Woodruff wrote:BigBallinStalin wrote:Woodruff wrote:Phatscotty wrote:
you can choose to grow it if you want it. There would be no need for that entire part of the drug issue to exist. It would slash the budget of many federal agencies, and reduce crime immensely. The gov't no longer has that part of the burden on their back, the people are happy, nobody is in prison for smoking a joint, and sales taxes will be generated from it. They will want to permit it, but that's a fight we will be ready for.
Now I just have to motivate a bunch of pot heads.
And when someone starts cutting the product with dangerous chemicals, that will be fine, because with no regulatory laws, there are no laws being broken. But nobody would ever do that, which is why nobody needs regulatory oversight. It's perfect!
Yeah, this is the Prisoner's Dilemma and you're assuming that the game isn't coordinated and that everyone is a stranger.
People through trial and error will identify and make known who are the good and bad producers (especially as the internet becomes more readily accessible and transferrable into more and more aspects of daily living). In such a model, one's reputation does matter; otherwise, you'll be sent to court and fined for such an injustice--OH, you're assuming that regulation and laws go hand in hand, but they don't have to.
And yet, even today WITH SOME REGULATION IN PLACE, what you are stating does take place and yet, "the corporation's reputation does not seem to matter very much. You see, that's the beauty of advertising and presenting misinformation. Which would be even more beautiful in a world where false advertising and misinformation weren't illegal. So I would have to conclude the faith that you and others seem to have in this model are quite and incomprehensibly naive. And knowing you, I don't really understand why that would be the case.
1) Reputation matters a lot. You're wrong. See below after #2.
2) Regulation regarding companies isn't enforced by governments
before it's noticed by individuals themselves, so why are overseeing agents really necessary? Can't this service be provided by private companies that certify certain products as safe (hint: they already do, but are limited by certain laws and regulations--can't have them cutting into the government's piece of the pie too much).
If a corporation's reputation doesn't matter so much, then why is marketing such a HUGE and INTEGRAL part of business? They're the external face of the company connected to the consumers. It's all about reputation and customer satisfaction to maintain a successful company--of course, there are exceptions, but they're arguable and minimal.
Hey, what happens when Company A is found to have sold ammonia in cigarettes? People stop purchasing those cigarettes, the company suffers, and has to change its ingredients, invest millions into a new marketing plan, or go bankrupt. Reputation matters. (Guess why ammonia was put into cigarettes? Because customers wanted that big 'ol "WHOOO!!" to their cigarettes. Are you starting to see where marketing can go wrong if they pay too much attention to a customer's wants?)
As far as regulation is concerned, no government agency really discovered this problem until people themselves started alerted their doctors and others about it. Regulation is only there to set some standard that the government can later compare a company's actions against and then fine them for doing some bad (also, it's to justify the necessity of government itself--to keep you safe because they're making sure you can sleep safely at night!)
Consider GM and the shitty cars they make. Over the years of them nodding to each other saying, YEAH people like our cars, that's why we're so succ---OH SHI!!! Sales dropped and kept dropping because people think their cars suck. Reputation matters.
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3) Let's discuss "false" advertising:
Really, it's called "puffery," or "seller's talk." It's allowed because it isn't fraudulent and it's opinion-based. Advertisements also have to follow by a very strict code--more so than you imagine (
http://www.bbb.org/us/code-of-advertising/). If you listen very carefully to commercials, you'll see what I'm talking about.
The kind of advertising that you're talking about ran rampant in the 1920s up to the 1950s and significantly decreased because the smart companies realized you when you raise customers' satisfactions immensely through lies, the customer becomes extremely dissatisfied when he actually realizes what he's purchased. I'm sure you understand the repercussions of this pattern.
What companies (successful) ones have been doing is this: "never deliver what you can't promise, and always deliver more than you promised."
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4) Regarding prisoner's dilemma, I've got a few questions for you:
What's the difference between a coordinating and non-coordinating?
What are the difference in results between allowing people to meet and talk with each before playing the game compared to preventing that factor?