California man fined for selling maps of property boundaries without a license

But the FDA just issued new rules around PFAS this year and tens of billions were allocated to upgrade water plants to prevent contamination in that omnibus spending bill that just passed. Why do you ask?

if there's consensus then bad laws can be changed, or good ones extended, or the filibuster removed, etc. so why have them auto-expire anyway? (see the Patriot act, got extended without much fuss.)

it would make hiring people to these agencies uniquely challenging, and it wouldn't solve much of anything. (it's a typical libertarian-ish idea, without the usual props required to make these workable, eg. a society that favors cooperation, prefers to adapt their life to meet their goals, eg. like-minded folks moving en masse to make their own life much better, and also getting out of the way of others, instead of what usually happens, which is local groups fighting tooth and nail against any change that would inconvenience them)

Technically speaking, the lease terms are 49 / 98 years. The problem is that when you reach the end of the lease, there is no real possibility of _not_ extending the lease. And the lease is for the _land_, not anything on top of that.

So it "sounds" nice, but in practical terms, it just adds another body that you have to go through.

From economic perspective, there is very little difference between the two. A bank will give you a mortgage to buy a house whose "land lease" expire next year, for example. Because there is no possibility of that not being extended.

There is _slight_ advantage to buying houses not leased, but mostly because that means somewhat less paperwork to go through.

What do you do with the $500k home sitting on the $80k land that just got repossessed?

Why would anyone take care of their 98 year old land if they know it's gonna disappear in a few years? Are you gonna fine every person that goes right up against the line (regarding environmental laws for example) without crossing the line? By the time you get to the expired land, it will be a defacto landfill.

Can people choose to lease a specific plot of land and if so does the term reset to 100? Why not pass property around the family back and forth forever?

Who sets the price of a lease? Use gov't prices and the deadweight loss kills your economy. Use market prices and every lease will cost about the same as buying land in our existing system.

Do I camp outside Microsoft headquarters then walk in on day 1 of year 101 and say, “this is mine now”?

Where I live we have leasehold land so titles theoretically extinguish after 99 years. What has happened in practise is that the lease just auto-renews, making the situation no different to freehold apart from the paperwork.

Why limit ownership restrictions to land ownership only?

Private ownership of property (not limited to land) is foundational for functioning democracies; some would even go as far as saying it's foundational for society.

Those societies that went your route of "from each according to his abilities to each according to his need" turned out very badly.

Who's granting people perpetual ownership of a piece of land? Once you stop paying taxes on it, the state will take it back.

> but I think land should be only leased for a limited time, like the max lifespan of a person, ~100 years or so, and then expire, never owned in perpetuity by any individual or corporation.

I mean in a practical sense this is exactly what happens. You die -> taxes are no longer paid on the land -> someone else gets it. That "someone else" is either an heir who is now paying tax on it, or its sold to someone else entirely.

The USA has 1.9 billion acres. Developed urban areas account for only 3.5% of this area. If you count other, non-urban areas with more than 30 people per square mile, then the occupation of habitable land constitutes less than 6%.

Accounting for mountains and bodies of water, Earth has 24,642,757 square miles or 15.77 billion acres (43%) of habitable land. Humanity is only 1/100th of the total biomass on this planet.

Less than 15% of earth is either an urban area or occupied for agricultural use. And 95% of the world’s population is concentrated in just 10% of the land.

Land is generally affordable. Land in areas not yet fully developed is actually quite inexpensive. You can pick up 40 acres of land in Montana for $20,000 USD, and they'll even throw in some livestock and feed.

Property in developed population centers increase in price because of scarcity and market conditions. That's the product of living in an area that has recursive development, amenities, limited supply, and practically unlimited demand.

This leads to an inevitable conclusion. We have plenty of land and plenty of resources. Anyone who says otherwise is trying to sell something. With this in mind, you could double the population of the planet and still not use a third of the habitable land. As it turns out, Earth is really, really big.

The constitution provided "negative" rights to the people and individual states. Negative rights are rights that exist unless someone acts to negate them. This means the constitution affirms that people and states get to keep all priviledges, unless specifically enumerated as priviledges of the federal government.

So, if the Federal government starts with nothing, the right end state for the for the government to end with nothing.

This is quite different from the inertia you see today in Federal government regulatory growth.

Going back to the current discussion, negative rights dont lapse since they define the starting point. It is only regulations (I.e. anything that comes outside of the constitution) which is subject to reset.

By all means, let's hold a constitutional convention periodically. Whether it's every 20 years or every 100, we're overdue. The founders even foresaw the potential need for that, and provided a procedure utilizing constitutional conventions to bypass state legislatures, a procedure which the country has not once utilized.

Failure to go through the amendment procedure doesn't grant us the right to ignore the Constitution as written. It's very easy to say you don't like some part of the Constitution. It's very difficult to propose and pass an alternative.

The opposition at the time to the Bill of Rights was that it would confuse people into thinking the rights came out of the constitution instead of from nature.

People like to talk about "the founding fathers" as if they were of a singular mind about things. But they were very much not. They were so much not that the Vice President of the United States literally shot the former Secretary of Treasury over various disagreements.

So, you know, they weren't exactly 100% with each other.

You will not get 2/3’s of the states to listen to you inferring gun owners are criminals.

It's a lot like anti-vaxers, anti-pasteurization, and other anti-science fads. And I can point to the repeal of banking regs like Glass-Steagall which resulted in the ~2007 financial crisis and recession. Including a post-it note on a law isn't going to give future people the same perspective as someone who lived through the issues first-hand. If that worked, we wouldn't have voters repeatedly supporting politicians who make the same insane promises that never work.

And those charged high rates agreed to variable pricing.

The ultimate reason why Texas had a problem was because of a nasty ice storm took out infrastructure.

FWIW, the reality is that of course while the system is not perfect, pretty much everything is out in the open and reviewed on a scheduled basis. That really does go a long way to prevent the type of "slow power creep" of a lot of these professional licensing boards.

1. https://www.sunset.texas.gov/about-us/frequently-asked-quest...

I would go so far as to say that it would be unconstitutional (first amendment; free speech) to restrict the act of "making a map" (although restricting the use of an official seal would be fine).

I mean, if he were to obtain the relevant credentials, but did not change a single thing about what he's selling or how they're produced, would that mean the things he's selling are no longer fake?

I don't think the presence or absence of a seal will change this. If the fraud already happens constantly and this board is in place, then this would be an argument for replacing them, yes?

> ripe with abuse.

rife* with abuse

Clearly you can. Every software license has a disclaimer of liability. It's not like those are there for no reason. No, they are not an absolute shield that's effective in every circumstance, but you can and should have one.

What I can't do is offer to represent you in a legal case, or imply (with signage, advertising, business cards etc) that I can provide any sort of legal services. And if I took money from you, it would have to be on the understanding that I was just providing entertaining opinions which it would be unwise for you to rely on.

At some point you have to grant that the clients of such a service have some agency and are able to evaluate straightforward disclaimers of liability or fitness.

In my experience, people generally believe that stating one isn't a doctor or lawyer protects against an accusation of practicing without a license.

Occupational licensing was a key element in Jim Crow. Why should there be exams and licenses for barbers (who are legally allowed to cut facial hair) or cosmetologists (who are prohibited from cutting facial hair - beards & mustaches)? Because black people might get away with doing the job. And if black people were doing that job, then other black people would never go to a white barber or cosmetologist. Vagrancy (the crime of not having a job) was enforced almost exclusively against only non-white people. Then, they'd be sentenced to work on the chain gang (or other slavery-equivalent) in accordance with the 13th Amendment. Requiring a license (which minorities could never get) made it far easier to punish people for failing to be born white.

Whenever something in America seems to make no sense at all, the key is to think about how a white supremacist would use it to abuse non-white people. One key to understanding the history of racial inequality and civil rights in America would be to imagine that the South actually won the Civil War.

TL;DR - it is racism all the way down.

Besides, sometimes it's very useful to have certifications. I'd rather get my brain operated on by someone with lots of credentials.

Still, in most cases it's an incumbent industry barrier, nothing more. For example I don't understand why there's a "cosmetology certification". And don't even get me started on the racket that is a "teacher credential"

The existing bar for requiring occupational licensing is way to low and abused by rent seeking cartels. (Eg funeral planners, cosmetology industry, unarmed security guards, animal trainers, etc etc...)

Is there really overwhelming societal benefit for establishing licensing for software engineers? Are we not already paying enough for the role in general?

I can look at most mechanical design, and find multiple flaws. I can look at a car and see fatal flaws. Do the mechanical engineers at Tesla have different individual legal liability from software engineers for design flaws? All Engineers make safety compromises all the time.

Sure, some software is shit, but plenty of software is also solidly engineered. Plenty of other engineers do shit work too - we generally only hear about the most egregious failures.

From what I see, other engineers now depend on the software models they use. CAD, structural, circuit design, everything. Get over it.

I think the definition of engineering is making good compromises. It isn’t about safety. Plenty of other disciplines work without liability producing shonky outputs. Safety is just another compromise.

A federal court disagree with you:

    “Courts have long recognized that the term ‘engineer’ has a generic meaning separate from ‘professional engineer,’” the court reasoned, and the word engineer “cannot become inherently misleading simply because a state deems it so.”

    “In a free society, government agencies do not have the authority to rewrite the dictionary. Oregon cannot declare the word ‘engineer’ off-limits to the thousands of Oregonians who, like Mats, are engineers.”

    mid-14c., enginour, "constructor of military engines," from Old French engigneor "engineer, architect, maker of war-engines; schemer" (12c.), from Late Latin ingeniare (see engine); general sense of "inventor, designer" is recorded from early 15c.; civil sense, in reference to public works, is recorded from c. 1600 but not the common meaning of the word until 19c (hence lingering distinction as civil engineer). Meaning "locomotive driver" is first attested 1832, American English.

Disclaimer: I have an Electrical & Electronic Engineering Degree.

Edit: oh, and the certification of engineers becomes somewhat irrelevant when they are from outside your jurisdiction. Most imported goods and services contain engineering decisions where liability is dealt with through other legal means than certification. Certification matters in only a few engineering disciplines. In Christchurch where I live, a building collapsed in the 2010 Earthquake, and the civil engineer hasn’t had any formal penalties. He also designed some fibreglass roofs for sewage treatment plant, and the roofs caught fire a few years back and that has caused a heap of trouble! https://www.engineeringnz.org/news-insights/ctv-alan-reay-co... As a generalisation NZ is not a very litigious society, and less punishment focused than say the US which has 4x the incarceration rate (people in prison).

You got a cite for that? medical devices I think would fall in the the category where 'trust me I'm a professional engineer' doesn't even begin to cut it.

How a body uses it isn't relevant, though. If I set up a body called The California Board of Jean Wearers and define "Jean Wearers" as people who wear Levi's, other brands are not obliged to rename their product.

Well, perhaps they would be in California. But that would be the same level of silly as this.