It was a glass factory, so why not ask permission to exist as a factory. Maybe there would be lesser requirements. Hackerspace is not really an office.
Silicon Valley Techies Fight to Save a Popular but Illegal Haven
81–90 of 108 posts
Re: Silicon Valley Techies Fight to Save a Popular but Illegal Haven
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
The other day I went past the República Cromañon on the bus. The street in front of it has finally been reopened. It's been closed ever since 196 music fans were burned to death because its operators thought the fire regulations were "safety theater", and chained shut the emergency exits. You can compare the death tolls from similar earthquakes in places that have effective earthquake building codes (like Chile) and…
Well, as I said, it always starts with things like fire codes and then goes from there to spending tens of thousands on traffic studies. $15,000 for fire alarms might be ok. $150,000 for wheelchair accessible bathrooms is, in my view, overkill. They charge $100/month; that would mean at least 125 memberships just to pay for the bathrooms. But, just taking your specific example for a second, that actually seems to arg…
Cromañon was issued permits because the regulations weren't enforced, because the city government was corrupt. How is that an argument for not having or not enforcing the regulations?
Re: Silicon Valley Techies Fight to Save a Popular but Illegal Haven
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
"1. Sprinklers and fire exits? Arguably necessary." "Arguably"? No, they're absolutely necessary. It's a multi-tenant building. Why should my property and livelihood be threatened by your inability (or lack of desire) to follow the fire code? "2. ADA compliant bathrooms and wheelchair ramps? Not part of a reasonable MVP[1]." A reasonable MVP should include the ability for a social, interactive space to be inclusive.…
To my mind, regulators could effectively issue recommendations but that should be where their power stops. If you do not want to have sprinklers and fire exits, it should be your responsibility, and your responsibility as a person entering that building to understand the risks of being there - and refuse to enter/stay inside if you think the lack of sprinklers/fire exits is posing you a serious concern. And you menti…
>your responsibility as a person entering that building to understand the risks of being there - and refuse to enter/stay inside if you think the lack of sprinklers/fire exits is posing you a serious concern.
I'd rather read an impenetrable 10 page EULA than examine an entire building (with absolutely no expertise) for the possibility that it might kill me.
Maybe a compromise would be that the inspectors would show up, do their code inspection, then put a big sign lined in blinking red neon on every external door that says every single thing that's wrong with the building, how it doesn't care about the disabled or whether you burn to death.
Could even become trendy amongst the laissez-faire set.
Re: Silicon Valley Techies Fight to Save a Popular but Illegal Haven
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 2. ADA compliant bathrooms and wheelchair ramps? Not part of a reasonable MVP[1]. What if every website "had to" be readable in Braille and multiple tongues on day one, before one had the revenue to pay for that sort of thing? I could NOT disagree with this more strongly. It is simply NOT acceptable to discriminate against people or exclude them, and it would NOT be acceptable to create a website that isn't readabl…
> it would NOT be acceptable to create a website that isn't readable with a screen-reader Let's imagine a website with... infographics like http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/ If it was a commercial website, should the government intervene? Maybe make them buy or make a special font to create their chartslike https://www.fontfont.com/how-to-use-ff-chartwell instead of using images? No? How is it different from a s…
There's clearly no necessity to make a site about pretty images accessible to the blind. But that's a straw man akin to asking about how running shoes should be optimized for the legless.
>How is it different from a special lift to the pool?
Because lots of people in wheelchairs swim, and some people just go to the pool to float?
Re: Silicon Valley Techies Fight to Save a Popular but Illegal Haven
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
A century ago, people also lit Christmas trees with candles (electric Christmas lights were not widely available until 1903). Here's the thing about 'relevant facts': you could each have a mountain of them (the same mountain, even): and still reach diametrically opposing conclusions, precisely because this is a philosophical debate. As with most political debates, this one can easily be reduced to two schools of thou…
Don't forget positive liberty. The gilded age had copious negative liberty but very very low positive liberty. Democracy is definitely not the answer, but libertarianism is probably the greatest political threat to civilization as a whole at the moment. Meritocracy is the right course, the government needs to be stronger and needs to enshrine positive liberty as a human right.
I don't think you understand. In this debate, it's only possible to take one of two positions: put another way, either you believe people should be controlled, or you believe people should be free.
I have a fundamental disagreement with the premise of 'positive' vs. 'negative' liberty, because it conflates separate, unrelated issues (as a corollary, I also reject the notion that anything someone else has to provide for you can be considered a 'human right').
And let's not forget that the Gilded Age also saw the rise of labor unions. See also: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmzZ8lCLhlk, especially the last 2.5 minutes.
In my opinion, the only acceptable definition of 'liberty' in a political context would be something like 'one's ability to live free of coercion and violence from others'.
Since this necessarily extends to everyone, not just me, a free society therefore requires a strong judicial system, not only to protect persons and property from physical harm, but to prevent things like fraud, collusion, or any other activity that deprives an individual of life, liberty, or property absent their informed, uncoerced consent.
Believe it or not, if such a society existed, providing equal protection under the law, it would certainly be superior to what we have in the US today (consider that no one went to jail during the banking crisis, despite the number of laws [especially fraud laws] broken).
Re: Silicon Valley Techies Fight to Save a Popular but Illegal Haven
#86This is rent-seeking, plain and simple. As municipalities slide ever closer toward insolvency, expect to see these spurious regulations enforced and enacted, ostensibly fronted by bleeding-heart do-gooders, but with the express intent to extort as much money as possible from productive individuals.
Yeah no. Rent-seeking would be asking $250,000 just for the permit to run their hacker-space. The city is only requiring that their public space be safe and accessible, not telling them the contractors they should hire and where they are required to spend their money. Heck if the dojo members were dedicated and diligent enough they could do most of the work themselves, probably for a lot less than the estimates they've received.
Frankly i don't see where any of this outrage is coming from. They've already raised most of what they need from private donations. It seems unlikely they will actually be shut down. If they were somehow unable to raise the few tens of thousands more they needed to get up to code, it would be due to the greed and stinginess of the well-off so-called pro-business types in the bay area. If tech investors cared a fraction as much about promoting startups and the economy as a whole as getting equity and a solid return on their investment, fund-raising for this sort of thing would be ridiculously easy.
Alas most all wealthy individuals are stingy as hell; they might give you $100 if you kiss their feet and carve their name in stone. Otherwise go back to your ghetto and quit bothering them.
Re: Silicon Valley Techies Fight to Save a Popular but Illegal Haven
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
Really? Of all the comments on this thread, this is the comment that gets downvoted? If you're going to downvote a statement of fact, at least explain why you think it's wrong.
Resist complaining about being downmodded. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading. http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
[deleted]
Re: Silicon Valley Techies Fight to Save a Popular but Illegal Haven
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lol. No, in fact you were the one who tried to "tool" me. You attempted to point out that: Well, if you are an international tax lawyer, obviously moves like the Double Irish show that the base of incorporation matters quite a bit: which is not true. The Double Irish is a matter of where a company is headquartered , which has a distinct legal meaning that is not the same thing as a company's "base" of operations. The…
Look, you were just wrong, and you know you were wrong. The substance of your comment was that multinationals just consider tax a cost of doing business, and that new taxes alone wouldn't motivate them to consider moving operations overseas. That's flatly wrong. The distinction between US and Irish tax code is and was indeed highly material. And one you were not aware of, despite being an "international tax lawyer".…
Clearly there actually are a myriad of strategies which multinationals can use to minimize their tax bill by exploiting differences between countries, and even more clearly those countries with the most favorable tax regimes are the ones chosen as places to expand. Which is exactly the phenomenon whose existence you denied:
I said nothing of the sort, and HN can read the comment you linked. My comment claimed only that taxes not being the primary motivating factor for locating a business, because they are not. I do not deny the existence of favorable tax regimes, because I have helped clients use them, but (and this is the important part), only the non-operating, "holding" companies can take advantage of most of these favorable tax regimes. The actual operating, money-earning entities generally are located in the actual country of operating, regardless of taxes. (See for example, any holding company structure, including the Double Irish, in which an "IP holding company" is located in Ireland, HQ'd in the Caymans, and licenses the IP to the actual money-earning entities.)
So tell me this: why anyone would want to engage you as an "international tax lawyer" if you don't have the knowledge to actually, y'know, help them minimize their tax bill?
Last year, I helped a variety of client reduce their global tax liablity by roughly 28-35%, on average. And that's they key: global tax liability. My job is to look at the final numbers. Accepting a higher local tax rate (i.e., losing one battle) is sometimes necessary to achieve a lower total global liability (i.e., winning the war).
Re: Silicon Valley Techies Fight to Save a Popular but Illegal Haven
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
To my mind, regulators could effectively issue recommendations but that should be where their power stops. If you do not want to have sprinklers and fire exits, it should be your responsibility, and your responsibility as a person entering that building to understand the risks of being there - and refuse to enter/stay inside if you think the lack of sprinklers/fire exits is posing you a serious concern. And you menti…
>your responsibility as a person entering that building to understand the risks of being there - and refuse to enter/stay inside if you think the lack of sprinklers/fire exits is posing you a serious concern. I'd rather read an impenetrable 10 page EULA than examine an entire building (with absolutely no expertise) for the possibility that it might kill me. Maybe a compromise would be that the inspectors would show u…
This putting-up-signs thing has happened in a way, and we know how this turns out. In some rural areas there are places where the fire brigade is not paid for through local taxes, homeowners have to contract individually with the fire services to come.
When a homeowner has a fire put but failed to pay the firemen the fire brigade does come out, makes sure that the inhabitants are safe, and then lets the house burn down and makes sure that is does not spread to the neighbors, who have paid for fire service.
Next thing that happens, everyone hates on the fire brigade because they did not put out the fire. People need to be prevented from shooting themselves in the feet.
Re: Silicon Valley Techies Fight to Save a Popular but Illegal Haven
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
All regulation from the TSA to the local building officials is optimized to sound like a good idea. Who could be against health or safety? And that then becomes the thin end of the wedge, as the requirements and fees spiral from there. 1. Sprinklers and fire exits? Arguably necessary. 2. ADA compliant bathrooms and wheelchair ramps? Not part of a reasonable MVP[1]. What if every website "had to" be readable in Braill…
> 2. ADA compliant bathrooms and wheelchair ramps? Not part of a reasonable MVP[1]. What if every website "had to" be readable in Braille and multiple tongues on day one, before one had the revenue to pay for that sort of thing? I could NOT disagree with this more strongly. It is simply NOT acceptable to discriminate against people or exclude them, and it would NOT be acceptable to create a website that isn't readabl…
>>ADA compliant bathrooms and wheelchair ramps? Not part of a reasonable MVP
>I could NOT disagree with this more strongly. It is simply NOT acceptable to discriminate against people or exclude them
If that was the law, then Edinburgh Hacklab[1] wouldn't be able to exist, at least on its present premises. This would not help any wheelchair users, but it would harm non-wheelchair users. if a law helps no-one and harms plenty, it's a bad law.
Come to think of it, it would also be necessary to demolish and rebuild most of Edinburgh Old Town to comply with an everywhere-wheelchair-accessible policy. I do not regard this as practical.