things that were never stated. I never once said anything about cars having air bags in 1963. I stated 1973 as GM had the option for several models for the 1974 production year, which would have started shipping in late 1973.
You made a couple statements that mixed seat belt and air-bag points, and a couple more that jumped around in dates. I wanted it to be clear that until the 70s there were no working air bags even in Mercedes and Volvo cars which were thought of as being safer than US cars. Seat belts were still not seen as truly safe then either. I based the air-bag time line paragraph mostly on this statement. There had been several cars prior to the 1970's that touted remarkable safety features. Guess what, no body bought them because styling was much more important than safety.
Nothing was ignored, I try to get points lined up and gain clarity where it's lacking.
I will say that I was defensive as the point you came into the discussion was where the other person claimed that the Government made the technology advance. I believe we agree on an opinion that that is not true. I agree with your point that adoption was increased due to regulation/law. I still don't know how much, nor do I think we could come to terms with how much would have happened naturally from public awareness campaigns vs. the adoption of laws. Sure, the laws made adoption happen faster but adoption would have happened in time without the laws for the majority.
Remember that the market pressure was not simply Ford or GM, or even a collusion of US automakers. The same is true for the advancements in technology, many of which came from foreign auto makers. I'm not sure the documentary you are talking about, but remember that early air bags killed many people. Also remember that US automakers were worried about costs because if the US Government forced them to include air-bags it would increase the manufacturing costs at a time when foreign competition was hurting their market share.
I'll give that regulations sped up people's adoption of the technology. I vehemently deny that the Government did anything that improved the technology or shortened development time. That was happening at Mercedes, BMW, Volvo, etc.. so the US had to compete.
What you said!
Some things simply should not be produced, or studied beyond a certain point for that matter, because they harm society much more than they help society. If a guy develops a cure to heal you of an alcohol addition and provides you a nice fat dose of daily PCP have they helped, harmed, or have things stayed the same?
Historically drugs have been used by people in power as a method of control. Simply teaching people about that aspect is not enough to cure the abuse of substances, but it's a start. A lack of upward mobility in society ensures they are still used today.
Did you miss speak about the Brady bunch movies? I was talking about the TV series from the 70s. Do I think seat belt usage was greater in Detroit/Michigan than it was in CA? During those years maybe as CA during that time was not the Nanny state it has become, it was more rebellious and "tough" in the 70s. The Nanny state CA came when Silicon Valley exploded at the start of the .com bubble.
All that is besides the original point, though an interesting discussion. If your position is only that the government has helped increase usage I'll agree. How much vs. natural progression and ad campaigns? I don't believe there is a fair way to measure that. Various advertising agencies have done at least as much. Civil Lawsuits also played a huge role in car makers fixing what was broken.
Last point on the diversion, in the early 60s there were no working air bags. At least to the point where you would have been safer in a car with them. Early development would have killed people if the airbag worked at all. Natural progression however got us working products later. You can try to claim that Kobori's invention was it in 63 so we had them, but that was lacking the proper mechanism to detect a crash and inflate in time. The detection mechanism and inflate mechanisms came toward the end of the 60s. Given production cycles, it was not until the very early 70s that people started talking about air bags. Since seat belts were still being questioned people didn't trust the technology, they were not something people wanted. The stories about people killed by early air-bags didn't help either. We still lacked numerous other protections for a wide scale adoption, such as methods of disabling them for passengers that were more risk from death by air-bag than death by wreck.
How in the hell was I proven wrong when I wasn't even part of this discussion until my previous post?
You are correct, I was mistaken. Since the post is a bit older I assumed you were the person I had responded to previously. That said, if you read the dialogue your position is the same as theirs at least with the technology not being available without the Government, you just jump in pretty late in the conversation.
You were the one who stated that "most cars already had seat belts and most people used them" I'm telling you that most people did not use them.
As with your citation required for my comment about idiots being the minority I say the same. Perhaps in your area seat belts were not normal, but in Detroit where I was the majority wore them. The majority did, because we knew we were safer with. Call that portion a draw at 50/50 and it does not matter to the point I made and you denied: Which is that Seat Belts and Air-bags were already in existence and being improved prior to the laws.
Government mandates and regulations may have expedited some of the enhancements, but in the early 70s there was a whole lot of dialogue on how unsafe numerous safety belts were. That fact became a talking point and feature point for automotive companies. Maybe because I grew up in Detroit, I heard lots of stories about seat belts and safety. The same can be said with air-bags. The big 3 was trying to compete back then with foreign companies that had much safer vehicles. Since sales were just starting to decline against imports, it was a huge area of discussion.
Yes, and he was the exception. Since you seemed to miss that point.
He was the exception or the normal? As you mentioned with maybe where you lived in regards to public ad campaigns that was the normal and you only remember the exception. Wholly fuck, look at "The Brady Bunch" and see who drove without a seat and shoulder belt on. That was the "Family Normal" back then. Okay, maybe not in 1968 but in the 70s the majority of TV shows all had people wearing seat belts.
Last, I never said brakes were optional. I stated that automatic brakes used to be optional. It became more expensive for the factories to have so many options so they became standard. Same as transmissions. On some vehicles you can still get a standard transmission, but you normally have to pay extra for them. At least I did in my last 3 GM cars, and the 4th of the lot had no option for manual.
You just changed the argument from "Car makers didn't have safety gear" to "People didn't use the safety gear" simply because you proven wrong! As stated correctly, car makers _did_ have safety gear and it was being improved every year long before Government requirements.
Your next paragraph is backing that point. The safety existed, and improved. Your dad (by your story) used the equipment decades before any "click-it or ticket" laws existed.
As to the auto makers wanting to have people pay for air-bags, I agree with your point to an extent. However, you continue to present the argument as though air-bags didn't exist before Government regulation. That is factually incorrect!
To claim that without law the air-bags would not be included is speculation without historical merit. People that had families in the 70s wore seat belts because of public ad campaigns, not because of the laws passed decades later. As people's awareness of air-bags increased the demand was also increasing. If public demands increased all automakers would have included them, just like they did with seat belts. If it starts to cost more money to give people the option than it does to include the feature, it becomes standard. That same evolution happened with "Standard" vs. "Automatic" transmissions and brakes, and countless other technologies.
The point I would agree with is that the Government has tried to take the idiocy away from idiots. Whether that is truly good or not is a different question. The idiots are a minority of the population. For every one idiot that says "screw the gubbermint I ain't wearing a seat belt" there are at least 99 others that wear them because it makes them safer.
There will always be a black market underlying any economy, and I'm betting there will be an internet version of one going forward.
That statement is only true for as long as we allow prohibitions and remain an "ignorant" bunch of sheople. I think the hope long long ago was that humanity would be educated and included in their own societies. Both of those things have become laughable concepts to today's "elite" class.
That said, I too welcome Dread Pirate Roberts! If people can realize how asinine prohibition is, we have a chance to gain intellect discussing alternatives.