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From: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: The free market and scuba diving
Message-ID: <701@cybvax0.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 25-Aug-85 18:24:05 EDT
Article-I.D.: cybvax0.701
Posted: Sun Aug 25 18:24:05 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 28-Aug-85 02:13:06 EDT
References: <9563@ucbvax.ARPA> <1106@umcp-cs.UUCP> <10166@ucbvax.ARPA> <10169@ucbvax.ARPA>
Reply-To: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz)
Organization: Cybermation, Inc., Cambridge, MA
Lines: 22

In article <10169@ucbvax.ARPA> fagin@ucbvax.UUCP (Barry Steven Fagin) writes:
> My wife and I decided to go scuba diving; she's experienced, while I
> had never been before.  When we went to get equipment, the dive
> shop wouldn't rent anything to me because I wasn't certified; my
> wife had to get gear at two different dive shops in her name.  I
> spoke at great length with a dive shop owner about this.  Apparently,
> there are no laws in Hawaii that forbid renting to non-certified divers.
> Instead, the companies that insure the dive shops require that their
> customers be certified.  My gut reaction was "What a crock", since in
> diving I endanger only myself and perhaps my wife, and we're both
> consenting adults, but since the regulations were strictly
> noncoercive I couldn't get too riled up.  An interesting example of
> how the free market keeps a sport safe, even though it may piss
> off libertarians.

So what we have here is examples of how the free market is ineffective
at protecting you from "unsafe" practices, and of your wife violating a
contract (implied, perhaps.)  Funny how neither of those examples
inspires me to embrace libertarianism.
-- 

Mike Huybensz		...decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh