I'm not sure I understand the point here. Is it that strict government regulation saves lives?
If so, yes I suppose that could be true. Fewer people would die in traffic accidents if we had a stoplight on every corner, we had to drive Sherman Tanks, and the speed limit was 20MPH. The problem is we'd be way less productive and we'd be much poorer.
If China had Japan's strict building codes from 1980 to present, China's economic growth would have been far slower, but in an earthquake, more people may die in China. Is that a good thing or bad thing? Over the last 20 years, strong economic growth in China has likely saved far more lives than strict building codes may have saved. But that is too complex to get into here.
Also note Japan's poor economic growth during over the last 10-20 years.
Are some people in Japan better off because of strict building codes? Yes, no doubt. Is everyone in Japan better off due to strict building code? much harder to say.
I'm not sure that this article has much of a point beyond what is on the surface, or that it is necessarily making an argument for or against regulation based on economic principles.
The article's sole goal seems to be to help explain how a country with a large history of Earthquake experience has learned from it's history, and how the lessons and how they applied to their building structure helps explain how they might be able to deal with an 8.9 magnitude earthquake much better and with greater loss of life than if this earthquake had struck somewhere else.
I don't think there is a secret meaning in every New York Times article.
So all the people voting for this title on Reddit and Hacker News aren't making any statement on strict government regulation, they merely find it interesting that the Japanese have learned from their history?
Yes, it just seems apparent to me (like an earlier commenter grouk said) that the underlying point of the article and the discussion around it appears to be about competing ideas of libertarian vs. interventionist market principles. I was asking my last question to see who agreed. I guess not too many people, or I was unclear with my question. (edit) And I was frustrated with the implication made that a person who may think this is a conspiracy theorist that finds hidden meanings in every New York Times article.
> Yes, it just seems apparent to me that the underlying point of the article and the discussion around it appears to be about competing ideas of libertarian vs. interventionist market principles.
You see what you want to see, even when it's not there. It's not very objective to assume there's a political agenda behind everything.
My apologies if my last comment read that way - I did not mean to lump you in with conspiracy theorists. I often see people trying to read between the lines in NYT articles, not just in regards to current events and political viewpoints but even in the Styles or Weekend section (perhaps I read too many NYC-focused blogs).
I have no idea why other people are voting the way they are; this is impossible to answer. Honestly I could not care less why other people are up-voting it.
I find this story interesting both on an engineering level and as something news-worthy to explain how Japan may have been able to avoid a far greater tragedy.
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.
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.
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.
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.
That's a lot of hand-wavy claims. Care to back some of it up with data? Especially the part about China's economic growth being slower if they'd had stricter building codes. Absent any real data, it's equally intuitive to say that it wouldn't have been slower because [insert natural disaster here] would have been a big setback as often as [same natural disaster] occurs on average.
Plus, you know, lots of people would have died who could have been saved by stricter building codes. I'd rather be alive than have a couple more percentage points of economic growth every year.
> When the government mandates, you don't get to answer. It's a downside.
It's also an upside, as it avoids a social trap[1]. If companies can choose what they want, those that spend less will have a short-term advantage over those that spend more. If the government mandates a certain level of quality, then there's no competitive advantage to cutting corners (assuming the regulations are well enforced).
From an economic standpoint, what modern building codes allow is the stable commercial insurance market necessary for a great deal of economic activity. In the US, many current construction requirements are based standards developed by the insurance industry, e.g. UL (Underwrither's Laboratories) and FM (Factory Mutual). And although it is now one of the foremost authorities regarding life-safety in the world, the NFPA (National Fire Protection Association) was originally a creation of the insurance industry as well.
Modern building codes underpin property the property insurance which makes real-estate lending practical. They underpin much of the general liability insurance required for contemporary commercial transactions - not to mention making construction loans practical.
Yes, risk is always balanced against potential gain. And yes, the individual is the one who ultimately pays the price. So he should make the choices.
But I believe that even in a completely free market, there would be a lot of local voluntary contractual arrangements that would regulate many aspects of very small communities and building codes are certainly one thing people would consider when making such an arrangement.
As long as communities are competitive and contracts cannot be changed arbitrarily, this is not a problem. And if such contracts were not beneficial, these arrangements would lose to more sensible ones.
So, I'm not too concerned about what local governments do. Overall I think it maps to what we'd have in a free market, except where cities get too big and corruption becomes a problem.
One could easily argue that there is a worse safety/cost effectiveness tradeoff when you have to pay for corruption. Certainly when the average person is poorer than they would otherwise be, safety is harder to afford.
The important thing is competition and if you can drive 4 minutes in the opposite direction and get the community you want, competition exists.
Just as there is competition in automobile safety, there should be competition in community safety. Yes, there are national regulations, but I would argue that most cars exceed those regulation and brag about their 5-star crash ratings. Such would also be the case for communities designed by the Mercedes' and Toyotas of the community regulation business, should such brands be permitted to evolve.
> The problem is we'd be way less productive and we'd be much poorer.
There is no proof that the current ridiculous state of the matter, where everyone in the US constantly moves oneself together with 3 tons of steel for 2 to 3 hours a day is particularly productive either. If mobility was somewhat less easy, maybe we'd find another productivity hilltop which could be higher than the current one. In fact, we'll have to find such an alternative, less mobile way of life sooner of later.
This is rubbish. First of all Japan's economic circumstances of the past 10-20 years are generally much exaggerated in the media, both Western and Japanese. And building codes, of all things, have almost nothing to do with that growth positively or negatively. Japan is one of the most earthquake-prone regions in the world, so we make sure that buildings are always built to withstand them to the maximum reasonable extent. That's the why the destruction from this massive earthquake is actually so light, considering. Perhaps we could leave things to the magic of the free market, but either that would work, in which case we'd be right where we are now anyway, or it wouldn't, in which case we currently be totally fucked. Japanese, not having the luxury of dealing with this issue in the abstract from the comfort of their apartment in New York, prefer not to take the risk. Also there is less belief in magic here than in the States.
By way of comparison though, let's imagine the fate of New York and rest of the eastern seaboard of the US were a similar quake to hit there. I think you would not fare so well, and I suspect the low cost of your Chevy Impala would give you little comfort.
Honestly, I'm trying to remain reasonable here, but are people seriously upvoting a post where a guy comes out and says that Japan would be better off without strict standards in place for buildings to withstand earthquakes, 24 hours after one of the most massive earthquakes in recorded history struck off the coast of the Japan and those very standards saves countless lives and billions in damage? How many lunatics do we have on this board, anyway?
> there is less belief in magic here than in the States.
Not quite so sure about that. Japan has spent trillions on idiotic keynesian construction stimulus for over 15 years. Only one round of that has Americans up in arms.
> Japan's poor economic growth during over the last 10-20 years.
Per capita GDP growth in Japan over the last 20 years has been about the same as in the USA. They just don't import two million people a year -- rather wisely in my opinion.
There are proposals to increase immigration in Japan to offset the projected population decrease due to low birth rate. It's expected to drop by over 50 million people before stabilizing without increased immigration.
Well what's the point of letting large numbers of people in if it fails to make those already here better off? And that's pretty clearly the case. That there's space to accommodate them is irrelevant.
Also, considering issues like fresh water and food security, the country is in fact full. Japan maybe super-overfull, but the US is definitely full or overpopulated.
> Well what's the point of letting large numbers of people in if it fails to make those already here better off?
So in your view, it doesn't matter if the immigrants themselves are better off?
> Also, considering issues like fresh water and food security, the country is in fact full.
No it isn't. The EU has 820,000 km2 of arable land and 1,900 km3 of renewable water resources, and is self-sufficient in terms of food and water for a population of 490 million.
The US, on the other hand, has 1,650,000 km2 of arable land and 3,000 km3 of renewable water, and only has a population of 310 million. The US could easily support a population of 500 million or more without needing to import water or food.
> it doesn't matter if the immigrants themselves are better off?
In a world with about four billion people who would be better off moving to America, no.
> No it isn't.
It is true that we could turn America into India, bursting at the seems with people fed on poor rice and vegetable diets, and with poor access to open space. I happen to think that's a very bad idea. It's also probably unsustainable. Top soils are running down world-wide, including in America.
The US is ecologically over-full. We share this country with animals and plants, and they are suffering. The ideal sustainable population of America is probably down towards 200 million.
> It is true that we could turn America into India, bursting at the seems with people fed on poor rice and vegetable diets, and with poor access to open space.
Who said anything about India? The EU has almost twice the population of the US, half the arable land area, and still manages to be self-sufficient in terms of food and water.
> The US is ecologically over-full. We share this country with animals and plants, and they are suffering.
So in your opinion it's better to let humans suffer than animals and plants?
Building codes were on the books in Haiti too. There is a lot more to this question, including the presence of honest government, the ability of an economy to afford the code, and a healthy insurance market.
Insurance companies often require higher standards than building code demands.
Also, politically, the reason some societies have strict building codes is because there is a group-- insurance companies-- that have an economic incentive to push for stronger codes.
There's also political pressure in the opposite direction, from the construction industry.
I heard a lecture once by a structural engineer who had worked in hurricane alleys in Florida. He said there was a cycle of tightening up rules (for instance on the number of nails needed to hold down a roof) after big storms, then relaxing them as the years went by. Without a big storm to remind people just why the rules were tightened up, there was inevitable pressure to relax them in order to make it cheaper to build.
This is more off-topic, but another interesting thing he said was that you could get a sense of maximum local wind speeds by looking at airstream-type trailers. They are, as you might expect, extremely well engineered to resist the sorts of wind pressures you get at highway speeds, so winds of 60-80mph don't tend to rip the hide off them. But you get above a certain threshold, and they all tend to give way at once.
Florida is an interesting example. If development patterns there were left to market forces, the coasts of Florida would not be as significantly developed. Insurance costs would prohibit it. But the state's insurance regulations control prices and force inland homeowners to subsidize the insurance rates of coastal homeowners. Even worse, as insurance companies flee this distorted market, the state stepped in and now runs its own insurance company, which is building a massively underfunded risk portfolio. Literally the state of Florida is at risk of bankruptcy if another hurricane Andrew hits.
Another factor is, if the storm is big enough, the feds step in with FEMA and bailout people who are underinsured.
People living in Florida's hurricane alley pay nowhere near the cost of the risk of living there, and the result is overbuilding, and catastrophic property losses when the big one eventually does hit.
Sorta like earthquakes in the SF bay area. Humans aren't rational. Considering relatively few people actually get earthquake insurance in California, I'm sure theres some level of the cognotive dissonance by many of those who agree with the main thrust of your point.
They are rational in this case. They are getting others to cover the expense of their lifestyle. If someone is going to bail you out why would you bother not living as you'd like.
Which is also counteracted by simple self interest on the part of people that don't want to die in their homes. Some of us, even those who rent, do consider what might happen in a disaster and choose to live in sturdier structures.
Its true that government standards get tightened and relaxed, just as they do in banking. Which is probably a good reason not to rely upon them. They are dumbed-down, lowest common denominator standards anyway.
I'm from the UK where virtually all houses are double-brick walls. I moved to Canada and even though (or rather especially because) I work in the siding industry (side note: the irony of a man who had never seen 'siding' being a competent siding installer has been pointed out many times) I have a rule that I'll only live in a brick-walled house for the simple reason that everywhere has ridiculously large and old trees. These trees tend to fall in big storms. In the past year I've seen ~5 houses where a tree has fallen and is resting on the 1st story brick wall and I can only hope no one was in the bedrooms at the time.
In a recent storm I saw a tree that had visibly fallen against a fully brick house and had merely slid down the wall. The house stood almost immaculate (aside from the smeared wall), with a broken window and a crushed fence.
I have noticed that roofers here in Ontario are rather lax in competency here. My in-laws townhouse just got re-shingled and they lost an entire shingle sheet (it had never been touched by a nail). Their neighbour in the building lost two shingles, one above the other, on a joint in the plywood and above the black-paper. They're lucky the management company got on the ass of the roofers and got it fixed as we got hit by about 50mm that weekend.
It's not just roofers. We've done a lot of runs out to repair siding jobs. We've seen entire siding sheets that had been installed with a single nail. They'll do like 2-3 rows with barely more than a nail per sheet and then nail an entire row properly, but because there's so much weight on the row that's nailed correctly that heavy-winds can cause the sheets to stretch and then when a big gust hits it can pop the sheet out of the lock.
B-b-b-but the shards from the broken window could have hurt you just as well!
Seriously, being used to solid reinforced concrete or brick buildings, building shoddy wood structures covered with paper-thin siding in tornado or hurricane alleys and then crying your eyes out when the inevitable happens is almost funny.
I'm in the UK and your comment made me realise that I've never lived in a brick building - they have all had stone walls. Having said that, I don't think I've ever lived anywhere that wasn't at least 150 years old (and I've lived in ten different properties).
Much of it is down to the perception of imminent threat, with actually having the money to pay for measures to circumvent it being the next most important factor. Neither of those really existed in Haiti, or South East Asia. (The implication in the original article that the South East Asians weren't all that smart staying on the coast is pretty insulting when you've seen what the infrastructure on the SE Asian coast is actually like.)
Insurance companies can coexist perfectly with lax building codes so long as the market can bear higher premiums - if cost of damage multiplied by probability of earthquake over a time frame is lower than the increased cost of construction or remedial work then nothing gets done. Engineer cartels and political will to avoid preventable casualties at all costs are more important in saving lives here than the free market.
What's interesting is that, fifty years ago, Japan started in largely the same economic place as SE Asia and China, but somehow managed to do things like enforce strict building codes before becoming the world's most developed nation.
Seems like a good illustration of just how insidious systemic corruption can be to the development of a nation.
Japan was a highly industrialized and highly educated country that happened to be down in the dumps 50 years ago due to WWII. For instance, the city I live in (Shizuoka) was pretty much obliterated by napalm. Then they rebuilt. China's not rebuilding anything---they're building up a modern economy pretty much for the first time.
I once read a passage on how insurance companies would be the biggest driving force in a completely free state. For example, you would insure your house against theft which would make it economical for them to create a kind of police force.
Not saying I'd like that, but interesting to see how other things already operate that way.
At the risk of letting this discussion degenerate into a debate over the libertarian definition of "free"...
It would also make it economical for insurance companies to quite literally be thieves, and uneconomical for individuals not to pay protection money to the most powerful (and likely also most expensive) insurance company.
Aside from the problem of outright extortion, even the savviest financiers can underestimate low-probability risks (as the recent mortgage debacle shows). You would have cycles of price wars among insurers trying to attract customers by lowering premiums, until one larger-than-expected crime wave (or even a hiccup in the bond market) leaving major issuers unable to pay out their claims.
Aside from the problem of outright extortion, even the savviest financiers can underestimate low-probability risks (as the recent mortgage debacle shows).
While savvy investors may indeed underestimate low-probability risks, I take issue with any claim the mortgage bubble showed this. The sad end of that bubble was an extremely high probability event.
The main thing the debacle showed was the willingness of many people to believe fallacious arguments which made reference to claims about low probability events. Even there, the willingness of investors to believe that standard "this time it's different" line has been shown over and over again.
Yeah. Actually, the savviest investors were the ones betting that the bubble would pop. Of course, the majority thinks otherwise or there would have been no bubble. Savvy in this case was simply looking at the facts and not letting popular opinion keep you from acting.
And, for some, having friends in the government to bail out the fools who bet on the bubble growing forever so you can get paid.
Sadly, this is already the case in the "War on Drugs". In another sense, we already do this but there is no competition.
A free society is not exclusive of a strong government to protect property rights and handle externalities economically. It's when they take liberties with their charge when things get bad.
There are many who would classify building codes as unnecessary and burdensome regulation, and would instead prefer to let the free market figure it out. One of their arguments for example would be that building codes increase the cost of building, thus leaving fewer people able to afford it. I'm not saying that I agree with that, just pointing out the opposing view.
As much as I often tend toward arguments for freer markets, it's pretty conclusively known that people are terrible at judging long-term risk.
Even with hedging of risks and liabilities involved in shoddy construction, even with information brokers in place to help people make informed decisions, even assuming ample construction of houses across the spectrum for all kinds of buyers, it definitely seems like without some kind of guiding hand that failure to consider long-term risks will lead to a lot of deaths.
What's worse is that a lot of the codes are in place to protect neighbors as well. Electrical wiring codes, for instance, are there to prevent fires. The hypothetical You might say that this turns into insurance and liability, but accurately judging the long-term risk and correlative damages sounds exactly like a government imposing regulations.
Sure. (1) They've never seen a shanty town, and (2) they make the same argument about banking regulations.
Building codes are, in fact, the market response to earlier problems with lots of houses burning and falling down. The fact that later generations who grew up with houses not burning or falling down don't have the insight to know this is not evidence that they're right.
And they always make the argument that it would be good for the poor, and it's always bullshit. The poor don't benefit from dying periodically because some jerk made a quicker buck than he otherwise would have.
The alternative to a shanty town is not a safe, well built suburb. It's homelessness or at least deeper poverty (pay more for housing = pay less for food).
You get shanty towns when people are too poor to afford anything else. People don't live in a shithole just for kicks, they do it because they have no choice. We shouldn't pretend this tradeoff doesn't exist.
Shanty downs reduce the incentive to build high quality structures. Basically there is little incentive to build structures out of sink with the property value of the land they occupy. And the value of land is dominated by the value of the infrastructure around it.
You can build a surprisingly nice house for 1,000$ worth of materials, but there is no incentive when you build in the middle of a shanty town.
Isn't the incentive to build a nice house for $1000 that you get to live in it?
Of course, that $1000 house costs a full year of wages from a person earning $3-4/day and spending almost all of it on essentials. And this ignores the fact that many shantytowns occur in areas where property rights are weakly enforced - build a nice house, and 20 people will show up claiming they own it. Even if you have the money, you might instead be spending it on your children's education or something of that nature.
Shantytowns are a result of poverty and nonexistent property rights. Building codes, even if they were enforced, would not magically enable shantytown dwellers to afford something better.
It's not just a question of weakly enforced property writes. If you have the nicest shack you are far more likely to be robbed etc.
Social disorder feeds off it's self, when you live in a shanty town and are likely to be robbed it is much more reasonably to spend an extra 5$ on alcohol and get to enjoy it vs invest it in stuff that you might not keep for vary long, do that once a week for 5 years and your talking about 1,300$. Some of the hidden advantages of building codes are allowing people to build nicer houses without standing out from their community.
I think we are in violent agreement - by "weakly enforced property rights" I was referring to the fact that you are likely to be robbed of your your house (or perhaps the $500 you saved up when you are halfway done).
The hidden advantage of building codes you describe only applies when everyone can afford that $1000 house.
Godwin's Law, HackerNews edition: as a non-tech policy discussion grows longer, the probability of a comment thread devolving into an argument between competing ideas of libertarian vs. interventionist market theologies approaches 1.
Agreed, I was just trying to jocularly comment on the Things That Don't Exactly Belong On Hacker News aspect of it by pointing out that those conversations always end up in the same place.
And, in addition, these conversations tend to be rather shallow and un-anchored by fact. More an exhibition case for general philosophical predilections than a serious examination of the particular policy issue.
The tendency to degenerate into arguments over libertarianism predates Hacker News. Ron(?) Newman proposed it as “Newman’s Corollary to Godwin’s Law” over ten years ago.
I can't tell what rhetorical position you're trying to take, but I suspect, from my knowledge of building practices and codes in Richmond, Indiana from the 19th century to today, that the answer is that no, the government did not regulate building before it became all too clear that building needed to be regulated. All our old houses here are built like Sherman tanks - but that's because the ones that weren't built like Sherman tanks are long decayed and gone, and in some cases burned to the ground with loss of all on board. Electrification took a lot of people by surprise. I have some pretty horrible wiring in the attic myself (not live, though).
I've done some renovation work on old buildings. I recommend removing ALL of the old wire. There's nothing like looking at a shabby old wire and wondering if it is hot or not. Even worse, sometimes an idiot will try to reconnect that old wire, yes, I've seen them try it.
Oh, it's on the list, trust me. I've got fossil infrastructure in here over a hundred years old - in a way I feel like I should get some archaeologists in to catalog it before I get it all out.
The scary thing is that the basement lights are still on the old wiring - roughly 1920's vintage. Fortunately, no gaslights left, although I do have one fitting in the upstairs sitting room!
There's a saying that the fire code is written in blood. Generally, most of the regulations are there because when they weren't, it resulted in some disaster that cost lives. If it didn't, there wouldn't be the political will to incur greater cost and complexity in construction.
That doesn't mean that the codes shouldn't be updated / refactored once in a while, but that's a pretty difficult thing to undertake, and there may not be political will...
Considering how many codes (building codes, health codes, etc.) started out as efforts in the private sector by the likes of insurance companies and restaurant reviewers, it seems that answer is would be the capitalists, most of the time.
So, if the government removed those legal restrictions, do you think those industries would move to make their operations more safe, or less expensive for themselves in the short term?
there are many who would classify some building codes as unnecessary and some as absolutely essential, but for others the difference between the two is just too much to fathom... and as a result of their brains hurting so much, or from ulterior motives, they come up with something completely asinine: remove all regulations, they're too hard, and let's just find out what happens!
turns out, most of the time that's actually too much for everyone else to fathom, frankly.
I feel compelled to point out that not all journalists from the New York Times necessarily reside in New York. Based on his past articles and Wikipedia entry, Norimitsu Onishi seems to have been the NYT's Tokyo bureau chief at one point in time.
They are just pointing out, that if this had happened somewhere else it would been much more devastating and that Japan was good prepared for this. So I don't really know why you're complaining about the article.
It's a news non-sequitur though: Huge earthquake in Japan, structural engineers know what they're talking about.
Does anyone know if Japan has some equivalent to the Canadian Iron Ring[1]? I feel like examples like this drive home how it's even more meaningful if you live in the Ring of Fire. (Which would be an ideal name for such a ring)
Look at the laws of Hammurabbi or Moses, the ancients even knew this. Building codes are an important part of developed society and this situation would have been significantly worse without a stringent set of codes.
There's a qualitative difference between a law that mandates an action after something goes wrong (tort?), and a law that mandates an action before anything goes wrong, in order to prevent it from going wrong (most regulation). This is a critical difference to libertarian types: (as I understand) they advocate tort laws -- you are liable for the damage and injury you cause; but not most regulation -- government mandates actions to prevent you from causing damage or injury. Building codes are the latter.
So I disagree with your analogy with the Hammurabi laws. I looked up the text:
"If a builder build a house for some one, and does not construct it properly, and the house which he built fall in and kill its owner, then that builder shall be put to death."
"[...] If it ruin goods, he shall make compensation for all that has been ruined, and inasmuch as he did not construct properly this house which he built and it fell, he shall re-erect the house from his own means."
It actually doesn't contain anything like a building code -- no regulation for how to build houses, what materials and methods can be used, what standards should be met. It is only tort: how you construct a building, government does not care, but it will hold you liable if it fails. This is a solidly "libertarian" type of law: uphold property rights, but do not intervene otherwise, and do not tell people how to do things.
The media are failing to point out that the Earthquake was 200+km offshore. There is a huge difference between an 8.9M 200km offshore and an 8.9M directly below a city. The ground motions recorded were relatively low in the cities and not very destructive. PGV (peak ground velocity) is a more accurate way to estimate the strain put on infrastructure. This shakemap shows that the intensity was relatively low: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/shakemap/global/shake...
Many people said the same thing about building codes after the 7.1 in Christchurch last September. That earthquake was 40km away from the city. Cruelly the 6.3 on Feb 22nd with its epicenter directly below the City showed the difference that proximity to the epicenter makes. Proximity to the epicenter and PGV is almost more important than magnitude when accessing how well buildings performed.
Everything has a cost and these costs are not always obvious. Government regulations like building codes and food safety generally ensure that buildings are safe and food is not contaminated, but they do so by defining acceptable things.
There are perfectly safe building designs which would never pass building codes. This is a huge barrier to innovation.
To be legally allowed to construct something that is not explicitly allowed by codes can require years and lots of money to hire engineers and lawyers.
Also, who writes these building codes? It's engineers employed by the construction and construction material industries. They have a perspective shaped by the status quo. So the codes require specific materials and techniques.
Codes also empower lots of unelected officals. A food safety inspector can shut down your plant and force you to throw away all of your products, with absolutely no form of appeal.
I don't really mind building codes. I just wish there were some objective criteria that designs went through. For example, if you could demonstrate your building can withstand an earthquake, regardless of it's method of construction, it's permissible. If you could demonstrate your food was not contaminated with bacteria, etc.
If you give a damn about any of this check out Mike Ohler's "The Fifty Dollar and Up Underground House Book" for the evils of building codes and Joel Salatin's "Everything I want to do is illegal" for food regulations.
The building codes are the objective criteria. Most government building codes I've seen will require compliance with certain engineering standards, and the engineering standards themselves will say things like "a building built in this part of the country must be able to withstand x ms-2 in vertical acceleration and y ms-2 in lateral acceleration". It doesn't get any more objective than that.
Well... kind of. There is a whole lot of shit like this:
705.1 General. Each portion of a building separated by one or more fire walls that comply with the
provisions of this section shall be considered a separate building. The extent and location of such fire walls shall
provide a complete separation. Where a fire wall also separates groups that are required to be separated by a fire
barrier wall, the most restrictive requirements of each separation shall apply. Fire walls located on property lines
shall also comply with Section 503.2. Such fire walls (party walls) shall be constructed without openings. (from the 2000 ICC building codes)
It is specifying a specific arrangement of firewalls. What if I can make buildings even safer with nothing resembling firewalls? It's not nearly as clear cut or simple as "building must be able to withstand x forces".
Plus it's not as though housing contractors actually build experimental buildings in earthquake test facilities to see if they comply. What they do is screw a bunch of prefabricated pieces together. All of which are accepted by the inspectors as following the codes. The result is a monoculture which is highly reluctant to accept new ideas. Remember that building boards consist of people from the construction industries, they people who make and use these materials.
The people who make the decisions on whether your buildings are unelected boards who have investments in the status quo. They can force you to spend 100s of thousands in engineering fees to convince them that your design is safe enough for you to live in.
It's not requiring fire walls. It is allowing their use as a method of code compliance - Trust me, the ability to use fire walls to create separate buildings provides enormous economic savings to developers and owners every day.
Indeed. I'd imagine that the image of the tweet on Reddit was seen by someone at NYT then created with the hopes of pulling viewers because it was clearly a hot button topic.
The opposite of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Journalists look to Reddit to see what people are interested in, write the article, point back to self. Reap rewards.
Right? It's the content production business after all, just makes good business sense.
I find the comparison with SE Asia rather poor with regards to investment as I've been to Sri Lanka and the amount of money that is available for basic infrastructure, let alone anti-tsunami barricades, is negligible compared to Japan unfortunately.
From the article: "unlike Southeast Asians, many of whom died in the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami because they lingered near the coast despite clear warnings to flee"
Interesting way to put it (implying that the issue was behavioral/cultural rather than one of engineering)
I think they were referring to the annual drills institutionalized in Japan. From the drills conducted annually, people knew how to react to disasters, whereas people who don't experience drills (in, say SEA) ignored the warnings or didn't know how to react since they had no reference.
Most South and SE asians didn't even knew the word tsunami before 2004 December 26, including me. There was no proper alert system, awareness or knowledge of the impact at that time and most were caught surprised.
Japan was much better prepared because they have been facing this so long. Blaming this as a behavioural/cultural thing is ridiculous. I would bet that all the South and SE asian countries are better prepared for the next tsunami. We have been already through multiple tsunami warnings from then which did the job pretty well.
I would think it was part engineering as they probably did not have, and do not seem to have now, any sort of alarming system in place. (at least not at the coastal places I visited)
It sounds like the strict building codes served them well for residential housing and commercial spaces. However, it looks like the engineering standards for their nuclear reactors could stand to be a little more strict (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42025882/ns/world_news-asiapacif...). Perhaps the news article is overly sensational, but I can't help but wonder, "Why are we even talking about the possibility of a meltdown in 2011?" Shouldn't loss of reactor cooling capability result in an automatic reactor shutdown? Wasn't the lesson of the Three Mile Island accident that you should build your reactor so that the default thing that happens when you lose power (and therefore lose cooling capability) is that the control rods drop via gravity and stop the reaction? Any nuclear engineers out there care to comment on the design of Japan's reactors?
Please don't spread misinformation about this. The reactors stopped automatically, but you still have to cool them. They ran out of diesel, so they're getting mobile power units in to cool the rest.
The BBC had a "live feed" of a huge blazing fire, and the caption was "Government declares Nuclear Emergency".
The fire was at a natural gas storage tank...
I don't know if these news agencies like stoking mass panic, but you need to be a little sceptical about reporting in the media about "contentious" issues like nuclear power.
It's standard procedure in these situations to evacuate a 3km radius from the plant, just in case. If the situation gets slightly more... interesting (as in, they need to vent some steam), they evacuate 10km.
TL;DR: Let's wait and see what happens before declaring that Japan is about to be annihilated by nuclear fallout.
Please don't get mad at this, but the reason I love hackernews is because its not like reddit has become: there are no silly posts or posts that don't relate to technology and programming. This post seems necessary for reddit, but not for hacker news. Please don't let this community change!
I'm not sure of the news aspect of this. Japan has a long history of damaging earthquakes and tsunamis, and they're famous for their preparations for the same.
> I'm not sure of the news aspect of this. Japan has a long history of damaging earthquakes and tsunamis, and they're famous for their preparations for the same.
Yet they still "needed" the Great Hanshin Earthquake 16 years ago to fix numerous issues, especially in disaster planning, prevention and response, and in infrastructure management.
And "16 years ago" makes it news how? How does that reform invalidate that modern Japan has been doing far more in terms of earthquake-related preparedness for decades than other countries?
If so, yes I suppose that could be true. Fewer people would die in traffic accidents if we had a stoplight on every corner, we had to drive Sherman Tanks, and the speed limit was 20MPH. The problem is we'd be way less productive and we'd be much poorer.
If China had Japan's strict building codes from 1980 to present, China's economic growth would have been far slower, but in an earthquake, more people may die in China. Is that a good thing or bad thing? Over the last 20 years, strong economic growth in China has likely saved far more lives than strict building codes may have saved. But that is too complex to get into here.
Also note Japan's poor economic growth during over the last 10-20 years.
Are some people in Japan better off because of strict building codes? Yes, no doubt. Is everyone in Japan better off due to strict building code? much harder to say.