7 ms·

Yes, it's frustrating that some people just don't believe in the human right to peace and quiet. That's one reason why I have no hope for self-organizing model

Yes, it's frustrating that some people just don't believe in the human right to peace and quiet. That's one reason why I have no hope for self-organizing models of society. There are griefers who only respond to force, and it doesn't take many of them to fuck up the whole game.

boredumb 6y ago
You believe we need a more authoritarian society because some people live lives that are louder than you deem appropriate and enough so that you are willing to 'respond with force' and you somehow see them as the people who are "fucking up the whole game"?
- dilutedh2o 6y ago
  amen
- LurkersWillLurk 6y ago
  I don't think the city council is oppressing anyone by having the police issue citations to people who wake me up at night with their obnoxious mufflers. The personal satisfaction from having a loud muffler is actually less important than my ability to sleep at night.
  - boredumb 6y ago
    I may be misunderstanding, but having a city council isn't an antithesis to self organizing societies. In my understanding abandoning self organizing societies that could have more or less noise friendly communities in favor of top down politics that more closely resemble a centrally planned society/dictatorship.
    - bdamm 6y ago
      Allowing a city to define what it means to live within it is generally accepted as not the same as a centrally planned society. Certainly that is the case within the United States, where there are very many options for what kind of city one wants to live in. We are not talking about city-states like Singapore. So yeah, we can penalize the noisemakers and not lose any sleep that we're degrading into a dictatorship.
  - khafra 6y ago
    The Coase Theorem suggests that, with sufficiently frictionless microtransactions, people who prefer to make noise and people who prefer not to hear noise could all be happier. Maybe a phone app with a decibel-meter and a distance metric to each other such app within hearing distance, with pre-authorized amounts to transfer for each decibel level created/experienced?
    - neolog 6y ago
      "could all be happier" probably not, since currently the noisemakers are maximally happy making noise without paying anybody.
      - khafra 6y ago
        Lots of them would be happier to get a small amount of money for being just a little bit quieter. People preferring peace and quiet would be happy to pay a small amount of money to get fans of noisemaking to stay below their annoyance threshold. Rough sketch of a potential process: Harley Q. is riding through the hills with the throttle open when her phone buzzes, indicating she's approaching an area with residents willing to pay above her threshold for <80db experienced noise. She rolls off the throttle and coasts through the upcoming neighborhood, or takes the long way around. Maybe a small extra payment would be put in escrow if she doesn't approach that area while making noise for a few more weeks. Please note that the apparent bias toward paying the noisemaker is an artifact of existing noise ordinances. Coase can only help us from where we currently are, not from an imaginary utopia. If we place this in a hypothetical city with a 40db noise restriction, which allows neighborhoods to accept louder noises by consensus, the payments reverse; Ms. Q will try to select the cheapest neighborhood she can enjoy her noise through, and its residents will end up collectively richer in exchange for suffering through the noise.
        pushswap 6y ago
        Sounds like a magnet for noisemakers to route their trips through while staying just at or under the annoyance threshold -- a threshold which, with increased sensitivity, may be shifting lower.
- neolog 6y ago
  It's obviously a problem that affected people have no way to solve this. Authoritarian use of force is one way that might be effective; other ways might be available. I'd be curious to hear some alternative options.
- young_unixer 6y ago
  Counter-example: Sounds are pressure waves that transmit through the air. Given enough pressure, those waves could even kill someone (bomb). If we say that there should be no legal limit to sound pressure, then making a bomb explode and killing people should have no legal consequences. This makes no sense, so we should put a threshold of maximum allowed sound pressure. The discussion now is where is that threshold.
  - Tyr42 6y ago
    I mean, you don't need to regulate the maximum pressure, you just need to say "don't kill or injure anyone" right? You can place the regulation directly on what you want, not just upstream.
  - jfim 6y ago
    Sometimes outcomes are regulated, not the means of getting to that outcome. In your case, murder is illegal, but the instrument could be completely legal. For example, water is perfectly legal, although one could force someone to ingest too much water and killing them. It would still be illegal, even though water is legal. We should still regulate sound levels, mind you.
  - jodrellblank 6y ago
    Counter-exampe: regulations exist relating to bombs, stabbing, and guns, without having any threshhold of maximum allowed pushing force or speed of matter.
tayo42 6y ago
Lately I've come to the conclusion that peace and quiet really is a luxury to have. Most people I don't think get to experience it. You need to have money to have it so you can live somewhere nice. Other wise your stuck living in apartment buildings, crowded cities, next to noisy neighbors. Go to busy shared spaces (ppl stop playing radios out doors!) or staying in shitty hotels.
- neolog 6y ago
  What do you mean by it's a luxury? That it's nice? or rare? or should be rare?
  - pb7 6y ago
    I think rare in the sense that few can afford to have it.
    - nitrogen 6y ago
      Part of the problem is that those who don't appreciate it will see how nice a quiet town in the country is, then move from the big city to that town and destroy the very thing they originally enjoyed. Or bring a bluetooth boombox into the wilderness and play it so it can be heard for a mile away.
    - vbezhenar 6y ago
      I'm sure that every country have tiny villages with cheap land. Buy enough land, build a house in the center, grow some trees around and you'll have peaceful house. Of course there are other issues with that lifestyle which is why it's not adopted widely, like no work, issues for children, issues with healthcare, but for some people it could work, IMO.
      - pb7 6y ago
        > no work, issues for children, issues with healthcare There's the rub, no? You need to have a lot of money saved up to not have to work which makes it a luxury. For most people, they need to live near work, which is mostly in or near dense noisy cities.
cowmoo728 6y ago
Just remember the cure can be worse than the disease. I agree with you - mostly because of people who "roll coal" to poison cyclists for fun - but I'm wary of involving authority and force. Somehow there are societies that don't have as much of a problem with things like this, so maybe we should learn from them.
- ip26 6y ago
  Aren't the societies that don't have these problems, often societies that readily employ authority & force & social coercion? Singapore, Japan.

boredumb 6y ago

You believe we need a more authoritarian society because some people live lives that are louder than you deem appropriate and enough so that you are willing to 'respond with force' and you somehow see them as the people who are "fucking up the whole game"?

dilutedh2o 6y ago
amen
LurkersWillLurk 6y ago
I don't think the city council is oppressing anyone by having the police issue citations to people who wake me up at night with their obnoxious mufflers. The personal satisfaction from having a loud muffler is actually less important than my ability to sleep at night.
- boredumb 6y ago
  I may be misunderstanding, but having a city council isn't an antithesis to self organizing societies. In my understanding abandoning self organizing societies that could have more or less noise friendly communities in favor of top down politics that more closely resemble a centrally planned society/dictatorship.
  - bdamm 6y ago
    Allowing a city to define what it means to live within it is generally accepted as not the same as a centrally planned society. Certainly that is the case within the United States, where there are very many options for what kind of city one wants to live in. We are not talking about city-states like Singapore. So yeah, we can penalize the noisemakers and not lose any sleep that we're degrading into a dictatorship.
- khafra 6y ago
  The Coase Theorem suggests that, with sufficiently frictionless microtransactions, people who prefer to make noise and people who prefer not to hear noise could all be happier. Maybe a phone app with a decibel-meter and a distance metric to each other such app within hearing distance, with pre-authorized amounts to transfer for each decibel level created/experienced?
  - neolog 6y ago
    "could all be happier" probably not, since currently the noisemakers are maximally happy making noise without paying anybody.
    - khafra 6y ago
      Lots of them would be happier to get a small amount of money for being just a little bit quieter. People preferring peace and quiet would be happy to pay a small amount of money to get fans of noisemaking to stay below their annoyance threshold. Rough sketch of a potential process: Harley Q. is riding through the hills with the throttle open when her phone buzzes, indicating she's approaching an area with residents willing to pay above her threshold for <80db experienced noise. She rolls off the throttle and coasts through the upcoming neighborhood, or takes the long way around. Maybe a small extra payment would be put in escrow if she doesn't approach that area while making noise for a few more weeks. Please note that the apparent bias toward paying the noisemaker is an artifact of existing noise ordinances. Coase can only help us from where we currently are, not from an imaginary utopia. If we place this in a hypothetical city with a 40db noise restriction, which allows neighborhoods to accept louder noises by consensus, the payments reverse; Ms. Q will try to select the cheapest neighborhood she can enjoy her noise through, and its residents will end up collectively richer in exchange for suffering through the noise.
      - pushswap 6y ago
        Sounds like a magnet for noisemakers to route their trips through while staying just at or under the annoyance threshold -- a threshold which, with increased sensitivity, may be shifting lower.
neolog 6y ago
It's obviously a problem that affected people have no way to solve this. Authoritarian use of force is one way that might be effective; other ways might be available. I'd be curious to hear some alternative options.
young_unixer 6y ago
Counter-example: Sounds are pressure waves that transmit through the air. Given enough pressure, those waves could even kill someone (bomb). If we say that there should be no legal limit to sound pressure, then making a bomb explode and killing people should have no legal consequences. This makes no sense, so we should put a threshold of maximum allowed sound pressure. The discussion now is where is that threshold.
- Tyr42 6y ago
  I mean, you don't need to regulate the maximum pressure, you just need to say "don't kill or injure anyone" right? You can place the regulation directly on what you want, not just upstream.
- jfim 6y ago
  Sometimes outcomes are regulated, not the means of getting to that outcome. In your case, murder is illegal, but the instrument could be completely legal. For example, water is perfectly legal, although one could force someone to ingest too much water and killing them. It would still be illegal, even though water is legal. We should still regulate sound levels, mind you.
- jodrellblank 6y ago
  Counter-exampe: regulations exist relating to bombs, stabbing, and guns, without having any threshhold of maximum allowed pushing force or speed of matter.

tayo42 6y ago

Lately I've come to the conclusion that peace and quiet really is a luxury to have. Most people I don't think get to experience it. You need to have money to have it so you can live somewhere nice. Other wise your stuck living in apartment buildings, crowded cities, next to noisy neighbors. Go to busy shared spaces (ppl stop playing radios out doors!) or staying in shitty hotels.

neolog 6y ago
What do you mean by it's a luxury? That it's nice? or rare? or should be rare?
- pb7 6y ago
  I think rare in the sense that few can afford to have it.
  - nitrogen 6y ago
    Part of the problem is that those who don't appreciate it will see how nice a quiet town in the country is, then move from the big city to that town and destroy the very thing they originally enjoyed. Or bring a bluetooth boombox into the wilderness and play it so it can be heard for a mile away.
  - vbezhenar 6y ago
    I'm sure that every country have tiny villages with cheap land. Buy enough land, build a house in the center, grow some trees around and you'll have peaceful house. Of course there are other issues with that lifestyle which is why it's not adopted widely, like no work, issues for children, issues with healthcare, but for some people it could work, IMO.
    - pb7 6y ago
      > no work, issues for children, issues with healthcare There's the rub, no? You need to have a lot of money saved up to not have to work which makes it a luxury. For most people, they need to live near work, which is mostly in or near dense noisy cities.

cowmoo728 6y ago

Just remember the cure can be worse than the disease. I agree with you - mostly because of people who "roll coal" to poison cyclists for fun - but I'm wary of involving authority and force. Somehow there are societies that don't have as much of a problem with things like this, so maybe we should learn from them.

ip26 6y ago
Aren't the societies that don't have these problems, often societies that readily employ authority & force & social coercion? Singapore, Japan.