Couldn't brashness or naive certainty (whether correlated with youth or not) also lead to... this article? Where a founder is _so sure_ his startup is so amazing and virtuous that it uniquely deserves to bypass the regulations that were put in place by older people for good reasons the founder doesn't yet understand?
The costs he's complaining about, the costs of compliance, are costs he wishes he could externalize onto all of us, like they used to before those regulations existed.
Isn't the purpose of many regulations to stop people who are wrong from harming themselves and others? That is, the experience of being wrong also teaches respect for rules one doesn't understand.
Which purpose do you mean? Stated purpose? Intended purpose? Regulators’ purpose? Legislators’ purpose? Donors’ and other special interests’ purpose? Harm as defined by whom? The field of public-choice economics rests on the insight that employees of agencies and bureaus act in their own self-interest, which is not always the same as the public interest.
That is claimed, but often the real purpose is to stop people who otherwise could do something from taking that work away from whatever group created the regulation.
My vibes on the community are the exact opposite, actually. Even if it leads towards the same conclusion. Older folk who lived in an industry completely unregulated and saw it rise into a trillion dollar empire. No government involved (or at least, that's what it looks like on the surface).
Unfortunately, most industries cannot cheaply and quickly break things to iterate upon it like code. moving fast and breaking buildings costs lives.
I suspect there's a similar mentality here with regards to unionization. Many older folk will only have seen the riches of tech and not the abuse of labor in nearly every other sector.
A giant helping of hubris may be a factor in this tendency. ‘Programming a computer is thrilling enough; imagine programming an entire country of people!’
Those who think this way need to read Bastiat: “Oh, sublime writers! Please remember sometimes that this clay, this sand, and this manure which you so arbitrarily dispose of, are men! They are your equals! They are intelligent and free human beings like yourselves! As you have, they too have received from God the faculty to observe, to plan ahead, to think, and to judge for themselves!”
Save perhaps unqualified kings who inherited the throne at too young an age and under unstable circumstances no demographic has run more societies off cliffs than "comfortable professionals".
Seriously, go read about the run up to europe's religious wars of the 1500s or the french revolution.
You’re possibly right that HN is young, but in that case you’re missing how the circumstances of their youth and young adulthood have made them wary of deregulation in the macro sense.
I guess I'm "young" as someone in their 30's. but I was raised around regulations being loosened and seeing corruption flow as a result. So I'm wary anytime someone suggests "we need less regulations!" when they only have to gain from working faster and treating human lives as an accounting detail.
>Someone please tell me we are not living in a time where the kids are pro-regulation
Hard to say. I'm not really "old" nor "young" per se. I'm a late millenial so I probably have pieces of both millenial and Gen Z in my experience. I'd love to know how this makeup really is at large, but from my observation:
>When I was younger, the youth were anti-establishment - that was cool and rebellious.
The "Gen Z" side me me spent its life seeing my parents (late Gen X) struggle through the results of '08 where we didn't regulate banks enough, and under a ruling that basically deregulated election spending. Then I graduate into a term of a president wanted to deregulate everything and am entering part 2 of such.
The "millenial" side of me just barely escaped the explosive costs of rent and college, but still felt the beginning of that impact. And got to experience almost a decade of decent work before seeing the job market completely turn on America. Because we spent decades de-regulating collective bargaining.
So I would not be surprised if Gen Z proper does want more regulation to reel in those who exploited deregulation. But that "cool and rebellious" mentality is still there given last year. It seems they already learned the results of that rebellion, though.
> Now we need the machine to do our raging for us?
Pretty much. When minimum wage can't even cover rent, you get less time to rage yourself, outside of the ballot box.
I'm not arguing that pro-regulation is a bad stance just noting that my image of youth is wounded by thinking that the new youth are hands down in favor of it in general.
This is a silly and sad sentiment. Part of me just wants to think that some among us are crazy or naive enough to tend towards resistance. I don't blame anyone for not being so.
HN is also biased towards software developers. Now, if you start putting in regulations into everything software developers do in the software development pipeline, only then will begin to truly feel the bite of mind-numbing regulations. Until then all regulation is good - since regulations are someone else's problem.
Now, enforce multi-month/multi-year government approval for your productive projects deployments with a 100 page form in triplicate. Every re-build to production needs a root cause analysis with mitigation plan. You need to pass expensive certification and re-up every couple of years. You can only develop using regulatory approved languages and decade old compiler versions that have been certified. Breaking regulations involves removal of your license and negligence lawsuits. Tack on another few dozen regulations, so that you are forced to hire an expert consultant+lawyer to feel safe.
You will see the opinion of HN commenters change like magic. Basically software developers will always support BIG SLOW NANNY for other engineers. Until BIG SLOW NANNY stomps them hard, they won't change their position.
Excellent comment. I'll also add that many HN commenters, even those with a great deal of experience, have never worked on projects that are mission critical, safety critical, or where loss of life is a possible consequence of failure. They've never been in industries where regulations are written in past victims' blood.
Couldn't brashness or naive certainty (whether correlated with youth or not) also lead to... this article? Where a founder is _so sure_ his startup is so amazing and virtuous that it uniquely deserves to bypass the regulations that were put in place by older people for good reasons the founder doesn't yet understand?
The costs he's complaining about, the costs of compliance, are costs he wishes he could externalize onto all of us, like they used to before those regulations existed.
Isn't the purpose of many regulations to stop people who are wrong from harming themselves and others? That is, the experience of being wrong also teaches respect for rules one doesn't understand.
Which purpose do you mean? Stated purpose? Intended purpose? Regulators’ purpose? Legislators’ purpose? Donors’ and other special interests’ purpose? Harm as defined by whom? The field of public-choice economics rests on the insight that employees of agencies and bureaus act in their own self-interest, which is not always the same as the public interest.
That is claimed, but often the real purpose is to stop people who otherwise could do something from taking that work away from whatever group created the regulation.
Electrician/plumber/hvac trade groups salivate over the idea of having the products they install be as locked down as Hyundai brake pads.
2 replies →
My vibes on the community are the exact opposite, actually. Even if it leads towards the same conclusion. Older folk who lived in an industry completely unregulated and saw it rise into a trillion dollar empire. No government involved (or at least, that's what it looks like on the surface).
Unfortunately, most industries cannot cheaply and quickly break things to iterate upon it like code. moving fast and breaking buildings costs lives.
I suspect there's a similar mentality here with regards to unionization. Many older folk will only have seen the riches of tech and not the abuse of labor in nearly every other sector.
A giant helping of hubris may be a factor in this tendency. ‘Programming a computer is thrilling enough; imagine programming an entire country of people!’
Those who think this way need to read Bastiat: “Oh, sublime writers! Please remember sometimes that this clay, this sand, and this manure which you so arbitrarily dispose of, are men! They are your equals! They are intelligent and free human beings like yourselves! As you have, they too have received from God the faculty to observe, to plan ahead, to think, and to judge for themselves!”
http://bastiat.org/en/the_law.html
Not even, they just need to read a history book.
Save perhaps unqualified kings who inherited the throne at too young an age and under unstable circumstances no demographic has run more societies off cliffs than "comfortable professionals".
Seriously, go read about the run up to europe's religious wars of the 1500s or the french revolution.
You’re possibly right that HN is young, but in that case you’re missing how the circumstances of their youth and young adulthood have made them wary of deregulation in the macro sense.
I guess I'm "young" as someone in their 30's. but I was raised around regulations being loosened and seeing corruption flow as a result. So I'm wary anytime someone suggests "we need less regulations!" when they only have to gain from working faster and treating human lives as an accounting detail.
I mean same
Someone please tell me we are not living in a time where the kids are pro-regulation. I'm not doubting you, it's just sad if it's true.
When I was younger, the youth were anti-establishment - that was cool and rebellious.
I guess this is what happens when the rage against the machine becomes part of the machine. Now we need the machine to do our raging for us?
I feel old now, thanks.
>Someone please tell me we are not living in a time where the kids are pro-regulation
Hard to say. I'm not really "old" nor "young" per se. I'm a late millenial so I probably have pieces of both millenial and Gen Z in my experience. I'd love to know how this makeup really is at large, but from my observation:
>When I was younger, the youth were anti-establishment - that was cool and rebellious.
The "Gen Z" side me me spent its life seeing my parents (late Gen X) struggle through the results of '08 where we didn't regulate banks enough, and under a ruling that basically deregulated election spending. Then I graduate into a term of a president wanted to deregulate everything and am entering part 2 of such.
The "millenial" side of me just barely escaped the explosive costs of rent and college, but still felt the beginning of that impact. And got to experience almost a decade of decent work before seeing the job market completely turn on America. Because we spent decades de-regulating collective bargaining.
So I would not be surprised if Gen Z proper does want more regulation to reel in those who exploited deregulation. But that "cool and rebellious" mentality is still there given last year. It seems they already learned the results of that rebellion, though.
> Now we need the machine to do our raging for us?
Pretty much. When minimum wage can't even cover rent, you get less time to rage yourself, outside of the ballot box.
This is a very thoughtful response; thank you.
I'm not arguing that pro-regulation is a bad stance just noting that my image of youth is wounded by thinking that the new youth are hands down in favor of it in general.
This is a silly and sad sentiment. Part of me just wants to think that some among us are crazy or naive enough to tend towards resistance. I don't blame anyone for not being so.
> this is what happens when the rage against the machine becomes part of the machine. Now we need the machine to do our raging for us
That's an excellent way to put it.
Thanks. Not an original idea of mine, but I struggle to recall where I got it from.
HN is also biased towards software developers. Now, if you start putting in regulations into everything software developers do in the software development pipeline, only then will begin to truly feel the bite of mind-numbing regulations. Until then all regulation is good - since regulations are someone else's problem.
Now, enforce multi-month/multi-year government approval for your productive projects deployments with a 100 page form in triplicate. Every re-build to production needs a root cause analysis with mitigation plan. You need to pass expensive certification and re-up every couple of years. You can only develop using regulatory approved languages and decade old compiler versions that have been certified. Breaking regulations involves removal of your license and negligence lawsuits. Tack on another few dozen regulations, so that you are forced to hire an expert consultant+lawyer to feel safe.
You will see the opinion of HN commenters change like magic. Basically software developers will always support BIG SLOW NANNY for other engineers. Until BIG SLOW NANNY stomps them hard, they won't change their position.
Excellent comment. I'll also add that many HN commenters, even those with a great deal of experience, have never worked on projects that are mission critical, safety critical, or where loss of life is a possible consequence of failure. They've never been in industries where regulations are written in past victims' blood.