Sure dude, and when they will go back from the 5 year plan and let people do their own stuff instead it is also going to be because that is what the central planners decided.
In this case the central planners made a decision to relinquish some of their control. That has to be a good thing. They had control over the intersections previously and now they do not.
But hey, go ahead and repeat the same thing for the third time now.
Actually I’m going to switch gears now that you addressed what I was saying.
Of course it would.
But, then again, that’s not how I’m using the words.
Wordplay.
Did they take down the lights and then let the free people decide whether putting up lights would be a good idea?
No, they just took down the lights, and declared that to be the new situation.
But, now that I think of it, I might have misunderstood you here.
What exactly is “the 5 year plan”, and what exactly would it mean to “go back” from it?
Here’s a great quotation on this:
I’m not totally sure where I saw the relevance.
But, either way, the OP mentioned nothing but a bunch of central planners choosing how to run a road.
Maybe a competitive system would produce traffic lights as standard!
Please do me a favour and stop assuming I am too dumb to realise what you are writting. Yes whatever, ideally the streets would be homesteaded and then the owners would decide how they would be run, I know this, everybody knows this. We are not morons on here, stop taking us for ones. Aside from being true it is also an extremely boring point because it is so obvious and common wisdom on here. Stop being such a sectarian with a fixation on the fundamentalist, it is tiring. It is a point that doesn’t need saying.
When the central planners relinquish some of their control over us, it is always a welcome thing, even if it does not bring a situation anywhere near what would exist in a free society. Yes on the macro level the decision to turn off the trafic lights was made by the central planners. However on the micro level, now the drivers are free to work out among themselves a million tiny conventions a day and to decide who stops where and for how long. It is unfortunate that they are not also free to set up a traffic light of their own making, however such a light would have nothing in common with a traffic light that have been placed by the central planners. On the whole while not perfect, the present situation is a clear improvement over the staggering number of limitations they had to deal with before, seen not in the least in the giant lessening of traffic congestion.
If the central planners setting the economic policy went from state owned means of production towards a total free market, but with the regulation that no company may exceed a certain miniscule number of employees it would be an obvious improvement. Rather than being dictated to in almost all things, the producers are now free at many things. Even if now they are not able to work in huge factories, though before they could. If the central planners toying with freedom of movement abolished passports it would be an obvious improvement for us as they would be left without some control over us, even though a free society would actually almost certainly have a need for a form of passports. If the central planners abolished all militaries starting with their own it would also be an improvement even though a free society would have a need for some form of military.
As it is possible for reform to change things for the worse, it is also possible for reform to change things for the better. You are going to have to acknowledge that.
I’m going to go ahead and disagree with all of that.
Sure, but I don’t consider this to be an example of a reform toward less central planning.
In a world without any central planning, people might not be “free to work out among themselves a million tiny conventions a day and to decide who stops where and for how long”. In a world with 0 central planning, people might not be free to do that. So what if, in that world, all of the sudden, the road owners decided to take down all of the traffic lights? Would that be a negative amount of central planning? -0.1% central planning?
Or are you saying that even a road owner in a free society putting up traffic lights would be acting as a “central planner”? (Because, in that case, I wouldn’t necessarily have anything against “central planning”, which seems to have a pretty negative connotation around here.)
I think you (and others) are missing the OP’s point. The question is not whether an owner has the right to impose rules and regulations over his property. The point is rather to show that better results (for all) are achieved when agents are allowed to freely negotiate the allocation/usage of scarce resources (intersection space-time) versus those resources being “centrally” allocated by the lights regime. The “planner” to be better dispensed with here is not the owner of the intersection (government or private, regardless) but the lights regime itself.
Z.
Sure, but I think that your quotes around those words are pretty important. A “central” person stopped “planning”, but then again who cares? If that’s how we are going to use the word from now on, let me state for the record that I’m not against central planning anymore.
(To be clear, I’m just responding to what Marko was saying. I don’t have anything against the OP.)
Around here they are trying to replace traffic lights with roundabouts. The reasons are simple: first of all even the smallest roundabout costs more than a hundred thousand. It’s part of the bailout for the housing industry and when public works are involved a veritable swarm of sub contractors, sub-sub contractors and sub-sub-sub contractors will get work. Think make-work jobs, only larger and more complex.
The second is a misinterpreted idea that roundabouts will streamline traffic when compared to traffic lights. Thanks to the housing boom all roads around here are overcrowded: local councils didn’t spend a penny improving infrastructures and even made road worse by adding cycle paths nobody uses or building enormous speed bumps (against the law). Double the people but same roads as thirty years ago. Problem is roundabouts are bloody dangerous: nobody respects the yield signs and more often than not you’ll find yourself slamming on the brakes to avoid being hit. Dangerous? Yes. But since the accidents are usually low speed and result in only material damages and light injuries nobody really cares: bureaucrats don’t care if accidents don’t result in fatalities or “serious injuries”. Personally I’d much rather have traffic lights than roundabouts: plainly put they are safer than government make-work projects.
I saw this video as a meme a couple years ago:
Crazy Traffic in India: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsPCsW3_aUY
Sometimes I think of a green traffic light as a license to blow through an intersection without much regard for what is coming the other way…
So if there were no laws against murder, and someone killed someone you loved, you would not try and figure out who it is?
What about traffic lights installed by the state and ran by the state and enforced by the state? (which is what he is referring to)
How can you be sure? Do you have some evidence? Or is this just an opinion?
I live about 10miles away from the town in the video and I never knew about it! Pity because I would have liked to have driven through. You should bear in mind that this is a sleepy seaside town where the average age is probably 50+, I would love to see this in action in London!