Multiply the simple act of kissing the bureaucrat's ring a million fold and you get secular stagnation in the economy. Every small decision by entrepreneurs of whether to try that new product must be weighed against the bureaucratic burden. Every new "common sense" rule comes with permanent costs. Each time a regulator has latitude to determine whether you can move forward with your project -- as opposed to a strict rule book with concrete requirements -- that regulator is susceptible to corruption and political retaliation. When the needle starts to tip toward entrepreneurs not taking the risk, then you get stagnation. The bureaucracy will slowly strangle the vibrant economy to death.

One side of the problem is that "strict rule book with concrete requirements" translate into stamps for quality certification and plenty of dumb rule following.

Of course.

But the alternative of rules that are open to interpretation is worse. If there must be rules, let them be clear and concrete.

Taken to an extreme, clear rules not open to interpretation lead exactly to the crazy situation you can read on the article.

No Über/lyft (and airbnb, et al) are doing something different. Regulatory arbitrage - Purposely breaking the law in order to have a structural advantage over competitors.

This guy didn't want others to play by one set of rules while he played by another (advantageous) set.

Doesn't regulatory arbitrage mean following the regulations but taking advantage of loopholes in them? So it's not illegal. That seems a bit different from breaking them, possibly paying a fine, and still profiting anyway. The latter is what I've heard of Uber doing in some cases. It's also what shops do by trading on holidays where they're supposed to be closed.

Correct. Regulatory arbitrage is about finding and taking advantage of loopholes, and shifting business activities to other business units (or even locations) where while those actions are technically legal, they're very, very borderline.

Then you generally couple regulatory arbitrage with money spent on lawyers and lobbying to monitor the existing loopholes, in order to make sure they don't disappear.

What Uber/Lyft are doing is more equivalent to poker: a combination of betting (a large enough war chest to pay lawyers and fines) and bluffing (using marketing campaigns to garner public interest and shame/scare the establishment).

When the stakes get too high (e.g. ride sharing laws in Austin, TX), they fold.

> Purposely breaking the law in order to have a structural advantage over competitors.

Not one of the the groups you mentioned makes a habit of breaking the law. They look for opportunities to get around the excessive weight of our insanely litigious and complicated regulatory environment.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with this. They are helping humanity escape the productivity sink of pointless regulations, set insanely far along the diminishing returns curve.

Think about how many billions of dollars of productive output are wasted every year so some idiot pencil-pushers can make sure the correct stickers are present on building materials.

>>It's the same thing that Uber was doing with the self-driving car permit, if you actually pay attention to the details. Neither are less safe, it's just that both didn't kiss the ring of the bureaucracy and the civil servants didn't like it.

This is ridiculous. Uber's self-driving cars have run red lights on at least one occasion[1]. Their technology is quite far behind that of Google and others.

Furthermore, the permit in question is both very easy and cheap to attain. We aren't talking about years of bureaucratic process.

The most likely reason Uber has refused to attain permits is because doing so would require disclosing accidents.

[1]http://www.theverge.com/2016/12/14/13960836/uber-self-drivin...

> Furthermore, the permit in question is both very easy and cheap to attain. We aren't talking about years of bureaucratic process.

If true, then the permits are worthless.

> The most likely reason Uber has refused to attain permits is because doing so would require disclosing accidents.

Don't accidents (self-driving or otherwise) already need to be reported to the police in California? They sure do in my jurisdiction.

... disclosed as self-driving car accidents.

They're pursuing self-driving tech in a shifty way - paying a driver to perform backup (in a way that Google has shown can't be done) and otherwise letting an unfinished AI have full-control of the vehicle at road speeds. When the cars make a mistake (run a red) they blame the driver so they can claim a flawless self-driving record.

If they said they were self-driving, and got the permit, they'd be required to log activations so we'd know who was supposed to be in control at the time.

They aren't self driving though.

The law is clear.

If you have a human at the wheel, it is lane assist, and automated cruise control.

If you don't like it, then change the law.

Right, that's not self-driving at all, but they claim that it is. Shifty.

The problem is that they've put drivers in the car as backup; they're not supposed to drive or it ruins the experiment. So they won't be ready to take over when needed. One already missed their cue and the car ran a red light...

Jesus fuck stop shilling for Uber. They don't need your help.

I want my lane assist and automatic cruise control cars now, please.

And I am sick of people who don't understand the law trying to stop this perfectly legal technology from entering the market.

Read the law, and get educated please.

If that's the law, why did Tesla and every other company actually applied for and got the permit? Are you suggesting that you know better than their teams of lawyers?

You are misinformed. Tesla does not have a permit for every single "self driving" car they have on the road.

There are 10s of thousands of self driving Teslas on the road right now, in the hands of customers. You can buy one! You don't have to get a permit for them.

California Vehicle Code 38750 covers the testing of autonomous vehicles by the manufacturer. It does not cover the usage of those vehicles by customers.

http://codes.findlaw.com/ca/vehicle-code/veh-sect-38750.html

You didn't bother reading the article. It was a human driver, not the car, that ran the red light.

Has this been confirmed? John Gruber has speculated that the "human error" was that the person sitting in the driver's seat failed to stop the self-driving system from driving through the red light:

http://daringfireball.net/linked/2016/12/19/hazards-of-autop...

I don't know how much more confirmation you can get than an official statement. If you want to believe speculation over an official statement that's entirely up to you.

But if you stand at that particular intersection for an hour, I'm pretty sure it's the one on 3rd street by the MOMA, you'll probably see half a dozen people blow by that light. It's entirely reasonable to think that a human driver would drive through, but it seems rather standard for software to detect the redlight. But you are free to believe what you want.

the Uber permit was a story because it WASN'T safe; it got in the news for running red lights.

Read the story, not the headlines. It was a human driver, not the car, that ran the red light.

Tesla's automated cruise control would run a red light as well.

The law on this was clear. If you have a human at the wheel, you can have whatever technology you want doing "lane assist" and automated cruise control.

If Tesla is legal, than so is Uber.

'legality' isn't the issue, it was Uber refusing to acquire the associated permitting.

You do not have to get a permit for lane assist technology.

Tesla's cars that you can buy right now have lane assist and nobody owns any permits.

If there is a human at the wheel, no permit required.

The California DMV disagrees with you... And they revoked the registration plates for their 16 cars.

https://consumerist.com/2016/12/22/uber-packs-up-its-self-dr...

Yes they do. A politician that had no problem with what the private company was doing for months, became mad at the private company as soon as there were political consequences (and not a moment sooner!).

It is unsurprising to me that a politician cares about politics and doesn't give a shit about the law.

And as soon as this stuff went to court the politician would have lost, because the law is very clear on this.

But it would have delayed things for a year or 2. And Uber was perfectly able to just move to Arizona.

But it is no matter. Eventually this stuff will go to court and the politician who doesn't care about the law will lose.

Since when is the DMV "a politician?"

The Director of the CA DMV is a position appointed by the Governor. While it's not an elected position, that certainly qualifies as a political office. The DMV itself may not be a politician, but it's made up of people that happen to have a politician as their boss.

I believe that "no permit required" is for the permit office and the legislature to decide...

Looking through your comment history, it looks like you have a very strong attachment to Uber! Strong to the point that you have to create alternate definitions of commonly-held terms in response to criticism of the company. Any reason?

> I believe that "no permit required" is for the permit office and the legislature to decide.

Yes, but importantly the legislature overrides the permit office. The permit office has the right to decide in some situations, but in others situations their decisions can be objectively correct or incorrect.

My reason is that I hate politicians who don't care about the law, and delay perfectly legal technologies that are going to save millions of lives.

Every year, a hundred thousand people in the world die in car related incidents.

Every last one of these deaths are preventable. And every year that politicians delay this technology, is 100 thousand more people dead that could have been saved.

They delay it even when it clearly doesn't break the law. The laws on lane assist and cruise control are clear. This stuff is already deployed to tens of thousands of Tesla cars, that are on the road right now.

I do not work for Uber, if that is what you are insinuating (although I have received recruiting emails, as I am a SF web developer. I don't really like their intense work environment.).

I "merely" care a lot about the 100 thousand people that politicians, ignorant of the law, are killing every year.

It is not about the 175 dollars. It is about all the other rules and regulations that come with being a "self-driving" car.

And the law doesn't apply to situations where a human is at the wheel, so the extra rules and regulations shouldn't.

If 100k lives are at stake, then a $175 permit is the kind of pocket change you can work out after the fact, not a reason to uproot and relocate.

The argument is disingenuous on its face.

(Uber employee) Read the story, not the headlines. The $175 permit only required verified insurance and training for the drivers. That's it. It wasn't a safety inspection at all. They didn't ensure that the cars were safe. It was simply bureaucracy.

Plus, based on the actual law written, Uber's implementation wasn't covered under the permit. Uber has hundreds of lawyers, I'm pretty sure they know what they are doing. Why should they get a permit that they don't need to?

Plus additional reporting requirements. I think that's what they wanted to avoid, not a $150 permit for a $50,000 car.

Bingo. This is about bureaucrats stamping papers and money going to approved vendors. Not about safety.

Reminds me of what I had to do with my car when I moved to California due to "emissions" regulations. CA emissions meant that even if performing as it did 30 years ago as a new car, it would not have been legal, since they keep raising standards year after year to the point where the car, as built, was illegal. After doing significant repair work (myself), it exceeded California's strict requirements. By the numbers it blew clean as a whistle, better than stock. But I used [cue the scary music] after-market parts (!) that did not bear the great stamp of California, and therefore failed emissions anyway as "tampered". Ended up having to sell it to someone out of state because California wouldn't budge on the stamps and bureaucracy.

I feel for this guy. Regulations and codes should serve some identifiable overall good. It shouldn't be simply about compliance and getting the right stamps on the right papers.

Except the bit where self-driving ubers were running lights and driving unsafely.

>This isn't about building codes. It's about stickers and permits

That is the building code. It is all about stickers and stamps. Why is a tree that grew on my land that I cut myself not acceptable? It has nothing to do with the wood obviously, it has to do with creating make work jobs for bureaucrats to "inspect" and stamp lumber.

Trees are not covered under building codes. They are covered under city ordinances. And I cut down 3 trees on my property because I wasn't going to spend $150 per tree so that city hall could get themselves a nice Christmas bonus for doing nothing except filling out paperwork.

Acceptable as a source of lumber to build a house. You know, like the article we're discussing?

actually. Depending on a lot of circumstances, it may not actually be acceptable :) That is why these grading standards exist in the first place.

They were done due to failures, not because government was bored.

No, they were done because of lobbying from the lumber industry. If you have any evidence that stamped lumber is superior in any way I would love to see it. Because if you've ever built a house, you'd know you have to throw away about 10% of stamped lumber because it is trash.

"No, they were done because of lobbying from the lumber industry. "

This is simply false. Seriously. I'd love to see where this history came from? Do you have any real source, or is this typical "lobbyists did it" bluster.

Here is the history of stamping in the US: There were failures and complaints in ~1920's from mills/etc starting to sell substandard lumber due to the depression. Code enforcers wanted a sane way to ensure the houses being built weren't being built with substandard lumber. Folks asked Dept of Commerce to come up with voluntary standards for grading and inspection. NIST (well, what is now NIST) created a set of simple voluntary grading standards. They've revised it a few times.

Literally the only thing the grading agencies do is grade. They don't actually care about the end result. They don't make more or less money one way or the other.

The grading standards are also pretty simple. It's not like it's rocket science.

Note that most mills stamp their own lumber. You just have to have someone trained to do it. In wisconsin, for example, it takes 1 day to be certified.

One of the 7 grading agencies randomly inspect, and if they find enough errors, they'll hold you up.

As for the amount of waste, most waste i've seen is from 1. later-bent studs due to wood movement. This is not structurally unsound (just nobody feels like re-straightening them), so the stamp still is doing it's job of saying it's sound. 2. damage during transit.

Your other question was "evidence stamped lumber is superior in any way".

okay. that's easy. Two grading methods include machine stress rating and non-destructive evaluation. See http://www.southernpine.com/grade-methods/ for example.

I will strongly assert that lumber machine tested and evaluated for actual strength and stamped as such is superior to random lumber that is untested and unknown.

Visually graded lumber is usually graded based on things like knot size and slope of grain, both of which have a significant structural effect on lumber (structural strength decreases as grain deviation increases).

Assuming grading is being done properly (and again, there's a lot of checks going on), yes, the lumber is structurally better.

But maybe you don't believe the physics, and think that things like slope of grain don't impact the structural properties? If so, i guess i can't solve that problem for you. It's pretty well studied:

http://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/390291... has a bibliography

Also note the table showing that wood with significant slope of grain will support half or less of what wood without significant slope of grain would.

See also http://www.conradfp.com/pdf/ch4-Mechanical-Properties-of-Woo... and "Failure Analysis of Wood and Wood-Based Products" https://www.accessengineeringlibrary.com/browse/failure-anal...