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Comment by drzaiusapelord | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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.

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