You posted this in /c/[email protected] a few months ago. Here’s my wrinkle that I posted back then too.

Money (and hence profit motive) is an analogue for being able to acquire and do things we need and want.

There’s two kinds of miserable people in relation to profit motive - those who can’t acquire enough money for the basic things they need to be happy, and those who took the analogue so far that they think money = happiness.

There is generally very little issue getting people to do things they want to do (things that feel meaningful) as long as they manage to cover their basic needs somehow, but there are definitely issues getting people to do things that they don’t want to do - which is where profit motive shines.

There is much more garbage to collect than there are people who want to collect garbage, more deliveries to make than people who want to make them, more places to clean than people who want to clean them.

Luckily, there is someone who wants the garbage collected, someone who wants the toilets cleaned, someone who wants their trinkets delivered. Hence, we get people to pay for that, and thus we can use profit motive to incentivize someone to do those things, at least until we manage to automate it.

I’ll also add the following. I think a key problem in modern economics is that the arbitrary creation of money/capital (need) via debt (promises) has become far too easy. It allows entities and individuals that already have large balance sheets (control a large amount of capital) to get incredible leverage in a way that is very difficult for any working individual to compete with. This skews the entire productivity of society away from outputting what regular people need/want to acquire through their work (that they trade for money).

Oh for sure! It’s a well known problem that’s been subject to increasingly strict regulation (for good reason), and modern cars are a significantly less pollutant. Ending the addiction to fossil fuels would be a huge win, but also a much larger undertaking than preventing the effects of SHS.

Loud-ass exhausts, booming subwoofers…

These can indeed have negative health effects and are banned in many places, the latter at least after certain hours (noise complaints!). MOT inspection fails vehicles with excessively loud exhausts and in many places you can get a “rolling inspection” from a traffic officer on the road resulting in a fine or “fix-it” ticket.

Strong colognes and perfumes…also banned in public.

Don’t have negative health effects on most people, though you can be asked to leave from many health care institutions if using too strong scents. Not really comparable to smoking but the argument could certainly be made.

Ugly sweaters, poor fashion choices, and shitty cars with anime girls painted on the side?

Only causes death by second-hand embarrassment. Maybe not excessively scantily clad anime girls at a… kindergarten? but apart from that only emotions will be hurt.