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This is just as confusing and explosives and energetics research. Explosives are regulated by the ATF, but can also fall under regulations of the DOT and the E

This is just as confusing and explosives and energetics research. Explosives are regulated by the ATF, but can also fall under regulations of the DOT and the EPA. And if your doing any pulse power z pinch or electronic detanator experiment or research, then that's also regulated. Keep in mind this also has state regulations and ordinance to worry about and its almost like they are trying to get you to accidentally make some mistake that can technically be a felony. And they can visit and do inspections during your hours of operations. Potato cannons, model rockets, and innovation and experiments in your backyard seem to be impossible these days. Do I think safety is important, sure, but I'd argue that the paperwork of regulation has stifled the common man who want to follow the laws. Also see: export control and gpu's

nxobject 2y ago
> I'd argue that the paperwork of regulation has stifled the common man who want to follow the laws. I’d argue that it’s not the regulations themselves, but people who want to avoid liability, whether ethical or social. (The existence of institutional review is a good argument against, say, a fiscal hawk looking at a state university’s research output to identify the existence of fraud or abuse.)
oneplane 2y ago
You'd think someone would notice how this process is suboptimal and either come up with a way to make the process better, or at least a way to have a single point of contact with knowledge and experience (and reputation) to deal with this for you, i.e. on a more local governmental level. As a random citizen, you'd perhaps get away with an online self-service form, as a small company or startup you might need a form and an interview, but the entire "talk to 4 different agencies at different levels of abstraction" seems like a waste of time for everyone when it can be done in one go (provided the thing you wanted to do is common enough that it doesn't require some extreme documentation and safeguards etc). If 100000 people were to want to try out a potato canon, it should be sufficient to do something at a local level where you select "I wanna play with a potato canon for a bit" in some drop-down, and it might ask you if you intend to shoot at people or not, and if you have enough room to experiment with this without hurting anyone (including yourself). If yes, problem solved, no need to fill out a form, if unsure or no, fill out a form since you probably are doing something novel, or something you might not want to do. If this then means some other agency at some other level needs to get notified, sure, automate that, who cares. If it turns out you filled out your form and specified radio active potatoes, perhaps one of those other agencies might want to have a chat first to see if everything is okay. But the default of "talk to an arbitrary number of agencies in every case" is not great.

nxobject 2y ago

> I'd argue that the paperwork of regulation has stifled the common man who want to follow the laws. I’d argue that it’s not the regulations themselves, but people who want to avoid liability, whether ethical or social. (The existence of institutional review is a good argument against, say, a fiscal hawk looking at a state university’s research output to identify the existence of fraud or abuse.)

oneplane 2y ago

You'd think someone would notice how this process is suboptimal and either come up with a way to make the process better, or at least a way to have a single point of contact with knowledge and experience (and reputation) to deal with this for you, i.e. on a more local governmental level. As a random citizen, you'd perhaps get away with an online self-service form, as a small company or startup you might need a form and an interview, but the entire "talk to 4 different agencies at different levels of abstraction" seems like a waste of time for everyone when it can be done in one go (provided the thing you wanted to do is common enough that it doesn't require some extreme documentation and safeguards etc). If 100000 people were to want to try out a potato canon, it should be sufficient to do something at a local level where you select "I wanna play with a potato canon for a bit" in some drop-down, and it might ask you if you intend to shoot at people or not, and if you have enough room to experiment with this without hurting anyone (including yourself). If yes, problem solved, no need to fill out a form, if unsure or no, fill out a form since you probably are doing something novel, or something you might not want to do. If this then means some other agency at some other level needs to get notified, sure, automate that, who cares. If it turns out you filled out your form and specified radio active potatoes, perhaps one of those other agencies might want to have a chat first to see if everything is okay. But the default of "talk to an arbitrary number of agencies in every case" is not great.