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Comment by solson | Hacker News Reader

I'm not sure I understand the point here. Is it that strict government regulation saves lives?

If so, yes I suppose that could be true. Fewer people would die in traffic accidents if we had a stoplight on every corner, we had to drive Sherman Tanks, and the speed limit was 20MPH. The problem is we'd be way less productive and we'd be much poorer.

If China had Japan's strict building codes from 1980 to present, China's economic growth would have been far slower, but in an earthquake, more people may die in China. Is that a good thing or bad thing? Over the last 20 years, strong economic growth in China has likely saved far more lives than strict building codes may have saved. But that is too complex to get into here.

Also note Japan's poor economic growth during over the last 10-20 years.

Are some people in Japan better off because of strict building codes? Yes, no doubt. Is everyone in Japan better off due to strict building code? much harder to say.

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I'm not sure that this article has much of a point beyond what is on the surface, or that it is necessarily making an argument for or against regulation based on economic principles.

The article's sole goal seems to be to help explain how a country with a large history of Earthquake experience has learned from it's history, and how the lessons and how they applied to their building structure helps explain how they might be able to deal with an 8.9 magnitude earthquake much better and with greater loss of life than if this earthquake had struck somewhere else.

I don't think there is a secret meaning in every New York Times article.

So all the people voting for this title on Reddit and Hacker News aren't making any statement on strict government regulation, they merely find it interesting that the Japanese have learned from their history?

Perhaps I'm misreading you, but you seem to be fishing for a specific answer. Is that the case? If so, why?

Yes, it just seems apparent to me (like an earlier commenter grouk said) that the underlying point of the article and the discussion around it appears to be about competing ideas of libertarian vs. interventionist market principles. I was asking my last question to see who agreed. I guess not too many people, or I was unclear with my question. (edit) And I was frustrated with the implication made that a person who may think this is a conspiracy theorist that finds hidden meanings in every New York Times article.

My apologies if my last comment read that way - I did not mean to lump you in with conspiracy theorists. I often see people trying to read between the lines in NYT articles, not just in regards to current events and political viewpoints but even in the Styles or Weekend section (perhaps I read too many NYC-focused blogs).

> Yes, it just seems apparent to me that the underlying point of the article and the discussion around it appears to be about competing ideas of libertarian vs. interventionist market principles.

You see what you want to see, even when it's not there. It's not very objective to assume there's a political agenda behind everything.

I have no idea why other people are voting the way they are; this is impossible to answer. Honestly I could not care less why other people are up-voting it.

I find this story interesting both on an engineering level and as something news-worthy to explain how Japan may have been able to avoid a far greater tragedy.

So here's why I'm upvoting it: because I feel it is important and worthwhile to underscore the role of good engineering in human safety.

Decent building codes don't necessarily stop economic growth. Housing is slightly more expensive and it takes more capital to build, but its really not 2 or 10x the price of an unsafe home. Heck, some safer designs are cheaper than unsafe designs.

I don't really buy the "safety is cost prohibitive" argument much. Modern societies have no problem absorbing the cost. Not to mention the cost of post-earthquake cleanup is less.

The bigger problem from a libertarian point is that regulation does not necessarily result in better safety. A lot of it simply results in higher costs, and redistribution of money to "licensed professionals". As an earlier commenter pointed out, many insurance companies actually require greater degrees of safety in buildings they insure than building codes do.

I'm not seeing how bureaucracy and "licensed professionals" hired from the for-profit insurance industry to maintain their codes is better than doing the same in government. In fact, I would argue that the government alternative is superior as it doesn't involved the overhead of making a profit and growing markets (see socialized healthcare vs private healthcare).

Unfortunately, its popular now in the USA to dismiss public safety as being less important than profits and to praise horribly unsafe countries run by dictators for their "growth." Not to mention, the intangibles here with the libertarian approach - massive brain drain to safer countries, lower quality of life, lower lifespans, etc. I'd rather be taxed out the wazoo in Germany than be tax-free in Somalia. I'd rather be in an earthquake in the USA or Japan than in China or Libya.

Somalia is the antithesis of a libertarian country.

how?

A libertarian ideal country requires the protection and guarantee of individual rights.

that doesn't mean anything. In America, the wealthiest nation in the world, do I have the right to not starve to death if I become disabled? Do I have the right to live in a building with strict earthquake standards if I'm in an earthquake zone? Doesn't that conflict with the right of the business constructing the building to build it as they see fit? Do I have the right to breathe clean air? Doesn't that conflict with the factories right to pump pollutants into the air?

One persons individual rights inevitably conflict with someone else's individual rights. I have no idea what libertarianism is by your definition. For it to mean anything you have to lay out a value system that gives a default answer when one persons individual rights conflict with someone else's.

It's a debate surrounding positive rights vs. negative rights - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_rights Libertarianism generally supports negative rights arguing that the establishment of positive rights will always violate someone's negative rights and that negative rights are the natural state of human beings given the absence of violence. That means that you would not have a right to "not starve" if that meant you had to hire someone (the government) to club me over the head and steal my sandwich so you don't starve. But you do have the right to try to convince me to voluntarily give you half of my sandwich. It is the use of violent aggression as means to an end that Libertarians universally oppose, so by definition Somalia is not a libertarian paradise.

You dodged the hard questions and are using language again that doesn't mean much of anything.

Are you opposed to all taxes? If not, then you believe in some violent aggression? Do you believe in protecting peoples rights with violent aggression? Will you use the force of government to prevent someone from dumping toxins into a river? How do libertarians deal with things like water rights? Borders? Can a mexican freely come across the border and get a job? I.e. is labor as free as capital?

I still have no idea what libertarianism is from your explanation.

You're asking for specific answerers to many complex questions. I'm not going to try to put them in a few words here. If you are honest about your desire to understand libertarian ideas read "Healing our World in an Age of Aggression" by Dr. Mary Ruwart. http://www.amazon.com/Healing-Our-World-Age-Aggression/dp/09...

I will say this, government has become so big and so complex I can't imagine ever unraveling it. The best I hope for is that someday we will actually shrink the government a bit instead of constant growth. The current government growth is unsustainable so it might be a forgone conclusion anyway. I am a libertarian (small l) because it is the only political philosophy which honestly wants to reduce the size of the government. I also want to bring awareness to people that the use of the law is the use of violence and that we should be aware that when make new laws, we understand that we are advocating violence against those who don't comply. For example, do we really want to arrest and lock someone in jail when they refuse to wear a seat belt and don't pay the fine or when they smoke a cigarette in a bar? Is that what we've become? If so, what's next? I do believe in the rule of law, but we've made the rule of law trivial and arbitrary... anyway, off the soapbox.

Reading a book is a large investment of time. You have to give me something to make me think it's worthwhile. This narrative of violence doesn't make any sense to me. Should we use violence to enforce contract law? Should we use nuclear power, and if so should we use violence to raise taxes to manage nuclear power plants? Should we use violence to prevent child labor?

I'm still trying to find some core libertarian values that I can understand and is consistent. I'm not motivated to spend hours reading a book without that.

Are you looking for some universal value? How about, "We should not use violence or coercion against peaceful people, and we must intelligently and slowly begin to work toward that goal. Violence is not an acceptable answer to our problems." But you are clearly an intelligent person, and you know that life is nuanced. Social interactions aren't 100% consistent all the time. But this is clearly an ideal we could work toward.

I'm starting to think I'm feeding a troll. I feel like you are just trying to get me to say, something like "Child labor should be legal." But I'm not saying that, I'm saying that the answer can be solved - over time - without violence.

How could you learn about a thing without investing some time?

A few reasons why reading the book would be worth your while:

1. Why do you believe violence is a necessary ingredient for the achievement of the above goals?

2. Is working toward a less violent world worthwhile, even if it seems remote at this moment?

3. To gain understanding. Even if you're sure there is no possible way you'd agree with anything you'll read in such a book, you would learn about the philosophy that is embraced by an estimated 10-20% of the American public, not enough to "win" an election, but certainly enough to lose one if you piss them off.

Go ahead and have the last word...

I've asked a few simple questions and haven't gotten an answer. How does that make me a troll?

'I feel like you are just trying to get me to say, something like "Child labor should be legal."'

No, I'm trying to get you to explain how you prevent it without violence.

"I'm saying that the answer can be solved - over time - without violence."

How?

"How could you learn about a thing without investing some time?"

There is an effectively infinite number of things I could learn about, sadly I have a small finite amount of time. This makes me picky about what I spend time on.

"Why do you believe violence is a necessary ingredient for the achievement of the above goals?"

For many reasons. One, it's in individuals personal interest to take advantage of others. This could be child labor, pollution, outright fraud, breaking a contract, etc. How would you deal with these? I still don't know. Two, some people are plain crazy, and do stupid things. And that still leaves the more complicated issues like water rights. How does a libertarian system deal with water flowing throw a river on someones property? Can the person upstream suck it out or build a damn? Can they dump pollutants into it? How does a libertarian system resolve that, and more importantly how would you enforce the resolution?

"Is working toward a less violent world worthwhile, even if it seems remote at this moment?"

This doesn't mean anything. How do you deal with situations where one persons interests and liberty are in conflict with another persons interests and liberty?

How about if for every ten sandwiches you make you have to make an eleventh for someone else? If you don't, you don't get any bread.

The idea that everything a government and a society do is backed by violence is the flaw in the reasoning of just about every libertarian argument I've ever heard. It simply isn't true unless you so expand the definition of 'violence' that it becomes meaningless.

Isn't the point of the article that Japan's regulation did result in better safety?

That might not be an argument that can support any and all regulation in every part of the world, but it seems to suggest that these particular regulations in this particular country were effective.

"Decent building codes don't necessarily stop economic growth." No, but they will slow growth, esp in developing nations. Almost all products can be made safer by increasing regulation. The question is... is it worth the price in both $$$ and quality of life (freedom). We would save many lives/injuries by regulating that all recreational vehicles like snowmobiles and ATVs must be manufactured to go less than 30mph. We could regulate that all residential housing be constructed of entirely fireproof materials and have sprinkler systems. Why don't we? Cost. We'd have fewer rec-vehicle manufacturers (fewer jobs) and fewer people could afford homes.

We don't regulate ATVs that way because they're recreational vehicles and the part of the point is that they go fast. It's a luxury item that we expect people to accept a bit of risk to use. As far as housing is concerned you've pretty much described office buildings and apartments at least where I live. For individual homes I think the idea is that if you can get out faster then there is less need of those safety devices. Nevertheless there are still pretty tight standards in my area at least (Japan).

It seems you're trying to point to the absurdity of infinite regulation for total safety as an argument against all regulation, even if it is affordable and reasonable. I don't get it.

Plus, decent building codes can actually enhance overall efficiency. Lots of things in the code don't really "cost" anything. They just enforce hard-won "it's best to do it this way" knowledge that, shockingly, many builders are oblivious to. Think of things like hurricane straps or nailing plates that cost nothing compared to the materials and labor that go into a typical building. Baking some minimum standards into the law saves us all having to become experts, or hire our own experts. And not having the neighbor's roof fly off during the next hurricane and block the road is just gravy.

That's a lot of hand-wavy claims. Care to back some of it up with data? Especially the part about China's economic growth being slower if they'd had stricter building codes. Absent any real data, it's equally intuitive to say that it wouldn't have been slower because [insert natural disaster here] would have been a big setback as often as [same natural disaster] occurs on average.

Plus, you know, lots of people would have died who could have been saved by stricter building codes. I'd rather be alive than have a couple more percentage points of economic growth every year.

> I'd rather be alive than have a couple more percentage points of economic growth every year.

That seems rather disingenuous to me. The real question is: would you pay more up front to reduce the risk of a catastrophe?

When the government mandates, you don't get to answer. It's a downside.

> When the government mandates, you don't get to answer. It's a downside.

It's also an upside, as it avoids a social trap[1]. If companies can choose what they want, those that spend less will have a short-term advantage over those that spend more. If the government mandates a certain level of quality, then there's no competitive advantage to cutting corners (assuming the regulations are well enforced).

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_trap

From an economic standpoint, what modern building codes allow is the stable commercial insurance market necessary for a great deal of economic activity. In the US, many current construction requirements are based standards developed by the insurance industry, e.g. UL (Underwrither's Laboratories) and FM (Factory Mutual). And although it is now one of the foremost authorities regarding life-safety in the world, the NFPA (National Fire Protection Association) was originally a creation of the insurance industry as well.

Modern building codes underpin property the property insurance which makes real-estate lending practical. They underpin much of the general liability insurance required for contemporary commercial transactions - not to mention making construction loans practical.

Yes, risk is always balanced against potential gain. And yes, the individual is the one who ultimately pays the price. So he should make the choices.

But I believe that even in a completely free market, there would be a lot of local voluntary contractual arrangements that would regulate many aspects of very small communities and building codes are certainly one thing people would consider when making such an arrangement.

As long as communities are competitive and contracts cannot be changed arbitrarily, this is not a problem. And if such contracts were not beneficial, these arrangements would lose to more sensible ones.

So, I'm not too concerned about what local governments do. Overall I think it maps to what we'd have in a free market, except where cities get too big and corruption becomes a problem.

One could easily argue that there is a worse safety/cost effectiveness tradeoff when you have to pay for corruption. Certainly when the average person is poorer than they would otherwise be, safety is harder to afford.

The important thing is competition and if you can drive 4 minutes in the opposite direction and get the community you want, competition exists.

Just as there is competition in automobile safety, there should be competition in community safety. Yes, there are national regulations, but I would argue that most cars exceed those regulation and brag about their 5-star crash ratings. Such would also be the case for communities designed by the Mercedes' and Toyotas of the community regulation business, should such brands be permitted to evolve.

> The problem is we'd be way less productive and we'd be much poorer.

There is no proof that the current ridiculous state of the matter, where everyone in the US constantly moves oneself together with 3 tons of steel for 2 to 3 hours a day is particularly productive either. If mobility was somewhat less easy, maybe we'd find another productivity hilltop which could be higher than the current one. In fact, we'll have to find such an alternative, less mobile way of life sooner of later.

This is rubbish. First of all Japan's economic circumstances of the past 10-20 years are generally much exaggerated in the media, both Western and Japanese. And building codes, of all things, have almost nothing to do with that growth positively or negatively. Japan is one of the most earthquake-prone regions in the world, so we make sure that buildings are always built to withstand them to the maximum reasonable extent. That's the why the destruction from this massive earthquake is actually so light, considering. Perhaps we could leave things to the magic of the free market, but either that would work, in which case we'd be right where we are now anyway, or it wouldn't, in which case we currently be totally fucked. Japanese, not having the luxury of dealing with this issue in the abstract from the comfort of their apartment in New York, prefer not to take the risk. Also there is less belief in magic here than in the States.

By way of comparison though, let's imagine the fate of New York and rest of the eastern seaboard of the US were a similar quake to hit there. I think you would not fare so well, and I suspect the low cost of your Chevy Impala would give you little comfort.

Honestly, I'm trying to remain reasonable here, but are people seriously upvoting a post where a guy comes out and says that Japan would be better off without strict standards in place for buildings to withstand earthquakes, 24 hours after one of the most massive earthquakes in recorded history struck off the coast of the Japan and those very standards saves countless lives and billions in damage? How many lunatics do we have on this board, anyway?

White and East Asian countries can afford building codes. Indonesians and Africans cannot. That's the missing point here.

In the context of 2nd/3rd world nations the point about strict codes being unfordable is reasonable.

> there is less belief in magic here than in the States.

Not quite so sure about that. Japan has spent trillions on idiotic keynesian construction stimulus for over 15 years. Only one round of that has Americans up in arms.

> Japan's poor economic growth during over the last 10-20 years.

Per capita GDP growth in Japan over the last 20 years has been about the same as in the USA. They just don't import two million people a year -- rather wisely in my opinion.

> They just don't import two million people a year -- rather wisely in my opinion

I don't think the USA and Japan are really comparable in the amount of immigration they can support.

There are proposals to increase immigration in Japan to offset the projected population decrease due to low birth rate. It's expected to drop by over 50 million people before stabilizing without increased immigration.

Well what's the point of letting large numbers of people in if it fails to make those already here better off? And that's pretty clearly the case. That there's space to accommodate them is irrelevant.

Also, considering issues like fresh water and food security, the country is in fact full. Japan maybe super-overfull, but the US is definitely full or overpopulated.

> Well what's the point of letting large numbers of people in if it fails to make those already here better off?

So in your view, it doesn't matter if the immigrants themselves are better off?

> Also, considering issues like fresh water and food security, the country is in fact full.

No it isn't. The EU has 820,000 km2 of arable land and 1,900 km3 of renewable water resources, and is self-sufficient in terms of food and water for a population of 490 million.

The US, on the other hand, has 1,650,000 km2 of arable land and 3,000 km3 of renewable water, and only has a population of 310 million. The US could easily support a population of 500 million or more without needing to import water or food.

> it doesn't matter if the immigrants themselves are better off?

In a world with about four billion people who would be better off moving to America, no.

> No it isn't.

It is true that we could turn America into India, bursting at the seems with people fed on poor rice and vegetable diets, and with poor access to open space. I happen to think that's a very bad idea. It's also probably unsustainable. Top soils are running down world-wide, including in America.

The US is ecologically over-full. We share this country with animals and plants, and they are suffering. The ideal sustainable population of America is probably down towards 200 million.

> It is true that we could turn America into India, bursting at the seems with people fed on poor rice and vegetable diets, and with poor access to open space.

Who said anything about India? The EU has almost twice the population of the US, half the arable land area, and still manages to be self-sufficient in terms of food and water.

> The US is ecologically over-full. We share this country with animals and plants, and they are suffering.

So in your opinion it's better to let humans suffer than animals and plants?

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