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Week Notes No. 42: Stray Thoughts

By Justin G. on 25FEB14FRI

Two stray thoughts this week.

Pathological externalities

Do all successful industries or businesses externalize all the costs that they can? Nascent industrialists might not even recognize these potential externalities in the early days. Responsibilities that can be shared upon society, ignored for a while even. Maybe no one will notice. I think they might even be forced to do this by financial regulations once they reach a certain size. Some examples: tobacco and cancers, chemical industries and water contamination, asbestos and cancer again. I’ll leave the biggest one of them all out for now. But we do benefit from these industries. Our lives are unquestionably better for many of them, maybe even all of them for a time. Legal drugs distributed nationwide. Better living through chemistry. Where would we be without teflon? Tell me where. And don’t forget about fireproof… things. So, these good things are part of a bargain. We as a society trade some future costs for improving our situation now. Who knows what the future will bring, how we’ll bear those costs. Is it worth it? When isn’t it worth it?

Piece of Paper

Is the Constitution of the United States just a piece of paper? I thought it was a inter-subjective reality that most of us agreed to so it became substantial. Must be that we lost quorum, belief fell below critical mass, enough of us stopped caring. Or someone is trying to convince us that it just doesn’t matter anymore. How’d we get here? Does it matter? They say you can’t keep stepping into the same state again and again. The body politic is in constant motion, but who’s steering?

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