With #7 I envisioned (half-baked idea, I haven't thought through the implications, just an annoyance that I can fortunately ignore for the moment) an effort to

With #7 I envisioned (half-baked idea, I haven't thought through the implications, just an annoyance that I can fortunately ignore for the moment) an effort to produce a national building code affording us a one-time opportunity to restructure the code's presentation from specifying "how" to "why" as the lead-in, and the "how" as an example reference. I envisioned the building code instantiated as live data feeds of various metrics like earthquake data from the USGS, historical weather, flooding data from FEMA+US Army Corps of Engineers+USGS, soil surveys from USDA, etc., and for a building type and precise location you specify (commercial or residential, single-story/multi-story/highrise, etc.), only relevant code is extracted and received either electronically or in hardcopy, with a data package representing all relevant code. Building plans are drawn up including metadata references to relevant code section(s) from the beginning. This part still requires human judgement and negotiation of which section(s) are applicable, but perhaps an online marketplace of pre-configured plan modules with pre-certified section(s) tagged to the module's components can help mitigate that complexity. Merchants would certify products they sell are compliant with the "why" of specific section(s) through a number of insured certification authorities, who become (perhaps limited) jointly liable for their issued certifications against gross negligence (to avoid rubber-stamping behavior). Products are shipped with a cryptographically-signed RFID stamp ensuring authenticity and enabling remote building inspection. Can't avoid all "how's", like for example spot-checking to see that bare copper isn't laid exposed to house insulation because someone stripped off too much wire insulation and couldn't be bothered to re-run or fix the mistake. But with all the data we collect today, there has to be a better way to permit, construct and inspect buildings. Then we open up the housing market to vendors with better mousetraps to solve the "why's" expressed in the building code, adding enormous dynamism to the economy.