5 ms·

I'm seeing a lot of "I fear that..." in this thread. I just have to laugh. This isn't a new or unique situation. The only thing that has changed are people's

I'm seeing a lot of "I fear that..." in this thread. I just have to laugh. This isn't a new or unique situation. The only thing that has changed are people's preferences. My Great Aunt lived in NYC with 6 other girls. Roommates were required to survive the high rents of post-war NYC. California has always been gripped by NIMBYisms and choking regulation. You get what you vote for. What can you do against the tyranny of good ideas? It's a good idea to make use environmentally friendly building materials. It's a good idea to build earthquake resilient homes. It's a good idea to require certain standards of home building. It's a good idea to rent control the apartments of the elderly so they can continue to live in their home of the past 50 years. It's a good idea to X..Y..Z. Is it a good idea to create a generation of serfs?

utternerd 9y ago
"A government big enough to give you everything you want, is a government big enough to take away everything that you have." For all the talk of "negative externalities" I see on HN and the valley in general, I never see people discussing the rampant "negative externalities" of the laws and regulations we pass. It's unfortunate there's so little introspection going on, and so much reliance on the monopoly of the Government to further what Group A or Group B wants. (But it's OK, because I agree with Group A!)
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > "A government big enough to give you everything you want, is a government big enough to take away everything that you have." A cute saying, but misleading. A government big enough to impose even a modest constraint on violent crime is also more than big enough to take away everything you have; anything weak enough to avoid that threat is not the government and will be replaced in that role but something else that is. So, mitigating that threat necessarily is about managing aspects of government other than its size.
- Daishiman 9y ago
  Corporations big enough can have a humongous power to take away everything from you.
  - utternerd 9y ago
    I can easily opt out of a voluntary transaction -- the corporation has no way to compel me, but the Government absolutely can, and does in fact on a daily basis.
    - adrr 9y ago
      So when corporation lobbies the government to eminent domain your property, how does one opt out of that transaction? Ultimate power is money as it buys anything.
      - djrogers 9y ago
        But at that point you've brought the government back in to it and we're right back where we started. If the government didn't have the ability to create monopolies for the sake of their donors, it wouldn't be a problem.
        Daishiman 9y ago
        Monopolies are natural; they are the end state of most markets in most market economies. Capital distribution follows a power law, and that implies that a few big players always end up controlling the majority of a market unless you explicitly break them up. This is really basic.
        logicchains 9y ago
        >Monopolies are natural; they are the end state of most markets in most market economies. Capital distribution follows a power law, and that implies that a few big players always end up controlling the majority of a market unless you explicitly break them up. The latter does not imply the former. A monopoly is defined as _a single big player_. That's what the mono means, one! Like in monorail or monotone. If there are "a few big players", that is by definition an oligopoly, not a monopoly. This is _really_ basic English.
- aninhumer 9y ago
  Any government powerful enough to enforce property rights is by definition powerful enough to take away everything you own.
jdavis703 9y ago
I lived in a suburban single-family home with about 20-25 other people for a year when I was in college (each of us had our own bedroom, except for families where children slept with parents). For the most part everyone there was quiet, either going to the college nearby or else working while studying for a professional license or graduate school. The landlord also lived there with an extended family of about 10 people. We had a couple of rotten apples, but we self-regulated and kicked out people who caused problems in our house or for our neighbors. Yet, we still had people in the neighborhood calling the zoning inspector to "shut us down." Zoning laws make it hard to even live with "6 other girls" these days. Boarding houses are mostly illegal, and people don't really build SROs anymore.
- kasey_junk 9y ago
  How many bedrooms/acres was that? I can see that running up against perfectly reasonable anti tennament ordinances depending on your answer.
  - Sacho 9y ago
    Isn't that the point that GP is making? "Very reasonable" laws ending up hurting people through unintended consequences.
- xxSparkleSxx 9y ago
  In the city I grew up in they had some arcane law on the books regarding brothels, so something stupid like no more than 8 women could live in one dwelling. Made it impossible to have sorority houses, though fraternity houses were still allowed.
  - dismantlethesun 9y ago
    I remember the same in my college town. A group of my aspiring political friends lived in a house of 12 women in blatant disregard for the law and crossed their fingers hoping that someone would make a fuss about it so they could sue on virtuous grounds.
  - 9y ago
kevinburke 9y ago
> This isn't a new or unique situation. It used to be feasible to buy a home on the peninsula for 3-4x the area median income, and that number's now 6-8x at least, so I'd argue that yes, things are worse now, even taking inflation into account. SF rents have also been increasing 6% YoY or so. > What can you do against the tyranny of good ideas? There are a number of practical things we can do: - Contact the Brisbane City Council and ask them to approve housing in the Baylands. The developer wants to build 4000 units, the city Planning Commission wants to build 0. - Contact the Mountain View City Council and ask them to build the high-density version of their housing plan, which would add 8000 units instead of 2000 (I have asked YC, a prominent Mountain View business, to help take the lead here). - Show up to your city council and ask them to upzone their downtown area to support higher density. Ask them to make it easier to build accessory dwelling units (ADU's) and streamline the planning process. - Call your State Assemblymember and ask them to support SB 35, which removes local control over projects that are near transit and include a high percentage of below market rent units. - Call your State Senator and ask them to oppose AB 915, which would make it more difficult to build housing in San Francisco. As well as a number of other pieces... I don't know that there's a magic bullet but at the margin there are a number of things that we can do to mitigate the situation.
- seehafer 9y ago
  Having tried the "Contact the City Council of a city I don't live in" thing in the past, I'd suggest a better use of your time, if you don't live in Brisbane or MV, is to try to find companies that do and persuade their leaders to take action. Larry and Sergey could fix MV's intransigence very fast. We need to call on tech leadership to take a stand here. It's in their best interest. +1 to all the suggestions about calling your city council, your assemblymember, your state senator, etc
  - afuchs 9y ago
    > ... > Larry and Sergey could fix MV's intransigence very fast. We need to call on tech leadership to take a stand here. It's in their best interest. > ... Haven't they tried, only to have been denied by the City of Mountain View? Google, through a subsidiary, is leasing parts of Moffett Field, federal property exempt from local zoning laws, to build housing [1]. [1] https://mv-voice.com/news/2017/05/19/google-relaunches-bay-view-project https://mv-voice.com/news/2017/05/19/google-relaunches-bay-v...

utternerd 9y ago

"A government big enough to give you everything you want, is a government big enough to take away everything that you have." For all the talk of "negative externalities" I see on HN and the valley in general, I never see people discussing the rampant "negative externalities" of the laws and regulations we pass. It's unfortunate there's so little introspection going on, and so much reliance on the monopoly of the Government to further what Group A or Group B wants. (But it's OK, because I agree with Group A!)

dragonwriter 9y ago
> "A government big enough to give you everything you want, is a government big enough to take away everything that you have." A cute saying, but misleading. A government big enough to impose even a modest constraint on violent crime is also more than big enough to take away everything you have; anything weak enough to avoid that threat is not the government and will be replaced in that role but something else that is. So, mitigating that threat necessarily is about managing aspects of government other than its size.
Daishiman 9y ago
Corporations big enough can have a humongous power to take away everything from you.
- utternerd 9y ago
  I can easily opt out of a voluntary transaction -- the corporation has no way to compel me, but the Government absolutely can, and does in fact on a daily basis.
  - adrr 9y ago
    So when corporation lobbies the government to eminent domain your property, how does one opt out of that transaction? Ultimate power is money as it buys anything.
    - djrogers 9y ago
      But at that point you've brought the government back in to it and we're right back where we started. If the government didn't have the ability to create monopolies for the sake of their donors, it wouldn't be a problem.
      - Daishiman 9y ago
        Monopolies are natural; they are the end state of most markets in most market economies. Capital distribution follows a power law, and that implies that a few big players always end up controlling the majority of a market unless you explicitly break them up. This is really basic.
        logicchains 9y ago
        >Monopolies are natural; they are the end state of most markets in most market economies. Capital distribution follows a power law, and that implies that a few big players always end up controlling the majority of a market unless you explicitly break them up. The latter does not imply the former. A monopoly is defined as _a single big player_. That's what the mono means, one! Like in monorail or monotone. If there are "a few big players", that is by definition an oligopoly, not a monopoly. This is _really_ basic English.
aninhumer 9y ago
Any government powerful enough to enforce property rights is by definition powerful enough to take away everything you own.

jdavis703 9y ago

I lived in a suburban single-family home with about 20-25 other people for a year when I was in college (each of us had our own bedroom, except for families where children slept with parents). For the most part everyone there was quiet, either going to the college nearby or else working while studying for a professional license or graduate school. The landlord also lived there with an extended family of about 10 people. We had a couple of rotten apples, but we self-regulated and kicked out people who caused problems in our house or for our neighbors. Yet, we still had people in the neighborhood calling the zoning inspector to "shut us down." Zoning laws make it hard to even live with "6 other girls" these days. Boarding houses are mostly illegal, and people don't really build SROs anymore.

kasey_junk 9y ago
How many bedrooms/acres was that? I can see that running up against perfectly reasonable anti tennament ordinances depending on your answer.
- Sacho 9y ago
  Isn't that the point that GP is making? "Very reasonable" laws ending up hurting people through unintended consequences.
xxSparkleSxx 9y ago
In the city I grew up in they had some arcane law on the books regarding brothels, so something stupid like no more than 8 women could live in one dwelling. Made it impossible to have sorority houses, though fraternity houses were still allowed.
- dismantlethesun 9y ago
  I remember the same in my college town. A group of my aspiring political friends lived in a house of 12 women in blatant disregard for the law and crossed their fingers hoping that someone would make a fuss about it so they could sue on virtuous grounds.
- 9y ago

kevinburke 9y ago

> This isn't a new or unique situation. It used to be feasible to buy a home on the peninsula for 3-4x the area median income, and that number's now 6-8x at least, so I'd argue that yes, things are worse now, even taking inflation into account. SF rents have also been increasing 6% YoY or so. > What can you do against the tyranny of good ideas? There are a number of practical things we can do: - Contact the Brisbane City Council and ask them to approve housing in the Baylands. The developer wants to build 4000 units, the city Planning Commission wants to build 0. - Contact the Mountain View City Council and ask them to build the high-density version of their housing plan, which would add 8000 units instead of 2000 (I have asked YC, a prominent Mountain View business, to help take the lead here). - Show up to your city council and ask them to upzone their downtown area to support higher density. Ask them to make it easier to build accessory dwelling units (ADU's) and streamline the planning process. - Call your State Assemblymember and ask them to support SB 35, which removes local control over projects that are near transit and include a high percentage of below market rent units. - Call your State Senator and ask them to oppose AB 915, which would make it more difficult to build housing in San Francisco. As well as a number of other pieces... I don't know that there's a magic bullet but at the margin there are a number of things that we can do to mitigate the situation.

seehafer 9y ago
Having tried the "Contact the City Council of a city I don't live in" thing in the past, I'd suggest a better use of your time, if you don't live in Brisbane or MV, is to try to find companies that do and persuade their leaders to take action. Larry and Sergey could fix MV's intransigence very fast. We need to call on tech leadership to take a stand here. It's in their best interest. +1 to all the suggestions about calling your city council, your assemblymember, your state senator, etc
- afuchs 9y ago
  > ... > Larry and Sergey could fix MV's intransigence very fast. We need to call on tech leadership to take a stand here. It's in their best interest. > ... Haven't they tried, only to have been denied by the City of Mountain View? Google, through a subsidiary, is leasing parts of Moffett Field, federal property exempt from local zoning laws, to build housing [1]. [1] https://mv-voice.com/news/2017/05/19/google-relaunches-bay-view-project https://mv-voice.com/news/2017/05/19/google-relaunches-bay-v...