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Blaming single family homes is a crowd-pleaser; but the first example mentioned is of a house that cut energy use by 85% while still being a single family home.

Blaming single family homes is a crowd-pleaser; but the first example mentioned is of a house that cut energy use by 85% while still being a single family home. The problems are not a lack of regulation but too much, which drives the push for all the sameness you see in construction methods; it's stagnation. If you don't believe me, go to your library and leaf through the IRBC, the international residential building code, which is incorporated by reference into building code ordinances everywhere...

jamilton 3y ago
IMO that points to the problem being incorrect regulation, not too much or too little.
- KirillPanov 3y ago
  This is sort of like "communism works, but everybody who's tried it so far was doing it wrong". Regulations lack any kind of competitive mechanism to forcibly correct them, even in the face of unwilling regulators. This is the fundamental problem. Note that competition doesn't have to mean markets. Universities compete fiercely with each other for the best students, and it works. Researchers compete with each other for space in the most prestigious journals (and journals with each other to attract the best articles!). None of these are markets, but they are competitive, which regulatory apparatus is not.
ClumsyPilot 3y ago
> a house that cut energy use by 85% while still being a single family home. > The problems are not a lack of regulation but too much Name one example in the past 50 years when the marlet has improved energy efficiency of a consumer product without government intervention. Britain was building houses without insulation in the walls, manufacturers were building dishwashers and other household appliances that would consume over 10 W when they are switched off. Vacuum cleaner manufacturers still routinely commit fraud, because nobody tests this stuff
- shrubble 3y ago
  Airplane manufacturers have continually worked to make their planes more fuel-efficient, it's kind of a consumer product in that ultimately people fly on those planes. Laptop CPUs and GPUs would be another. Look at the success of ARM in cell phones and the Apple M1/M2 chips. The Japanese car makers got their foothold in the American car market with very fuel efficient cars in the mid to late 1970s, before various fuel efficiency laws were passed.
  - ClumsyPilot 3y ago
    Airplanes and CPU's are exactly the kind of market where they are operated by a business and they are very good at managing efficiency and running costs. You don't buy an airplane, you buy a plane ticket, and you choose it based on price. An airline buys the Airplane, they calculate their expenses to set ticket prices. They will buy a more efficient airplanes. Consumers suck at managing efficiency, they will buy an inefficient fridge that's going to cost twice as much over it's lifetime, because they don't measure and keep track of these things.

jamilton 3y ago

IMO that points to the problem being incorrect regulation, not too much or too little.

KirillPanov 3y ago
This is sort of like "communism works, but everybody who's tried it so far was doing it wrong". Regulations lack any kind of competitive mechanism to forcibly correct them, even in the face of unwilling regulators. This is the fundamental problem. Note that competition doesn't have to mean markets. Universities compete fiercely with each other for the best students, and it works. Researchers compete with each other for space in the most prestigious journals (and journals with each other to attract the best articles!). None of these are markets, but they are competitive, which regulatory apparatus is not.

ClumsyPilot 3y ago

> a house that cut energy use by 85% while still being a single family home. > The problems are not a lack of regulation but too much Name one example in the past 50 years when the marlet has improved energy efficiency of a consumer product without government intervention. Britain was building houses without insulation in the walls, manufacturers were building dishwashers and other household appliances that would consume over 10 W when they are switched off. Vacuum cleaner manufacturers still routinely commit fraud, because nobody tests this stuff

shrubble 3y ago
Airplane manufacturers have continually worked to make their planes more fuel-efficient, it's kind of a consumer product in that ultimately people fly on those planes. Laptop CPUs and GPUs would be another. Look at the success of ARM in cell phones and the Apple M1/M2 chips. The Japanese car makers got their foothold in the American car market with very fuel efficient cars in the mid to late 1970s, before various fuel efficiency laws were passed.
- ClumsyPilot 3y ago
  Airplanes and CPU's are exactly the kind of market where they are operated by a business and they are very good at managing efficiency and running costs. You don't buy an airplane, you buy a plane ticket, and you choose it based on price. An airline buys the Airplane, they calculate their expenses to set ticket prices. They will buy a more efficient airplanes. Consumers suck at managing efficiency, they will buy an inefficient fridge that's going to cost twice as much over it's lifetime, because they don't measure and keep track of these things.