The other day I went past the República Cromañon on the bus. The street in front of it has finally been reopened. It's been closed ever since 196 music fans were burned to death because its operators thought the fire regulations were "safety theater", and chained shut the emergency exits.
You can compare the death tolls from similar earthquakes in places that have effective earthquake building codes (like Chile) and places that don't (like Haïti). That's not "theater". That's hundreds of thousands of innocent deaths, prevented.
Fire used to be a major killer in the US, a century ago, far more than violent crime ever has been. People were routinely killed in panicked stampedes out of burning, or supposedly burning, theaters. Fire codes have reduced fire deaths to a tiny fraction of what they used to be.
I don't think this is a "basic philosophical impasse". I think you're just not aware of the relevant facts. Maybe if you're aware of them and just choose to ignore them, that's sort of "philosophical", in the sense that you're being insufficiently philosophical, perhaps even misosophical.
I strongly support my friends at Hacker Dojo who are undertaking the necessary improvements, and I encourage you to support them too, by donating money if possible.
A century ago, people also lit Christmas trees with candles (electric Christmas lights were not widely available until 1903).
Here's the thing about 'relevant facts': you could each have a mountain of them (the same mountain, even): and still reach diametrically opposing conclusions, precisely because this is a philosophical debate.
As with most political debates, this one can easily be reduced to two schools of thought: either the individual exists for themselves, wherein the highest moral value is liberty, or the individual exists at the behest of society, wherein the highest moral value is servitude.
In the case of the latter, it is a part of society's mandate to protect itself from the individual. The only question becomes, how far do you go? As evidenced by this thread, intelligent people can disagree about what is reasonable or necessary.
Science/<Deity> help us if we continue our relentless march toward democracy, where the answer to that question increasingly derives from society's lowest common denominator.
I think individual human beings have inherent moral value, but "society" and the state do not. Contrary to your assertions, this does not entail that there should be no enforced fire codes. Enforced fire codes have proven to be a relatively inexpensive and highly effective way to preserve large numbers of individual human beings from horrible deaths. Even when they illuminate their Christmas trees with candles.
Don't forget positive liberty. The gilded age had copious negative liberty but very very low positive liberty. Democracy is definitely not the answer, but libertarianism is probably the greatest political threat to civilization as a whole at the moment. Meritocracy is the right course, the government needs to be stronger and needs to enshrine positive liberty as a human right.
I don't think you understand. In this debate, it's only possible to take one of two positions: put another way, either you believe people should be controlled, or you believe people should be free.
I have a fundamental disagreement with the premise of 'positive' vs. 'negative' liberty, because it conflates separate, unrelated issues (as a corollary, I also reject the notion that anything someone else has to provide for you can be considered a 'human right').
In my opinion, the only acceptable definition of 'liberty' in a political context would be something like 'one's ability to live free of coercion and violence from others'.
Since this necessarily extends to everyone, not just me, a free society therefore requires a strong judicial system, not only to protect persons and property from physical harm, but to prevent things like fraud, collusion, or any other activity that deprives an individual of life, liberty, or property absent their informed, uncoerced consent.
Believe it or not, if such a society existed, providing equal protection under the law, it would certainly be superior to what we have in the US today (consider that no one went to jail during the banking crisis, despite the number of laws [especially fraud laws] broken).
Equal justice under the law is one component of positive liberty.
The gilded age saw the rise of Marxism and labour unions precisely because the super-rich domination of the world was so depraved, complete, and horrible.
A recognition of positive liberty is very very basic to understanding the human condition. Without access to food, water, shelter for every child, no concept of liberty is possible. The positive/negative liberty concept is important precisely because it exposes the stupidity of the 100% classical liberal approach, which HAS been tried and HAS failed.
The job of the state is to improve human lives, not to conform to some stupid dead ideology that is making a modern resurgence because propaganda has become so very ubiquitous and powerful.
Also, false. The founding fathers were pretty explicit about what our inalienable rights were. Food, clothing, and shelter do not number among them.
Again, you have you realize that, philosophically, the assertion you're making is that the government has the right and duty to take from one group of people, and give to another. Once you make that okay, well... here we are now.
You really don't have a clue what I'm talking about.
I don't give a shit about the founding fathers. I am philosophically asserting that positive liberty is a legitimate philosophical concept, a worthwhile concept, and in fact I believe that the widespread adoption of the value of "positive liberty" will be the next ideological step forward for humanity.
The bridge between our species right now and our species in a Star Trek future is our recognition of positive liberty as a human right.
> You really don't have a clue what I'm talking about.
Hahahahaha. Oohhh, but I do, because I've debated your kind more times than I care to count. It's you who doesn't have the wit to see we're talking past each other, again, due to differing philosophical premises. The difference is, at least on an intellectual level, I understand the premises underpinning your philosophy (provably erroneous though they may be), whereas you're not even capable of understanding mine.
> I don't give a shit about the founding fathers.
Welp, if you live in the US, you might consider finding a new country of residence, as they're the guys who set down the rules for this one.
> I am philosophically asserting that positive liberty is a legitimate philosophical concept
Are you familiar with the term 'cognitive dissonance'? As soon as you assert that the government's responsibility is to provide for the 'greater good', you lose all practical constraints on its power, and end up in a society like the one we have now, with eminent domain [1], civil asset forfeiture [2], the war on drugs, the war on terror, indefinite detention, etc., etc.
> The bridge between our species right now and our species in a Star Trek future is our recognition of positive liberty as a human right.
Riiiighhht... because governments are known to do such a great job at tasks that don't involve breaking things and killing people. Hell, even space travel (a product of the Cold War, let's not forget) is now being primarily taken up by the private sector.
"This post brought to you by Statism: ideas so good, they have to be mandatory." [3]
Do you have trouble understanding that other people have different opinions than you?
I'm fully aware that I'm a statist. You think I don't know this?
To say that statism is philosophically indefensible is complete bullshit. Tons of philosophers have defended it and it's very much alive and well. Statism remains the most popular form of government in the world. Statism has produced the greatest governments in history.
In conclusion, I think it's quite sad that you don't even realize people like me exist. You seem to think that my existence as a calm, confident, well-informed statist is somehow impossible.
You really don't seem to be listening to me. How many times do I have to say that I find the arguments in favour of statism and positive liberty to be convincing and valid?
Honestly, classical liberalism has been tried and it is bullshit. It was a good idea in its time but we have surpassed it. There are better forms of government.
Also, I don't give a shit about the founding fathers and I'm under no obligation to. They were smart back in their day but now they are old and dusty and should go die. Humanity must progress.
Well, as I said, it always starts with things like fire codes and then goes from there to spending tens of thousands on traffic studies. $15,000 for fire alarms might be ok. $150,000 for wheelchair accessible bathrooms is, in my view, overkill. They charge $100/month; that would mean at least 125 memberships just to pay for the bathrooms.
But, just taking your specific example for a second, that actually seems to argue in favor of my point that these regulations are safety theater...because the Cromanon people received a permit!
www.nytimes.com/2011/04/21/world/americas/21briefs-7MEMBERSOFBA_BRF.html?_r=1
...evidence showed that the club was given a permit
although it lacked basic measures like fire extinguishers.
A permit was issued, but the place wasn't safe. So that argues in favor of the concept that it was safety theater. Just like how the TSA doesn't actually protect against terrorism, it just tries to appear like it does.
As for the next move, this is a Rorschach test. One response is to increase the stringency of the regulation, indirectly fining all other businesses for the Cromanon incident. An alternative response is to penalize the regulators involved, in the same way that Arthur Andersen paid a penalty for giving a thumbs up on Enron.
The key difference is whether there is one government regulator or many distributed and competing reviewers. If there is only one regulator, the inevitable result of any terrible incident will be to monotonically ratchet up regulations on everyone, TSA style, with the only concern being PR and no heed for costs. Alternatively, if there is competition among reviewers, then that organically leads to an ongoing assessment of whether a particular rule is worth the costs or not.
The point of the codes isn't to fit it into the Hacker Dojo's budget. The point of the codes is to make buildings safe, accessible, etc. I'm sure every business would like to not pay for wheelchair accessible bathrooms if they could get away with it - calling it a 'MVP' or just not being able to afford it. That is no excuse to not making your place accessible and safe.
How are we even debating this? Do we really think people in wheelchairs shouldn't be able to use the bathroom? Pretty much every fire/accessibility regulation seems like something I'd want from every building I step foot in.
They were quoted a charge of $150,000 to add three wheelchair-accessible bathrooms. Do you think that is really the best use of money at inception? Can't they say "we'll add that when we get to 1000 members, we can't afford it right now, please go to the Starbucks next door, here's a map"?
It's pretty damn hard to raise $150k. That is easily more than a year's income, after tax, for a highly paid engineer in the Bay Area. Even with national publicity from the New York Times they've raised about $50k. And it's sort of difficult to raise $150k for the bathrooms.
This is a gold-plated feature for a garage group without money, it's not a reasonable early feature. And that's before the traffic studies, concrete enclosed dumpsters, and other things the city wants. The ironic thing is that several people in this thread support the regulations while also saying things like:
For the record? I'm absolutely for the Hacker Dojo and
wish more existed around here (and / or that I had the
time / ability to found one).
But the reason that more don't exist around here is the price tag: more than $250k for a simple coworking space that attracts negative attention from city bureaucrats. For comparison, that is 22X the average YCombinator investment.
We must thank god YC itself hasn't attracted their attention. I guess pg could pay them off now, but might have been touchy in the early days.
Asian slums are one product I'd rather not import. Your attitude will turn back the clock on civilization. You want to revert to slums, workhouses, child labour, the crushing poverty of indentured servitude. Your approach was tried before and found lacking.
Human life and dignity is more important than saving silicon valley a few dollars.
Cromañon was issued permits because the regulations weren't enforced, because the city government was corrupt. How is that an argument for not having or not enforcing the regulations?
You can compare the death tolls from similar earthquakes in places that have effective earthquake building codes (like Chile) and places that don't (like Haïti). That's not "theater". That's hundreds of thousands of innocent deaths, prevented.
Fire used to be a major killer in the US, a century ago, far more than violent crime ever has been. People were routinely killed in panicked stampedes out of burning, or supposedly burning, theaters. Fire codes have reduced fire deaths to a tiny fraction of what they used to be.
I don't think this is a "basic philosophical impasse". I think you're just not aware of the relevant facts. Maybe if you're aware of them and just choose to ignore them, that's sort of "philosophical", in the sense that you're being insufficiently philosophical, perhaps even misosophical.
I strongly support my friends at Hacker Dojo who are undertaking the necessary improvements, and I encourage you to support them too, by donating money if possible.