4 ms·

Almost but not quite. For most people, they never directly interact with government regulations because somebody else does it. They work for a large corporatio

Almost but not quite. For most people, they never directly interact with government regulations because somebody else does it. They work for a large corporation and then the corporation requires them to do wasteful or nonsensical things which they ascribe to management incompetence, but it's really because the corporation's lawyers made it a requirement. Then there are the people who are actually doing the compliance paperwork, but they don't object because it's the thing that pays their salary. Moreover, it's their occupation so all the time required to figure out how to do it is now a sunk cost for them and the last thing they want is to get rid of it and make all that time they invested worthless. The people who object are the people trying to start a new business, because nobody is paying them to do things that don't make sense and all they want is to get on with what they're actually trying to accomplish instead of paying one fee after another or waiting on unaccountable regulators who have no reason to say no to something but still take excruciatingly long to say yes.

locknitpicker 1y ago
> The people who object are the people trying to start a new business, because nobody is paying them to do things that don't make sense and all they want is to get on with what they're actually trying to accomplish instead of paying one fee after another or waiting on unaccountable regulators who have no reason to say no to something but still take excruciatingly long to say yes. This is an extremely disingenuous opinion, which causally omits the whole reason regulations are necessary and exist to start with. The problem with your laissez-faire fundamentalism is that it ignores the fact that what these organizations claim to "actually trying to accomplish" is actually harmful and has considerable negative impact on society in general. Regulation is absolutely necessary because these orgs either don't care or are oblivious to the harm they are causing, and either way have absolutely no motivation to right their wrongs. Look at the way you chose to frame your fundamentalist opposition to regulation: "paying them to do things that don't make sense". Why do you think that preventing you from doing harm to society "don't make sense"? Is it too much of an inconvenience? It's perfectly fine to expect regulators to streamline their processes. What is not ok is to frame regulations as whimsical rentism from bureaucrats. They are accountability mechanisms designed to proactively prevent bad actors from causing harm to society as a whole, and they work by requiring that organizations proactively demonstrate they aren't causing said harm. Why is this all necessary? Because said organizations already have a long track record of causing that very harm to society. Why is this fact ignored?
- AnthonyMouse 1y ago
  > The problem with your laissez-faire fundamentalism is that it ignores the fact that what these organizations claim to "actually trying to accomplish" is actually harmful and has considerable negative impact on society in general. The article is about a company trying to make an electric "converter dolly" that improves the fuel efficiency of diesel trucks by essentially turning them into hybrids. What actual harm and considerable negative impact on society in general are you referring to in this context? > Look at the way you chose to frame your fundamentalist opposition to regulation: "paying them to do things that don't make sense". Why do you think that preventing you from doing harm to society "don't make sense"? Is it too much of an inconvenience? Suppose that there exist regulations that are ill considered or poorly drafted and require things that are not aligned with their ostensible purpose. > What is not ok is to frame regulations as whimsical rentism from bureaucrats. How about whimsical rentism from incumbents who want to exclude competitors or avaricious middlemen who want their services to be expensive and mandatory, and capture the regulators to make that happen? > Why is this all necessary? Because said organizations already have a long track record of causing that very harm to society. Why is this fact ignored? The subset of the rules that aren't actually necessary aren't actually necessary. Why is this fact ignored?
  - duskdozer 1y ago
    What rules "aren't actually necessary" is a matter of opinion. Just as you can come up with a few examples of things you think should be less regulated (and many people may agree), others can come up with a few examples of things they think should be more regulated (and many people may also agree).
    - AnthonyMouse 1y ago
      > What rules "aren't actually necessary" is a matter of opinion. To begin with, no it isn't. There are a lot of existing regulations that serve no legitimate purpose. Some exist solely at the behest of incumbents and are enacted under a false pretext by corrupt government officials; no one supports them who isn't being disingenuous. Others aren't even wanted by anyone and are simply regulatory errors that failed to account for something that actually happens, but the people impacted don't have the political influence to correct it. Moreover, what if there are some regulations that people differ on? Should we keep the ones only a minority of people think are a good idea, just because they already exist?
strictnein 1y ago
> For most people I guess I wasn't clear enough that I was referring to people who are directly encountering them, like the author of the post we're discussing. I've worked directly with them. In my case, to get things approved didn't require any concerted effort or significant cost, it was just time. The government group would sit on the requests for a long time, doing nothing with them, asking no questions about what was submitted, and then approve them. This wasn't speculation on our part either. We were told that was how it was done by one of the people involved in the approval process who was also frustrated by how long it took, but didn't have the power to change things. The end result was that we did less work in these areas, even though there would have been significant benefit to the users of our systems and the public in general.

locknitpicker 1y ago

> The people who object are the people trying to start a new business, because nobody is paying them to do things that don't make sense and all they want is to get on with what they're actually trying to accomplish instead of paying one fee after another or waiting on unaccountable regulators who have no reason to say no to something but still take excruciatingly long to say yes. This is an extremely disingenuous opinion, which causally omits the whole reason regulations are necessary and exist to start with. The problem with your laissez-faire fundamentalism is that it ignores the fact that what these organizations claim to "actually trying to accomplish" is actually harmful and has considerable negative impact on society in general. Regulation is absolutely necessary because these orgs either don't care or are oblivious to the harm they are causing, and either way have absolutely no motivation to right their wrongs. Look at the way you chose to frame your fundamentalist opposition to regulation: "paying them to do things that don't make sense". Why do you think that preventing you from doing harm to society "don't make sense"? Is it too much of an inconvenience? It's perfectly fine to expect regulators to streamline their processes. What is not ok is to frame regulations as whimsical rentism from bureaucrats. They are accountability mechanisms designed to proactively prevent bad actors from causing harm to society as a whole, and they work by requiring that organizations proactively demonstrate they aren't causing said harm. Why is this all necessary? Because said organizations already have a long track record of causing that very harm to society. Why is this fact ignored?

AnthonyMouse 1y ago
> The problem with your laissez-faire fundamentalism is that it ignores the fact that what these organizations claim to "actually trying to accomplish" is actually harmful and has considerable negative impact on society in general. The article is about a company trying to make an electric "converter dolly" that improves the fuel efficiency of diesel trucks by essentially turning them into hybrids. What actual harm and considerable negative impact on society in general are you referring to in this context? > Look at the way you chose to frame your fundamentalist opposition to regulation: "paying them to do things that don't make sense". Why do you think that preventing you from doing harm to society "don't make sense"? Is it too much of an inconvenience? Suppose that there exist regulations that are ill considered or poorly drafted and require things that are not aligned with their ostensible purpose. > What is not ok is to frame regulations as whimsical rentism from bureaucrats. How about whimsical rentism from incumbents who want to exclude competitors or avaricious middlemen who want their services to be expensive and mandatory, and capture the regulators to make that happen? > Why is this all necessary? Because said organizations already have a long track record of causing that very harm to society. Why is this fact ignored? The subset of the rules that aren't actually necessary aren't actually necessary. Why is this fact ignored?
- duskdozer 1y ago
  What rules "aren't actually necessary" is a matter of opinion. Just as you can come up with a few examples of things you think should be less regulated (and many people may agree), others can come up with a few examples of things they think should be more regulated (and many people may also agree).
  - AnthonyMouse 1y ago
    > What rules "aren't actually necessary" is a matter of opinion. To begin with, no it isn't. There are a lot of existing regulations that serve no legitimate purpose. Some exist solely at the behest of incumbents and are enacted under a false pretext by corrupt government officials; no one supports them who isn't being disingenuous. Others aren't even wanted by anyone and are simply regulatory errors that failed to account for something that actually happens, but the people impacted don't have the political influence to correct it. Moreover, what if there are some regulations that people differ on? Should we keep the ones only a minority of people think are a good idea, just because they already exist?

strictnein 1y ago

> For most people I guess I wasn't clear enough that I was referring to people who are directly encountering them, like the author of the post we're discussing. I've worked directly with them. In my case, to get things approved didn't require any concerted effort or significant cost, it was just time. The government group would sit on the requests for a long time, doing nothing with them, asking no questions about what was submitted, and then approve them. This wasn't speculation on our part either. We were told that was how it was done by one of the people involved in the approval process who was also frustrated by how long it took, but didn't have the power to change things. The end result was that we did less work in these areas, even though there would have been significant benefit to the users of our systems and the public in general.