Thanks for the links. Why is the phrase "conspiracy theory" used for that though?
Sounds like it's a value-judgement free decision from manufacturers to follow the incentives from the policy as we'd predict:
way cheaper and less work to make those (now pretty popular) vehicles bigger than R&D and re-tool factories to make smaller and/or more efficient. It would need to be made more efficient to get smaller otherwise you lose power. Truck owners are comparing power (even if they dont use it, and it's sometimes just brand bragging rights) so that sounds like a worse option if you're making and selling them.
It's value-judgement free if they had no hand in crafting or maintaining the loophole, but undermining popular policy with a loophole is a very common strategy for dodging regulation. If that's the case here then they aren't simply honest corporations just trying to sail the sea of incentives, they are more like a schoolyard bully who has grabbed an environmental cause by the hand and is doing the "why are you punching yourself?" maneuver.
I don't disagree with you on that component of it existing.
The thing about policy is usually somebody big is warning the public ahead of time that the "affordable healthcare bill" (for another example) isn't actually affordable healthcare (it's mandated health insurance), get called debby-downers/negative/hateful, and then it happens that way anyway due to lawmaker and corp PR pushing it through while everyone else cheers. Actually reading the bill and thinking/wargaming how it will apply deterministically with basic thought experiments is discouraged. And all "sides" do this, from incentives.
I question the validity of the spirit of bills when it repeats like that so often. At some point that is the spirit of the bill.
This is of course ignoring the revolving door, regulatory capture, and lobbying angles, which are always in play some (maybe huge) %. Also predictable and deterministic, from incentives.
Ok, without resorting to insulting you as you are me, according to you, is the 10th Amendment a loophole or not?
More generally, are people doing things because they aren't stopped from doing so a loophole or not?
Are loopholes a feature or a bug? Does it depend on intentions or how it's used to be called this, or not?
More importantly, why don't judges tend to rule in the "spirit of the law" over what's actually the law, if that's so obviously the thing that should matter the most?
Are you willing to sign contracts with me on that basis? And see which philosophy wins?
Or do you just want to complain and show your disapproval of me?
There's how things are and how they "should" be and simply describing it in terms of a constellation of competing actors and overlapping interests at different layers and forces that motivate them (not always easy to tell, and I've already left open and taken into account the whole spectrum of characterizations: intentional v not, malicious v not, passive v active. I have my own not-strongly held opinion on the car one while acknowledging all of that) means I'm not reasoning (unlike you). Got it.
If you are an individual who has a vote but not enough vested interest to fund a lobbying effort for expected positive ROI, loopholes are definitely a bug. If you are a corporation that wants to undermine regulation by pulling purse-strings rather than by defeating regulation attempts in the arena of public opinion, loopholes are definitely a feature. However, a corporation that pulls the purse-strings to subvert a bill makes itself morally culpable in the bill's intentional inadequacy. You seem awfully sure that this isn't what happened with the car size loophole. Why?
I am not awfully sure. Point is I threw you a bone in my first response to you, you know -- "opposite" sides to synthesize, which I now know I shouldn't have done, and you shat all over it. Which is why the conversation with you is over.
I was a bit tongue in cheek and playing off the previous comment using the phrase "conspiracy theory".
It has a bad connotation, but I guess not all things that sound like conspiracy theories are false. Another car themed topic is when Standard Oil and Firestone Tires colluded to buy up trolly lines and shut them down.
Things can be a conspiracy of common interests (and not even necessarily be bad), whether or not that's what this is, without involving "smoky rooms" (also known as boardrooms; but for fun on that topic, check out full history of NCR, company was nuts).
> I thought the standard conspiracy theory was that they started making them larger to avoid environmental regulation (which is pretty ironic).
Why is it a conspiracy theory?
I'd love to cite GA's Clean Air Act as an example but the rule around qualified vehicles has been amended 11 times since it was enacted in 1996 and I can't figure out how to see previous versions of the rule.
Here's the first google result for "large cars regulation loophole", looks like an interesting read: https://www.wired.com/story/the-us-wants-to-close-the-suv-lo... Edit: prior HN discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35609521