[olieidel]

Berlin is a great place to observe policies with good intentions, yet negative second-order effects.

Distributing free potatoes will likely cause waste somewhere else, as e.g. people will buy less potatoes in supermarkets. The waste just becomes less visible as supermarkets dispose of food every day.

Another current exhibit is the prohibition of using salt for removing snow and ice from the pavements because it's "bad for plants and the ground water". While that is true to some degree, the Berlin policy conveniently ignores all second-order effects: Sidewalks are more slippery, more people get hurt. I see people slipping on snow-compacted ice almost every day. How many trees have to be saved to make it worthwhile for more people breaking their bones?

You can apply for an exemption though, e.g. if you plan to use salt on a driveway to a hospital. Processing fees for such an exemption are up to 1.4k€ [1].

The rent cap is another one. But let's go there another day..

[1] https://www.berlin.de/umwelt/themen/natur-pflanzen-artenschu...

[palmotea]

> Another current exhibit is the prohibition of using salt for removing snow and ice from the pavements because it's "bad for plants and the ground water". While that is true to some degree, the Berlin policy conveniently ignores all second-order effects: Sidewalks are more slippery, more people get hurt.

Rigorously considering second-order (and greater) effects is a massive undertaking, though. Like: how do you even know how many more people will slip and get hurt without salting sidewalks and how much the damage the salt does to "plants and ground water," without many careful and expensive research projects? And then there's the challenge of weighing such completely disparate things: how many injuries are healthier plants worth?

Basically is seems easier said than done.

[Xylakant]

The problem is not salting or not - the problem is that the house owners are liable for cleaning the sidewalk and they all outsourced it to the same companies. And the companies unsurprisingly all fail to deliver on their obligations because they take on way more customers they could possibly handle. The result is as expected - nothing gets done. A shovel and broom, maybe some grit would have been enough.

But there’s no shred of enforcement and instead of calling for enforcement, politicians now call for relaxing the rules on salting.

[port11]

The ban on salt isn’t silly, for a long time pebbles were good enough to prevent black ice, and perhaps even more effective than ice.

Donating potatoes that were about to go to waste might cause waste elsewhere, but what you propose is that we never give food away unless we can be absolutely sure it won’t cause waste in another sub-system. That’s a tall order. These potatoes were going to be waste anyway.

[yunohn]

Surely if you can consider the second order effects of giving away these extra potatoes for free, then you can also consider the second order effects of not giving them away? And maybe even thinking more about it, consider that they may be going to different markets/people/causes?

Given this example is about 1T batches of potatoes, it could be used by a business that depends on cheap potatoes like a food kitchen, or a business that can absorb the input surge and convert it into a product that can be stored longer term like frozen foods.

[BeetleB]

> While that is true to some degree, the Berlin policy conveniently ignores all second-order effects: Sidewalks are more slippery, more people get hurt

I seriously doubt they did not know that. The whole point of salt is to prevent people from falling. Of course they knew more people will fall.

[bigbluesax]

Is the concept of someone who usually doesn't eat potatoes getting a bag and spending the next week making some potato dishes really that inconceivable? I don't doubt that this will lead to some waste - I've thrown out more half empty potato bags than I would like to admit - but that's a very negative outlook.

Also how do you choose between negative second order effects? Salting roads creates negative effects for groundwater and plants which are really hard to mitigate. On the other hand the second order effect of people slipping could at least be dealt with on an individual level by putting spikes on your shoes.

[JumpCrisscross]

> how do you choose between negative second order effects?

First off you have to identify them. Until you frame the costs and benefits of salting, it isn't clear that the real question is how can we improve pedestrian and vehicular traction without poisoning our plants and water supply. (I'd argue it's frequent ploughing, gravelling and dynamic signs for signalling when chains/snowies/AWD are required.)

[Voultapher]

Salting your ground water is also a second-order effect. The way you put that statement into quotes shows that you value human well being over everything else. Personally I don't. Life on earth is a co-op and we don't win by being the last ones standing, as we are desperately trying right now.

[tmp10423288442]

When I hear people like you, I pray that natural selection will remove people like you from the population faster than mutations create them.

[card_zero]

> How many trees have to be saved to make it worthwhile for more people breaking their bones?

That has a specific answer, like "twenty". But calculating it would be a hopeless task.

[marc_g]

As someone who just went outside to buy groceries in Berlin and watched them salt the road on my way to Kaufland, I am confused. Is it just for sidewalks?

[olieidel]

Roads are salted, everything else is not.

[yorwba]

Are you sure they weren't using sand or gravel instead?

[dietr1ch]

Good point on the second order concern, but I'd get potatoes and keep non-perishable food for later. Assuming the exact same weight or available caloric intake will be wasted is too simplistic.

[bryanrasmussen]

I mean it sounds sort of if you know what the second order effect of damage to plants and ground water will be if people salt their driveways? I would think you sort of need to run the test in production to see which way is more beneficial.

[literalAardvark]

You could always just clean the snow instead of salting it. It's not rocket science.

[bmulholland]

Most Berlin sidewalks are uneven cobblestone, not a flat uniform concrete, so the cleaning is probably a lot more difficult than you're envisioning :)

[frm88]

It's not about the snow, snow is easy. It's about black ice of which we seem to have more in the last few years. Gravel doesn't cut it here - I broke my wrist last year and this year I salted the paved path to the front gate, I don't want to repeat 8 hours waiting in the ER, 2 surgeries and 3 months more or less out of commission.

[blell]

>How many trees have to be saved to make it worthwhile for more people breaking their bones?

The **** is a death cult. They are very very happy to see you become an invalid if it avoids the death of a sapling. I know that this sounds hyperbolic to the point of being derisive, but it's the observable truth.

[OKRainbowKid]

Who specifically are you talking about?