This is why we need regulations...

[Zinegata]

Let me rephrase.

It is true that businesses know their products better than their customers.

But it is utterly stupid to think that businesses can read the minds of their customers.

It is ultimately the customer's responsibility to know what he/she actually needs. If you ask for food and you die because businesses give you high cholesterol food, it's your own damn fault because you didn't bother to specify.

If you don't know what you want, then don't fucking buy anything until you know what you want.

[Maj]

No one, at all, has the time to be knowledgeable about even a small fraction of the decisions they make in the course of their life. And trying to be is a horrendous waste of resources.

You know, I never said that you had to be informed about every little thing you do. Never. I never even specified a significant amount. I've said repeatedly that if there is something that you care about, you will get informed.

It is very rare that you meet a person with a defined value or set of values who doesn't get more information about something they are investing in when it directly relates to that value.

I will admit that I'm not an expert on breakfast cereal. I don't buy it, I don't eat it, so I don't care. And thus, I don't even know where in the grocery store to find the damned product, let alone anything else about it. And if I were to buy a box of breakfast cereal, and I found it disgusting, defective, or whatever, I'd just chalk it up to my ignorance and continue not caring.

But if breakfast cereal were suddenly to become something I had to buy and absolutely needed, I would actually pay attention to what I'm buying.

I am also not saying the government shouldn't regulate. But I am saying that the government can't take everyone's individual values and desires into account when creating regulations. There has to be a basic standard of acceptability and safeness with the responsibility for an individual's desires left to the individual.

Crissa has expectations for her roof. She wants it to last a long time. She wants it as close to mold-proof as she can get. She wants it to not contain asphalt. She wants it to be easy to maintain. She wants it to not be gross to the environment. I'm assuming that she'd also like the price to be within a certain range. All those things means that Crissa is going to give a shit. And she's going to look up information in order to make sure that each of her criterion are met when she finally puts her money on the line.

A business should not be required to list up front every single permutation of information that customers might be interested in. One person might care about the price while another cares about warranty information while yet another another cares about color. You can't predict what each customer will want. It's impossible, unreasonable, and utterly insane.

[RandomCasualty2]

Crissa has expectations for her roof. She wants it to last a long time. She wants it as close to mold-proof as she can get. She wants it to not contain asphalt. She wants it to be easy to maintain. She wants it to not be gross to the environment. I'm assuming that she'd also like the price to be within a certain range. All those things means that Crissa is going to give a shit. And she's going to look up information in order to make sure that each of her criterion are met when she finally puts her money on the line.

A business should not be required to list up front every single permutation of information that customers might be interested in. One person might care about the price while another cares about warranty information while yet another another cares about color. You can't predict what each customer will want. It's impossible, unreasonable, and utterly insane.

I don't have a problem with the company not listing all the information Crissa wants and she has to call to ask them. What I do have a problem with is their use of misleading terminology in an effort to confuse her. Not providing information is fine, presenting it in a way that's deliberately misleading is not.

[mean_liar]

It's only misleading if you're really into the specifics. If I call a paint color, "Glossy Electric Blue" but the small print tells you it's an enamel, it's because the majority of my customers don't care. The info is still there, still readily-available, but it's distracting for the majority that don't care.

It's the reason your cereal box has a front with a design and a logo and a picture of the cereal, because that's what people want to know. You want nutritional information, you're going to go to the effort of looking on the side of the box. Calling something, "Fruit Loops", but then finding out that they actually contain NO FRUIT and nothing to do with actual toucans is not an outrage.

[angelfromanotherpin]

Calling something, "Fruit Loops", but then finding out that they actually contain NO FRUIT and nothing to do with actual toucans is not an outrage.

Actually, they're called 'Froot' Loops, specifically because there's no fruit involved.

[RobbyPants]

I always figured it was because Loop has two Os, so they thought it would be cute to spell fruit that way too. Sort of like with deliberate misspellings of stuff like "Kid's Kamp".

[RandomCasualty2]

It's only misleading if you're really into the specifics.

It's misleading if it's advertised as the kind of product you're looking for in an attempt to deceive you into buying it. There's no need to use false terms that don't apply.

[Gelare]

This is why we don't need regulations...

[Crissa]

No, that's why we don't depend upon Cracked for legal advice.

1) Drinking and driving - this is why we have a standard age across jurisdictions. It's state law in California. People don't drive to Nevada to drink. Also, forcing people to work in smoke-filled workplaces? Not good for their health. We pay for that. We don't give people the choice to starve or die slowly of cancer.

2) Well, they're right on this. But not because they will move out of town - you a) can't force someone to move and b) if they're supposed to report, they can't move out of the jurisdiction without court approval.

3) That test has an incorrect premise: Bigger fish isn't what the limits are for. We care of the number of fish, not the size of some angler's penis. Besides, this is why the limit and size of fish is different for different fish. You can't take sturgeon over a certain size (a type of fish that grows in a limited area, like those tanks). You can't take trout under a certain size (so they've been able to spread and reproduce and support the ecosystem). You can't take more than N number of Salmon or Abalone no matter what size ones you find - but you also can't take immature ones. In the wild, something is always eating the little ones, anyhow. What stupid 'test'.

4) Endangered species? Yes, there is some problems. But without any protections, the species would just plain die out. Period. This is like the 'oh no, there's a problem!' that was earlier in the thread. We should at least try. Not being listed didn't stop Americans from killing off all the top predators and grazing animals in the last century. Since we've had the listings, more have recovered in industrialized nations than died out. The listings are pointless in countries where people are starving or don't have rule of law.

5) There's no evidence head injuries were less in prior times. No evidence at all means it's just pulled out of someone's butt. Sure, it's easier to hit the head full force, but the game is all about hitting the other guy's head, and always has been.

6) They're right, but their facts are all wrong. That's not that office with the toilet seats, that's the office that found it. The increase in paperwork has more to do with duplication on the part of departments and private businesses to protect against lawsuits or shrinkage 'waste'. The increase in paperwork would have happened anyhow.

Alas, snappy comebacks don't survive the real world.

-Crissa

[Psychic Robot]

Cracked is people taking specious facts and being loud with them.

[RandomCasualty2]

There are certain times when regulation does more bad than good, but that doesn't mean you can automatically ignore everytime regulation has helped either.

[Neeeek]

No one, at all, has the time to be knowledgeable about even a small fraction of the decisions they make in the course of their life. And trying to be is a horrendous waste of resources.

You know, I never said that you had to be informed about every little thing you do. Never. I never even specified a significant amount. I've said repeatedly that if there is something that you care about, you will get informed.

It is very rare that you meet a person with a defined value or set of values who doesn't get more information about something they are investing in when it directly relates to that value.

I will admit that I'm not an expert on breakfast cereal. I don't buy it, I don't eat it, so I don't care. And thus, I don't even know where in the grocery store to find the damned product, let alone anything else about it. And if I were to buy a box of breakfast cereal, and I found it disgusting, defective, or whatever, I'd just chalk it up to my ignorance and continue not caring.

But if breakfast cereal were suddenly to become something I had to buy and absolutely needed, I would actually pay attention to what I'm buying.

I am also not saying the government shouldn't regulate. But I am saying that the government can't take everyone's individual values and desires into account when creating regulations. There has to be a basic standard of acceptability and safeness with the responsibility for an individual's desires left to the individual.

Crissa has expectations for her roof. She wants it to last a long time. She wants it as close to mold-proof as she can get. She wants it to not contain asphalt. She wants it to be easy to maintain. She wants it to not be gross to the environment. I'm assuming that she'd also like the price to be within a certain range. All those things means that Crissa is going to give a shit. And she's going to look up information in order to make sure that each of her criterion are met when she finally puts her money on the line.

A business should not be required to list up front every single permutation of information that customers might be interested in. One person might care about the price while another cares about warranty information while yet another another cares about color. You can't predict what each customer will want. It's impossible, unreasonable, and utterly insane.

A business absolutely should be required to list up front every piece of information their customers could reasonably be interested in. Especially about shit like roofing. Crissa shouldn't have to become an expert in roofing to make a decision she will make once every 10-20 years. Suggesting she do so is insane.

Your cereal example is exactly why you are wrong. You choose what you eat several times a day. That decision is something that you come back to time and time again. Having a good idea about what you want to eat makes sense, and even then regulations exist to protect you from a fatally bad decision. Shit like what roof you decide on or what car you buy is a decision made so infrequently that the consumer trying to have even a decent idea about what's what is utter silly. It doesn't matter if the decision is important to you. Trying to learn enough to make an informed decision on something that you'll not think about again until you've forgotten everything you learned the first time is a terrible method of doing things.

[mean_liar]

There is a ton of information freely available. Googling "how to choose a roof" comes up with a series of good links on the subject. Crissa was equating a glossy ad with a product data sheet, and then using the ad's lack of detailed technical information to justify a need for government regulations to prevent her from having to educate herself further about a $5k+ purchase beyond on a single glossy ad that caught her attention.

You cannot regulate away laziness.

You might as well say that every car commercial needs to list detailed safety information and impact analyses, mileage under varying conditions, known maintenance issues, acceleration and deceleration rates, etc etc. It's stupid. That information is freely available, but it's not in the ad.

[Maj]

Trying to learn enough to make an informed decision on something that you'll not think about again until you've forgotten everything you learned the first time is a terrible method of doing things.

This perspective is so completely and utterly alien to me that I can't relate whatsoever.

Buying a house or car, deciding what college to attend, having a kid... These are all major decisions that many people actually do make only once in their lives. And you're saying that people shouldn't learn enough to make an informed decision about them?

You know what... Let me know how that works out for you. I'd rather live in my insane, terrible world of looking stuff up.

[RandomCasualty2]

There is a ton of information freely available. Googling "how to choose a roof" comes up with a series of good links on the subject. Crissa was equating a glossy ad with a product data sheet, and then using the ad's lack of detailed technical information to justify a need for government regulations to prevent her from having to educate herself further about a $5k+ purchase beyond on a single glossy ad that caught her attention.

But Crissa obviously did a lot of research on this to know what she knows and know what she wants.

The thing she's frustrated at isn't the fact that she had to do research on what different roof types are about, she apparently already knows that, in fact she's saying stuff about being able to identify the different types of roofs and so on. Her main problem is that companies aren't directly saying what their product is.

Figuring out what their product is made of shouldn't be some question that you need to have the internet answer. It'd be like going into a store and asking for a certain type of wood like oak, and having them lie to you about which one is oak and then saying "Oh, well you should have looked it up so you're ready when I try to lie to you and confuse you."

Well fuck that.

[Crissa]

Except, I have been sent glossy ads on all the products, and the majority of asphalt ones don't say they're asphalt in their glossy handouts.

-Crissa

[Psychic Robot]

Have you tried speaking with someone from the company?

[mean_liar]

...or looking at their product data sheets?

[CatharzGodfoot]

Intentional obfuscation is a bad thing, even if it isn't outright lying. Every moment a person spends trying to track down the real information is wasted to society. Every time somebody is dumb enough to believe the advertising and gets a shit product, the world becomes a very slightly worse place.

That's not to say that the net shittiness increase would be less with more regulation.

[Josh_Kablack]

And here's a regulation that seems to be accomplishing what the market alone couldn't

[Zinegata]

True story:

A customer asked for a DSL subscription, insisting he knew what he was doing. We provide him with the line, and then we find out the customer has no fucking computer.

He then complians that we should provide him with a computer because "All your ads have a computer in it!"

And we get at least one of this kind of customer ever quarter - at the minimum.

So no, asking the goverment to cover up for these irresponsible idiots isn't their job. It's a personal responsibility.

[K]

And here's a regulation that seems to be accomplishing what the market alone couldn't

I expect that regulation to last exactly until our next major plane crash and blame starts to get tossed around.

[Maj]

A customer asked for a DSL subscription, insisting he knew what he was doing. We provide him with the line, and then we find out the customer has no fucking computer.

My shop used to be next door to a printer cartridge and repair place. They had this total PITA customer come in and ask them to fix her printer because it wasn't printing in yellow ink, and she needed to print copies of a flyer for some sort of community function.

They spent hours working on the thing - taking it apart, replacing parts when basic cleaning and such didn't work. New ink new everything, and nothing solved the problem. They would get it working in the shop, but when the woman brought it home, it stopped functioning.

After a few days of this, I caught the owner lady crying outside of her shop, so I went over to talk to her. They had finally sent someone to the house to help this woman set up her printer properly, and gotten her to try printing off another flyer. After all of that effort, they finally figured out what was wrong.

She was printing on yellow paper.

[RandomCasualty2]

So no, asking the goverment to cover up for these irresponsible idiots isn't their job. It's a personal responsibility.

Nobody is asking the government to do that.

If one guy is just an idiot and gets confused, that's one thing. But it's another if a lot of people are getting confused because the business deliberately tries to obfuscate things.

[Crissa]

Actually, at one time, there was a regulation that required telecommunications companies to provide basic tools to access their service.

...Of course, that was because they were a monopoly and banning people from buying their own phones, requiring them to actually rent them.

-Crissa