4 ms·

Take the number of times you've heard the sentiment "and this will protect consumers! yay!" - call it h (for hope). Now take the number of times you've heard s

Take the number of times you've heard the sentiment "and this will protect consumers! yay!" - call it h (for hope). Now take the number of times you've heard such sentiments be justified in a logical, rigorous manner - call it j. Calculate an independent thought index, t, as follows: j / h. Call me if it's greater than 0.01. I'll be over here in the corner watching as we entrench half- (or hundredth-?)baked ideas into statute books that don't change for decades. The economic damage of these petty regs (enforcement, compliance, cognitive load on businesses, yadda yadda) far outstrips that which brought them into existence in the first place - that I'd put my life on (but good luck actually measuring it.) These kinds of 'consumer protection' laws are exactly the reason why the UK only has 5 major banks operating as a government-backed cartel - the laws became so complex that the market is impossible to enter now. Just ask Richard Branson - he wanted a bank for a long time, but the only way he could get one was to buy a preexisting one. This argument extends almost verbatim to the insurance and payment processing (and more) industries. The internet is what it is because it has been almost completely free (as in liberal) and had very low barriers to entry up until very recently. The day I have to fill in a government form to open a webshop else fear prosecution is the day we let another good thing die - and shit like this is a big step down that road.

bh3244 12y ago
laws should be based on logic and not emotion. unfortunately I doubt anyone will campaign against this and if they do they will be portrayed as pro-cronyism or that they are somehow for the things that this measure aims to prevent. the UK seems fond of things like this though. As I recall you must be 18 years old to buy a plastic knife, as it is considered a deadly weapon.
- lorddoig 12y ago
  Although that sounds completely believable, I think in this instance it's only sharp knives over a certain length, and if I'm not mistaken I think the age 16. But never fear, HM Government will no doubt fall over themselves trying to appease the relatives of the one teenager who managed to gouge their own brain out with a plastic knife (when it happens).
Karunamon 12y ago
I find it really, really hard to give a crap about the poor ickle businesses in this case, because you're not going to trip over these laws unless you're going out of your way to do something sneaky. If you enter into it with good faith, i.e. be as forthright as possible with your customer, you won't end up in a situation where these laws will ever apply to you. The people that will have a massive "cognitive load" are those who see the regulations as barriers and impediments to be worked around. Things such as "Don't insert shit into your customer's cart that they didn't explicitly and knowingly request" is one example of the regulation, and is dead simple to both comprehend and implement. The intent and practical application of this particular piece of this particular regulation is crystal clear, and will only be muddied by people who like to rules lawyer terms like "explicitly and knowingly request". I know what it means. You know what it means. Every person with a functioning set of brain cells knows what it means. Shady companies will have a hard time with this.
- lorddoig 12y ago
  Not true. UK law is common law, not a civil code. There is always room for masses of interpretation, as rather verbally described in various case studies in the article. That is cognitive load for every diligent business owner out there. Also I'm surprised that in this day and age (and on HN, no less) I can still find people passively conflating legality with morality ("good faith"). Your argument also fails to touch on the main point I made - that the internet is best left alone, and that it wouldn't have become the amazing thing it has if the regulators were competent enough to get their teeth into it on day one. Regulation is almost always expansionary - the slippery slope is not a logical fallacy when backed up with decades worth of prior evidence. The cognitive load from where this stuff leads will affect all businesses and it will create hidden costs and that will put prices up and that will inhibit growth and that will have a real impact on the length of the next recession (to name a few.) An economy is like a body of water, except waves multiply instead of dissipate when you prod it, which makes it incredibly hard to intuit (especially for the likes of career politicians) what's going to happen when you do. You need to sit down and figure it the hell out, and the point I made in my first paragraph is that we don't do that nearly enough - as a society we'd much rather stand around and have a massive circlejerk over our good intentions that we've convinced ourselves are correct out of nothing more than the same kind of intuition that previously led us to believe the earth was flat and the sun revolved around it.

bh3244 12y ago

laws should be based on logic and not emotion. unfortunately I doubt anyone will campaign against this and if they do they will be portrayed as pro-cronyism or that they are somehow for the things that this measure aims to prevent. the UK seems fond of things like this though. As I recall you must be 18 years old to buy a plastic knife, as it is considered a deadly weapon.

lorddoig 12y ago
Although that sounds completely believable, I think in this instance it's only sharp knives over a certain length, and if I'm not mistaken I think the age 16. But never fear, HM Government will no doubt fall over themselves trying to appease the relatives of the one teenager who managed to gouge their own brain out with a plastic knife (when it happens).

Karunamon 12y ago

I find it really, really hard to give a crap about the poor ickle businesses in this case, because you're not going to trip over these laws unless you're going out of your way to do something sneaky. If you enter into it with good faith, i.e. be as forthright as possible with your customer, you won't end up in a situation where these laws will ever apply to you. The people that will have a massive "cognitive load" are those who see the regulations as barriers and impediments to be worked around. Things such as "Don't insert shit into your customer's cart that they didn't explicitly and knowingly request" is one example of the regulation, and is dead simple to both comprehend and implement. The intent and practical application of this particular piece of this particular regulation is crystal clear, and will only be muddied by people who like to rules lawyer terms like "explicitly and knowingly request". I know what it means. You know what it means. Every person with a functioning set of brain cells knows what it means. Shady companies will have a hard time with this.

lorddoig 12y ago
Not true. UK law is common law, not a civil code. There is always room for masses of interpretation, as rather verbally described in various case studies in the article. That is cognitive load for every diligent business owner out there. Also I'm surprised that in this day and age (and on HN, no less) I can still find people passively conflating legality with morality ("good faith"). Your argument also fails to touch on the main point I made - that the internet is best left alone, and that it wouldn't have become the amazing thing it has if the regulators were competent enough to get their teeth into it on day one. Regulation is almost always expansionary - the slippery slope is not a logical fallacy when backed up with decades worth of prior evidence. The cognitive load from where this stuff leads will affect all businesses and it will create hidden costs and that will put prices up and that will inhibit growth and that will have a real impact on the length of the next recession (to name a few.) An economy is like a body of water, except waves multiply instead of dissipate when you prod it, which makes it incredibly hard to intuit (especially for the likes of career politicians) what's going to happen when you do. You need to sit down and figure it the hell out, and the point I made in my first paragraph is that we don't do that nearly enough - as a society we'd much rather stand around and have a massive circlejerk over our good intentions that we've convinced ourselves are correct out of nothing more than the same kind of intuition that previously led us to believe the earth was flat and the sun revolved around it.