8 ms·

It seems irresponsible for an engineering company to avoid regulators.

eloff 7y ago
On one hand yes, on the other the company wouldn't exist. Regulators are important, but they also serve incumbent interests as they raise the barrier to entry for newcomers. It's a way to pull the ladder up behind you once you've achieved success. I don't know how we can better balance those seemingly conflicting aspects.
- Benjammer 7y ago
  I can never really understand this argument. Why can't we carefully craft regulations to scale in their burden with the company's ability to bear said burden in some way? Scale with revenue or head count numbers? Similar to how income at the lowest bracket isn't taxed, to lessen the burden on people much less able to pay.
  - jdbernard 7y ago
    We can, but usually it's the established encumbents who are helping draft the language of the legislation (which is better than politicians with no expertise working alone) and they are not incentived to encourage the kind of regulation you propose.
  - taneq 7y ago
    Because (a) then you'd end up with things like pacemakers designed by sole operators because their regulatory burden would be that much lower than what a biomedical engineering firm would face, and (b) any such system would be trivial to game anyway.
  - eloff 7y ago
    I like this idea a lot. We don't currently do this, but it would get most of the benefits without most of the downside. Seems like a win.
- slg 7y ago
  > Regulators are important, but they also serve incumbent interests as they raise the barrier to entry for newcomers. Call me crazy, but when it comes to products that could so easily cause death, a barrier to entry is a good thing.
  - missosoup 7y ago
    Aaaaand that's why Americans need to pay 500 bucks for an insulin injector pen while Indians pay 10 bucks for the same device. The problem with regulatory capture and arguing it's a good thing, is that there's a downside/cost to the barrier it creates. And often that downside outweighs the upside. To be clear, no one is arguing regulation shouldn't exist. Just that the nature of regulation is to be captured by incumbents and serve a purpose orthogonal to protecting the people.
    - slg 7y ago
      I didn't say regulatory capture is a good thing. I said that barriers to entry can be good in certain instances. In the instance of medical devices, the problem in the US has nothing to do with barriers to entry. If you can drive across the border to Canada and buy an identical product for a fraction of the price it would cost in the US, that isn't because the barrier to entry is too high in the US. The product already exists and is being produced, it just costs more due to a broken healthcare industry.
      - missosoup 7y ago
        No, Americans are paying 500 bucks for a pen precisely because of regulatory capture. None of the manufacturers of the cheaper version have been successful in jumping the regulatory barrier to entry which the incumbents lobbied for, and tens of thousands of Americans suffer for it each year.
        bildung 7y ago
        I have a hard time believing e.g. most european countries have less regulation in the medical sector than the US. Probably less corruption/"lobbying" (because corporate campaign distribitions are more strictly regulated in most other countries), but corruption quite different from regulation, even if both affect how law gets written.
missosoup 7y ago
Not necessarily. Regulatory capture is a thing. Regulators, at least in part, exist to maintain a barrier to entry for any new players trying to enter a field dominated by large players. Several major tech companies only exist because they broke rules in their early days. And most people agree the outcome was a net benefit to society.
- bathtub365 7y ago
  As someone who drives on public roads (and has family and friends who drive on public roads) this is a frightening comparison and attitude.
  - missosoup 7y ago
    You're already driving on roads shared with garbage solution like tesla's '''autopilot''' this thing is no different other than the creators not being able to afford the regulatory bribe to deploy it.
    - bathtub365 7y ago
      It's a completely different product with a much wider number of configurations that end-users have to piece together from Wiki pages and packages they download themselves, loaded onto hardware they've installed in their cars with zero oversight from anyone qualified.
      - missosoup 7y ago
        > end-users have to piece together from Wiki pages and packages they download themselves Which makes it a ton safer than '''autopilot''' because by the time those users are done installing it they have a pretty clear understanding of its capabilities and limitations. vs. the endless videos of morons driving tesla in '''autopilot''' mode with hands off the wheel because it's an incomprehensible black box of magical self-driving capability for them. The regulator hasn't stopped tesla autopilot from causing accidents. It's just a competitive moat.
taneq 7y ago
At risk of being snarky, I'm not sure 'engineering company' is the right moniker. They're an R&D shop making bleeding edge research available on a homebrew platform that can interface with recent vehicles to provide a level 2/3 driver assistance package. The stuff required to pass the regulators is the long, slow, boring process of pushing reliability and failure modes into "safe" territory, while documenting the fact. This is the 'engineering' part. Making a system that works (probably, most of the time) isn't engineering, it's hacking.
- rsync 7y ago
  "At risk of being snarky, I'm not sure 'engineering company' is the right moniker. They're an R&D shop ..." ... doing their R&D on public roadways, with unwitting / unwilling participants.
  - ProZsolt 7y ago
    They are hackers. Geohot, the founder did iPhone and Play Station jailbreaking in the past. I wouldn't buy any safety critical equipment from them. They motto could be literally: go fast and break things.

On one hand yes, on the other the company wouldn't exist. Regulators are important, but they also serve incumbent interests as they raise the barrier to entry for newcomers. It's a way to pull the ladder up behind you once you've achieved success. I don't know how we can better balance those seemingly conflicting aspects.

Benjammer 7y ago
I can never really understand this argument. Why can't we carefully craft regulations to scale in their burden with the company's ability to bear said burden in some way? Scale with revenue or head count numbers? Similar to how income at the lowest bracket isn't taxed, to lessen the burden on people much less able to pay.
- jdbernard 7y ago
  We can, but usually it's the established encumbents who are helping draft the language of the legislation (which is better than politicians with no expertise working alone) and they are not incentived to encourage the kind of regulation you propose.
- taneq 7y ago
  Because (a) then you'd end up with things like pacemakers designed by sole operators because their regulatory burden would be that much lower than what a biomedical engineering firm would face, and (b) any such system would be trivial to game anyway.
- eloff 7y ago
  I like this idea a lot. We don't currently do this, but it would get most of the benefits without most of the downside. Seems like a win.
slg 7y ago
> Regulators are important, but they also serve incumbent interests as they raise the barrier to entry for newcomers. Call me crazy, but when it comes to products that could so easily cause death, a barrier to entry is a good thing.
- missosoup 7y ago
  Aaaaand that's why Americans need to pay 500 bucks for an insulin injector pen while Indians pay 10 bucks for the same device. The problem with regulatory capture and arguing it's a good thing, is that there's a downside/cost to the barrier it creates. And often that downside outweighs the upside. To be clear, no one is arguing regulation shouldn't exist. Just that the nature of regulation is to be captured by incumbents and serve a purpose orthogonal to protecting the people.
  - slg 7y ago
    I didn't say regulatory capture is a good thing. I said that barriers to entry can be good in certain instances. In the instance of medical devices, the problem in the US has nothing to do with barriers to entry. If you can drive across the border to Canada and buy an identical product for a fraction of the price it would cost in the US, that isn't because the barrier to entry is too high in the US. The product already exists and is being produced, it just costs more due to a broken healthcare industry.
    - missosoup 7y ago
      No, Americans are paying 500 bucks for a pen precisely because of regulatory capture. None of the manufacturers of the cheaper version have been successful in jumping the regulatory barrier to entry which the incumbents lobbied for, and tens of thousands of Americans suffer for it each year.
      - bildung 7y ago
        I have a hard time believing e.g. most european countries have less regulation in the medical sector than the US. Probably less corruption/"lobbying" (because corporate campaign distribitions are more strictly regulated in most other countries), but corruption quite different from regulation, even if both affect how law gets written.

missosoup 7y ago

Not necessarily. Regulatory capture is a thing. Regulators, at least in part, exist to maintain a barrier to entry for any new players trying to enter a field dominated by large players. Several major tech companies only exist because they broke rules in their early days. And most people agree the outcome was a net benefit to society.

bathtub365 7y ago
As someone who drives on public roads (and has family and friends who drive on public roads) this is a frightening comparison and attitude.
- missosoup 7y ago
  You're already driving on roads shared with garbage solution like tesla's '''autopilot''' this thing is no different other than the creators not being able to afford the regulatory bribe to deploy it.
  - bathtub365 7y ago
    It's a completely different product with a much wider number of configurations that end-users have to piece together from Wiki pages and packages they download themselves, loaded onto hardware they've installed in their cars with zero oversight from anyone qualified.
    - missosoup 7y ago
      > end-users have to piece together from Wiki pages and packages they download themselves Which makes it a ton safer than '''autopilot''' because by the time those users are done installing it they have a pretty clear understanding of its capabilities and limitations. vs. the endless videos of morons driving tesla in '''autopilot''' mode with hands off the wheel because it's an incomprehensible black box of magical self-driving capability for them. The regulator hasn't stopped tesla autopilot from causing accidents. It's just a competitive moat.

taneq 7y ago

At risk of being snarky, I'm not sure 'engineering company' is the right moniker. They're an R&D shop making bleeding edge research available on a homebrew platform that can interface with recent vehicles to provide a level 2/3 driver assistance package. The stuff required to pass the regulators is the long, slow, boring process of pushing reliability and failure modes into "safe" territory, while documenting the fact. This is the 'engineering' part. Making a system that works (probably, most of the time) isn't engineering, it's hacking.

rsync 7y ago
"At risk of being snarky, I'm not sure 'engineering company' is the right moniker. They're an R&D shop ..." ... doing their R&D on public roadways, with unwitting / unwilling participants.
- ProZsolt 7y ago
  They are hackers. Geohot, the founder did iPhone and Play Station jailbreaking in the past. I wouldn't buy any safety critical equipment from them. They motto could be literally: go fast and break things.