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I’m getting more and more convinced that this is a main problem all over the West. In Germany, a business owner called Marco Scheel is becoming more and more po

I’m getting more and more convinced that this is a main problem all over the West. In Germany, a business owner called Marco Scheel is becoming more and more popular by being very outspoken about how bureaucracy is hindering him. His company is called Nordwolle by the way. They make clothing out of sheep wool. They spend a lot of effort finding the right type of wool so they don’t need chemicals to paint it. One major example which Marco first became popular with was that he owned a barn but wasn’t allowed to use it for the factory since it was a farm on paper. The government told him to move to a designated factory area. He argued that it made no sense since he was living in a very remote area, and the barn was of high quality. What else should he do with the barn? Why would he need to build something new somewhere else? The barn was there already and stood already for hundreds of years. His most popular quote is something along the lines of “we can’t all sit with a Chai latte and a MacBook in a coworking space in Berlin and make the 5th dating app. We need some people who do that but not everyone. Some people need to make things with their hands! And for that I need space! I don’t need glass fibre. I need space!”

sofixa 2y ago
> One major example which Marco first became popular with was that he owned a barn but wasn’t allowed to use it for the factory since it was a farm on paper. The government told him to move to a designated factory area. He argued that it made no sense since he was living in a very remote area, and the barn was of high quality. What else should he do with the barn? Why would he need to build something new somewhere else? The barn was there already and stood already for hundreds of years. Of course it makes sense. Farmland is dedicated to farming and producing food/related things. It lacks connectivity, has fertile soil, prices are cheaper. If anyone can just build a factory there, they will have a negative ecological impact (interrupt animal flows, pollute in areas that are supposed to be cleaner, etc). It's the same reason why you can't farm in an industrial zone, nor can you set up a factory in the middle of the city. Yes, it can be taken too far and abused, but absolutely 100% makes sense and must exist.
- krona 2y ago
  The guy's not building a gigafactory in his garden, is he? > If anyone can just build a factory there, they will have a negative ecological impact (interrupt animal flows, pollute in areas that are supposed to be cleaner, etc). All true of farming. FWIW as a fellow NIMBY myself, I use the excuse of 'animal flow' (in particular the flow of bats) to prevent anyone from putting anything more than a fence up within 150m of my house. It's great!
  - sofixa 2y ago
    > The guy's not building a gigafactory in his garden, is he? How could this possibly be known without a review in your opinion? > fellow NIMBY myself Unless you're American, things don't have to be so binary. The choice isn't between nothing gets built or anyone can just do whatever. We need a balance. > All true of farming I'm pretty sure birds and bees and what not prefer having plants than factories.
    - krona 2y ago
      > How could this possibly be known without a review in your opinion? By all means, have planning applications and a system to process them. Things don't have to be so binary.
- roenxi 2y ago
  You're going to end up in a position where you're telling a farmer how to manage & value farmland. That'll lead to more misses than hits.
  - sofixa 2y ago
    > You're going to end up in a position where you're telling a farmer how to manage Funny you say that. Not only does that actually happen in pretty much all developed country, it's actually needed for a variety of reasons. There are subsidies to incentivise the "correct" crops (you don't want all farmers only doing cash crops for export, rendering your country very vulnerable to import markets to sustain itself), there are also rules/policies to rotate crops to avoid top soil erosion which could be devastating, there are rules on what types of pesticides can be used, etc etc etc etc.
ZeroGravitas 2y ago
I associate this attitude with criticism of Wikipedia and narcissism. I don't think it's a coincidence that it's often around editing things they are related to that this comes up. I tried to do something and they stopped me. This is wrong, I should be able to do this and write my own story. Which is a perfectly normal feeling. But if you end up saying that loudly in public without ever thinking, well what if the rule of "let this person do whatever they want" applied to people other than yourself, then that seems to indicate some lack of a wider view.
- huijzer 2y ago
  > I associate this attitude with criticism of Wikipedia and narcissism. I never said anything about Wikipedia. For the record, I'm a big fan of Wikipedia and I'm skeptical about the new US government. Please don't assume that because someone holds opinion X that they also hold opinion Y. With the current levels of polarization, it's probably a fair assumption to make, but I think we all as individuals have a responsibility to counter that.
  - ZeroGravitas 2y ago
    I brought up Wikipedia because it's something I'm interested in. And it's an example of somewhere I'd seen this exact argument against rules/regulation regularly made on HN stories and the comments on them in what I thought was a mostly non-political context.
    - huijzer 2y ago
      > I associate this attitude with criticism of Wikipedia and narcissism. > I brought up Wikipedia because it's something I'm interested in.
- roenxi 2y ago
  > ... well what if the rule of "let this person do whatever they want" applied to people other than yourself, then that seems to indicate some lack of a wider view. It sounds like Mr. Scheel is applying exactly that view. The idea is everyone should be able to use their remote farm shed for industrial purposes. Indeed, most of the intellectual foundation of the pro-freedom view is precisely that when you take a wider view freedom is generally better for everyone than authoritarianism right up until it becomes a threat to personal safety (even then, pushing the dial a little further towards freedom generally gets better results). If people can't do what they want, then how are things supposed to get done? If we're all doing things in ways that are believed to be impractical then it is going to waste an unreasonable amount of resources and be stupid.

sofixa 2y ago

> One major example which Marco first became popular with was that he owned a barn but wasn’t allowed to use it for the factory since it was a farm on paper. The government told him to move to a designated factory area. He argued that it made no sense since he was living in a very remote area, and the barn was of high quality. What else should he do with the barn? Why would he need to build something new somewhere else? The barn was there already and stood already for hundreds of years. Of course it makes sense. Farmland is dedicated to farming and producing food/related things. It lacks connectivity, has fertile soil, prices are cheaper. If anyone can just build a factory there, they will have a negative ecological impact (interrupt animal flows, pollute in areas that are supposed to be cleaner, etc). It's the same reason why you can't farm in an industrial zone, nor can you set up a factory in the middle of the city. Yes, it can be taken too far and abused, but absolutely 100% makes sense and must exist.

krona 2y ago
The guy's not building a gigafactory in his garden, is he? > If anyone can just build a factory there, they will have a negative ecological impact (interrupt animal flows, pollute in areas that are supposed to be cleaner, etc). All true of farming. FWIW as a fellow NIMBY myself, I use the excuse of 'animal flow' (in particular the flow of bats) to prevent anyone from putting anything more than a fence up within 150m of my house. It's great!
- sofixa 2y ago
  > The guy's not building a gigafactory in his garden, is he? How could this possibly be known without a review in your opinion? > fellow NIMBY myself Unless you're American, things don't have to be so binary. The choice isn't between nothing gets built or anyone can just do whatever. We need a balance. > All true of farming I'm pretty sure birds and bees and what not prefer having plants than factories.
  - krona 2y ago
    > How could this possibly be known without a review in your opinion? By all means, have planning applications and a system to process them. Things don't have to be so binary.
roenxi 2y ago
You're going to end up in a position where you're telling a farmer how to manage & value farmland. That'll lead to more misses than hits.
- sofixa 2y ago
  > You're going to end up in a position where you're telling a farmer how to manage Funny you say that. Not only does that actually happen in pretty much all developed country, it's actually needed for a variety of reasons. There are subsidies to incentivise the "correct" crops (you don't want all farmers only doing cash crops for export, rendering your country very vulnerable to import markets to sustain itself), there are also rules/policies to rotate crops to avoid top soil erosion which could be devastating, there are rules on what types of pesticides can be used, etc etc etc etc.

ZeroGravitas 2y ago

I associate this attitude with criticism of Wikipedia and narcissism. I don't think it's a coincidence that it's often around editing things they are related to that this comes up. I tried to do something and they stopped me. This is wrong, I should be able to do this and write my own story. Which is a perfectly normal feeling. But if you end up saying that loudly in public without ever thinking, well what if the rule of "let this person do whatever they want" applied to people other than yourself, then that seems to indicate some lack of a wider view.

huijzer 2y ago
> I associate this attitude with criticism of Wikipedia and narcissism. I never said anything about Wikipedia. For the record, I'm a big fan of Wikipedia and I'm skeptical about the new US government. Please don't assume that because someone holds opinion X that they also hold opinion Y. With the current levels of polarization, it's probably a fair assumption to make, but I think we all as individuals have a responsibility to counter that.
- ZeroGravitas 2y ago
  I brought up Wikipedia because it's something I'm interested in. And it's an example of somewhere I'd seen this exact argument against rules/regulation regularly made on HN stories and the comments on them in what I thought was a mostly non-political context.
  - huijzer 2y ago
    > I associate this attitude with criticism of Wikipedia and narcissism. > I brought up Wikipedia because it's something I'm interested in.
roenxi 2y ago
> ... well what if the rule of "let this person do whatever they want" applied to people other than yourself, then that seems to indicate some lack of a wider view. It sounds like Mr. Scheel is applying exactly that view. The idea is everyone should be able to use their remote farm shed for industrial purposes. Indeed, most of the intellectual foundation of the pro-freedom view is precisely that when you take a wider view freedom is generally better for everyone than authoritarianism right up until it becomes a threat to personal safety (even then, pushing the dial a little further towards freedom generally gets better results). If people can't do what they want, then how are things supposed to get done? If we're all doing things in ways that are believed to be impractical then it is going to waste an unreasonable amount of resources and be stupid.