this. yeah, i was surprised when she popped up on EconTalk. McCardle's more of a Stephen Glass staff reporter--sans Glass's genius for believable fictions--than a Thomas Sowell opinion-maker. But Russ Roberts, EconTalk host, has been working the anti-internet shame thing; and she crystallized the zeitgeist of it a bit in that bloomberg view piece.

People who died in the Grenfell fire might be alive today if regulators had required sprinkler systems. This does not play well for the Tories.

But before we start hanging them in effigy, there are a couple of things we should consider. The first is that, even if the regulation had passed, and required existing developers to retrofit sprinklers into older buildings, Grenfell Tower might not have gotten a sprinkler system before the fire occurred. Regulations are not implemented like instant coffee; they take time to formulate, and further time for businesses to comply. All the political will in the world cannot conjure up enough sprinkler systems, and sprinkler-system installers, to instantly transform a nation’s housing stock.

This, however, is only a quibble; even if Grenfell Tower could not have been saved, there are surely other buildings where fires will soon occur that would benefit from sprinklers. Must we wait for those deaths before we can say that his was a bad calculation?

Well, no. But we should wait until we can establish that it was actually a bad calculation.

It may sound heartless to discuss life-saving measures as a calculation. But the fact is that we all make these sorts of calculations every day, about ourselves and others. We just don’t like to admit that we’re doing it.

Consider the speed at which many of you drove to work this morning. I’m sure you’re all splendid, careful drivers. Nonetheless, when a vehicle is being piloted at 50 or 60 miles an hour, the margin of error for avoiding an accident is pretty small. To drive a car even at 5 miles per hour is to accept a small risk of killing oneself and others. To drive at 50 miles per hour is to accept a much higher risk of doing so. It’s a calculation: risk versus reward.

In the U.S., tens of thousands of people were killed in auto accidents last year. We could probably eliminate most of those deaths if we simply made sure that no one ever piloted their personal vehicle above some prudent speed -- say, 25 mph -- which would reduce both the likelihood of crashes occurring, and the damage any crashes would do.

Are you willing to make that trade-off? To avert 40,000 deaths a year, all you have to do is move closer to work, take public transportation (where available), or spend a lot more time in the car.

Americans have made that choice: Nope, not worth it. We are manifestly not willing to exchange personal convenience for lower auto fatalities. Nor, as far as I am aware, is anyone anywhere else. Government sets much higher speed limits -- speeds that are still quite deadly! -- and most drivers opt for even deadlier speeds. Every speeding driver knows, at some level, that what they’re doing is dangerous; they simply care more about what the boss will say when they’re late than they do about the increased risk of killing other people. (Pro tip: If you started late, just accept that you’re going to get there late.)

Now, I won’t defend the folks who go 90 in a 50 mph zone. But in less extreme cases, the broader calculation is probably correct. Auto accidents cost lives. But automobile transport has also saved a lot of lives, by enabling the economic growth that has made us richer and healthier. Slowing traffic down to a crawl would make a lot of that economic activity impossible, or at least, unprofitable. Very few people would like to lower a very small personal risk of death 1 by agreeing to live in the economic equivalent of 1900.

When the cost is as personal, as glaring and obvious, as restricting every car to a snail’s pace, we can see that not all safety trade-offs are worth it. However, when the cost seems to be borne by someone else, we suddenly become safety absolutists: no price is too great to pay.

Unfortunately, “other peoples’ money” has a way of ultimately coming out of our own pockets. If it costs more to build buildings, then rents will rise. People will be forced to live in smaller spaces, perhaps farther away. Some of them, in fact, may be forced to commute by automobile, and then die in a car accident. We don’t see those costs in the same way as we see a fire’s victims; we will never know the name of the guy who was killed in a car accident because he had to live far from work because rents rose because regulators required sprinkler systems.

The future holds the possibility to be great or terrible, and since it has not yet occurred it remains simultaneously both.

If we assume that Donald Trump wasn't just talking but actually would do that then I don't think the fine line between that being rape and sexual assault really makes a difference.

Are you stoned or pissed off, or both, when you create these postings?

I'm with leash on this one...while they are all despicable acts, groping, forced oral, forced vaginal, and forced anal should not be lumped together.

And I disagree with CH about McCardle...she's usually not eye-poppingly stupid.

That's fine if we don't lump them together but my original statement is still true.

Why does it matter? Either way it's horrible.

And I disagree with CH about McCardle...she's usually not eye-poppingly stupid.

New York City, my birthplace, is ringed by Italian neighborhoods. Go to Staten Island, to the Bronx, to Long Island or to New Jersey -- it doesn’t really matter where you go, as long as you are within 50 miles of the Empire State Building. Within that fortunate circle, you will find that you are always reasonably close to a neighborhood, or at least a street, full of little stores and restaurants of unprepossessing appearance and fantastic culinary achievement.

Tragically, such neighborhoods are a blessing of erratic and patently unfair geographic distribution.

In the rest of the country the quality of the prosciutto seems to be directly proportional to the number of hand-crafted teak display cases, and also to the elevation of your heart rate when you view the prices posted inside those cases. In Italian neighborhoods, by contrast, the older and more scuffed the linoleum, the barer the badly plastered walls, the more tattered the appearance of the single 1956 Mass card taped into the cash register by way of decoration, the more likely you are to discover the single best piece of charcuterie you have ever eaten.

Unlike some enclaves that develop great restaurants and markets as they gentrify, Italians do not need to seek out good food as a way of expressing that they have arrived, financially and socially. Italians are already there. And being a cheerful and kind people, they are willing to invite the rest of us in.

I appreciated this anew while on vacation in Italy. Having spent years in a food desert of Washington, DC, I was practically weeping over the ease with which one could secure decent pizza. I am not the only American to have noticed that everything tastes better in Italy, and no, that’s not just because you’re on vacation and surrounded by charming ancient buildings. (You may notice that few accounts of vacations in Reykjavik or Dublin begin with “The food was amazing.”) The quality of produce in Italy is, in fact, much better, because Italians demand that it be better. And having gotten their hands on better ingredients, they prepare them with the care their treasures deserve.

New York has more than its fair share of Italian cuisine. Perhaps some denizens of a town or neighborhood of a certifiably Italian-American character will take pity on more barren culinary climes. Of course, without a critical mass, the food culture will dissipate into a sea of Oreos and tater-tot casseroles, so we need at least a few thousand to move en masse. (Which reminds me: If only we could spread French cuisine the same way! But since America has pitifully few recent French immigrants, this may require some sort of special visa program.)

Towns could even entice Italian food-related businesses with tax abatements and special grants enabling them to relocate their linoleum, their Mass cards, and their battered steel display cases to new homes within the Great American Food Desert.

This may seem a little extreme to you. Must thousands of our fellow citizens uproot themselves, simply to improve the food culture elsewhere?

To even ask such a question demonstrates how dire the problem is. If you cared about food properly -- which is to say, as much as Italians do -- you’d already be recruiting in and around New York.

The future holds the possibility to be great or terrible, and since it has not yet occurred it remains simultaneously both.

That's fine if we don't lump them together but my original statement is still true.

Why does it matter? Either way it's horrible.

Wherein she conflates authentic Italian cuisine with AYYYYY I'M WALKIN' HERE food:

Are you stoned or pissed off, or both, when you create these postings?

Yeah, plus he HAS been accused of rape--by his ex-wife and an anonymous accuser who says he assaulted her in 1994 when she was 13.

This. "He sexually assaults women, but he doesn't rape them, therefore, he's fit to be president."

I'm a big dumb shitlib baby

We're clearly reading different threads if you don't see it.

I'm a big dumb shitlib baby

There is a large difference between what Trump is describing and rape, and I'd say it's pretty offensive to actual rape victims that none of you are willing to draw a distinction.

I would imagine most victims of "REAL" rape would not be on your side in this discussion.

I would further suggest it's pretty offensive to the victims of sexual assault that you are downplaying what happened to them (unintentionally as it may be) because there are worse sexual assaults in the world.


There are guys that torture the women before they rape them and that is worse than just raping them. I dont think the difference really matters though.

I'm a big dumb shitlib baby

I dont think Leash is defending Trump at all.

I think he's planting his flag on "words matter and these things ARE different"

I think the disagreement is whether the difference matters in this or any context.

No

I'm a big dumb shitlib baby

I would guess you'd have no idea what victims of actual rape would say.

Saying that something isn't rape is not downplaying it. If I said murder is not rape, would you say I'm downplaying murder?

That's a complete false equivalency. Additionally, I actually would say there's a distinction. They are both horrific, obviously, so please stop insinuating that I'm arguing that any of this is appropriate. None of it is appropriate, but that doesn't mean they don't have different distinctions.

No

So I just have one question that I'd like you to answer and I won't respond either way. I just want to make sure it's accurate...

Some dumbass college freshman is trying to be cool in front of his friends in his dorm room and grabs a girl's crotch when she walks by. You're comfortable labeling that kid a racist and having him face rape charges, correct?

Even agreeing that both things are bad you are saying being raped is not any worse than being groped?

So I just have one question that I'd like you to answer and I won't respond either way. I just want to make sure it's accurate...

Some dumbass college freshman is trying to be cool in front of his friends in his dorm room and grabs a girl's crotch when she walks by. You're comfortable labeling that kid a rapist and having him face rape charges, correct?

Not what's being discussed.

We are talking about forcefully fingering (Trump was not talking about a joking quick touch...that would make no sense)

I'm a big dumb shitlib baby

I'm pretty sure that is what's being discussed. The conversation has evolved beyond Trump. Clearly, I'm not defending Donald Trump... but I also don't know how you're inferring that from what he said. Unless I'm not remembering correctly, he said he "grabs them by the pussy," right? I don't know... I never interpreted that to mean finger banging them through their clothes, but maybe I'm wrong.

Not what's being discussed.

We are talking about forcefully fingering (Trump was not talking about a joking quick touch...that would make no sense)

I did not hear that on the tape.

That was my interpretation of the tape, so that is the act I'm debating.

If I was a quick jab, that would be different. I dont think that is what he was describing. He was already talking about forcing himself on women "I just grab then and kiss them" so to think he was saying he just "goosed" em does not make sense to me.

That was my interpretation of the tape, so that is the act I'm debating.

If I was a quick jab, that would be different. I dont think that is what he was describing. He was already talking about forcing himself on women "I just grab then and kiss them" so to think he was saying he just "goosed" em does not make sense to me.

Are you stoned or pissed off, or both, when you create these postings?

I think all of us have touched a female without consent.

There is not a damned thing wrong with people who are bull shitters.