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Comment by hawkharris | Hacker News Reader

The field of programming might evolve similarly to the the field of law as time goes on.

A lawyer friend told me his field used to be more accessible to everyday people. Anyone could study cases and even learn enough to represent themselves and members of their communities.

Law schools and licensing boards were developed to protect the lawyers' wages and prestige, and to insulate them from outside competition.

The regulatory hoops did increase lawyers' salaries, but they also made it impossible for most people to afford legal services. Costly law school requirements prohibited women and ethnic minorities (e.g. Irish people) from entering the field.

Programming is a young field. If the history of similar industries is any indication, it won't stay this open and loosely regulated forever. And incidents like the one in California demonstrate that the tides are changing...

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As a developer, this sounds to me like a nightmare scenario. There is nothing more meritocratic than software development. It's the results that count. Once we start allowing regulation and systematic barriers to entry, it will be bad for everyone. I personally do not see the law as a model to aspire to along any number of dimensions.

Specifications must be presented by a properly accredited government sponsor for the formal specification submission to the House of Specifications. Any changes to the specification will be voted on during one of the three days during the week in which the gathering is in session. Upon agreement by the House, the amended specification will be presented to the Deliberative Committee on Specifications,during which time the honorable Speaker of the Deliberative Committee on Specifications will query the members for additional amendments. If the specification is amended, it will be returned to the House for further deliberation and promoted again to the Committee. Upon agreement by the Committee, the specification will be published in the Specification Czars vestibule for community exposure for at least thirty days.

All that for a to do list app :)

I disagree. Regulation can be beneficial in many cases, even if it drives up the barrier to entry a little. Certification for big projects, specifically public projects, is important, and exists in most fields (including ours, the US government requires contractors to be a certain CMMI level).

Codifying certain requirements in law is not a terrible decision, going too far can be.

As a self taught developer, I love how open programming is.

Also, I don't see how licensing could keep anyone from being a (successful) self taught programmer. Would they outlaw text editors for all but the accredited?

Don't forget, you can still represent yourself in court.

> "I don't see how licensing could keep anyone from being a (successful) self taught programmer"

It is one more barrier that does not currently exist. Surmountable? Sure. But nevertheless yet another obstacle.

And this is why regulation is always harmful for the consumer.

Why is our drinking water so dirty?

Oh yeah. It isn't.

Regulation can solve many more ills than it can cause.

Regulation is capable of solving common use problems like clean water and air -- a fact that is really a necessary evil.

But why does this mean it should be able to shut down programming schools?

There exists "for profit" schools that take young, naive students and don't end up giving them an education or value equal to the life-time of indebtedness that they bestow.

Regulation of post-secondary educations programs, be they "game design", "communications", or "hacker" schools, is a a reasonable idea.

I don't understand the dislike of "for profit" schools. Its a tax designation. The president of "non-profit" schools is still pulling in a fortune in salary.

Those "for profit" schools are already regulated. They are predatory despite that.

You have not shown that our drinking water is not, in fact, dirty. Nor have you shown that it is any cleaner than it would be in the absence of the regulations you seem so proud of.

American drinking water is perfectly safe to drink basically anywhere in the country. Many places on earth don't have safe drinking water due to a lack of infrastructure and regulations mandating it. The expectation is that those people will buy water or attempt to purify it themselves, whereas in this country we're expected to be able to consume water delivered to us without a fear of getting ill.

Regulation with the intention of saving lives is not a bad thing. I doubt anybody would say we should abolish driving laws and driver's license requirements because they're "regulations that limit innovation." Saying we should have safe drinking water in no way limits innovation or freedom either, yet some people seem to think we need to scrap this.

I actually do advocate abolishing driving / vehicle registration / inspection / etc. laws, but it has nothing to do with innovation. They just aren't needed and impose an unnecessary burden on many people, especially the poor.

I wonder what is so magical about government that only it can determine whether something is safe or not. I'm pretty sure private consumer protection companies would do a much better job for less money.

> I wonder what is so magical about government that only it can determine whether something is safe or not.

The magic isn't the ability to determine whether something is safe; the magic, insofar as there is anything like that involved, is that government is the vehicle empowered by the people to do something about it once it has made the determination.

How would a private consumer protection company enforce anything?

Ahh, and that's the point. It wouldn't need to. Because no one should enforce anything. It would only inform. Consumers must have a choice. When you start banning businesses from operating, you have countless possibilities for corruption and you remove choice from consumers, treating them as mindless idiots incapable of making an informed choice. And if you think they are, then they also shouldn't be allowed to vote.

"Sorry none of the water suppliers in your area provide water safe for human consumption. Good luck!"

Now that would be helpful. But sure, you can just move elsewhere. It's going to be easy selling your old house given that there is no clean water available.

Edit: As a bonus, health insurance companies should deny you coverage because you live in a high risk area.

If there is a demand for clean water at the price level where it is economically feasible to supply one, it will be supplied. If people prefer to spend less money and have dirty water, they made their choice too. Your case is completely hypothetical.

There are probably areas in this country that it would be more profitable for the water companies to stop serving. I think that it is a good thing that they cannot do that.

If you are right, then these areas would remain without water supply at all. Last time I checked, government cannot force private companies to do business.

Government can set the conditions under which a private company can do business. Companies that provide fundamental services - like water, power, and sanitation - often have government granted monopolies over an area. In exchange for existing without market competition, such companies are subject to more regulation, and often have to service particular areas.

Then in this case it turns out that taxpayers from developed regions subsidize those in the remote ones. I'm not saying helping people out is a bad idea, but forcing people to help out other people certainly is. It is absolutely no ones fault that some people live in remote regions.

Personally, I like that the federal government has the authority to shut down food production plants if they are deemed unsafe. Consumers rarely have full information, and individuals are demonstrably bad at evaluating long-term risk.

By that logic, people shouldn't be allowed to vote either. Also if you don't allow people to learn to make choices, they never will, always relying on the nanny state.

> By that logic

I wish people would stop using this phrase to mean "I can invent a chain of reasoning which leads to your conclusion and also to this ridiculous conclusion, but has no resemblance to any premise you've actually stated, and I'd like to pretend that that chain of reasoning was yours".

No, it's just pure logic. If you're saying that "individuals are demonstrably bad at evaluating long-term risk" then they shouldn't be allowed to vote. Electing someone is a huge long term risk and it is much more difficult to get rid of an elected official (takes 4 years at least) than to switch to another product or service.

> If you're saying that "individuals are demonstrably bad at evaluating long-term risk" then they shouldn't be allowed to vote.

Sure, if you further assume the premise that "people who belong to a class that are demonstrably bad at evalauting long-term risk should not be allowed to vote".

Of course, that's not a premise that was raised, or is even directly relevant to the argument made in, scott_s's post upthread. It's, at best, a premise that is extremely loosely analogous to something one might reasonably interpret as an implied premise of scott_s's argument, but if you want to argue against scott_s's argument it would be better to address it directly rather than by trying to pretend that the conclusion of a chain of requiring a premise which is, at best, loosely analogous to something that might be an implicit premise of his proceeds from "the same logic" as his argument.

How are consumers supposed to evaluate risk when private companies are under no obligation to provide them with information? It sounds like such a system would be amazing for companies, but quite terrible for anyone else.

How can I evaluate risk when I vote when politicians are elected for 4 years and regulatory agencies are not even affected by elections? Can I switch a regulatory agency? Can I stop paying taxes, so my representative, whom I no longer trust, stops receiving his salary? No I can't.

The answer to your question is competition. If a consumer protection agency wants my money, it has to earn my trust and be better than its competitors.

And when none of the consumer protection agencies preform satisfactorily there are no more consumer protection agencies.

Why? Why are there no more?

Seriously? Because when every consumer protection agency in your free market utopia fails to perform adequately they no longer exist.

If no consumer protection agency earns anyone's trust, how does it continue to exist in your perfect world?

On a related note: what incentive is there for an individual to create a consumer protection agency? What incentive is there for a company to open their doors to a consumer protection agency that isn't going to give them a good rating?

> what incentive is there for an individual to create a consumer protection agency?

Being paid by people who would like a reliable information about the products and services they purchase?

> What incentive is there for a company to open their doors to a consumer protection agency that isn't going to give them a good rating?

Being excluded from the rating altogether to the advantage of their competitors?

What about my other question?

What's to keep an entire industry from creating their own protection agency, and excluding all other agencies from inspecting their facilities? Who protects the consumers then?

Without regulation what's to keep an agency from intermixing legitimate ratings with false ratings? What's to keep a company from paying every agency for false ratings, especially if everyone is profit-maximizing, and every other agency is going to say the same thing? Even if you found out, what can you do about it?

Does being excluded from the ratings give an advantage to their competitors? All it says is that they weren't rated, not that they're better or worse, and what if their competitors are terribly rated?

What's to keep an agency from being vindictive? This goes with the above mixing legitimate and false ratings.

It's not that individuals are demonstrably bad at evaluating long-term risk, but don't have all the facts pertaining to every single decision they have to make daily, and don't have the time to seek out all of those facts.

Do you have the ability to make sure that every single piece of food you purchase is safe for human consumption?

I agree. But nobody asks people to do that. I'm just saying that consumer protection agencies could inform people "hey, this is an unreliable business, don't buy from it". Then people would be able to choose among various consumer protection agencies they trust. Government is just a giant monopoly on the consumer protection market and the one that also has the power to shut businesses down, leaving even less choice to consumers. Now consumers cannot even make the choice of trusting or not trusting the government on its decision.

And those agencies, they're all working for the consumers best interests and not their own, as is what the system you're advocating for would dictate they do without regulation, something your arguing against?

Who's going to create those agencies? In your advocated system the companies being investigated are the ones more likely to make the agencies than outside individuals because their isn't enough incentive to enter that market. Especially because without regulation companies can decide to open their facilities to agencies that are on good terms with the companies in question.

You're right, I'm sorry. Having one centralized consumer protection agency with the power to shut businesses down, an agency that people cannot stop paying to (with their tax money) will create less possibilities for corruption and more choice for the consumer.

Have I argued for centralized power?

The problem you have is that you can't see a situation where people aren't consumers, and where the acquisition of wealth isn't the only goal of everyone. The problem is that the current system encourages corporations instead of cooperatives.

Treating humanity like a collection of profit-maximizing individualists means the only possible solution to you is more competition. Were humanity only a collection of profit-maximizing individualists we'd still be uneducated cavemen. Society moves forwards because it realizes that it needs to work together.

Did the Great Depression occur because of too much governmental power? Did the 2008 crash occur because of too much regulation?

> Have I argued for centralized power?

Then what are you arguing for? My understanding is that you say free market cannot be better than having some degree of regulation. Regulation assumes government, doesn't it?

You're equating regulation and centralization. You're also equating refutation of your points as taking a position completely opposite your points.

If you take even a tiny look at the rest of what I had to say (which you also neglected to respond to) my argument is collectivization, which is not the same thing as centralization.

How can you achieve collectivization without any central entity like government enforcing it? And what exactly do you mean by collectivization in the context of the subject being discussed?

(I saw your comment and questions above, in the other thread, but I cannot answer them until I understand this one better).

You have government, just not centralized. Collectivize on a local level, and form a confederation of localities, giving localities more power.

Additionally, and I've said it before, replace corporations with cooperatives. This is the more important part, you need to get rid of the idea that an individual can exist without society and outside of society. If everyone thought that individual wealth and profit-maximizing were the most important things higher education (and most education) along with a host of other institutions and almost every social institution wouldn't exist. And while I understand that a good deal of people are arguing against social institutions, they forget that wouldn't have received the same education they did.

If everyone was wealth-maximizing most professors wouldn't be professors because they're able to make more working in private industry. The same is equally true for a large number of public educators, at least in the hard sciences.

Education is considered a great equalizer. Society cannot get better if we privatize education, meaning only the rich can afford high quality education (and this is a problem that America is experiencing today). If only the upper classes can pay for high quality education the education gap widens, and it becomes nigh impossible for someone to be upwardly mobile.

And that's where my main problem with the American Libertarian movement, privatizing everything can at best keep society stagnant.

That magic is public accountability and elections.

What happens to a company if it's not doing the right thing and is not providing me with a good service (in that case, consumer protection service)? It first loses money because I stop paying immediately and then it goes out of business pretty fast if I spread the word and people agree the service is bad.

What happens to a politician if he doesn't keep his promise or if an agency doesn't perform as it should? Nothing. A politician keeps his office until the next election and the agency stays in business, possibly with the very same people in charge of it. Can I stop paying taxes? No. I go to jail if I do.

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/115883/drugs-drinking-wat...

This similarly happened in Canada.

http://business.financialpost.com/2013/06/24/ontario-investi...

Days later, the Minister of Training, Colleges, and Universities Brad Duguid got involved and let the program continue under a careful watch, after some restructuring.

http://readwrite.com/2013/07/03/canadian-coding-camp-bitmake...

And this is why a single example can never be used for a blanket statement.

Maybe. You've never heard of a practicing lawyer who never went to law school. But you have heard of talented engineers who never went to college.

The difference with software is that your work will always stand for itself, because the barrier to creating anything is so low. Unless you have to be credentialed to access an IDE and compiler, you'll always be able to learn and improve.

Programming is such a wide field though. There's people writing yet another CRUD web app backend, and there's people writing autopilot software for auto-landing passenger jets. (And many categories in between, or perhaps even outside that spectrum). I, for one, hope the people writing autopilot software have some formal training along the lines of a four year degree to back them up, rather than just a Githib account and some commonly used open source software.

_Some_ "software engineering" really does have the risks and responsibilities of civil or mechanical engineering. There does need to be some sort of evaluation/certification of people who've been trained and tested appropriately for that - without at the same time denying completely unschooled enthusiasts to do what the want with less life-threatening hardware and software.

And look at how many douchebags became lawyers. If we develop further into a technocratic society than we already are we will see people like Schmidt and suck dictating how our lives, rights and privacy evolves for their ability to make a profit.... Oh, wait....

Programming is not really a young field. Besides, laws ARE indeed becoming more complicated whereas programming languages don't.

> Programming is not really a young field.

Programming has been around for a century.

Law has been around for a couple millennia.

Do you have a different metric you'd prefer to use?

> Besides, laws ARE indeed becoming more complicated whereas programming languages don't.

Most newer versions of programming languages introduce new concepts. How is that not "becoming more complicated"?

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