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Re:Santa Monica council votes 7-0 to crack down on Airbnb by JoshTriplett on Wednesday May 13, 2015 @02:28PM (#9540985)
This seems similar to people who admire an idyllic view of other people's trees from their house, and then complain when the actual owner of that other property takes down the trees that were providing that view. "Not neighborly" is not a crime; you can't even sensibly define what it would mean, other than "don't do anything I don't like". Which leads directly into NIMBY.

There are long-term residents who hold similar views about not particularly caring to know or interact with their neighbors, and that's not against the law either.

(Also, does "quiet-enjoyment-type laws" sound like dystopian doublespeak to anyone else, or is it just me?)

For the record, though, there's nothing wrong with the owner of an apartment building prohibiting the renters or owners of the apartments from subletting them via AirBnB or any other means. It's perfectly fine for them to say "don't rent out your place or we'll kick you out". So if they want to construct an apartment building that caters to long-term residents who object to living near short-term residents, they can. And if they want to rent out their apartments on a short-term basis, or let their tenants do so, to the possible detriment of their ability to attract long-term residents, they can do that too.

Re:Santa Monica council votes 7-0 to crack down on Airbnb by zorpner on Wednesday May 13, 2015 @02:57PM (#9541185)
"Not neighborly" is not a crime; you can't even sensibly define what it would mean...

Yes, the nature of living in a society with humans is that you sometimes have to take situations on a case-by-case basis, and cannot have a single set of rules that will guide you to correct action in all circumstances.

(Also, does "quiet-enjoyment-type laws" sound like dystopian doublespeak to anyone else, or is it just me?)

"Quiet enjoyment" is the technical term. Between the intellectually dishonest rhetorical device of calling something I said "dystopian" and your absurd assertion that one could use a noise ordinance against short-term tenants, it's pretty clear that you're not arguing in good faith here.

Re:Santa Monica council votes 7-0 to crack down on Airbnb by JoshTriplett on Wednesday May 13, 2015 @03:48PM (#9541503)
> Yes, the nature of living in a society with humans is that you sometimes have to take situations on a case-by-case basis, and cannot have a single set of rules that will guide you to correct action in all circumstances.

That's a very old and ongoing argument, between having a concrete set of potentially inflexible laws (which are particularly dangerous when they restrict the human capacity for understanding and forgiveness), and having the arbitrary and changing moral sensibilities of humans ("I'll know it when I see it"). Both have their own set of bugs. I don't think it's reasonable to universally say you cannot have a single set of rules that works everywhere, nor is it reasonable to always defer to collective moral sensibility (which often gets the wrong answer as well).

I do, however, think it's reasonable with either approach to limit outrage and sensibilities to what actually affects people, rather than proxies for that, or worse yet things that neighbors have no business controlling.

> "Quiet enjoyment" is the technical term.

I never said it wasn't, and I didn't intend it as a rhetorical device; sorry if it came across as such. I meant it as a genuine question; it seems like an odd term, compared to for instance "noise ordinance" or similar.

Re:Santa Monica council votes 7-0 to crack down on Airbnb by zorpner on Wednesday May 13, 2015 @04:26PM (#9541723)
I meant it as a genuine question; it seems like an odd term, compared to for instance "noise ordinance" or similar.

Gotcha, I interpreted that as you saying I was using doublespeak, rather than that the term itself was doublespeak-ish. Apologies for the misinterpretation.

Re:Santa Monica council votes 7-0 to crack down on Airbnb by baddox on Wednesday May 13, 2015 @06:25PM (#9542374)
> the nature of living in a society with humans is that you sometimes have to take situations on a case-by-case basis, and cannot have a single set of rules that will guide you to correct action in all circumstances.

Which sounds like a great reason to not have a rule prohibiting short-term occupants in residential zones.

Re:Santa Monica council votes 7-0 to crack down on Airbnb by TeMPOraL on Wednesday May 13, 2015 @09:33PM (#9543019)
Look at it the other way. If you have a short-term tenant that behaves, your neighbors probably won't notice, and even if they do, they won't care. It's normal that sometimes you want a friend / family member / (boy|girl)friend to stay over. It's entirely fair to make a blanket ban on subletting but not enforce it too eagerly. This way, you're taking the responsibility for people which you invited to stay.
Re:Santa Monica council votes 7-0 to crack down on Airbnb by baddox on Thursday May 14, 2015 @02:33AM (#9543732)
That might work in practice, depending on the community culture. But I am not generally a fan of prosecutorial discretion because of how ridiculously easy it makes unfair enforcement.
Re:Santa Monica council votes 7-0 to crack down on Airbnb by TeMPOraL on Thursday May 14, 2015 @08:27AM (#9544683)
> But I am not generally a fan of prosecutorial discretion because of how ridiculously easy it makes unfair enforcement.

I consider it to be a lubricant in the engine of law. You can't run law to the letter, because defining the law is an AI-complete problem. The law tends to have more corner cases the more detailed you make it, and by executing it unconditionally, with maximum efficiency, you're going to harm a lot of innocent people. On the other hand, too much grease, and the engine won't run at all.

That's why I often remark about the importance of trust on a societal level, and my dislike towards the current trend of replacing trust with trustless systems. Trust is what keeps society together, and what allows it to work without humans having godlike introspection and cognitive powers.

Re:Santa Monica council votes 7-0 to crack down on Airbnb by mercer on Thursday May 14, 2015 @07:50AM (#9544512)
I'd say that the whole problem of having short-term tenants is precisely that you're pretty much forced to come up with 'a single set of rules' to force them to behave, due to transitory and impersonal nature of it.

The organic nature of case-by-case resolution of issues pretty much requires a long-term tenant that has some for of long-term relationship to the property and neighbors. Social pressure and personal responsibility come into play.

It's the difference (roughly) between a teacher-student and a parent-child relationship. In the former case, the (usual) lack of personal ties requires explicit rules. In the latter case, a lot of rules and conflict-resolution is more organic and case-by-case.