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Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

That's ridiculous. Even in Amsterdam student housing is ~450 for single occupants, and the tuition is a lot cheaper as well.

At $2180 it is probably better to just move into your office or lab and sleep there.

The best way to deal with these idiot prices is to rent a regular house a bit off the beaten path and split the rent with a couple of mates.

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It’s illegal to sleep in an office. That legislation, like many others, was put in place to protect renters and workers but now ends up hurting them instead

why can't we write laws that are conditional, where we explain the intent of the law, and then the law can be ignored when the conditions aren't met

Without judging the merits of this particular law, it's because conditions will be abused by the people who have the strongest incentive to game them.

Laws are like code in this way: simplicity is not always easy, or possible, given the constraints, but complexity has significant downsides.

i mean if you say so. the supreme court does it, and it's not like they're some special breed of superhumans or something.

You are mixing two concepts here, perhaps unintentionally. The supreme court has a standards document against which it evaluates the laws (the constitution, whether it is state (SCOC) or country (SCOTUS)). I have not read a decision where they evaluate "what the legislature 'meant'" when they make their rulings, although they do sometimes comment on that.

The Supreme Court absolutely interprets the meaning of federal law passed by the legislature. Whether they do it by appeal to authorial intent or something else is a matter of jurisprudential philosophy.

For an example of talking about what the legislators intended, see King v. Burwell: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_v._Burwell

Our two main political parties constantly fight to appoint their preferred candidate to the Supreme Court. If the Supreme Court were just following some apolitical procedure of interpretation, none of that would be necessary.

"some apolitical procedure of interpretation"

I'm down. But who gets to decide what's an apolitical procedure of interpretation? And what does that even look like?

I mean that's kind of what a law is. It stipulates things for a restricted set of circumstances. Should laws be continually refined to better define the circumstances? Of course. But if you rule by loophole you have created a sieve of a boat for a social structure.

oh, well, i wouldn't want that. so maybe not ignore the law, but what about just writing in the intent anyway, wouldn't that help with leniency?

Laws are supposed to be written in such a way as to communicate their intent. It's already there, it's just in terse, technical language. The problem with spelling out intent is it creates a huge attack surface to get a law thrown out or circumvented. It is sort of like trying to program using natural language. People understand better but it functions worse.

The way we fight this in programming is comments and documentation. Perhaps we need something similar for laws? I see the Federalist Papers mentioned quite often in constitutional law; are there other bodies of debate and paper that provide similar justification around other laws? There might also be room for "non-binding" clauses when writing the law.

Depending on the governing body, there is a process of comment and redaction before a law is adopted which is recorded and can be used to make a case. It serves such a purpose.

The jury system might have had this power in the past, before plea deals et cetera

Even then, wouldn't it have been more about case law defining what could be be feasibly prosecuted rather than refining what the law actually says?

If so, it's better, nut still not ideal. It results in information asymmetry for those that don't have a law degree or experience with the system, or can't afford to hire someone who can. That is, law enforcement can use the letter of the law to take actions that aren't enforceable if challenged, but it still requires a challenge be mounted.

>It’s illegal to sleep in an office. That legislation, like many others, was put in place to protect renters and workers

how did it protect workers/renters?

It didn’t.

That’s just what it was “created for”.

In other words, that was the rhetoric the council used to clear their conscience while helping their developer friends fill vacancies. It makes sense if you don’t think about it.

It eliminated a common form of worker abuse.

Huh, somebody should tell the Silicon Valley tech firms that. Dirty lawbreakers with their nap pods!

Where is it illegal to sleep at the office?

In this place, is living in you car (and showering at the gym) also illegal?

Off the beaten path in the Bay Area means... what, these days? Stockton? That area is a huge mess in terms of housing prices and NIMBYism.

If you are fine with roommates, there are plenty of sub 1k options in and around the area. El Cerrito and Richmond aren't too far away and generally cheaper than Berkeley.

Exactly. Even in decent areas of Oakland you can find sub 1k rent with a roommate. Currently live in an apartment that's a 5 minute walk away from a BART station in Oakland and pay 1800/month for a 1 bedroom that I split. Takes me 35 minutes to get to work in the SF Financial District.

While housing is very expensive here (especially if you have family), there are definitely ways to find cheap housing.

Anecdotally I know people who are renting rooms out of their homes in San Leandro/Hayward for $750/month.

I expect that most grad students don't have enough office or lab space to unroll a sleeping bag.

don't know about berkeley specifically, but some towns have laws against more than a set number of unrelated people living together.

Interesting. Amsterdam actually has a scheme that promotes this ('woongroep') for the express purpose of accommodating students.

In America, all it takes is a developer not making their money back (i.e. not wanting to be a “risk-taker” anymore) and these sorts of laws magically disappear.

Indeed, however, the number is usually very reasonable, usually 5+, its not gonna stop a grad student from saving money on rent.

Though the court case that upheld these laws as constitutional, Village of Belle Terre v. Boraas, the zoning law was extreme at limiting only two unrelated persons - which is extreme.

Reasonable to you, but others may think 20+ is fine. I’m not sure what the law is even trying to protect, or why it matters.

It's zoning ordinances and like any zoning ordinance its aimed at controlling or maintaining the character of the neighborhood, preventing frat houses and group homes in certain neighborhoods, etc. If parking for one family is expected and 8 students take up the whole block, etc. It's limited to unrelated persons because "family status" is a protected class under housing law.

Different houses on the same street can be zoned differently. My house is zoned "single family" but two houses down is zoned "boarding house."

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