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I think his point was that it's not a legitimate role of government to interfere in the details of your private life inside your own home, especially when they

I think his point was that it's not a legitimate role of government to interfere in the details of your private life inside your own home, especially when they affect no one else.

emodendroket 9y ago
Well, I mean, let's say, for the sake of argument, solar panels had a tendency to burst into flames and cause not only the house they were installed in but also neighboring houses to go up in flames. Would it still be unreasonable to ban them? If not then you've conceded the principle and we're back to arguing about the specifics of each case.
- wallace_f 9y ago
  As far as I know the historical justification for legitimate government rule is social contract theory -- hand over some of your rights to protect the remainder of them. There is some debate about how this should play out in the real world. Technically, solar panels, batteries, ovens, etc all can catch on fire and cause my neighbors to as well. Should we ban all of them? Sometimes what we do is to try to protect rights through a heavy handed authority (outlaw something), and sometimes through the court system (sue for damages). Anyways, what seems to be clear is that if there is no potential in one harming another's rights, there's no legitimate reason for government to get involved.
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    > Technically, solar panels, batteries, ovens, etc all can catch on fire and cause my neighbors to as well. Should we ban all of them? Maybe not, but there are lots of regulations on how they have to be made and installed and I think that's quite reasonable. > But I think what we can see here is that if there is no potential in one harming another's rights, there's no legitimate reason for government to get involved. I don't think it's that simple. A lot of things you can do would just be unsafe for the occupants of the home, but since it is likely you are not the only person who will ever live in the home it is harmful to an unwitting next resident if you are doing a bunch of work that is not up to code. And that's before we consider that a lot of work will be done by contractors for people who, let's face it, don't have any idea how to judge whether work is safe. Whether or not this particular regulation is reasonable, I think the government does have a compelling interest in regulating what you do with your home in this way.
    - wallace_f 9y ago
      You are entitled to disagree me with me and take the opposite stance: that government should get involved in our lives even when what we are doing does not affect another's rights.
      - emodendroket 9y ago
        I don't think the idea that what we are doing does or doesn't affect another's rights is that clear-cut. What if I'm renting the place out? What about more abstract rights, like, I don't know, not having to smell rotting food you left out? The harm there isn't exactly direct and there's a judgment call as to what is reasonable and what is too far.
        wallace_f 9y ago
        It's not at all clear cut, it's just the best starting point (in my eyes, the most moral starting point), and it is the starting point we have gone from. The fact it is not clear cut is why we have courts and history of law to draw from. Things like what you say, or such as building something on your property that destroys another person's view, were once taken to court, and the rulings established precedent. My point is that it's important to remember this is what we have been trying for all along, because sometimes that point gets missed.
pjc50 9y ago
It is however legitimate to ensure that you're not going to electrocute nearby power workers who aren't even on your property.
- wallace_f 9y ago
  In the article they mention that this probably wouldn't happen, and only became an issue because the utility forced homeowners to connect to the grid. In Australia lots of people have off-grid systems. You just switch b/w the two.
  - noxToken 9y ago
    From elsewhere in the thread: >From what I gathered in reading the three articles there's a state code that mandates that homes must be hooked up to the electrical grid. With out seeing the law or it's history (e.g. when it was mandated), it's difficult to say if it's malice on the part of utilities or just a poorly worded law from 50 years ago. Electricity is regulated, like water, because it's something people have a hard time living without in modern society. It's perfectly reasonable for the state to mandate that properties have power as a protection for tenants.[0] I haven't looked into this myself, but this comment makes a lot of sense. I'm from a state where there are a lot of old laws on the books that are both discriminatory and greatly infringe upon basic rights of people. The prevailing argument is that it would cost too much manpower to actually rewrite all of those laws, so we just deem those laws as clearly outdated and unenforceable while tending to other matters. The law may just be old without ill intent. The power companies also may be dragging their feet to modernize as well, but slow bureaucracy is the one of the few arguments that makes sense to me. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15283664 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15283664
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
  - awful 9y ago
    There are historic, sane, reasons people are "forced" to connect to the grid, especially in Florida.

I think his point was that it's not a legitimate role of government to interfere in the details of your private life inside your own home, especially when they affect no one else.

emodendroket 9y ago

Well, I mean, let's say, for the sake of argument, solar panels had a tendency to burst into flames and cause not only the house they were installed in but also neighboring houses to go up in flames. Would it still be unreasonable to ban them? If not then you've conceded the principle and we're back to arguing about the specifics of each case.

wallace_f 9y ago
As far as I know the historical justification for legitimate government rule is social contract theory -- hand over some of your rights to protect the remainder of them. There is some debate about how this should play out in the real world. Technically, solar panels, batteries, ovens, etc all can catch on fire and cause my neighbors to as well. Should we ban all of them? Sometimes what we do is to try to protect rights through a heavy handed authority (outlaw something), and sometimes through the court system (sue for damages). Anyways, what seems to be clear is that if there is no potential in one harming another's rights, there's no legitimate reason for government to get involved.
- emodendroket 9y ago
  > Technically, solar panels, batteries, ovens, etc all can catch on fire and cause my neighbors to as well. Should we ban all of them? Maybe not, but there are lots of regulations on how they have to be made and installed and I think that's quite reasonable. > But I think what we can see here is that if there is no potential in one harming another's rights, there's no legitimate reason for government to get involved. I don't think it's that simple. A lot of things you can do would just be unsafe for the occupants of the home, but since it is likely you are not the only person who will ever live in the home it is harmful to an unwitting next resident if you are doing a bunch of work that is not up to code. And that's before we consider that a lot of work will be done by contractors for people who, let's face it, don't have any idea how to judge whether work is safe. Whether or not this particular regulation is reasonable, I think the government does have a compelling interest in regulating what you do with your home in this way.
  - wallace_f 9y ago
    You are entitled to disagree me with me and take the opposite stance: that government should get involved in our lives even when what we are doing does not affect another's rights.
    - emodendroket 9y ago
      I don't think the idea that what we are doing does or doesn't affect another's rights is that clear-cut. What if I'm renting the place out? What about more abstract rights, like, I don't know, not having to smell rotting food you left out? The harm there isn't exactly direct and there's a judgment call as to what is reasonable and what is too far.
      - wallace_f 9y ago
        It's not at all clear cut, it's just the best starting point (in my eyes, the most moral starting point), and it is the starting point we have gone from. The fact it is not clear cut is why we have courts and history of law to draw from. Things like what you say, or such as building something on your property that destroys another person's view, were once taken to court, and the rulings established precedent. My point is that it's important to remember this is what we have been trying for all along, because sometimes that point gets missed.

pjc50 9y ago

It is however legitimate to ensure that you're not going to electrocute nearby power workers who aren't even on your property.

wallace_f 9y ago
In the article they mention that this probably wouldn't happen, and only became an issue because the utility forced homeowners to connect to the grid. In Australia lots of people have off-grid systems. You just switch b/w the two.
- noxToken 9y ago
  From elsewhere in the thread: >From what I gathered in reading the three articles there's a state code that mandates that homes must be hooked up to the electrical grid. With out seeing the law or it's history (e.g. when it was mandated), it's difficult to say if it's malice on the part of utilities or just a poorly worded law from 50 years ago. Electricity is regulated, like water, because it's something people have a hard time living without in modern society. It's perfectly reasonable for the state to mandate that properties have power as a protection for tenants.[0] I haven't looked into this myself, but this comment makes a lot of sense. I'm from a state where there are a lot of old laws on the books that are both discriminatory and greatly infringe upon basic rights of people. The prevailing argument is that it would cost too much manpower to actually rewrite all of those laws, so we just deem those laws as clearly outdated and unenforceable while tending to other matters. The law may just be old without ill intent. The power companies also may be dragging their feet to modernize as well, but slow bureaucracy is the one of the few arguments that makes sense to me. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15283664 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15283664
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- awful 9y ago
  There are historic, sane, reasons people are "forced" to connect to the grid, especially in Florida.