[maxeda]

> “Environmental regulations are, in my view, largely terrible,” he said at an event with the libertarian Cato Institute last year. “You have to get permission in advance, as opposed to, say, paying a penalty if you do something wrong, which I think would be much more effective.”

This quote is particularly telling of a billionaire's mindset when the fines are too small to matter.

[freedomben]

The truth is somewhere in the middle. Many regulations are terrible and serve as a huge hindrance to innovation, and effectively restrict certain things to only the already-massively-rich entrepreneurs. However, (IMHO) there are a lot of regulations that are important and absolutely should be enforced up front. Finding the right balance is kind of impossible, and I don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, but even well-intended regulations often just create roadblocks and cement incumbents in a particular space.

[skopje]

>> >Many regulations are terrible and serve as a huge hindrance to innovation

What is an example of a regulation that was a "huge" hinderance to innovation?

Looking at the past 40 years of the US technological progress and the only thing I seen hindering innovation are the tech companies themselves through monopoly, monopsony, patents, and regulatory capture. (Unless the last one is what you meant, but that's a regulation put in place by a monopoly to maintain its monopoloy and not to protect the air we breathe).

EDIT: I am referring to "innovation" not "execution".

[freedomben]

Speaking from personal experience running a non-profit seeking to disrupt the entrenched prison communications industry, there have been several. FCC data reporting requirements that took an FTE 200 hours to complete, accessibility requirements that have to be in place before you can (legally) even launch a pilot or MVP, endless legalese documents to parse through, compliance requirements that have to be checked even if they don't make any sense for the application, and some of the best ones: arbitrary requirements like "to be eligible for a proposal/contract, you must be in business at least 10 years and have a minimum $50M in annual revenue" (a requirement clearly written by our incumbent competitors to exclude us that was adopted by the regulators). Oh and all of that stuff you have to deal with before you can even close your first deal.

[Seattle3503]

People are using environmental regulations to block the development of green infrastructure we need. Eg blocking the deployment solar panels.

https://www.pbssocal.org/redefine/group-sues-to-block-new-de...

[thegreatpeter]

– Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform: Intended to stabilize the system post-crisis, but its complex compliance requirements made it difficult for small and mid-sized banks to offer new products or compete with large incumbents.

- State by state money transmission licensing: Fintechs like PayPal and Stripe had to get 50+ separate state licenses, creating huge compliance costs and delaying product launches.

- FDIC De Novo Bank Rules: caused a collapse in new bank formation for nearly a decade (only a handful of new banks were approved between 2010–2016).

– Over 20 state laws restricted cities from building their own broadband networks, protecting incumbents and stalling fiber deployment.

- Slow spectrum auctions and rigid allocation by FCC delayed rollout of 5G infrastructure compared to countries with faster processes.

- State-based regulation patchwork for insurance: each US state has its own insurance regulator requiring 50+ separate filings for new products, slowing national rollout of innovations

- ACA: while expanding coverage, created heavy administrative burdens for smaller insurers and startups trying to innovate in plan design or digital enrollment

- Conflicting state laws and lack of federal standards created uncertainty for companies like Waymo and Cruise, delaying scaling of self-driving technology.

- Drone FAA rules: heavily limited commercial drone use, slowing the rise of delivery and mapping applications until modernized rules came into effect.

- California's recent, very nuanced "Transparency in Frontier Artificial Intelligence Act" targeting frontier models and "safety" and "risk reporting" like "critical safety incidents"

[skopje]

Thanks for listing these, this is really an impressive compilation. I see how naive I was. I assumed everyone agreed that Dodd-Frank was a great bill, and protection of FCC from being carved up by billionaires was also a good thing. Same goes for keeping drones from filling the skies, and putting guardrails on AI billionaires from running wild and breaking big important things. But clearly political alignment determines what is considered innovation. I think almost all but a few of these regulations are spectacular (except for the broadband one) and don't stifle innovation: they protect us from centibillionaires' greedy, vile nature to take more for themselves at our expense while providing a net negative (e.g., Amazon, Facebook, Oracle, megabanks, cryptobros, Private Equity for medical and insurance, etc.). I can see we are on opposite sides of the political spectrum here.

[ETH_start]

In the U.S., McKinsey estimates that large infrastructure projects typically take 4 to 5 years to go through federal permitting before construction can begin.

https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/public-sector/our-insigh...

[skopje]

Offtopic: an infrastructure project isn't innovation.

[ETH_start]

Deployment is necessary for innovation. You can't iterate on designs if you don't deploy them in the real world and if you don't scale up their production.

[JumpCrisscross]

> an infrastructure project isn't innovation

What? The Pyramids, Roman aqueducts, domes, et cetera weren’t innovations?

[skopje]

Engineers vs mechanics. Architects vs construction workers.

[3D30497420]

Most regulations are meant to limit a person or organization's ability to do something, which almost by definition will limit creativity and potential innovation. The challenge is getting the right balance of freedom and regulation that people are suitably protected while also allowing for innovation. And, of course, that balance exists in different places for different people.

Complete de-regulation of a sector, say banking or medicine, would certainly encourage a lot of innovation. A lot of people would also be hurt in the process.

[correlator]

Out of curiosity, have you ever attempted to create something from scratch and bring it to market? Not as an employee, but as someone trying to figure it out?

Your work history will impact the way you view this issue IMO.

[skopje]

Yes. 28 years ago I founded a small a software company (4 employees) that made test software for a Tier 1 automotive vendor's ECUs. I sold the IP to them in 2007. Next question? Or do you think my background makes my opinion invalid for another reason?

[capriciotrary]

It was amazing just being able to build things back then. These days you need to cough up $1500 for a PDF of ISO 26262 to even think about doing something commercially with automotive ECUs. Depending on what you're trying to do, there are dozens of additional standards with thousands of pages. Not even to mention CARB compliance.

[correlator]

That sounds really cool. The background does provide a lot of perspective on your views. It makes a lot of sense. Thank you for keeping us safe on the road!

[thereisnospork]

It's confusing how someone who has tried to build anything of substance, in say California, couldn't have run into a regulation or ten stifling innovation.

I for one have seen mid-5 figures spent on a dumpster enclosure, because of building codes.

[skopje]

Stifled by a dumpster!!!

[spankibalt]

> "What is an example of a regulation that was a 'huge' hinderance to innovation?"

Not one (token) example, but "many". But I'm as curious as you are and thirsty for some well-researched and replicated numbers. ;)

[3D30497420]

In some cases you are correct, however the happy middle in this case probably does not include many (most?) of their violations. One particular example:

> Workers have complained of chemical burns from the waste material generated by the tunneling process, and firefighters must decontaminate their equipment after conducting rescues from the project sites. The company was fined more than $112,000 by Nevada’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration in late 2023 after workers complained of “ankle-deep” water in the tunnels, muck spills and burns.

In another part, the company is accused of dumping this water directly into streets (presumably without decontamination).

[freedomben]

Yes to be clear, my statement was meant very generally, not about any of these violations (which do sound pretty bad)

[micromacrofoot]

then maybe this isn't the right place to make it?

[Seattle3503]

I agree, this case lools like cause for concern

[joering2]

This is actually what we would love to have as Gov Department - DORO: Department Of Regulations Overview - a body that would asses each regulation and cut of all these that are unnecessary and were clearly created by politicians/lobbyist/lawmakers bribed by big corp. to "lawfully" eliminate competition.

[Seattle3503]

Rather than focus on provenance, IMO a focus on cost vs benefit of regulation would be more effective.

[capriciotrary]

When I moved to a developing country with very few rules and regulations, sometimes I could feel the libertarianism leaving my body. There is definitely a happy regulatory medium which doesn't involve having to check the shower with a multimeter when moving in.

[miltonlost]

> Many regulations are terrible and serve as a huge hindrance to innovation

Because "Innovation" isn't the be-all-end-all of a regulation or shouldn't be one of its aims or concerns. As a hyperbole, I don't care about "innovation" if you need to throw 4000 people into an industrial shredder in order to do it.

[spankibalt]

> "The truth is somewhere in the middle."

Another day, another invocation of the golden mean fallacy.

[freedomben]

Another day, another invocation of the false dichotomy fallacy.

If the truth isn't somewhere in the middle, then by definition it must be on one of the two extreme edges. That's a pretty bad (and ironic) fallacy to commit, unless you think everything in this world (or at least all regulations) are binary (either perfect or completely worthless)

[JumpCrisscross]

> If the truth isn't somewhere in the middle, then by definition it must be on one of the two extreme edges

In one dimension. If both sides are fundamentally wrong, the middle is probably also mischaracterised.

Pro-and anti-phlogiston theorists [1] weren’t validated by a little phlogiston. They were superseded by oxygen theory.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phlogiston_theory

[capriciotrary]

I'm no electrical engineer. But I know it's crucial to not let the phlogiston out of the wires.

[spankibalt]

> "In one dimension."

Not even in one dimension. But that is obviously also a categorization/composition issue and therefore subject to other, potentially fallacious and accordingly named, pitfalls.

[spankibalt]

> If the truth isn't somewhere in the middle, then by definition it must be on one of the two extreme edges.

Just because accurate results aren't to be found "somewhere (unspecific!) in the middle" doesn't mean that one a) finds them precisely in the (extreme) edges, or fringes, and b) that the middle is completely excluded, especially in the analysis and comparison of dynamic systems (e. g. macroeconomic analysis).

[capriciotrary]

Another day, another infinite-dimensional Hilbert space.

[amanaplanacanal]

This might work if they have to pay for the full cost of cleanup. Unfortunately as we've seen, limited liability means the company declares bankruptcy and the taxpayers are stuck with the bill.

[3D30497420]

And a company would rather spend multiples more fighting fines and liability than they'd actually pay in fines.

Not to mention a fine won't do much for people who get sick and die.

[eddieroger]

Fines that are too small to matter are just called permits after the fact. Hardly the penalty a fine should be, and this is hardly the first time that kind of thing has happened.

[tejohnso]

Yeah, of course you'd rather pay a fine when your net worth is thousands of times more than most people's, and the fines aren't scaled according to net worth.

You see this from time to time with headlines like "$CORP fined fifty MILLION dollars for ..." And then when you look into the details the fine turns out to be about one week of revenue and the offense resulted in early death for thousands of people over the past five years.

[dpc_01234]

He is right, but also the fines need to be higher, especially for repeated violations.

Ever worked in a company where you need approval from 7 separate teams to land a simple change? Just can't get anything done, no matter how useful. This is a huge problem. People generally do not understand what serialized blocking does to performance.

On the other hand the fines cited in the article seem laughably low. I don't know how much ground water was discharged, and how big of a deal it is, but at certain pricetag even billionaires will say: well, it's cheaper to get a cistern and take that water to a water treatment facility or something.

[Avshalom]

No, he's not, if you poison the population "paying a fine" isn't going to unpoison them.

[awesome_dude]

Him being right, or wrong, is a bold call to make.

But all he's saying is he wants to run his company the way tech entrepreneurs have been for a while - "It's better to ask forgiveness than permission" which they like because it's favored toward them, and, by the time a regulator has caught up, they have made a pile of money, or lost it all and gone.

[ETH_start]

For a different perspective, it's the difference between the kind of (pro-innovation) restrictions imposed on automobile companies versus those (anti-innovation) ones imposed on aircraft companies:

https://fee.org/articles/how-the-faa-is-keeping-flying-cars-...

[awesome_dude]

There's a couple of problems with that.

1. For some reason it only talks in terms of the USA, there's a whole world of manufacturers that could have stepped up to create flying cars if the market was interested.

2. There was, for a very long time, a thing called a "microlight" which allowed people to own their own snap private air craft (although not generally VTOL)

[JumpCrisscross]

> particularly telling of a billionaire's mindset when the fines are too small to matter

It’s telling that billionaires are human?

Fines being too small to matter are a phenomenon across the income spectrum. From delivery drivers dancing with New York meter maids to American tourists ignoring overseas traffic rules, the notion that inadequate fines stop deterring and become merely a nuisance is well know.

[idle_zealot]

Sure, but the deterrence these people are actively opposing exists to stop them from rendering the area unlivable for everyone. They know this and don't care, and are working to be allowed to ruin the world. That's what's telling.

[fl0id]

it's telling that he only sees effectiveness in what he wants. these rules are there for environmental protection, and in a worst case scenario, a fine is not gonna bring back the clean soil, or whatever was done.

[terminalshort]

The clean soil in downtown Las Vegas?

[fragmede]

It's not like there's a canyon or river or lake nearby that is of any size or goes anywhere.

[lucianbr]

Yeah, imho lots of people need reminding that billionaires are just regular joes with a very large bank account. With all the regular joe's faults.

Would be useful to remember that if Musk or Bezos say something, it may have the same chance of being right as what a delivery driver would say.

[Ekaros]

Or on average less empathetic and moral than regular joes... It is pretty hard to get to be billionaire without at least something average people would consider immoral.

[majormajor]

Fines are usually going to be too small to matter in a world with limited-personal-liability for corporations.

IMO his statement is disingenuous at that higher level. It's telling that billionaires propose things that wouldn't personally cut into their liquid assets, but instead would come out of a company that shields them from personal responsibility.

[terminalshort]

He's completely correct about that.

[jvanderbot]

I mean, this is right out of two books: Abundance, and Why Nothing Works. Both spend maybe 1/3 of their pages detailing the excesses and legalistic nature of env reviews. They are weaponized for political reasons and cause an insane amount of delays. They are put in place for the right reasons, but are too effective at slowing projects down.