Replying to Avatar Mountain Man

I like your idea of for-profit organizations that compete to evaluate the quality of products and services. But who hires them and pays them? Who quality-checks the quality-checkers?

We get into this 'web of trust' model where you somehow have to determine which of the competing "experts" are trustworthy.

I love the Bitcoin ethos of "verify, don't trust" - but again, how do we structure it?

You say there are many business models here. I'm more of a systems guy, an engineering type, and a developer, not an entrepreneur with a good vision for business models. I'm not sure how this would be structured.

For example, the food industry. They're poisoning us and making huge profits from it, which they use for propaganda that keeps the cycle going.

How do we break this cycle? How do we develop a for-profit company that evaluates the food industry independently and informs the people of what is healthy and what isn't?

Then, how do we develop food companies that actually make more money if people become healthier and stay that way? It's easy to rake in profits on cheap, dangerous foods, but very difficult to make those margins on whole, nutritious foods. A box of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese has a greater profit margin than a ribeye steak, but the Mac & Cheese will slowly poison and kill you, the Ribeye will make you live to 100.

These alternative systems are desperately needed.
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smalltownrifle 3mo ago 💬 1

>>But who hires them and pays them?

Same as any other business. Investors who see the opportunity in the market, entrepreneurs who start the business and the customer who pays for the services.

>>Who quality-checks the quality-checkers?

The market. Much better than the current situation where the monopoly regulator does not get quality-checked. If they were indeed being quality-checked, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

>>We get into this 'web of trust' model where you somehow have to determine which of the competing "experts" are trustworthy.

The market will determine who is trustworthy and who isn't. The companies that lie will lose their reputation and go bankrupt.

>>How do we structure it?

Trying to structure it through a top-down approach is the reason for the current mess. The market is a discovery process that is bottom-up by nature, comprised of people having differing ends and means. It cannot be designed, predicted or planned.

Beyond this, nothing can be done. Nothing ought to be done as well.

People buy what they want to. They are ultimately responsible for what they buy and eat.

The desire to tell other people what to do is a path towards tyranny.

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Mountain Man 3mo ago 💬 2

Ok, when you present an idea like:

>> "I don't see why there can't be competing organizations that keep track of the quality of service provided by food, health and social media companies."

...and I ask for something more specific:

>> "I like your idea of for-profit organizations that compete to evaluate the quality of products and services. But who hires them and pays them? Who quality-checks the quality-checkers?"

Answers that are even more vague, like "the market" or "like any other business," are not answers at all.

Are you being intentionally vague because you don't have any answers?

You present simple theories with no specifics and nothing actionable. To me, that sounds like someone took a course on Free Market Theory but never put boots on the ground in a real business.

>> "The market is a discovery process that is bottom-up by nature, comprised of people having differing ends and means. It cannot be designed, predicted or planned."

Yap, we have "Free Market Theory Guy" here.

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smalltownrifle 3mo ago 💬 1

I'll give you pointers because I'm not from the same jurisdiction you live in and do not deal with the same laws as you do:

>>How do we break this cycle?

Look for subsidies that make the production of certain crops artificially cheap. You'll find answers as to why the demand for healthy food isn't being met and producion is diverted towards less healthy alternatives.

This gets reflected in the prices of the end product and the sales of it. Which then reflects on the balance sheet of the companies that produce these end products.

Also look at the make-up of the basket of goods in the CPI index and see if there's correlation with which crops are being subsidized. The political incentives are right there.

>>How do we develop a for-profit company that evaluates the food industry independently and informs the people of what is healthy and what isn't?

1. Build a platform online that evaluates food products. Or a customer base offline through word-of-mouth.

2. Gain the trust of people who listen by being consistent and honest.

3. Get into sponsorship agreements with companies that are producing healthy food.

4. Let audience book one-on-one consulting sessions in which diet patterns are recommended.

This business model already exists and there are those I know who are consulting with people and upgrading their diets.

The other option is to invest capital and start producing food that's healthy and of better quality than existing, less healthy alternatives. Looking for regulatory restrictions or barriers that hinder such production will have to be removed.

>>Who quality-checks the quality-checkers?

The service being provided is informational and educational.

When a quality-checker is found to be unreliable, his customers will stop paying for his service. He will lose his position in the market and be replaced by a competing quality-checker.

If it's a legal service that's expected where the food producer is sued in court, then there's the question of whether fraud is involved. If there is, and it isn't punished, then it's a failure of the legal system, not the market.

If the legal system has failed, then private arbitration tribunals that go after the producers for fraud will have to be permitted to exist. And there will have to be a private appeals court system for challenging the decisions from these tribunals.

And I repeat what I said earlier: even with all this, if a person still voluntarily buys something he knows to be unhealthy, then that is his responsibility and noone else's.

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Mountain Man 3mo ago 💬 1

I appreciate what you’re saying, but here’s the problem I see: none of these models keep corruption out. The consultants and evaluators will eventually get paid more by the food producers than by their customers, and then they’re not consultants anymore—they’re advertisers. Same problem, new wrapper.

And even deeper than that: if people actually got the truth about nutrition, 95% of them would almost never need a doctor, a dietician, or a consultant. Eating right is simple, but the incentives are stacked against that truth ever becoming mainstream.

That’s why it’s hard to see a scalable business model here. If someone tells the truth, their customers quickly become self-sufficient and no longer need them. But if they don’t tell the truth, they slide into corruption and sell out to the food and pharma companies. Either way, it doesn’t sustain itself.

I’m not against private solutions at all—but when you dig into food and medicine, the models that actually scale tend to be the ones that keep people sick and dependent, not the ones that make them healthy and independent. And that’s the cycle we desperately need to break.

I really do appreciate your ideas here, because these are the right conversations to be having. The real challenge, I believe, is finding a way to align profit with truth and long-term well-being. That’s the nut no one has cracked yet.

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smalltownrifle 3mo ago

Consumers are as self-interested and profit-driven as businesses. Just that profits for them come from unquantifiable, intangible returns in the form of satisfaction derived from the products they buy.

This is something mainstream economics and discussion about markets miss. (Only Austrian economics acknowledges this). Markets are not driven by profits. They are driven by producers satisfying demands from consumers.

Speaking of Austrian economics, here's an Austrian view of the subject we are discussing, in case you missed my other reply in which I shared this link:

https://youtu.be/hTEFAeVBdKw

Also, my business model need not and will not be the only one that will be tried out. Competing businesses will implement their models and the customers will have the option to choose between them.

Eg: If consultants and evaluators turn into advertisers, there is opportunity and profit for others to take their place to deliver genuine services, because there will always be customers for buying genuine services.

The improvement over the current status quo is this: patients, unhealthy and sick people have a way out of the corruption in the form of competition. And there are real incentives for people to offer a way out.

(Note that I'm not suggesting perfection at all, because perfection can never exist in human societies.)

And yes, if people are healthy, then they won't need many doctors, dieticians or consultants.

But you could say that for any problem that people have in life.

Every person will want his problems to be permanently solved rather than partially solved.

And those who permanently solve them will exist, unless a government-enforced cartel or monopoly prevents them from existing.

I have looked into and explored alternative medicinal and nutritionmus practices. They do exist. And one has to work hard to find them.

But they stay away from public view because of goons and criminals from the state potentially coming after them with their nonsensical regulations.

In a free market, these people would be far more prominent.

My ultimate point is this:

Trusting the government to regulate food and medicine will not work. It will always be an organisation of crookery and thievery. It's in its nature.