Interesting Links for 31-01-2018

[andrewducker]

UK mass digital surveillance regime ruled unlawful

(tags: surveillance GoodNews )

What does Hollywood's reverence for child rapist Roman Polanski tell us?

(tags: children Child_abuse rape movies RomanPolanski hollywood )

What's behind rich people pretending to be self-made?

(tags: psychology work money success )

Woebot is a therapy chatbot and app for depression and anxiety

(tags: automation counselling psychology mentalhealth )

Reporter covering school shooting learns suspect is her son

(tags: guns school reporting children )

A techie’s rough guide to GDPR

(tags: privacy technology Europe law viaFanf )

Autism, Labour and Birth

Beautifully written, and I really feel for her.
(tags: autism birth healthcare pain )

The ‘Black Panther’ premiere just put every other red carpet in Hollywood to shame

(tags: viaFJM clothing movies Hollywood marvel )

Bacteria in milk and beef linked to rheumatoid arthritis and Crohn's

(tags: disease immune_system )

Fujifilm to cut jobs as demand for photocopiers drops

(tags: technology paper )

Thousands of cash machines may be closed

(tags: cash technology UK money )

The Jaffer-Humphreys Test: A Bechdel for the Museum World

(tags: women museums art history )

Toronto cops eat cannabis on duty, freak out, call in reinforcements, climb tree

(tags: police marijuana fail canada )

Number of social housing properties in England drops 11% in one year

(tags: housing inequality UK OhForFucksSake )

Comments

[andrewducker]

I do find it frustrating that people (not you) think you either support free markets or you don't, rather than thinking that free markets can be a very useful tool in the box.

[danieldwilliam]

Aye, the converation can easily descend to a Market Good vs Market Bad position. Which is unhelpful. It also misses a problem that many of the problems with "the market" are problems with regulatory capture by oligopolist firms. Also, that there are different forms of competition outside of a strictly market structure.

Generally I favour free-ish markets for goods and services which have a short life-cycle, a more heavily regulated market for goods and services which have longer life-cycles and where defects are not readily apparant and some sort of collective ownership where the goods and services have profound knock-on effects, are natural monopolies and have long-term product life-cycles.

So, free markets for shoes, wine and air-travel, more regulated markets for advertising, pensions and pharmaceuticals and probably state control for the underpinnings of energy systems.

[andrewducker]

I think I view free markets as being good for supplying things to the middle and high ends of the market, where people are able to bargain relatively freely in an educated manner.

It's towards the lower end, where it's far too easy for one side to cut corners and not be held accountable for it, that we run into problems.

[danieldwilliam]

For "free markets" here I am implicitely assuming such general and ordinary regulations as might be considered uncontroversial in a well run market ranging from a common system of weights and measures through effective legal remedies for breach of contract, proper health and safety and product safety protocols and so on.

The idea of a perfectly free market outside of a context of a foundation of operating rules is, to my mind, unworkable.

But it does all get a bit murky and at the margins is probably a political decision - that we decide to exchange more or fewer people being ripped off for lower regulatory compliance costs, or a less regulated market for a more innovative one - sort of thing.