Comment by hn_acc1

Very few regulations are written in blood. In fact, the ones you mention in your comment were not.

Most regulations are written for reasons that have nothing to do with that:

1. Genuine public interest, but not safety related

2. To appease a loud interest group whose political influence greatly exceeds their numbers

3. As quid pro quo for support for a campaign contribution

4. To prevent unwanted competition to a politically powerful industry or union

5. Because it is in the interest of government employees who write the regulations, but not he general public

6. It is a particular pet issue of a powerful politician

7. As a flailing and arbitrary "we have to do something, and this is something" response to a moral panic

More parking minimums!

Or maybe we can stop these silly attempts to bundle every regulation into a monolithic category?

The OP provided an opportunity to engage with a specific set of regulations. Instead you took it as an opportunity to make a political statement about abstract "regulations", divorced from every detail in the article.

> see Dieselgate / VW

Oh man this is the one that sets me off every time. Not that I condone VW's cheating, but have you ever looked at how many diesel passenger cars are sold in the USA? It's effectively zero, and has been for a long, long time. Americans don't like diesel cars. They could be totally uncontrolled from an emissions standpoint and it would not make any difference at all.

It makes no sense to regulate emissions on diesel passenger cars in the USA.

> There's a reason for most regulations - most of them are written in blood.

Sure, but it's a balancing act, right?

My favorite example is that hairdryers sold in the US are required to have ground fault interrupters in the plug. This is touted as an important safety feature and it appears to prevent something like 2-4 deaths a year. Or at least, it used to when it first rolled out, because now you have GFCI outlets in the bathroom in any new or remodeled homes, so maybe it's redundant.

The hairdryers sold in the EU don't have that.

So yeah, it's a regulation written in blood, but it's a pretty good example of a gray area. Once you get into the business of preventing single-digit deaths, things get really weird. You probably should also ban pointy scissors (people trip), frankfurters (choking risk), only allow the sale of pre-peeled bananas, etc.

If there were no cost to inaction, you would be right, but there is, so the abuses from lack of speed bumps to action does not automatically mean those speed bumps are a net good.

> There's a reason for most regulations - most of them are written in blood.

There are thousands of pages of regulations, by volume they're written by rather than opposed to the incumbents, and only a small minority are actually safety-critical, but those are the ones everyone retreats into when it comes time to defend all of the ones that aren't. Most regulations are written in crayon.

> It becomes too tempting to cheat otherwise - see Dieselgate / VW, for example.

Dieselgate wasn't an instance of someone causing harm by satisfying a regulation that was too relaxed. They regulation was stringent and they were committing intentional fraud in order to violate it.

> Since we can't tell what kind of person you are, REALLY - SBF also told people to trust him, for example - onerous regulations are required.

So because liars lie, that justifies the government taking months or years to answer a question? Or requiring millions of dollars worth of certifications to test whether a device that customers only buy because it actually significantly improves fuel efficiency isn't reducing fuel efficiency?

That's exactly the thing you don't need the government to test ahead of time because the customer is going to notice immediately and have a false advertising claim if it doesn't actually work.

> Plus, I love how on the main page advertising to companies, Revoy advertises 3x-to-5x better fuel efficiency - I'm guessing this one is the one they'll need to back up and officially achieve or companies will dump them / sue.

> In the blog post, he claims 94% less fuel and 7 mpg to 120 mpg. I don't see how 7 mpg to 120 mpg is "only" 3x-5x better fuel efficiency - it seems like it's more 17x. Sounds to me like he's exaggerating the effect in the blog to try to get sympathy.

The post linked in the article explains that the first version of their product resulted in a 78% reduction in fuel consumption (this is the 3x-5x) and the newer version is 94%.

That the "onerous regulations" are demanded by people willing to condemn others when they themselves haven't done the reading is rather one of the issues.

>There's a reason for most regulations - most of them are written in blood.

Excellent thought terminating cliche. There might be a reason (cause) but there's rarely an available justification.

Regulations dont exist on a spectrum between Hard (good) and Easy (COMPANIES ARE CHEATING NOW). Regulations compel specific actions and block specific actions. Its impossible to fit every regulation into your head to form an opinion on all of them. Taking a stand at "All regulations are good" or "all regulations are bad" is just signalling that you have never dealt with them.

Having worked with multiple companies in multiple legal jurisdictions I can tell you that I have a vast VAST preference for Canada. They talk a big game, but in my honest opinion they have a lower regulatory overhead in certain areas (the ones that affect me) than Australia or the USA.

Heres an excerpt from a canadian government website regarding building a telco tower.

"The Government of Canada is not involved in the specifics of tower installations, but we do set the law; it's called the Radiocommunication Act. Providing technical requirements are met, we only get involved when there is an impasse between the municipality and the company. In these rare cases, we look at the facts and provide a decision."

A Tower build that costs 5 - 10k in rural canada, can cost 100k+ in Australia.

So rural canadian internet providers build more, and service more people. Cause : Effect.

The last time I looked at a tower build for a customer in Australia, we lost interest trying to get a quote for the environmental impact statement required by the state it was to be built in.

Towers, are not 10x more destructive or dangerous in australia than canada. Actually with snow season knocking so many down, the reverse is true. But providers and local governments have the flexibility to make arrangements to service customers.

You need to drop this weird, reflexive defense of regulations, and consider that regulations prevent services, and regulations really do require justification. The Regulator owes you a justification. You are probably poorer for some regulations and those regulations may not be justified.

Another semi relevant example. Gold Coast cops have unlimited search and seizure powers. The "Cause" they display on posters everywhere. A child got stabbed, the parents pushed to change the law to invade everyones privacy on their deceased childs behalf. They tell you the blood cause of the law, but there's no justification for the invasion of privacy or ongoing justification in lives supposedly saved. Just police getting the ability to ruin more peoples lives.

> But if the regulations aren't super stringent, others will undercut you by skimping on safety/emissions and selling a similar product for way less.

Yup. For example: this is why the US automakers have shoved all the Brodozers down everybody's throats; it let them duck efficiency requirements.

Great comment on HN recently put it this way paraphrasing a comment they liked on Usenet (yes the degree of separation is growing haha):

>of course they shit on the floor, it’s a corporation, it’s what they do, the job of government is to be the rolled up newspaper applied to their nose when they do

Whether you’re a good company or a bad company, a large percentage of companies will always go up right to the limits that are set, and then another significant percentage will go past it until they are caught. That’s just how it works in capitalism. You’re constantly fighting a group of people’s ravenous desire for more money as well as the (often significant) resources they will bring to bear to defend their revenue stream.

You simply can’t expect them to do the right thing without adequate consequences for failing to do the right thing. We have literally centuries of evidence.

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