6 ms·

Am I the only one who thinks the risks are worth the reward? People are celebrating, kids are having fun. Yes a few people blow their hands off, but are we goin

Am I the only one who thinks the risks are worth the reward? People are celebrating, kids are having fun. Yes a few people blow their hands off, but are we going to remove everything, one by one, in the name of safety?

anon7000 3mo ago
Come on, it’s not a choice between complete anarchy and complete restriction. It is very, very fair for society to be like “hm I think X activity is easy to abuse in a way that hurts innocent bystanders,” and then limits the activity to people with licenses and training or things like that. Like no, it’s totally not cool to give a free pass to people who are putting other people’s lives and homes at risk. How would you feel if your house burned down because your neighbor did something stupid? I don’t care if it’s just your own life at risk. But you’re essentially saying that people should be free to play around with explosive devices in dense city neighborhoods. Fuck no, it’s fucking concerning to have an explosion rattle your windows. The people most likely to do this shit in the streets have no clue what they’re doing.
- fc417fc802 3mo ago
  You are arguing against a straw man. It was never claimed or even implied that society can't or shouldn't regulate activities that cause harm. The cost benefit tradeoff in this specific instance was called into question and the broader implications of a consistent application of the same bar across all of society was inquired about. > you’re essentially saying that people should be free to play around with explosive devices in dense city neighborhoods. Fuck no, it’s fucking concerning to have an explosion rattle your windows. This is nothing more than emotional grandstanding. You could construct similar rants against a canister of gas or bottle of starter fluid. Obviously how you use the thing is important. Lest you miss my point or think I miss the mark there are video footage of clueless people nearly killing themselves and others through entirely avoidable mishaps with gasoline abound. The question is the amount of knowledge and judgment required, the likelihood of mishap, and the size of the consequences when one inevitably happens. Regulation needs to balance these things against utility and personal freedom.
  - lazyasciiart 3mo ago
    > Obviously how you use the thing is important. Is there a way to use large fireworks in a residential neighborhood that isn’t “light them on fire to cause an explosion”?
    - fc417fc802 3mo ago
      Large? When fireworks within the ATF limits for unlicensed individuals are used according to manufacturer instructions they explode on the ground or in the air in a way that does not endanger the surrounding structures. Of course you can't safely light them off in a narrow alley between three story buildings. Anyone doing that (or similarly foolish things) was behaving recklessly to begin with.
      - lazyasciiart 3mo ago
        The comment was saying it should not be legal to cause “an explosion rattle your windows”, not just endangering the structure.
- Xirdus 3mo ago
  > How would you feel if your house burned down because your neighbor did something stupid? Probably the same way I'd feel if it burned down because my neighbor did some other stupid thing, like drive into it with a truck or try stealing electricity. There would be many feelings probably, but none of them would be "trucks/DIY should be illegal".
  - zamalek 3mo ago
    Stealing electricity is already illegal. Driving a truck into your home could be a genuine accident, but it's more likely that alcohol was involved first (which is illegal with driving).
    - jmb99 3mo ago
      Do you think it’s legal to shoot a firework at someone’s house?
      - zamalek 3mo ago
        Fireworks don't need to be intentionally aimed at a house for a forest, or a city, to ignite one.
    - Xirdus 3mo ago
      > Stealing electricity is already illegal. So is shooting a house with fireworks. I'm against a general ban on doingelectrical work yourself, and against a general ban on fireworks.
      - pandaman 3mo ago
        Where I live, it's already illegal to shoot fireworks in the city limits, people still do that. Banning sales and importation is the next logical step.
        Xirdus 3mo ago
        According to what logic?
- engineer_22 3mo ago
  > Like no, it’s totally not cool to give a free pass to people who are putting other people’s lives and homes at risk. How would you feel if your house burned down because your neighbor did something stupid? We quite literally have a long and rich tradition of laws to handle exactly this.
- protocolture 3mo ago
  >How would you feel if your house burned down because your neighbor did something stupid? Burning your neighbors house down is already illegal. You and they should already have insurance. House fires in human dwellings have been a risk since we started building houses next to other houses. The issue is that we (and I mean worldwide) have gone from legalism as a method of settling disputes and advertising penalties for destructive behavior, to outlawing risk entirely. The crux of the matter is that no one stops to point out where the line is. Laws will come in to penalise low probability risks, people make these arguments "wont someone think of the children" and then lawmakers turn on to even lower probability risks. If you had even a benchmark, "more probable than x is outlawed" people would be more understanding. And its not a slippery slope argument, because the slope seems to be the point and without a line the destination appears to be all possible risk.
  - wonnage 3mo ago
    I'm gonna go ahead and assume you don't believe in driver licenses and speed limits either
    - protocolture 3mo ago
      I have nuanced views on both. I am gonna go ahead and assume theres no freedom you wouldn't give away for safety if the government justified it in the right way.
      - xeyownt 3mo ago
        It's not that simple. Rules do not necessarily reduce freedom, they can in fact even provide more freedom on the longer term, when the system finds a new balance. The difficulty of course is to find the proper rules and evaluate these effects from current system state.
        cucumber3732842 3mo ago
        >Rules do not necessarily reduce freedom, they can in fact even provide more freedom on the longer term, when the system finds a new balance. The kind of rules being peddled by the kind of people who peddle rules in a fireworks thread are almost certainly the exact opposite of the kind that direct things at a freer equilibrium. It's not that we can't have rules. It's that we can't have shortsighted people with bad morals writing tules.
consensus1 3mo ago
You're not the only one. There are few things I hate more than safetyists.
georgeburdell 3mo ago
I’m with you. I shoot off small fireworks for my kids and my immediate neighbor on our quiet street, and we have a neighbor a few doors down who invariably calls the cops. This has been going on since the 2000s when she moved in. If I’m fined, I just pay it.
- xeyownt 3mo ago
  You are above the laws if you have the money. Wonderful teaching for your kids. The world knows where that is leading.
  - radicalcentrist 3mo ago
    Yep, a great lesson, and a relatively low price to pay for teaching my kids the honorable act of civil disobedience.
    - StefanBatory 3mo ago
      A great lesson to show that you have no morals, indeed.
      - orsorna 3mo ago
        Lawful does not equate to moral.
      - OkayPhysicist 3mo ago
        If breaking the law is immoral, what are we celebrating on the 4th of July but a massively immoral action? It was certainly not legal for the the colonies to secede from England.
chneu 3mo ago
Like 10 people died in my state on the 4th. A few were not directly involved in celebrations but were just doing their own thing. Does that really sound reasonable to you?
- colechristensen 3mo ago
  Died of what? 25,000 people die in my state every year, 10 in a day would be miraculously low.
pandaman 3mo ago
I am fine with the professional fireworks shows but people setting fireworks inside residential areas, in all hours of night, for weeks during summer is just people being massive douchebags.
- trollbridge 3mo ago
  Right. On the evening of July 4, fine. Setting off firecrackers in urban areas otherwise is simply antisocial behaviour and should be treated as such.
somehnguy 3mo ago
Nope, completely with you on this. The logical conclusion of banning everything dangerous is everything in existence being banned. There are many things people do that I think are dumb or dangerous but that doesn't mean I think they should be banned from doing them.
- globular-toast 3mo ago
  Not true. I support anyone doing anything that is harmful to themselves. I don't support doing things that are harmful to others.
  - somehnguy 3mo ago
    By the nature of even existing you do things every single day that others would consider harmful to them. This isn't a personal attack fyi. edit: I don't believe it's ridiculous or pedantic, but you're certainly welcome to your opinion.
    - globular-toast 3mo ago
      Don't be ridiculous. There is very little value in such pedantry.
wonnage 3mo ago
"Some of you may die, but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make" was supposed to be a comically evil statement in Shrek
- chopin 3mo ago
  But that is the maxim which drives almost everything we do on a daily basis.
- fragmede 3mo ago
  I hope the writer that penned that is fantastically rich!
  - fragmede 3mo ago
    AI tells me that the line was written by Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio, Joe Stillman, and Roger S. H. Schulman. They also worked on Pirates of the Caribbean, Aladdin, and the Mask of Zorro. so, to answer my own question, yes they are.
alwa 3mo ago
I have a beautiful memory from a summer night long ago, in Barceloneta on the evening of the summer solstice—the festival of Saint Joan [0]. I didn’t know it was coming, which was its own special sort of astonishment… walked in to eat dinner, walked out to a mountain of furniture on fire in the intersection, air thick with gunpowder smoke, bands of youths firing Roman candles at one other… The specific image that comes to mind, though—I remember dozens upon dozens of ambulances lined up at the ready along the waterfront, their crews hanging out enjoying the madness until they would be called upon. Having been raised in pretty cautious circles, that image struck me: the powers-that-be knew some proportion of bad stuff would happen. I figured that meant they’d “just make a law against it.” Instead of trying to stop it, though, they focused on preparedness and timely response. Since then, of course, I’ve learned that The Law has a lot less raw power than I’d imagined against tradition and popular will… Since then I’ve accepted as creed that the best and most human parts of life reach their most salient in the moments of paradox between principles. “Avoid safety risks” is correct, “living fully requires accepting risks” is also correct. [0] https://www.barcelona-tourist-guide.com/en/events/sant-joan/feast-sant-joan.html https://www.barcelona-tourist-guide.com/en/events/sant-joan/...
mihaaly 3mo ago
No! You are not alone! That is very sad! : / You know, there are millions of ways having fun that endangers no others. Millions! (also small children have no fun, not at all! Woken up to be scared to shit, for f's sake, that's opposite of fun, the very opposite! Use your brain please!)
cucumber3732842 3mo ago
The HN comments are a case study in sampling bias.
FatherOfCurses 3mo ago
IDK what has been going on but people in my area seem to be getting their hands on professional-level fireworks that sound like bombs going off. It used to be the roman candles and the fountains and a gentle background noise around the neighborhood but now it's insane. There are plenty of parts of the world where people are free to enjoy themselves but also considerate of others.
duped 3mo ago
If it were limited to one night of the year and people just moved on it would be fine. These days it stretches out for half the summer, practically.
adamredwoods 3mo ago
Fireworks affects others: fire danger, noise, lack of post-celebration cleanup. I've seen trash and unlit fireworks left in school yards that had kids coming in for summer school. If people were more respectful with fireworks, this wouldn't be a polarizing opinion. Yet, here we are.

anon7000 3mo ago

Come on, it’s not a choice between complete anarchy and complete restriction. It is very, very fair for society to be like “hm I think X activity is easy to abuse in a way that hurts innocent bystanders,” and then limits the activity to people with licenses and training or things like that. Like no, it’s totally not cool to give a free pass to people who are putting other people’s lives and homes at risk. How would you feel if your house burned down because your neighbor did something stupid? I don’t care if it’s just your own life at risk. But you’re essentially saying that people should be free to play around with explosive devices in dense city neighborhoods. Fuck no, it’s fucking concerning to have an explosion rattle your windows. The people most likely to do this shit in the streets have no clue what they’re doing.

fc417fc802 3mo ago
You are arguing against a straw man. It was never claimed or even implied that society can't or shouldn't regulate activities that cause harm. The cost benefit tradeoff in this specific instance was called into question and the broader implications of a consistent application of the same bar across all of society was inquired about. > you’re essentially saying that people should be free to play around with explosive devices in dense city neighborhoods. Fuck no, it’s fucking concerning to have an explosion rattle your windows. This is nothing more than emotional grandstanding. You could construct similar rants against a canister of gas or bottle of starter fluid. Obviously how you use the thing is important. Lest you miss my point or think I miss the mark there are video footage of clueless people nearly killing themselves and others through entirely avoidable mishaps with gasoline abound. The question is the amount of knowledge and judgment required, the likelihood of mishap, and the size of the consequences when one inevitably happens. Regulation needs to balance these things against utility and personal freedom.
- lazyasciiart 3mo ago
  > Obviously how you use the thing is important. Is there a way to use large fireworks in a residential neighborhood that isn’t “light them on fire to cause an explosion”?
  - fc417fc802 3mo ago
    Large? When fireworks within the ATF limits for unlicensed individuals are used according to manufacturer instructions they explode on the ground or in the air in a way that does not endanger the surrounding structures. Of course you can't safely light them off in a narrow alley between three story buildings. Anyone doing that (or similarly foolish things) was behaving recklessly to begin with.
    - lazyasciiart 3mo ago
      The comment was saying it should not be legal to cause “an explosion rattle your windows”, not just endangering the structure.
Xirdus 3mo ago
> How would you feel if your house burned down because your neighbor did something stupid? Probably the same way I'd feel if it burned down because my neighbor did some other stupid thing, like drive into it with a truck or try stealing electricity. There would be many feelings probably, but none of them would be "trucks/DIY should be illegal".
- zamalek 3mo ago
  Stealing electricity is already illegal. Driving a truck into your home could be a genuine accident, but it's more likely that alcohol was involved first (which is illegal with driving).
  - jmb99 3mo ago
    Do you think it’s legal to shoot a firework at someone’s house?
    - zamalek 3mo ago
      Fireworks don't need to be intentionally aimed at a house for a forest, or a city, to ignite one.
  - Xirdus 3mo ago
    > Stealing electricity is already illegal. So is shooting a house with fireworks. I'm against a general ban on doingelectrical work yourself, and against a general ban on fireworks.
    - pandaman 3mo ago
      Where I live, it's already illegal to shoot fireworks in the city limits, people still do that. Banning sales and importation is the next logical step.
      - Xirdus 3mo ago
        According to what logic?
engineer_22 3mo ago
> Like no, it’s totally not cool to give a free pass to people who are putting other people’s lives and homes at risk. How would you feel if your house burned down because your neighbor did something stupid? We quite literally have a long and rich tradition of laws to handle exactly this.
protocolture 3mo ago
>How would you feel if your house burned down because your neighbor did something stupid? Burning your neighbors house down is already illegal. You and they should already have insurance. House fires in human dwellings have been a risk since we started building houses next to other houses. The issue is that we (and I mean worldwide) have gone from legalism as a method of settling disputes and advertising penalties for destructive behavior, to outlawing risk entirely. The crux of the matter is that no one stops to point out where the line is. Laws will come in to penalise low probability risks, people make these arguments "wont someone think of the children" and then lawmakers turn on to even lower probability risks. If you had even a benchmark, "more probable than x is outlawed" people would be more understanding. And its not a slippery slope argument, because the slope seems to be the point and without a line the destination appears to be all possible risk.
- wonnage 3mo ago
  I'm gonna go ahead and assume you don't believe in driver licenses and speed limits either
  - protocolture 3mo ago
    I have nuanced views on both. I am gonna go ahead and assume theres no freedom you wouldn't give away for safety if the government justified it in the right way.
    - xeyownt 3mo ago
      It's not that simple. Rules do not necessarily reduce freedom, they can in fact even provide more freedom on the longer term, when the system finds a new balance. The difficulty of course is to find the proper rules and evaluate these effects from current system state.
      - cucumber3732842 3mo ago
        >Rules do not necessarily reduce freedom, they can in fact even provide more freedom on the longer term, when the system finds a new balance. The kind of rules being peddled by the kind of people who peddle rules in a fireworks thread are almost certainly the exact opposite of the kind that direct things at a freer equilibrium. It's not that we can't have rules. It's that we can't have shortsighted people with bad morals writing tules.

consensus1 3mo ago

You're not the only one. There are few things I hate more than safetyists.

georgeburdell 3mo ago

I’m with you. I shoot off small fireworks for my kids and my immediate neighbor on our quiet street, and we have a neighbor a few doors down who invariably calls the cops. This has been going on since the 2000s when she moved in. If I’m fined, I just pay it.

xeyownt 3mo ago
You are above the laws if you have the money. Wonderful teaching for your kids. The world knows where that is leading.
- radicalcentrist 3mo ago
  Yep, a great lesson, and a relatively low price to pay for teaching my kids the honorable act of civil disobedience.
  - StefanBatory 3mo ago
    A great lesson to show that you have no morals, indeed.
    - orsorna 3mo ago
      Lawful does not equate to moral.
    - OkayPhysicist 3mo ago
      If breaking the law is immoral, what are we celebrating on the 4th of July but a massively immoral action? It was certainly not legal for the the colonies to secede from England.

chneu 3mo ago

Like 10 people died in my state on the 4th. A few were not directly involved in celebrations but were just doing their own thing. Does that really sound reasonable to you?

colechristensen 3mo ago
Died of what? 25,000 people die in my state every year, 10 in a day would be miraculously low.

pandaman 3mo ago

I am fine with the professional fireworks shows but people setting fireworks inside residential areas, in all hours of night, for weeks during summer is just people being massive douchebags.

trollbridge 3mo ago
Right. On the evening of July 4, fine. Setting off firecrackers in urban areas otherwise is simply antisocial behaviour and should be treated as such.

somehnguy 3mo ago

Nope, completely with you on this. The logical conclusion of banning everything dangerous is everything in existence being banned. There are many things people do that I think are dumb or dangerous but that doesn't mean I think they should be banned from doing them.

globular-toast 3mo ago
Not true. I support anyone doing anything that is harmful to themselves. I don't support doing things that are harmful to others.
- somehnguy 3mo ago
  By the nature of even existing you do things every single day that others would consider harmful to them. This isn't a personal attack fyi. edit: I don't believe it's ridiculous or pedantic, but you're certainly welcome to your opinion.
  - globular-toast 3mo ago
    Don't be ridiculous. There is very little value in such pedantry.

wonnage 3mo ago

"Some of you may die, but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make" was supposed to be a comically evil statement in Shrek

chopin 3mo ago
But that is the maxim which drives almost everything we do on a daily basis.
fragmede 3mo ago
I hope the writer that penned that is fantastically rich!
- fragmede 3mo ago
  AI tells me that the line was written by Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio, Joe Stillman, and Roger S. H. Schulman. They also worked on Pirates of the Caribbean, Aladdin, and the Mask of Zorro. so, to answer my own question, yes they are.

alwa 3mo ago

I have a beautiful memory from a summer night long ago, in Barceloneta on the evening of the summer solstice—the festival of Saint Joan [0]. I didn’t know it was coming, which was its own special sort of astonishment… walked in to eat dinner, walked out to a mountain of furniture on fire in the intersection, air thick with gunpowder smoke, bands of youths firing Roman candles at one other… The specific image that comes to mind, though—I remember dozens upon dozens of ambulances lined up at the ready along the waterfront, their crews hanging out enjoying the madness until they would be called upon. Having been raised in pretty cautious circles, that image struck me: the powers-that-be knew some proportion of bad stuff would happen. I figured that meant they’d “just make a law against it.” Instead of trying to stop it, though, they focused on preparedness and timely response. Since then, of course, I’ve learned that The Law has a lot less raw power than I’d imagined against tradition and popular will… Since then I’ve accepted as creed that the best and most human parts of life reach their most salient in the moments of paradox between principles. “Avoid safety risks” is correct, “living fully requires accepting risks” is also correct. [0] https://www.barcelona-tourist-guide.com/en/events/sant-joan/feast-sant-joan.html https://www.barcelona-tourist-guide.com/en/events/sant-joan/...

mihaaly 3mo ago

No! You are not alone! That is very sad! : / You know, there are millions of ways having fun that endangers no others. Millions! (also small children have no fun, not at all! Woken up to be scared to shit, for f's sake, that's opposite of fun, the very opposite! Use your brain please!)

cucumber3732842 3mo ago

The HN comments are a case study in sampling bias.

FatherOfCurses 3mo ago

IDK what has been going on but people in my area seem to be getting their hands on professional-level fireworks that sound like bombs going off. It used to be the roman candles and the fountains and a gentle background noise around the neighborhood but now it's insane. There are plenty of parts of the world where people are free to enjoy themselves but also considerate of others.

duped 3mo ago

If it were limited to one night of the year and people just moved on it would be fine. These days it stretches out for half the summer, practically.

adamredwoods 3mo ago

Fireworks affects others: fire danger, noise, lack of post-celebration cleanup. I've seen trash and unlit fireworks left in school yards that had kids coming in for summer school. If people were more respectful with fireworks, this wouldn't be a polarizing opinion. Yet, here we are.