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Comment by codydh | Hacker News Reader

The cost of your "regulation free zone" will likely be measured in human lives. Does that seem like an acceptable risk?

That's just in the beginning. Not every regulation saves lives - some are just on the books to protect rent seeking entities and lobbyists, and some are just there because they've always been there.

This is true of course, but it's always a giant red flag for me whenever someone refers to the vague concept of "regulations" as being the problem, vs. complaining about specific regulations. Complaining about the very concept of regulations seems really naive, like precoscious high schooler who just had his mind blown by Atlas Shrugged naive.

The current POTUS made a campaign promise that he would only allow a regulation to be added if two more were eliminated. This is asinine. If there are unnecessary regulations, get rid of them. Get rid of them because they're unnecessary or counterproductive, not because they fall into a category of legislation referred to as "regulations". Losing a regulation isn't an inherently good thing any more than gaining one is an inherently bad thing. The only thing that matters is whether or not it's a net positive, and that's specific to each regulation. It's like saying, "there's too many laws! We need to get rid of some laws!", and proceeding to randomly choose laws to get rid of until numberOfLaws <= totallyArbitraryMaximumLawCountThatSomeoneMadeUp.

"Regulatory theater" with many laws, almost no money for enforcement, and small penalties that are never updated for inflation seems very common to me.

Fewer, well-chosen regulations with very strong penalties that easily pay for strict enforcement activity - that's much rarer; and I'm cynical enough about how gets to influence lawmakers, that I know why that is.

Ah, the “you just want people to die” argument. I wondered when that would show up.

How about a largely deregulated area where you can mix housing and business zoning. Like we use to with downtowns. At the same time get rid of the caps on building height. Tokyo has tall buildings and earthquakes. Allow SF to modernize. A 60 story apartment building neutralize the cost of the property.

Another option is to make SF a stronghold for the rich. Nothing wrong with that either. Push the poor out to locations they can afford.

Few will die in either scenario.

"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

The OP literally made the argument that, in the extreme, people must have to die if regulations are relaxed. OP did not assume good faith. OP pushed the argument to the extreme. I responded by pointing out that out. I appreciate civility, but won’t assume good faith when the other participant has shown bad faith.

"Ah..I wondered when that would show up." was just being condescending and snarky. "But they started it!" is not a defence.

The cost of the current homeless situation can also be measured in human lives

While there is some truth that some regulation is needed to account for living in the Ring of Fire and also for SuperFund sites created in the 20th century, NIMBYs tend to overly abuse environmental impact concerns in order to stop high density housing development and even business development; which has helped exacerbate the housing crisis.

It's possible that innovations established in the the area that is absent of regulation may save lives, possibly more lives than would be saved by applying the preexisting regulation to that area.

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