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This is a weird position: it sounds like you’re saying the problem is enforcing laws irrespective of the merits of those laws. I would respectfully suggest that

by acdha 3y ago

This is a weird position: it sounds like you’re saying the problem is enforcing laws irrespective of the merits of those laws. I would respectfully suggest that people reporting code violations their landlord is abetting is not the same as authoritiarian military rule. Note the kind of conditions here: > Tenants living among empty apartments have described trash, mold, open windows, leaky gas pipes and rodents as scourges in their buildings. All this bill does is increase the odds of that neglect having consequences for the landlord, and it seems especially fair when there’s been a noted trend of units being left empty during a housing crisis hoping to jack the rent up in the future. This kind of thing has a real impacts on people because the rent controlled apartments they’re talking about are the only option for a lot of working poor.

Spivak 3y ago
It's really amazing that we've gone full 180 on "see something, say something" being good and not a horribly dystopian reaction to 9/11. These kinds of laws are the human equivalent of recruiting every Amazon Ring to detect and report crimes. The intent might be noble and it might even be in response to a epidemic of break-ins but turning all eyes into a tool of the state is not a can of worms we should be opening. Even worse is this, making everyone not just the eyes but the prosecutors themselves. > The new bill also empowers tenants to sue landlords to force owners to open up vacant apartments for inspection. Literally using citizens to do something the state is legally not allowed to do. It was bad when the abortion law did it and it's bad here. Throwing away our principles as long as the right people get hurt makes us no better than those far-right nutjobs.
- thaumasiotes 3y ago
  > Literally using citizens to do something the state is legally not allowed to do. This is also the engine that powers every piece of the Civil Rights Act.
- acdha 3y ago
  > These kinds of laws are the human equivalent of recruiting every Amazon Ring to detect and report crimes. Well, let’s step back and look at impact. If we used Ring cameras to have 100% enforcement of jaywalking laws, that’d be widely recognized as extreme because there’s no damage to everyone else. If we used the same cameras to have 100% enforcement of mugging, the reverse would be true because the only consequences are on people who everyone agrees deserve punishment. This seems to be in the latter camp: buildings whose owners have neglected them to the point that there are actual hazards to the residents. It isn’t some vague hypothetical future risk but a very clear question: the citizens of New York have decided that nobody should have to live in a building with rats or mold, should landlords be required to follow that law? The other concern with Ring cameras is that they could be misused for other purposes. That’s real there but not applicable here because this isn’t general data collection and everything funnels through a city office with a neutral third-party. The government can only get data when someone is bothered enough to report it, and if a report is specious the city inspector is going to quickly realize this.
solatic 3y ago
> I would respectfully suggest that people reporting code violations their landlord is abetting is not the same as authoritiarian military rule. There are two orthogonal concerns: authoritarian vs. democratic: whether ordinary citizens have a say in which laws are passed Centralized vs decentralized reporting: whether primary responsibility for discovering whether the law has been broken lies with the police (e.g. conducting patrols), or with citizens making reports (e.g. 911 calls). To be fair, neither extreme is desirable - 911 is a life-saving measure in the case of violent crime. But turning everyone into their neighbor's spy is deeply detrimental to social cohesion. We see that deep social divide here, turning tenants against landlords, the continuation of American class warfare. Of course, enabling tenants to report on their landlords is not the cause of that social divide - it is simply a step in the wrong direction.
- kyle-rb 3y ago
  Tenants are already against landlords, that's how it works. "Allowing workers to report their employers for labor violations is only deepening the social divide between labor and management."
  - solatic 3y ago
    > Tenants are already against landlords, that's how it works. I'm sorry you feel that's an inevitability. There's the economic agreement, where it's mutually beneficial for the tenant to receive housing and the landlord to receive a rent check, and then there's civil relations. Better civil relations improve the economic agreements. "Allowing workers to report their employers for labor violations is only deepening the social divide between labor and management." Again, the social divide is not inevitable. There isn't even a clear line where someone switches from labor into management, and your sarcasm left out the divide between management and ownership/capital. The CEO of a Fortune 500 is not in the same position as the CEO of a struggling one-office startup who basically answers to her investors. Should early employees overlook small offenses committed by founders? With the emphasis on the caveat "small", absolutely yes. What matters more, true in general but especially in early stages, is trust. If you cannot trust your leaders, start planning an exit. You are not doomed to spend your life working for only one employer in whom you have lost faith, and thus require the assistance of the law to protect you. Life is too short to force yourself to work for people like that.

by acdha 3y ago

Spivak 3y ago

It's really amazing that we've gone full 180 on "see something, say something" being good and not a horribly dystopian reaction to 9/11. These kinds of laws are the human equivalent of recruiting every Amazon Ring to detect and report crimes. The intent might be noble and it might even be in response to a epidemic of break-ins but turning all eyes into a tool of the state is not a can of worms we should be opening. Even worse is this, making everyone not just the eyes but the prosecutors themselves. > The new bill also empowers tenants to sue landlords to force owners to open up vacant apartments for inspection. Literally using citizens to do something the state is legally not allowed to do. It was bad when the abortion law did it and it's bad here. Throwing away our principles as long as the right people get hurt makes us no better than those far-right nutjobs.

thaumasiotes 3y ago
> Literally using citizens to do something the state is legally not allowed to do. This is also the engine that powers every piece of the Civil Rights Act.
acdha 3y ago
> These kinds of laws are the human equivalent of recruiting every Amazon Ring to detect and report crimes. Well, let’s step back and look at impact. If we used Ring cameras to have 100% enforcement of jaywalking laws, that’d be widely recognized as extreme because there’s no damage to everyone else. If we used the same cameras to have 100% enforcement of mugging, the reverse would be true because the only consequences are on people who everyone agrees deserve punishment. This seems to be in the latter camp: buildings whose owners have neglected them to the point that there are actual hazards to the residents. It isn’t some vague hypothetical future risk but a very clear question: the citizens of New York have decided that nobody should have to live in a building with rats or mold, should landlords be required to follow that law? The other concern with Ring cameras is that they could be misused for other purposes. That’s real there but not applicable here because this isn’t general data collection and everything funnels through a city office with a neutral third-party. The government can only get data when someone is bothered enough to report it, and if a report is specious the city inspector is going to quickly realize this.

solatic 3y ago

> I would respectfully suggest that people reporting code violations their landlord is abetting is not the same as authoritiarian military rule. There are two orthogonal concerns: authoritarian vs. democratic: whether ordinary citizens have a say in which laws are passed Centralized vs decentralized reporting: whether primary responsibility for discovering whether the law has been broken lies with the police (e.g. conducting patrols), or with citizens making reports (e.g. 911 calls). To be fair, neither extreme is desirable - 911 is a life-saving measure in the case of violent crime. But turning everyone into their neighbor's spy is deeply detrimental to social cohesion. We see that deep social divide here, turning tenants against landlords, the continuation of American class warfare. Of course, enabling tenants to report on their landlords is not the cause of that social divide - it is simply a step in the wrong direction.

kyle-rb 3y ago
Tenants are already against landlords, that's how it works. "Allowing workers to report their employers for labor violations is only deepening the social divide between labor and management."
- solatic 3y ago
  > Tenants are already against landlords, that's how it works. I'm sorry you feel that's an inevitability. There's the economic agreement, where it's mutually beneficial for the tenant to receive housing and the landlord to receive a rent check, and then there's civil relations. Better civil relations improve the economic agreements. "Allowing workers to report their employers for labor violations is only deepening the social divide between labor and management." Again, the social divide is not inevitable. There isn't even a clear line where someone switches from labor into management, and your sarcasm left out the divide between management and ownership/capital. The CEO of a Fortune 500 is not in the same position as the CEO of a struggling one-office startup who basically answers to her investors. Should early employees overlook small offenses committed by founders? With the emphasis on the caveat "small", absolutely yes. What matters more, true in general but especially in early stages, is trust. If you cannot trust your leaders, start planning an exit. You are not doomed to spend your life working for only one employer in whom you have lost faith, and thus require the assistance of the law to protect you. Life is too short to force yourself to work for people like that.