I wonder if the points each "side" here is making are going past the heads of the other side. Here's why I say that.

BStand and Spoon argue that the government should stay out of things that are sufficiently personal. I agree, and most people probably do agree (but with difference in what is "sufficient"). However, Mademoiselle Poopadoop and others argue that if there is sufficient risk of harm via externality to others in a personal decision, government should intervene.

I agree with the BStand and Spoon position, though the irony is that even BStand and I would disagree on the details. Example: I think taxing in order to spend on public education intervenes on something I consider sufficiently personal; he doesn't. A solution here might be to define how we can determine if something is sufficiently personal. I don't know how to do that, probably because it's a really abstract concept.*

Regarding the other side, the idea that government should intervene to reduce negative externality, that's less abstract. It can be more easily measured. This was in part the purpose of the thread. That was more than just quantifying what government can do to reduce negative externality but also quantifying the costs and opportunity costs of government doing it in a way that finds if it is more efficient than if the private sector were to be left to its own devices. For clarity, I never quantified but explained what I think should be quantified.


*One possible way to figure this out is through triangulation. If it is shown that government can more efficiently allocate resources to individual preferences than the private sector choosing freely can, then that might be enough to call that issue one that is not sufficiently personal to keep government out of it. Maybe.