Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by pfdietz 238 days ago
The argument for codes and such is information asymmetry. The person selling you something may know corners were cut, but they don't tell you.

An argument against codes (and licensing) is they are one size fits all. Maybe someone with different preferences would trade off quality and price differently than you do. I think this especially shows up in licensing: a rich person wants their doctor to be extremely good, even if that greatly elevates the cost; a poor person would be better off at lesser quality medical care they could actually afford.

1 comments

My favorite example of redundancy is the US requirement to have two staircases in an apartment block for the case of fire.

Most other developed nations do not mandate this, one staircase being considered enough. And they don't have an epidemics of fire deaths either. In general, frequency of fires in domestic settings is a fraction of those 100 years ago.

If Switzerland or Czechia can live with one staircase per building, so can the US. This alone would reduce costs of construction somewhat, and make some currently illegal construction projects legal.