10 ms·

Unfortunately, laws are unlikely to change without a bit of violation. Alcohol prohibition in the US didn't end because everyone stayed good and sober.

dmix 8y ago
Indeed, Uber and AirBnB were evolutions of the marketplace. They aren’t going away (and shouldn’t go away) just because the laws were designed in a previous century for a different type of business. The solution is for gov fix the laws to reflect society. Unfortunately modern governments are designed around protecting established market cartels and political special interest groups over evolving with the times. I don’t see this as relevant to Swarm either. They aren’t an evolution AFAIK, besides maybe the rise of private rocket launches.
- the_clarence 8y ago
  Not sure why you are getting downvoted. Uber and Airbnb have changed the world and how people commute or travel fornthe better.
  - njarboe 8y ago
    Airbnb has clearly been a win for travelers. As for the people who live in an apartment building next door to someone who illegally rents out their unit with Airbnb, their world has changed also, but not for the better.
    - the_clarence 8y ago
      Not true. You're just hearing a vocal minority of people complaining about bad experiences. Having bad neighborhods is not an airbnb specific problem.
      - njarboe 8y ago
        People on vacation are much more likely to stay up late partying, not understand or follow local customs, and you can't build up a long term relationship with people who are only around for a week. It is definitely a real problem.
- reaperducer 8y ago
  The solution is for gov fix the laws to reflect society. You assume that because something is new that it is better. Hotel and taxi laws were put in place for a reason. Just because a new business comes along and doesn't want to play by the rules doesn't make that business right and the laws wrong. In a civilization, it's up to the business to enumerate the reasons that the laws should be changed, and then go through the same legislative process as any other business or member of the public to have those laws changed. Breaking the law and then blaming the law is like a five-year-old throwing a tantrum and expecting adults to feel bad for it.
  - pitaj 8y ago
    > Hotel and taxi laws were put in place for a reason That reason being to entrench the incumbent players by raising the barrier to competition.
    - reaperducer 8y ago
      Yes, because having extra fire safety in hotels is certainly designed to keep people from operating amateur hotels. And having laws requiring particular fare structures and payment methods is certainly meant to keep companies from competing with taxis. What color is the sky in your world?
      - jonnycomputer 8y ago
        or skin. my off the cuff guess is that the world of AirBnB has a lot more racial discrimination than the world of regulated hotels.
        pitaj 8y ago
        That would be an interesting study.
      - pitaj 8y ago
        > Yes, because having extra fire safety in hotels is certainly designed to keep people from operating amateur hotels. Should fire safety not apply to all large residential buildings? Why just hotels? Would generally applicable regulation not be better? > And having laws requiring particular fare structures and payment methods is certainly meant to keep companies from competing with taxis. At least in part.
- stephenr 8y ago
  Hotels are governed by laws. They cannot for example, agree to rent you a room, charge your credit card, AND THEN demand that you provide your facebook account, and if you don't have one, upload a video explaining why you want to stay in the room, before failing to provide a timely refund, literally saying "we want to refund you, but the bank just doesn't believe that we want to give you back your money". I will skull fuck a dead pig with a chicken shitting on my face before I ever try to use AirBnB again. As for Uber. People complain that taxis are all just greedy fuckers who act like pricks to the customers, and then they expect a private company paying less than minimum wage to people will give them a better outcome. Let me know how that works out when Uber stops subsidising all the rides with VC money.
  - TomMarius 8y ago
    I think it's clear that Uber longs for autonomous driving.
    - stephenr 8y ago
      And I'm sure they'll cut every corner they can to get there, and resist every effort to assess that their cars are safe, and reliable for people.
mprev 8y ago
This isn't all that much like alcohol prohibition, though. This is about enabling fair access to and good stewardship of a scarce resource. Prohibition was the imposition of one form of morality through law. In my view, it's easier to argue that one is about personal freedom and so fair game to consider breaking, whereas the other is more about being a good neighbour.
- SilasX 8y ago
  That feels like a whitewashing of history. Activists were (with different language) very much worried about negative externalities and effects on the commons when it came to Prohibition. Remember, people were getting rampantly drunk, fighting in the streets, neglecting their families, becoming unemployable, and so on. Beer/wine/spirits sellers were more than happy to promote drinking even with all the social problems produced by it. It certainly didn't feel like a private matter at the time, like praying in your bedroom each night. So "someone making a fortune while leaving the alcoholism and broken homes in its wake" would look very much then like "someone making a fortune while raiding the available housing units and ruining neighborhoods" does today. Edit: And, to be sure, that doesn't mean Prohibition was a good idea. But means the right solution wasn't "free for all for alcohol", but "okay, you can sell alcohol, but with these rules to contain that problem".
troydavis 8y ago
> "Laws are unlikely to change without a bit of violation" The flaw with that argument is that something like 99 of 100 laws exist because, basically, they should. They benefit society, so essentially the whole population wants them. Someone will disagree with almost every law, and some subset of them will violate it in protest. No single person knows which law is the 1 in 100 that shouldn't exist - even someone who thinks they know. Often, the people who so passionately think a law shouldn't exist that they're willing to break it are actually the least representative of society. (I'm completely ignoring whether space launch access is or isn't a worthwhile law; it's moot.)
- randallsquared 8y ago
  > The flaw with that argument is that something like 99 of 100 laws exist because, basically, they should. They benefit society, so essentially the whole population wants them. That's very much debatable. It's not even clear how to count the number of laws, even if we are only considering Federal law in the US. (see https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R43056.pdf https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R43056.pdf ) Certainly there is no one who knows all the laws, and unlike in coding, there's no commitment to DRY or modularization, which leads to very common unintended consequences. You're arguing the 99/100 case, but I'm sure it would be easy to find someone to credibly argue the 1/100 case.
  - ethbro 8y ago
    The 99/100 case (in this argument) is mostly tragedy of the commons laws. Where every person would individually benefit from breaking them, but the community as a whole would be worse off. E.g. environmental regulations
    - zaroth 8y ago
      Disagreeing with the law just because it would personally financially benefit you to break it is pretty weak sauce. I think a much stronger argument could be made that many laws — and particularly regulations — fail even at their stated purpose. There was an article on the front page last week [1] about the total cost to the economy from licensing “professional” work which can clearly be done safely and effectively without a license, for example, hair weaving. While the direct cost of obtaining licenses and completing the educational requirires (which often provides no actual benefit in increased skill or earnings), is relatively low… If you factor in the cost to the economy of people who aren’t able to work at a more profitable profession because they are restricted from entering it due to the licensing, the cost was extraordinary. I think any analysis which covers all the myriad misguided attempts government makes to micromanage our lives is going to blow far past 1/100 of laws and regulations being damaging rather than helpful, even when considering the general populace. [1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18682946 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18682946
the_clarence 8y ago
Uber wouldn't be a thing today if they had followed every laws. Actually very few startup would exist. Very few restaurants as well.
- reaperducer 8y ago
  You have to wonder how big Facebook would be today if a GDPR-esque law already existed and was common in most countries at the time of its launch.
  - syntheticcdo 8y ago
    On the flip side, if Facebook had never existed and never committed the privacy violations it has, would the GDPR exist?
- ionised 8y ago
  I think Uber not being a thing might have been for the best.
  - the_clarence 8y ago
    That's the stupidest thing I've heard today.
- rchaud 8y ago
  Uber also wouldn't be a thing today if they didn't have billions in VC money buying them lawyers and lobbyists, and developing Greyball to help drivers avoid giving rides to people identified as regulators. Please don't make it seem like Uber's law-breaking is some kind of brave sacrifice protecting mom-and-pop restaurants everywhere.
  - the_clarence 8y ago
    I'm not sure if your comment is a response to mine.
- stephenr 8y ago
xeromal 8y ago
Not saying I agree with you, but most places frowned on lane splitting with motorcycles in the US, but people splitting caused California to eventually codify the legality of it. Sometimes it does take a little pressure.
Mvandenbergh 8y ago
Prohibition ended because people were sick of it and it was repealed not because people violated the law and the government decided not to enforce it after all.
- bluGill 8y ago
  It was repealed because the people who disagreed with a significant political force. Those who don't drink and wanted it didn't really change their mind at all.
ineedasername 8y ago
Alcohol prohibition is an odd choice here, considering that its implementation is an example of a law that did change without anyone violating an existing law. And then it wasn't done away with just because people were violating it. People violated it because it was deeply unpopular. It was repealed as much because of the chaos it caused and the fact that legalizing alcohol would re-institute a much needed source of tax revenue.
lvs 8y ago
So your argument is seriously that regulating satellite launches is akin to alcohol prohibition? Do you think that's a reasonable comparison?

dmix 8y ago

Indeed, Uber and AirBnB were evolutions of the marketplace. They aren’t going away (and shouldn’t go away) just because the laws were designed in a previous century for a different type of business. The solution is for gov fix the laws to reflect society. Unfortunately modern governments are designed around protecting established market cartels and political special interest groups over evolving with the times. I don’t see this as relevant to Swarm either. They aren’t an evolution AFAIK, besides maybe the rise of private rocket launches.

the_clarence 8y ago
Not sure why you are getting downvoted. Uber and Airbnb have changed the world and how people commute or travel fornthe better.
- njarboe 8y ago
  Airbnb has clearly been a win for travelers. As for the people who live in an apartment building next door to someone who illegally rents out their unit with Airbnb, their world has changed also, but not for the better.
  - the_clarence 8y ago
    Not true. You're just hearing a vocal minority of people complaining about bad experiences. Having bad neighborhods is not an airbnb specific problem.
    - njarboe 8y ago
      People on vacation are much more likely to stay up late partying, not understand or follow local customs, and you can't build up a long term relationship with people who are only around for a week. It is definitely a real problem.
reaperducer 8y ago
The solution is for gov fix the laws to reflect society. You assume that because something is new that it is better. Hotel and taxi laws were put in place for a reason. Just because a new business comes along and doesn't want to play by the rules doesn't make that business right and the laws wrong. In a civilization, it's up to the business to enumerate the reasons that the laws should be changed, and then go through the same legislative process as any other business or member of the public to have those laws changed. Breaking the law and then blaming the law is like a five-year-old throwing a tantrum and expecting adults to feel bad for it.
- pitaj 8y ago
  > Hotel and taxi laws were put in place for a reason That reason being to entrench the incumbent players by raising the barrier to competition.
  - reaperducer 8y ago
    Yes, because having extra fire safety in hotels is certainly designed to keep people from operating amateur hotels. And having laws requiring particular fare structures and payment methods is certainly meant to keep companies from competing with taxis. What color is the sky in your world?
    - jonnycomputer 8y ago
      or skin. my off the cuff guess is that the world of AirBnB has a lot more racial discrimination than the world of regulated hotels.
      - pitaj 8y ago
        That would be an interesting study.
    - pitaj 8y ago
      > Yes, because having extra fire safety in hotels is certainly designed to keep people from operating amateur hotels. Should fire safety not apply to all large residential buildings? Why just hotels? Would generally applicable regulation not be better? > And having laws requiring particular fare structures and payment methods is certainly meant to keep companies from competing with taxis. At least in part.
stephenr 8y ago
Hotels are governed by laws. They cannot for example, agree to rent you a room, charge your credit card, AND THEN demand that you provide your facebook account, and if you don't have one, upload a video explaining why you want to stay in the room, before failing to provide a timely refund, literally saying "we want to refund you, but the bank just doesn't believe that we want to give you back your money". I will skull fuck a dead pig with a chicken shitting on my face before I ever try to use AirBnB again. As for Uber. People complain that taxis are all just greedy fuckers who act like pricks to the customers, and then they expect a private company paying less than minimum wage to people will give them a better outcome. Let me know how that works out when Uber stops subsidising all the rides with VC money.
- TomMarius 8y ago
  I think it's clear that Uber longs for autonomous driving.
  - stephenr 8y ago
    And I'm sure they'll cut every corner they can to get there, and resist every effort to assess that their cars are safe, and reliable for people.

mprev 8y ago

This isn't all that much like alcohol prohibition, though. This is about enabling fair access to and good stewardship of a scarce resource. Prohibition was the imposition of one form of morality through law. In my view, it's easier to argue that one is about personal freedom and so fair game to consider breaking, whereas the other is more about being a good neighbour.

SilasX 8y ago
That feels like a whitewashing of history. Activists were (with different language) very much worried about negative externalities and effects on the commons when it came to Prohibition. Remember, people were getting rampantly drunk, fighting in the streets, neglecting their families, becoming unemployable, and so on. Beer/wine/spirits sellers were more than happy to promote drinking even with all the social problems produced by it. It certainly didn't feel like a private matter at the time, like praying in your bedroom each night. So "someone making a fortune while leaving the alcoholism and broken homes in its wake" would look very much then like "someone making a fortune while raiding the available housing units and ruining neighborhoods" does today. Edit: And, to be sure, that doesn't mean Prohibition was a good idea. But means the right solution wasn't "free for all for alcohol", but "okay, you can sell alcohol, but with these rules to contain that problem".

troydavis 8y ago

> "Laws are unlikely to change without a bit of violation" The flaw with that argument is that something like 99 of 100 laws exist because, basically, they should. They benefit society, so essentially the whole population wants them. Someone will disagree with almost every law, and some subset of them will violate it in protest. No single person knows which law is the 1 in 100 that shouldn't exist - even someone who thinks they know. Often, the people who so passionately think a law shouldn't exist that they're willing to break it are actually the least representative of society. (I'm completely ignoring whether space launch access is or isn't a worthwhile law; it's moot.)

randallsquared 8y ago
> The flaw with that argument is that something like 99 of 100 laws exist because, basically, they should. They benefit society, so essentially the whole population wants them. That's very much debatable. It's not even clear how to count the number of laws, even if we are only considering Federal law in the US. (see https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R43056.pdf https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R43056.pdf ) Certainly there is no one who knows all the laws, and unlike in coding, there's no commitment to DRY or modularization, which leads to very common unintended consequences. You're arguing the 99/100 case, but I'm sure it would be easy to find someone to credibly argue the 1/100 case.
- ethbro 8y ago
  The 99/100 case (in this argument) is mostly tragedy of the commons laws. Where every person would individually benefit from breaking them, but the community as a whole would be worse off. E.g. environmental regulations
  - zaroth 8y ago
    Disagreeing with the law just because it would personally financially benefit you to break it is pretty weak sauce. I think a much stronger argument could be made that many laws — and particularly regulations — fail even at their stated purpose. There was an article on the front page last week [1] about the total cost to the economy from licensing “professional” work which can clearly be done safely and effectively without a license, for example, hair weaving. While the direct cost of obtaining licenses and completing the educational requirires (which often provides no actual benefit in increased skill or earnings), is relatively low… If you factor in the cost to the economy of people who aren’t able to work at a more profitable profession because they are restricted from entering it due to the licensing, the cost was extraordinary. I think any analysis which covers all the myriad misguided attempts government makes to micromanage our lives is going to blow far past 1/100 of laws and regulations being damaging rather than helpful, even when considering the general populace. [1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18682946 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18682946

the_clarence 8y ago

Uber wouldn't be a thing today if they had followed every laws. Actually very few startup would exist. Very few restaurants as well.

reaperducer 8y ago
You have to wonder how big Facebook would be today if a GDPR-esque law already existed and was common in most countries at the time of its launch.
- syntheticcdo 8y ago
  On the flip side, if Facebook had never existed and never committed the privacy violations it has, would the GDPR exist?
ionised 8y ago
I think Uber not being a thing might have been for the best.
- the_clarence 8y ago
  That's the stupidest thing I've heard today.
rchaud 8y ago
Uber also wouldn't be a thing today if they didn't have billions in VC money buying them lawyers and lobbyists, and developing Greyball to help drivers avoid giving rides to people identified as regulators. Please don't make it seem like Uber's law-breaking is some kind of brave sacrifice protecting mom-and-pop restaurants everywhere.
- the_clarence 8y ago
  I'm not sure if your comment is a response to mine.
stephenr 8y ago

xeromal 8y ago

Not saying I agree with you, but most places frowned on lane splitting with motorcycles in the US, but people splitting caused California to eventually codify the legality of it. Sometimes it does take a little pressure.

Mvandenbergh 8y ago

Prohibition ended because people were sick of it and it was repealed not because people violated the law and the government decided not to enforce it after all.

bluGill 8y ago
It was repealed because the people who disagreed with a significant political force. Those who don't drink and wanted it didn't really change their mind at all.

ineedasername 8y ago

Alcohol prohibition is an odd choice here, considering that its implementation is an example of a law that did change without anyone violating an existing law. And then it wasn't done away with just because people were violating it. People violated it because it was deeply unpopular. It was repealed as much because of the chaos it caused and the fact that legalizing alcohol would re-institute a much needed source of tax revenue.

lvs 8y ago

So your argument is seriously that regulating satellite launches is akin to alcohol prohibition? Do you think that's a reasonable comparison?