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> He gets two weeks to provide an enormous amount of detailed information about the product Which either he should have readily available, since he's the creat

> He gets two weeks to provide an enormous amount of detailed information about the product Which either he should have readily available, since he's the creator, or he should have known, since he should be able to demonstrate the safety of the device. > I assume under threat of legal consequences if any of it contains an error Usually you hand over what you have, then you negotiate with the regulator for a time frame to answer the more difficult questions. If you're unsure about something, tell the regulator up front. The correct response is not to throw a tantrum and shut everything down. > interspersed with lots of reminders that they can and will close down his business if they feel like it That's the textbook definition of 'regulation'.

BurningFrog 10y ago
> > they can and will close down his business if they feel like it > That's the textbook definition of 'regulation'. Right, and it's one of the big problems I have with this form of regulation. I think it violates the idea of "Rule of Law", as opposed to "Rule of Man", which was one of the major factors behind the rise of modern free society.
- taco_emoji 10y ago
  Can you explain? You seem to be implying that you believe that the NHTSA is capriciously making demands of Comma but not to other similar companies in a similar stage of market-readiness.
  - BurningFrog 10y ago
    They certainly could, which is part of my point. Whether they do or not depends on the honesty, bias, and personal ambitions of the people running the agency. The empirical experience is that regulatory agencies over time gravitate towards favoring the big established players in the industry they're regulating. The economist term is "Regulatory Capture".
    - smallnamespace 10y ago
      > honesty, bias, and personal ambitions of the people As long it's humans that write and execute laws, this is strictly unavoidable. It doesn't depend on the particular details of how we do regulation.
      - BurningFrog 10y ago
        Under Rule of Law, one set of humans write the laws. If you break them another set of humans decide on your guilt and punishment. Set 1 (legislators) can and do write laws to favor and disfavor individual actors, and I agree that that is in part unavoidable. Set 2 (judges and juries) are appointed randomly after it's become a legal matter, so it's impossible for any inappropriate influence in either direction before that. And there is no "set 3" of regulators that issue orders during the day-to-day running of the business. So I think you're right that this problem always exist, but in my estimation it's a few orders of magnitude bigger under a "Rule of Man" regulation scheme.
        smallnamespace 10y ago
        > no "set 3" of regulators that issue orders during the day-to-day running of the business You mentioned 2 branches of government, the legislative and judicial. But the third branch, the executive, does (in part) exactly what you described above. Taken to the logical extreme, your view means we should replace every government adminstrator with a court, including for mundane decisions like whether to grant a marriage license. That system would be horribly inefficient and probably not much more consistent or effective since random people off the street won't have the domain knowledge a regulator has. Also, regulators are representatives of the people and are subject to laws just like everyone else. The escape hatch of the legal system is always available -- if you think the regulator got it wrong, then take it to a court, and a judge and jury decides who is right.
        BurningFrog 10y ago
        The marriage license argument is textbook strawman. That is not regulation of an industry, and you know it.
- inimino 10y ago
  How do you think regulations get enforced?
module0000 10y ago
> The correct response is not to throw a tantrum and shut everything down. I think the correct response is to work with them 110%. Having that government body happy with you isn't a bad thing - you could become the reference spec for self-driving if you please them to an appropriate degree.

BurningFrog 10y ago

> > they can and will close down his business if they feel like it > That's the textbook definition of 'regulation'. Right, and it's one of the big problems I have with this form of regulation. I think it violates the idea of "Rule of Law", as opposed to "Rule of Man", which was one of the major factors behind the rise of modern free society.

taco_emoji 10y ago
Can you explain? You seem to be implying that you believe that the NHTSA is capriciously making demands of Comma but not to other similar companies in a similar stage of market-readiness.
- BurningFrog 10y ago
  They certainly could, which is part of my point. Whether they do or not depends on the honesty, bias, and personal ambitions of the people running the agency. The empirical experience is that regulatory agencies over time gravitate towards favoring the big established players in the industry they're regulating. The economist term is "Regulatory Capture".
  - smallnamespace 10y ago
    > honesty, bias, and personal ambitions of the people As long it's humans that write and execute laws, this is strictly unavoidable. It doesn't depend on the particular details of how we do regulation.
    - BurningFrog 10y ago
      Under Rule of Law, one set of humans write the laws. If you break them another set of humans decide on your guilt and punishment. Set 1 (legislators) can and do write laws to favor and disfavor individual actors, and I agree that that is in part unavoidable. Set 2 (judges and juries) are appointed randomly after it's become a legal matter, so it's impossible for any inappropriate influence in either direction before that. And there is no "set 3" of regulators that issue orders during the day-to-day running of the business. So I think you're right that this problem always exist, but in my estimation it's a few orders of magnitude bigger under a "Rule of Man" regulation scheme.
      - smallnamespace 10y ago
        > no "set 3" of regulators that issue orders during the day-to-day running of the business You mentioned 2 branches of government, the legislative and judicial. But the third branch, the executive, does (in part) exactly what you described above. Taken to the logical extreme, your view means we should replace every government adminstrator with a court, including for mundane decisions like whether to grant a marriage license. That system would be horribly inefficient and probably not much more consistent or effective since random people off the street won't have the domain knowledge a regulator has. Also, regulators are representatives of the people and are subject to laws just like everyone else. The escape hatch of the legal system is always available -- if you think the regulator got it wrong, then take it to a court, and a judge and jury decides who is right.
        BurningFrog 10y ago
        The marriage license argument is textbook strawman. That is not regulation of an industry, and you know it.
inimino 10y ago
How do you think regulations get enforced?

module0000 10y ago

> The correct response is not to throw a tantrum and shut everything down. I think the correct response is to work with them 110%. Having that government body happy with you isn't a bad thing - you could become the reference spec for self-driving if you please them to an appropriate degree.