alt Hacker NewsThis is an impressively uncharitable read of GP, and in my view totally uncalled for.
People who "generally" oppose "regulation", in my experience, very often have very good reasons for having adopted that stance, that are rooted in examination (or at least knowledge) of several actually existing regulations. And I would hope we all agree that there are plenty of really bad regulations out there. (If not: I invite you to check out the book https://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp... , and consider how this legal state of affairs could come about.)
The entirely unfounded allegation of cronyism ("and the ones where you have friends that work there") is especially absurd. Where the guidelines say
> Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.
this is the exact mechanism for "trampling curiousity" I imagine the site staff have in mind. Why would anyone who can offer you an alternative point of view, want to participate in an environment where responses read like this?
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I am criticizing a common pattern of thought that I observe, including in the post I responded to. "I'm against X in general, but in this case X is warranted" is a very dangerous thought process, and I believe a good way to try to dispel it is to ask "are all the special cases just ones that you understand and affect you personally, and all the 'in general' ones that you don't?". It doesn't need to be 100% accurate to be a good challenge of the thought pattern.
Yes, there are really bad regulations out there. Some of them are well-intended but poorly thought out, but even more are regulatory capture that is enabled by the same "they're all bad anyway" attitude. Let's work on improving regulations. In my experience, the people who are "against regulation in general" are not the ones who are interested in improving the regulatory body as a whole, and in fact work directly against it.
> The entirely unfounded allegation of cronyism ("and the ones where you have friends that work there") is especially absurd
I was not accusing anyone of cronyism. I was saying that people who have friends who work at, say, USGS, probably talk about what they do and understand that they actually serve a useful function. I am challenging those people to consider the fact that perhaps agencies they've barely heard of also serve a useful function, and they would also support the existence of that agency if they had had conversations with people who work there. Cronyism has nothing to do with it, only familiarity, understanding, and a personal connection.
I agree that the characterization was uncalled for in the post you replied to. But I don't agree with your statement that most people who generally oppose regulation have good reasons for doing so. Conservative media outlets have pushed that stance for decades now and it gets regurgitated all the time. Ask most of them what specific regulations they want to see gone and you'll get a blank stare.