Great Moments in Unintended Consequences: Fossils, Price Controls, Traffic Lights (Vol. 17)
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- Опубліковано 15 вер 2024
- Good intentions, bad results.
Watch the whole series: • Great Moments in Unint...
Do you know a great moment in unintended consequences? Leave a comment or email us at comedy@reason.com.
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Part One: Beef Grief
The Year: 1946
The Problem: The price of beef is skyrocketing! And voters are angry! And it's an election year!
The Solution: Reinstitute federal war-time price controls.
Sounds like a great idea, with the best of intentions. What could possibly go wrong?
Turns out, artificially low prices are harder to swallow when you're the one selling. Angry farmers, unwilling to sell their meat at government-mandated prices, refused to bring their cattle to market. Meat production plummeted. Now everyone was angry. Miners went on strike. Butchers closed. Hospitals complained they'd have to serve horse meat. With voters up in arms and an election weeks away, President Harry Truman lifted the restrictions. But not soon enough: in what's been called "The Beefsteak Election," Democrats were slaughtered at the polls, losing Congress for the first time in 16 years.
But at least that meat shortage was cured.
Part Two: Reaching New Lights
The Year: 2010-ish
The Problem: Traffic lights in Japan use up too much energy!
The Solution: Replace the incandescent bulbs with energy efficient LEDs that last longer and cost less to operate!
Sounds like a great idea, with the best of intentions. What could possibly go wrong?
Turns out, it gets cold! And since LED bulbs don't radiate enough heat to melt snow and ice, the signals became obscured, resulting in numerous traffic accidents and workers being sent out to clean the signals with brooms. And it wasn't just Japan-in Green Bay, maintenance crews in bucket lifts scraped their new lights by hand, St. Paul used air compressors, and Newark even employed Super Soakers filled with anti-freeze.
Various solutions are in the works, but until they get it all figured out just treat it like a four-way stop, OK? That's snow joke.
Part Three: Keeping Up With The Boneses
The Year: 1937
The Problem: Finding early human fossils is hard, especially in Indonesia!
The Solution: Pay locals for every fragment they can find!
Sounds like a great idea, with the best of intentions. What could possibly go wrong?
Turns out, it worked like a charm! Paleontologist and Awesome Name Club member Gustav Heinrich Ralph von Koenigswald was delighted to find that enterprising locals were bringing him useful fossils. Even better, the small fragments fit together to create a virtually complete hominid skull. They fit together so well, in fact, that he realized the helpful locals "were breaking up the larger pieces behind my back, in order to get a bigger bonus."
That's one way to get ahead.
Do you know a great moment in unintended consequences? Email us at comedy@reason.com.
On that last one I legit thought you were going to tell me they were killing people and bringing in their bones for money
I assumed they'd be grave robbers.
Yeah, that one could have gone worse.
Op exactly same.
@@steprockmedia That's exactly what I was thinking.
I was thinking same as OP
On a fishing trip in Canada, my father paid the grandkids for every mosquito they killed in the cabin. One enterprising grandkid held the door open, so that more mosquitoes could come in.
That kid is going places.
When you subsidize something, you get more of it.
The law of unintended consequences is undefeated.
How unintended!
Remember the VPs first act will be price controls 😅. Oh and seizing drug patents. So you’ll have a new video for that
@@dearthditchIf Harris wins, then for the next four years they will need to put out a new "Unintended Consequences" video every week to keep up!
@@jeremykraenzlein5975Every week? More like every hour.
The lesson of the video, only stupid people run for government
Mad how people keep trying to insist price fixing will work despite never having worked in human history.
That's the best thing about never studying history.
Everything is brand new and nothing is ever your fault.
It's just that it hasn't been done properly in the past. Now as a recent college grad, I know exactly how to solve the issue. Trust me.
@@doughaugYes! I learned all about that stuff too in my gender studies curriculum! 😊
@@doughaugOkay, enlighten us.
@@tammyrawdon3587 I'm sorry, I was in my sarcasm class when you posted. What is it you wanted to know?
California Bans plastic straws. So paper straws are introduced - wrapped in plastic.
California Bans plastic disposable grocery bags. Reusable non plastic bags aren't getting cleaned and cause disease. Introduced reusable plastic bags are being used like the old plastic bags, but are 3 times the amount of plastic causing more plastic pollution.
But at least with paper straws they barely work and taste terrible.
And our starbucks cups were also affected. They look like something you'd give to a toddler.
You forget the purpose for all these environmental regulations is not to improve the environment, but to give useless people jobs and to make other people feel good about themselves.
@@XlPackratlX They look like something you'd give a toddler *and* now that cup and lid alone use more plastic than the old cup, lid, and straw used to.
New bill just passed to outlaw plastic bags and replace with paper. Paper which is a lot heavier per bag, takes a lot more fuel to transport, removing any petroleum savings.
On the LED traffic lights: Technology Connections has a good video on this. First, they're just better in areas where it never snows. However, for areas where it does snow, you can get LED traffic lights with built in heating elements. Now I know what you're thinking, "that sounds dumb, why not just use incandescents?" LED lights with built in heating elements still use less power than incandescent bulbs, since if it only snows in your location say, 4 months out of the year, that means that heating element is off most of the time. But yes, they really should have thought of that before they started this project.
Technology Connections is a gem of a channel
It's a great video and a great point: LEDs are superior in almost every way, and one inferiority should not trump everything. But everyone did a poor job of recognizing potential pitfalls.
Yeah this is more of an engineering problem than unintended government consequences.
@@username7763 Sometimes you have cases where politicians think they know better than engineers, and that can be very frustrating. I'm not sure how many of these cases were that happening.
I feel like an engineer brought this up at some point. But was likely overruled. This oddly enough is how the Japanese lost the battle of midway.
For the bone fragments, they could have paid by weight. That way, the locals would still be motivated to FIND as many bone fragments as possible, but they wouldn't have any reason to BREAK pieces, since it wouldn't increase their payout.
so, soak the bones in one of several chemicals first, allow it to penetrate into the bone's hollow cavities and cell structures, let it set and hardened. doubled the weight. But now any chemical and radiological tests done on it will produce unreliable results.
I was so afraid they had been digging up a graveyard or killing people outright or something. Maybe specify "by weight for *old* bones."
I remember a similar story where someone trained dolphins to pick up trash in a pool, for fish. One dolphin kept bringing up strips of paper. They sent a diver down. There was a paper bag stuck in a drain, and the dolphin was tearing off strips for more treats.
@@EGRJ I am sure that since the paper bag was stuck, the dolphin wasn't doing it on purpose. Wet paper tears very easily.
"Don't worry guys. Price fixing will work THIS time, we promise!"
That's exactly how communists and socialists think. "It just hasn't been implemented correctly, yet..."
Best series on UA-cam
A friend of mine is a waterfowl hunter and tells me that non-toxic birdshot (i.e.: lead free) is mandated by law for shooting waterfowl. The choices he has for shot material are either tungsten/bismuth (very expensive) or steel (lower energy on target, due to steel's lighter weight compared to lead). Most waterfowl hunters buy the steel, due to its lower cost and this results in more wounded birds (many of which fly away and die from their wounds eventually) than would be the case with traditional lead shot. Also, this friend tells me that it's perfectly legal to shoot lead shot in the area where it's banned for waterfowl hunting as long as the shot isn't being fired at waterfowl. You can even hunt other birds and small game that aren't waterfowl with lead shot in the exact same spot.
"Officer, I swear there was a pidgeon standing right next to it. I'm just a terrible shot."
this needs the spotlight
I'm curious -- even if steel is cheaper, isn't it more cost-effective to have your shot actually bring you meat, as opposed to a duck just flying away?
@@DuncanWooten "Very well, I'm not gonna hand you a ticket, but I will have to confiscate your hunting license."
@@stevenscott2136 Being less dense, it flies shorter distances and hits weaker. Lowers the kill ratio.
MOST important but not mentioned here is steel shot fucks up shotgun barrels! Lead is soft, steel is hard. Lead shot won't wear out a shotgun barrel, steel will.
With all the criminals in the government, it's amazing they don't think about how criminals will manipulate the laws.
All concentrations of power are honeypots for the worst people in society.
They don't care. They know how they personally will benefit from the scheme, and that's all that matters.
@@stevenscott2136, how are they personally benefitting from that fossil thing?
The government runs background checks to ensure that it hires inexperienced criminals exclusively.
They're not criminals they're lawyers. Oh wait. Never mind.
I am always surprised people think price controls will somehow work. We have multiple countries trying them in multiple different ways and it always ends horribly. Yet, whenever something becomes expensive, the knee jerk reaction is always implement price controls. "Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard." -- H. L. Mencken.
In the majority of cases, I agree with you. However, there are a few exceptions. For examples:
- After a disaster, there may be price controls to prevent price gouging.
- In a situation of monopoly, it is justified to force the corporation to justify the price increases.
@@ghyslainabel
-rather make price gouging illegal instead of fixing the exact prices.
-monopolies have never happened before in history without it being enforced by the government.
@@PappaTom-ub3ht what about Standard Oil?
@@convopit What about it...
For starter it would never have existed were it not for government regulations which hindered natural growth of competing oil companies.
Instead of growing large and compete they were incentivezed to join together into a massiv trust.
and secondly, they never reached a monopoly. even in their top product they just hit 90% for a few years.
Several years before the antitrust laws broke it up they only controlled 60-70% of the market share of thier narrow product.
so if that is the best example it more helps me prove my point.
Have you seen Kamala Harris's TV ads? She will "control" grocery prices! A vote for her is a vote for failure!
“I don’t understand the conclusions of my own beliefs. Therefore, I am exempt from its consequences.”
This series should be shown in every civics classroom in the country.
The Hyperinflation in Zimbabwe, they thought printing more money would fix the inflation after they did certain stuff that caused it in the first place.
Didn't that happen in Venezuela with Hugo Chavez?
It also happened in Hungary, there were septillion (24 zeros) notes as a result.
Literally every government does that repeatedly
From breabasket of Africa to hyperinflation with one neat trick!
My first thought is that this can't be real.
On the other hand a government that caused hyperinflation in the first place would like to print money and fire all the experts who don't say it would solve all problems.
Unintended consequence: every time you put out one of these videos, my productivity plummets. Keep'em coming!
WAIT, Didn't Kamala just say she wanted to put a "price cap" on rentals, and home prices? I WONDER HOW THAT WILL GO?!
I was thinking she also said something about price caps on food as well. But don't worry, she has the BEST of intentions. I'm sure nothing will go wrong. :(
@@tracyhurst4393 Yup, she said she's going to put an end to price gauging, as opposed to price gouging. That's all well and good, except there is no price gouging, farmers are barely making a profit as it is, and the high prices are due entirely to Bidenomics. Previously, farmers were actually making more despite people paying less; that was a win-win situation.
Dunno, I'm sure it will be fine. It's not like we can look to any previous examples where government tried to "make housing affordable" for those who wouldn't qualify for a loan :/
@@akirak1871 you have been lied to, to cover up corruption. Loans for poor people did not cause the recession. That was a case of corruption allowing the evaluation of home values to climb for long after they should have slowed and fallen, but people were making crazy money building houses, flipping houses, making commissions on loans and sales, etc.. The people who let that happen suffered nothing, in spite of all of the regulations against it, and a lot of the reason they got away with it, was blaming it on poor people. You fell for it, just like millions of other people. it was the same kind of crap like what happens when cops are caught beating and killing someone, and the people in charge, who have been encouraging and allowing them to do it for years, claim "we needed more training". No, they needed to fire the people in charge, and charge them with the many assaults and murders they caused, but that will not happen, just like the people who caused the recession will never suffer for what they did.
@@Direkin the executives of grocery chains were bragging on conference calls that they used the pretext of inflation to increase even more their prices. In the last few years, their profit margins increased a lot.
Excessive taxation, spending, printing and borrowing has the fully intended consequence of ruining the economy.
The first article was timely, considering Kamala is talking about price fixing in this election. It will lead to empty shelves in the stores, not just beef, but everything!
It may be intended in some cases, but I like to assume not in most cases. It is best when people give each other the benefit of the doubt, and follow the old advice to never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence.
Who cares about the economy?
It’s like Trump when he said the DOW went “crashing through 30,000” (which it has since done multiple times in both directions) and redneck yokels were cheering it on.
But unless your holdings are significant and all in indexed funds or component companies (like Trump should have done with his inheritance-he be a lot richer now if he had) it’s meaningless.
The company you work for has a stock, and its price reflects a whole pile of things like assets vs liabilities, cashflow, profits, dividends, innovations, etc-basically investor confidence in the company.
Let’s say the company simultaneously invents a new product that requires a fraction of the labour force to manufacture because it can be built by robots, and also decides to build it overseas where labour and taxes are cheaper. Stock price goes up.. but you’re now out of a job.
The only thing that matters is you. You have to look out for number one.
My work is in the private sector but it’s entirely derived off of public spending. I’ve successfully weathered the Great Recession and COVID without losing my job.
Fuck the economy. It only serves the rich.
@@jeremykraenzlein5975
Hanlon’s razor is dumb AF
Anyone that lives in the real world knows it’s always malice whenever you get robbed, not just an oopsie.
@@liquidsnakex Someone literally and directly robbing you cannot be ascribed to incompetence. I am not suggesting that explicit malice be excused.
This discussion is about the law of unintended consequences. I am only saying that in cases where it is realistically possible that the people implementing the plan with unintended consequences could have been unaware of what would follow, then we should give them the benefit of the doubt and presume that they were unaware, unless and until we get a real reason to believe otherwise.
A newfound channel that gets straight to the point by using reasons-and-solutions and the effects, and a reoccurring gag that never fails to make me laugh:”Sounds like a great idea/ With the best intentions”? How could I resist!
My apartment building has 12 units and we used to have 2 massive natural gas fired 200 gallon water heaters. Needing hot water was never a problem even for the top 3rd floor. Some idiot eco-whacko decided that gas fired hot water on demand system would be a great idea and would save money on gas and electricity. It cost 30 grand to install. The problem is that people have to run their taps for minutes on end at full blast before hot water comes out of the tap because of the distance it has to travel from the basement and so all that water just runs down the drain until hot water starts flowing. So, now the water bill is huge and that effectively negated any possibility of savings predicted by having the hot water on demand system in the first place. Brilliant.
Much worse for the environment too.
@@tonybloomfield5635 How is water running down the drain bad for the environment ? Let me guess, because Marxist ideology told you so.
My workplace did some eco-nut boondoggle like that... They made new restrooms with all automated sensor faucets, sinks, and lights that have some kind of eco-friendly logo and a feel-good product name on them - "EcoSense" or "EnviroClean" or something... It's usually hard to get the sink to turn on when you want to wash your hands. But sometimes you walk in and it's just running (for who knows how long). The toilets usually flush when you walk into the stall, probably once or twice while you're going, and then again when you shut the stall door. The motion sensors that control the lights don't reach all of the stalls, so if your dump takes more than 5 minutes, you might have to finish it in pitch darkness. Oh, and there were no urinals for some reason. That restroom must be using a whole lake of water every day.
@@akirak1871 Sounds like Chinese made motion sensors. 4 bucks to buy but sell to the government for 40 grand a unit. How are the taxes where you live ?
instant heat water heaters are a super idea for homes, and there are even small electric ones you can put under sinks for instant water just a foot or two away, but obviously this case is not the same. On the other hand, how were the people in the building getting instant hot water, before, with just 2 water heaters in the building? Did they not also have to run the tap? I have seen in homes where you have to do this, even though the water heater is less than 50 feet away. Being an "eco nut" is not the problem, it is that it was poorly designed for the building and, apparently, no one involved thought about this "time from heater to faucet" problem, which is pretty typical of people with no experience.
The year 1995:
The problem: Low income families with poor credit scores aren’t being lended money for housing.
The solution: Have the Federal government pressure banks to give out loans at insanely low interest rates, that these people would otherwise not be qualified for, to purchase homes that they could not afford.
Sounds like a great idea, with the best of intentions, what could possibly go wrong?
Turns out government subsidies create bubbles and like actual bubbles, they eventually burst.The end result? Millions of people losing their homes to foreclosures during the 2008 housing market collapse and homes deflating in value to record lows, resulting in people being underwater on their mortgages and still having to pay them, with no housing to show for it.🤷🏻
the community reinvestment act is from 1977, as the time passed various government added more garbage on this dumpster fire of a law.
At least that meat shortage was cured...
What's your beef?!?
Just kidding, I saw what you did there 😹🤣😹
There was so much at steak.
@@Weshopwizard...and little time to spare.
Heyooooo
Uhhh? MEAT!!!😂
Actually, LED signals have already been solved. They use a heating element WHEN THERE'S SNOW, and not all the time, which is still far cheaper and more efficient than incandescant.
Comment to boost.
Yeah that one felt a little forced and like it shouldn't be in this video. There are obviously benefits to it and it's not really an economic flaw... that problem was obviously easy to solve once they realized it
@@inventor1214 Liked to boost. Yes, I also like my own comments.
This is true NOW, but when the switch happened it was indeed a big issue that needed a fix.
@@tjpprojects7192 I like to like people that like their own comments. Like this one? Like this one.
As someone who lives in a non-snow country i honestly didnt think LEDs could go wrong... to say i was shocked is quite the understatement!! 😂😳😅
Manufacturing has been a bigger problem than snow not melting. Quite a few cities have discovered that not all LED arrays/etc are created equal, and failure rates have been atrocious. Of course, you get what you pay for. Newer LED "lights" with a few LEDs and optics to make it look like many have improved that. Reliable LED grid lights are out there, though.
When my homeschooled sons start learning civics ReasonTV is going to be required watching.
Don't wait. They are smarter than you think, and will absorb the lessons even at a young age.
And perhaps, also add _Yes, Minister_ & _Yes, Prime Minister_ for some laughs… & eye-opening insights on the power-struggles between the elected officials & the civil service? Granted, it's made decades ago by state-media B.B.C. and calibrated for U.K.'s political system, but you'd be surprised how many issues seem universal to pretty much any democratic system! I'm actually surprised it was green-lighted. I doubt a re-make could be done these days!
Homeschoolers will save the world. Mark my words.
Congratulations for loving your children enough to home-school them. Sending children to public schools is signing them up for abuse.
The EPA banned normal gas cans in 2009. As it turns out unless you have 3 hands and are filling a specific type of field tank such as a lawn mower then it is impossible to use without spilling significantly more feel everywhere than could have potentially been saved by the new mandated spill proof gas cans.
People now buy the regular spouts as "oil resistant water can spouts" to make their gas cans safe again.
This is the most entertaining and educational video series on the internet
About the beef rationing. The same thing happened in the United Kingdom. In 1951 then Prime Minister Clement Attlee and the Labour Party kept the World War II rationing going and it was very unpopular. Winston Churchill and the Conservative Party ran to end the rationing. The Conservatives swept the election and Churchill ended the rationing.
According to the video, it was a price control in the US, which is probably worse than rationing because it leads to decreased supply.
@@JonathanRossRogersPrice controls like this always lead to reduced supply. That's why they are a very bad idea.
When prices are allowed to move freely, they may go higher than you want, but just plain "It's not available at any price" dilemmas are rare and don't last long.
When prices are kept artificially low, that's how you get durable shortages. It is not worth it for producers to produce as much as they could at a higher price, and buyers will want to buy more at the lower price. When you simultaneously limit production while increasing consumption, something's gotta give.
and harris wants to the same thing with housing.....again....even though you know this will happen all over again.
@@h.mandelene3279 it's not her,she is being told what to say
@@davidjones-vx9jumaybe, but millions of sheeple are applauding the idea and think it's a reason to vote for her.
I never heard about Harry S Truman's price controls before. 25 years later we forgot all about that failed experiment and implemented price controls under Nixon after going off the gold standard.
And now Harris has promoted the idea for price control for rent. It's not that's what caused the crisis in 2008. The memory of the voter truly is a marvel.
Daylight Time (in one of the newspapers in this video 0:50) is another one that keeps getting passed and repealed. Down with artificial price controls and time controls!
@@AquaBuddhaDeluge Daylight savings time wreaks havoc on farmers, because if you spring forward or fall back, you must adjust the time to milk the cow accordingly. Cows don't adjust to daylight savings time LOL!
The company I worked for built an administrative building about 1984-ish. Part of the designed heat load was accounting for the lights to be left on. By the mid-1990's someone suggested turning off the light at night and won a 5-figure cash prize for the suggestion. Winter time came and the building's heaters could not catch up to due to the loss of the heat load every night. Even the fire sprinkle system froze. To make matter worse, in the mid-2000, they installed energy efficient lighting reducing the workday heat load even more.
The size of the heaters had to be increased. They could have pay the lighting bill for decades for what it cost to replace the buildings HVAC system.
That's a really poorly designed building.
@@alterego3734 The architects didn't account for penny pinchers and the adoption of fluorescent lamps. Such a rookie mistake smh
@@Pro_Triforcer 😄
@@Pro_Triforcer They should have accounted for the fact that the lights might be off at night. Or generally, have some margin, and have the building be able to heat itself via heaters alone. It's just common sense and proper modular design.
My work has the same problem. The lights were part of the heating system calculations. After the LED conversion, we all have space heaters under our desks. At least the AC doesn't need to work as hard. Our AC runs more than the heat so the LED conversion still probably saves a lot of electricity costs.
In 2002, the "New Jersey Childproof Handgun Law" was passed with bipartisan support. It restricted the sale of handguns in the state to only "smart guns" that can be fired by an authorized user. The first problem was that the tech didn't exist yet, so the bill stipulated that it only came into force three years after such guns were sold, after which the sale of all other guns would be banned.
Nothing more happened until 2014 with the introduction of the Armatix iP1, which required an accompanying bracelet to be fired. Because gun enthusiasts were afraid this gun would trigger the 3-year clause and ban other firearms, people started sending death threats to retailers who tried to sell that gun. They only stopped when the Attorney General of New Jersey declared that this gun didn't meet the legal criteria to trigger the clause.
The law was effectively repealed in 2019 with a new law: now if such a smart gun is sold, other guns can still be sold, but all gun stores must carry at least one smart gun and have a sign explaining the safety features (which seems to me like an opportunity to abuse the system: create a substandard gun that barely meets the requirements, and don't bother with marketing because the law mandates that every gun store must carry one and also put up a sign advertising it).
Seems like some sharp electronics guy could build a lucrative side-hustle modding stolen smart-guns to work for their new owners.
It's possible to assume the fingerprint reader that was supposed to be would have worked. It's not possible to assume the bracelet works. It's a bad proxy.
Type 1 error: gun stolen, bracelet stolen
Type 2 error: woken up due to someone braking into house; lose too much time finding the bracelet and putting it on
I can hardly wait for Kamala's Kamunist price controls. It's gonna be lit!
It's insane how politicians don't understand basic incentive structures. If you offer people money PER FRAGMENT, isn't it obvious that you've incentivized them to smash fragments as small as possible?
Pretty sure he was an independent researcher
@@JS-ol4dx They're subject to incentive structures too.
Pay by weight, with a higher rate for heavier pieces. I guess then they'd coat them with concrete to increase their weight.
Their intention is to get votes and their strategy works.
It's been observed that scientists are easy to fool, because nature doesn't cheat and scientists are trained to value truth.
So it probably never crossed his mind that people would fake fossils, because HE would be appalled at the very idea.
In Canada, we have price controls for dairy, but they keep the price high. We call it "Supply Management."
Any politician who suggests a free market is instantly attacked with oodles of dairy money paying for attack adds and lobbyists.
You just described the entire US federal government.
ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) was intended to encourage businesses to provide reasonable accommodations for the disabled. The act provided a private claim of action against parties who aren't in compliance without providing any grace period. This opened the door for extortion by unscrupulous lawyers to file frivolous claims for alleged non-compliance to the ADA and has forced business to squander inordinate funds to avoid potential contrived claims.
And it still doesn't solve the problem
I read about one case where a bar had a small elevated platform with a couple tables on it. The other 30 or 40 tables were fully accessible to a wheelchair. Lawsuit.
It became an industry in California; people going around and filing claims, pay me and I will drop the claim, extortion. I read a consultants report for a hospital that included moving the trash cans in restrooms two inches (they get moved around during use), move a soap dispenser less than an inch, etc. There were some valid findings also , like a cabinet blocked access to the light switch.
How about moving to the front of the line at airports if you're in a wheelchair? Maybe that's been covered, sorry I'm new here.
The same thing happened with the Dead Sea Scrolls; Scavengers were tearing them apart to get more money... Then, when the scolars explained that they needed bigger pieces, the scavengers started gluing pieces together that didn't even go together, so they could get more money.
Great work ReasonTV! Scooby snacks for you guys.
Praying for the USA and the entire World.
My allegiance is to Liberty, and the Repubic.
One of my favorite kind of Reason videos.
The Gun Free School Zones Acts of 1990, 1994, and 1995. Look what just happened in Georgia. All the latest and most well known incidents like these have happened after the passage of these laws.
If you don't mind me asking, how has the acts of 1990 caused these consequences?
@@salmannazeer2688 they made schools shooter friendly zones. The assailants brought their guns to where they were prohibited from doing so but they did anyways.
@@jefferydebbink282 Schools have always been pretty soft targets. Children can't afford guns, and teachers generally discourage toys, comics, and other distractions in the classroom.
When my dad was young, the policy was "guns and other toys stay in your car".
So while the law is useless, I doubt it actually CAUSED any of the incidents.
Gun Free Zones would work if criminals just obeyed the laws! Wait a sec...
I've never seen this channel before but GOT DAUM this is a great video. Imma have to check out the rest of the videos now. Good job man👍
Brilliant!!! Friedrich Hayek approves! Keep 'em coming!
I have to say that LEDs are definitely still better than incandescent lights, but you just need to add a simple heater that switches on when it's cold. It would still be much much cheaper and more reliable.
After adding the increased cost for led bulbs and heaters to the capital outlay, how long do you have to run a fancy new traffic light before you recoup your investment?
@michaelsmith6818 The power savings alone are about $5 per day per intersection. They also require less maintenance. So, less than a year. The heating elements are cheap and could, in theory, be produced for a fraction of the cost of the lamps and even integrated into the lamps directly.
@@FourthRoot Esp bc the heating elements don't need to be used except for when it snows, so they're off most of the time.
@@michaelsmith6818 The funny thing about heaters is they are incredibly simple and cheap. So much about engineering involves avoiding putting out heat. Everything involving energy transfer puts out heat. Making a LED fixture put out heat at certain times makes a whole lot more sense than putting out heat all the time in order to have a fraction of that energy be visible.
That indeed is a solution being implimented. Not quite sure why the video didn't mention it. I think their info might be a little out of date.
I wish five of these came out each day. Love this series.
Keep pushing price controls, Kamala. It's a great idea with the best of intentions. What could possible go wrong?
Best of all, if the idea is implemented and invariably fails, those who pushed for it will just blame the failure of price controls on "greedy" corporations and black marketeers.
These are my new favorite videos. We need MORE!
I’m glad you guys came out with a new one.
Congrats on 1M subscribers!
Great time to tell people about that first one, because Kamala says she wants to force companies to lower prices if she gets elected.
The fossil situation was the same as the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Brits were paying the Bedouins per piece. They quickly changed the pay system to factor in size so there was an incentive to find large complete Scrolls.
School districts that are basically run by teachers unions that support transgenderism also demanded school closures and online “learning” in 2020. Then parents discovered how rampant the indoctrination was by happening past their children during “lessons.”
Reason needs more content like these videos. Short, informative, and even amusing. This is how you win people over.
I recently saw an article that paper straws have a chemical coating that is worse for the environment than just a regular plastic straw.
Yes!!!!! I love these so much!!
On the last one I thought they would have "farmed" fossils so this is definitely the better outcome
Witchfinders in the middle ages being paid a penny for every witch they found.
They suddenly started to find a lot of witches.
The local villagers got so annoyed that all their women were being killed that they cut out the middle man and just killed the witchfinders instead.
Reasonable solution.
Red light running cameras increase the number of crashes at an intersection. Everyone slams on the brakes for the yellow light and gets rear ended - you’re welcome.
True! They decrease deadly t-bone accidents somewhat, but increase rear-endings. Meanwhile, increasing yellow light times decreases _all_ forms of accidents at an intersection, even if they are only increased 1-3 seconds (not enough to annoy drivers). However, because municipalities install red light cameras for revenue, and often have deals with the camera manufacturer that require them to pay a minimum, they often subsequently _decrease_ yellow light times to catch more "runners", and accident frequency goes up instead of down!
I was an uber driver in Chicago for seven years at 13,000 trips. I didn't notice that happening. But I did notice that away from the city where they didn't have those cameras, far more people were running the red lights. My experince showed me they worked.
@@bloodgain Unreasonable trade off. Just like the 55mph federal speed limit reduces accidents on interstate highways but increased accidents on other highways because it wasn't worth the time to drive to the interstate, so it increased traffic on other roads.
@@timsmith2525 Another good example! And with interstate highway accidents quite low on a per-mile-driven basis, it targets the wrong area, anyway. Plus, everyone forgets that it was instated for fuel conservation during the '73 oil shortage -- which it also massively failed to hit its targets for -- and had nothing to do with reducing accidents to begin with!
Kamala Harris needs to watch this video as well as anyone thinking of voting for her thinking price controls are a good thing.
The moment he said "pay locals for every fragment", my brain thought "hammer".
The LED traffic lights issue *is* sorted. Install a heater in the traffic light and turn it on on the rare occasions when the temperature does actually fall below 0°C. Still saves dramatically more energy than effectively having a heater running all year round, including during the baking summer.
The traffic light example may have been a government example, but in the corporate world their are plenty of examples of people cutting out "waste", and heat in lights is usually considered waste, that turned out to actually have some kind of value to the customer after all. Just remember kids: tyranny from a corporation instead of the government is still tyranny.
Last one seems like it would be easy to discourage breaking up complete fossils. Pay them by weight (so there's no advantage to breaking them up).
Then the locals will try to fill/coat them with lead for nore weight
Hindsight: 20:20
For the LED one I was thinking "Wait, that IS a good idea. How does this go wrong?"
Then "Oh."
"That's one way to get a-head."
LOL!
I live for these videos.
Those LED stoplights are the worst. St Paul is dangerous to drive in when it's clear skies and perfect road conditions,
I saw a popular post on X today: "reduce the debt by giving congress a bonus of $10k per $1 billion in spending reduction each year". Imagine the surprise when they raise the budget by trillions so they can cut it by the same amount a year later and collect the bonus.
also, you dont necessarily want them to reduce the budget if the budget is doing useful things. We WANT the government to spend money on important things, like military, infrastructure, courts, research, welfare, etc. We dont want them to just cut everything thats actually useful, we want them to cut wasted spending that is being misappropriated.
Also, getting a law like that passed wouldnt work anyways. Congress would need to pass it. Why would congress pass a law which gives them a bonus for cutting spending, rather than just....giving themselves more money? They control the budget which includes their wages. They can just vote to give themselves more money.
Also, most congresspeople dont make money from their jobs as congresspeople anyways. At least not from their primary paychecks. Most make the majority of their money through corrupt means. Stuff like insider trading on the stockmarket, lobby money, paid speeches where its like 5K/plate for elite donors to pay congresspeople directly in a legal way, etc. There are tons of corrupt ways to legally earn money for congresspeople that far far exceeds their normal salary. This is why they dont even bother raising it, because its tiny compared to how much they earn using other methods.
I mean there is a reason the vast majority of congresspeople are multi-millionaires despite only making like 200K/year salary.
@ShubamRachappanavar The private sector doesnt always do things better. The private sector has profit motives, the government doesnt.
In some industries, this profit motive is REALLY bad. It leads to horrible incentives for private companies to try to price gouge customers.
For example, in healthcare, government run healthcare tends to be SIGNFICIANTLY cheaper than private healthcare. The reason for this is because its an inelastic good. Pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, and insurance companies, can all price gouge customers for a product they need to survive or live a healthy life, and most customers really dont have an option to say no. This is why a $1 bottle of insulin can sell for over $400. Those massive profit margins only exist because private corporations can charge that much due to how insanely high the demand is, AND because its an inelastic demand. Governments however can just produce the product and sell it at its manufacturing price, massively reducing the cost for the consumer.
The private sector is optimal at generating the most money possible, but generating the most money possible isnt always the desired outcome of an industry. Its not what is always best for the public. The government SHOULD step in where other priorities are important. Such as things like infrastructure, militaries, police, prisons, healthcare, etc. All of these things are ridiculous to privatize and lead to horrible incentives. For example, private prisons tend to lobby the government to lock more people up for petty crimes, because then they can employ forced labor on convicts. The more people in prison, the more money they make. Its a horrible incentive, as they dont care WHY people are in prison, just that they are.
Or the military. All of these private military industrial companies want more war. They constantly lobby the government to be more hawkish on war with other countries, because then they can sell the government more weapons which makes them more money. itd be even worse if our military itself was privatized too and was just a private militia. Especially then because then companies would ultimately basically have control of all the enforcement power of the government, which means we cant even really regulate them either. Its just an effective military state owned by private interest. Same goes for police. Im sure you can see the problem with privatizing the military and police right?
Some industries SHOULD be public. Not all. In fact, not even most. But SOME industries have really bad incentives in the private sector, because the only goal of the private sector is to maximize wealth. And yea, its quite good at doing that, but sometimes that leads to really negative consequences, and for industries where that is the case, the government SHOULD run them, since the government has different incentives than the private market. Again, just look at healthcare. This is why the rest of the world has both cheaper per capita healthcare costs, AND generally better care for the average person. The US is ranked at the bottom among the developed world for our healthcare. Our healthcare industry generates a lot more money, but at the cost of quality and affordability. The only real exception being healthcare for the ultra wealthy who can actually pay for all the best services. But this is unobtainable for the vast majority of the population.
@@eragon78 -- WELFARE is, to a large extent, misappropriated. Too many people are "gaming" the system!
Great. Now I have yet another YT channel that is on my must-watch list. Damn good thing I'm retired.
There was the time the Soviets mandated that Leningrad had to produce oranges. I don't recall a very large market for Leningrad-grown oranges to have flourished. I wonder why?
Going much further back in history, I recall certain locations in France, upon realizing that the Black Death was associated with fleas, mandated the killing of dogs and cats. The explosion in the rat population spread the plague further, and 1/3 of Europe's population died. Good work, government authorities in France!
Rent Control
Rent control tends to work better because landlords cant just pull out of the market as easily. Also, most rent control policies dont cap the price, rather they cap the price INCREASE, which prevents landlords from jacking up prices quickly. They can still increase prices though, just not too quickly.
Its a lot different than price controls on products that already have scarcity, since companies can pull out from the market.
@ShubamRachappanavar Rent control is mostly a bandaid fix I agree. The best solution is to fund more development projects to build more housing increasing the supply. Specifically medium and high density housing complexes.
But my point is rent control can help a lot in the short term for people who already have leases.
I will agree that LONG term it has issues, because it will cause renters to not want to develop more properties or rent out properties, but it does help those who are already renting from being evicted.
During covid, the eviction moratorium saved millions of people from losing their homes during the pandemic for example.
What a great way to finish out the week.😊
Animal activists slandering Ringling which lead animal activists organization to lose millions.
Welfare, sounds like a great idea, with the best of intentions. What could possibly go wrong?
The people that produce pay for those who can't then eventually, those who won't. EBT for hot cheetos and chocolate milk and cash for cigarettes, beer, and lottery tickets.
Per official statistics, 20% of "food stamps" are used for snacks. (Chips, pretzels, candy, ice cream, soda, etc.) It's legal, however, because snacks are food!
I'm happy to see ReasonTV to publish content for this series even if it doesn't fit with the armchair stereotypical internet teenage libertarian. This series shows much more mature stance where it's understood that money does not equal value and is never a goal in itself.
You should make this series into its own UA-cam channel!
It's a great idea! With the best of intentions! What could possibly go wrong?
That's literally why you have roof above the light, just like you're showing here even.
I love these segments. Always looking forward for the next one 😂
Houston just repealed a fine on home builders requiring sidewalks on new builds. Apparently in just one year older communities ended up with "sidewalks to nowhere".
And now we have Kamala suggesting price controls again. Will they ever learn?
No, they will not.
However, a lot of (brainless) voters will fall for it.
Had to stop before more than the section title showed for #3: I heard the word "fragments" in the intro - Lemme guess - They started finding (more or less) complete specimens, then hammered them into pieces they brought in one-by-one to get more of a payout, rather than bringing in one (basically priceless) intact piece? OK, now that I've said that, let's roll it and find out... Hah! Called it exactly!
Isn't it funny how often legislators offer money incentives without understanding what they are really incentivizing!
Offering a bounty on human bone fragments makes me wonder if anyone might try to "produce" some. ("Hey, would anyone really miss George? Naaaah...")
Venezuelan price controls be like 😅
For the Kamala supporters , watch the first one over until you understand.
Similar thing happened with the Dead Sea Scrolls. Locals were paid to bring them in. They got paid the same for a full scroll and a fragment of a scroll. So they tore up the scrolls.
lol that last one tho 😆Maybe pay them buy weight instead
Then they would be filled with concrete.
The fossil one reminded me of whwn the british in india wanted to cull the snake population. So they giving money for each snake caught. The local population started breeding snakes 😅
The solution for street lights: thermometer + heating coils. Heating coils will activate only when temperature drops below 0; you'll still save electricity on most days. You can also add humidity detector, or even tie-into a weather API service that only turns the heaters on during days with snow.
High grocery prices??? Price controls??? Democrats in charge???
Why does this sound so familiar....
Sounds like a great idea! With the best of intentions!
Yeah, let's put a misogynist convicted felon in charge... bc the world doesn't hate/ laugh at us enough 🙄🤦♀️🙄
@@tammyrawdon3587 the best choice is NONE OF THE ABOVE
@@cdevidal Yeah, I'd rather vote for my cat. Mr. Lobster is Polydactyl, so he can do paperwork 😹🤣😹
@@tammyrawdon3587 I don't know, whether or not the rest of the world is laughing at us seems like a secondary concern compared to whether or not we can buy food, but maybe that's just me.
I love this series - please do more
Today some politicians are calling for price fixing...round and round we go.
Wanting to protect US jobs the president, I think it was FDR, imposed tariffs on imported goods, so the other countries imposed similar tariffs on US goods, result was exports slumped, businesses went bust, massive job losses.
Tennessee has had a feral hog problem, but it was limited to sections of the state. They started paying for people for each one they killed. Few years later the problem became worse than ever and spread throughout the entire state. Obviously, people had an incentive to promote and spread the hog population, so that they could make more money. (That's why you should not pay a bounty for Pythons in the Everglades, especially by how long they are -- people will deliberately breed them and allow them to grow so they can make more money)
I got extremely confused for a moment because I read "Unforeseen Consequences" and thought this was just 1 big Half-Life joke.
They should just use incandescent light bulbs for traffic lights.
I have to admit- the LED light one is the first one of these I did not think of the consequences myself... especially given it doesn't snow here.
I wait for these presentations. The horse whinny at :40 was hilarious.
There's already a solution that's standard for led stoplights. It's a simple heating element connected to a thermostat. It's energy efficient because it doesn't need to get hot, just needs to be above freezing
Love this series!!! Make more!!
Talk about the BONE WARS! Because of it, the brontosaurus was only really discovered in 2015 due to the wrong head being placed on the first fossil display.
How about the mongoose brought to Hawaii to combat rats, but the mongoose hunt during the day and the rats are out at night so the mongoose ended up destroying the native bird population.
I think he already did that one.
Surprised we didn't see the "Good Intentions, Bad Results" ending!