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Reducing the number, length and complexity of regulation is a valid goal, and that hasn't changed in thousands of years: "The more numerous the laws, the more

Reducing the number, length and complexity of regulation is a valid goal, and that hasn't changed in thousands of years: "The more numerous the laws, the more corrupt the government." - Tacitus

facetube 10y ago
This scheme is vulnerable to the same sort of gerrymandering game we play with districts. It provides no definition or guideline on the size or shape of a (presumably atomic) regulation. It's a meaningless bullet point.
laughfactory 10y ago
I agree. I hope that some version of this process is implemented and that it will change government from how it currently operates: adding layers of regulation upon layers, to a process with iteratively improves regulation--weeding out the out-dated, the irrelevant, the imprecise, the ineffective, and replacing it with improved, timely, precise, relevant, effective regulation. So we end up with a regulatory base which is more comprehendible, manageable, and relevant.
abritinthebay 10y ago
While true - that should be a side effect of good policy and process, not some stupid 2-for-1 rule.
redler 10y ago
The actual Tacitus quote doesn't really serve your argument. It's "The more corrupt the government, the more numerous the laws." -- you've got it backwards. Complexity is one thing (although it should be obvious that complex domains often require complex descriptions). But number is arbitrary. Suppose there exists a set of three distinct regulations regarding ways to safely manufacture a drug, and a dangerous new process is invented for which there is wide consensus that a new regulation is required. Which two of those first three should be discarded? Must every new regulation be weighed in arbitrary relative value against every other possible combination of two regulations in that subject matter area? That department? The country? By reductio ad absurdum, the cut-two-to-add-one rule means that the ultimately correct number of regulations is one. And if it's not one, then there must be some higher "correct" number of regulations at which point the subtraction rule would no longer apply. Your argument seems to be "whatever that number is, surely it's lower than what we have now". How is that number decided and by whom? Subject matter experts? Voters weighing ballot options written by government officials? Does the number somehow fall or rise to make room for new needs judged important enough? If so, by whom? Is one complex regulation better than ten simple ones? Are ten simple ones more "corrupt" than one complex one? Unfortunately there's no obvious way to apply a tree-shaking algorithm to the full body of regulations, other than to have humans look at a rule and all agree that the "blue dress on Sundays during harvest" rule can be scrapped. And Chesterton's fence makes many of those judgments risky. So now we're back at politics.
- meric 10y ago
  Trump's intention to reduce government regulations may mean government under his administration will be less corrupt.
  - croon 10y ago
    It may also mean the opposite. There's a lot of big industry rich people who would love less regulation.
    - guard-of-terra 10y ago
      There's also probably a lot of big inductry people who love existing regulation mazes, since it blocks any newcomers from their cornered markets.
      - croon 10y ago
        That I completely agree with, there's a lot of lobbying done to obfuscate regulations and tax code for that reason, and it should be dealt with. I was merely pointing out that it's not just a binary issue, like the proposals in the .pdf suggests.
      - 551199 10y ago
        Yes, this is the real reason for lot of regulations. Big Companies lobby for certain kind of regulations mainly to: Squeeze the SMB and make it harder for new business to enter and survive in the market.
- coldnebo 10y ago
  Because math. <3
- notahacker 10y ago
  The other thing is that presumably it's easily circumvented by dressing up multiple distinct regulations as a single new regulation. If you make a habit of making regulations long and multifaceted because scope to pass new ones is limited, it probably becomes easier to bury terrible ideas in amongst things people actually really want to pass.
dagw 10y ago
Reducing the number, length and complexity of regulation is a valid goal Sure, but the priority order should be: complexity,length,number. Simply concatenating 50 regulations into one super-regulation is not a win.
- JadeNB 10y ago
  > Sure, but the priority order should be: complexity,length,number. I think that, of these three, reducing complexity is the only one to which we should directly aspire; reducing the length and number of regulations is, I think, helpful only to the extent that it reduces, or at least doesn't increase, complexity.
  - dagw 10y ago
    Completely agreed. That and reducing ambiguity. On the whole Increasing both length and number is perfectly acceptable if doing so reduces complexity and ambiguity. Much like with code really. Your cleve 2 line function is really clever, but most of the time the easy to read 30 lines and 3 function version if probably better.

Reducing the number, length and complexity of regulation is a valid goal, and that hasn't changed in thousands of years: "The more numerous the laws, the more corrupt the government." - Tacitus

facetube 10y ago

This scheme is vulnerable to the same sort of gerrymandering game we play with districts. It provides no definition or guideline on the size or shape of a (presumably atomic) regulation. It's a meaningless bullet point.

laughfactory 10y ago

I agree. I hope that some version of this process is implemented and that it will change government from how it currently operates: adding layers of regulation upon layers, to a process with iteratively improves regulation--weeding out the out-dated, the irrelevant, the imprecise, the ineffective, and replacing it with improved, timely, precise, relevant, effective regulation. So we end up with a regulatory base which is more comprehendible, manageable, and relevant.

abritinthebay 10y ago

While true - that should be a side effect of good policy and process, not some stupid 2-for-1 rule.

redler 10y ago

The actual Tacitus quote doesn't really serve your argument. It's "The more corrupt the government, the more numerous the laws." -- you've got it backwards. Complexity is one thing (although it should be obvious that complex domains often require complex descriptions). But number is arbitrary. Suppose there exists a set of three distinct regulations regarding ways to safely manufacture a drug, and a dangerous new process is invented for which there is wide consensus that a new regulation is required. Which two of those first three should be discarded? Must every new regulation be weighed in arbitrary relative value against every other possible combination of two regulations in that subject matter area? That department? The country? By reductio ad absurdum, the cut-two-to-add-one rule means that the ultimately correct number of regulations is one. And if it's not one, then there must be some higher "correct" number of regulations at which point the subtraction rule would no longer apply. Your argument seems to be "whatever that number is, surely it's lower than what we have now". How is that number decided and by whom? Subject matter experts? Voters weighing ballot options written by government officials? Does the number somehow fall or rise to make room for new needs judged important enough? If so, by whom? Is one complex regulation better than ten simple ones? Are ten simple ones more "corrupt" than one complex one? Unfortunately there's no obvious way to apply a tree-shaking algorithm to the full body of regulations, other than to have humans look at a rule and all agree that the "blue dress on Sundays during harvest" rule can be scrapped. And Chesterton's fence makes many of those judgments risky. So now we're back at politics.

meric 10y ago
Trump's intention to reduce government regulations may mean government under his administration will be less corrupt.
- croon 10y ago
  It may also mean the opposite. There's a lot of big industry rich people who would love less regulation.
  - guard-of-terra 10y ago
    There's also probably a lot of big inductry people who love existing regulation mazes, since it blocks any newcomers from their cornered markets.
    - croon 10y ago
      That I completely agree with, there's a lot of lobbying done to obfuscate regulations and tax code for that reason, and it should be dealt with. I was merely pointing out that it's not just a binary issue, like the proposals in the .pdf suggests.
    - 551199 10y ago
      Yes, this is the real reason for lot of regulations. Big Companies lobby for certain kind of regulations mainly to: Squeeze the SMB and make it harder for new business to enter and survive in the market.
coldnebo 10y ago
Because math. <3
notahacker 10y ago
The other thing is that presumably it's easily circumvented by dressing up multiple distinct regulations as a single new regulation. If you make a habit of making regulations long and multifaceted because scope to pass new ones is limited, it probably becomes easier to bury terrible ideas in amongst things people actually really want to pass.

dagw 10y ago

Reducing the number, length and complexity of regulation is a valid goal Sure, but the priority order should be: complexity,length,number. Simply concatenating 50 regulations into one super-regulation is not a win.

JadeNB 10y ago
> Sure, but the priority order should be: complexity,length,number. I think that, of these three, reducing complexity is the only one to which we should directly aspire; reducing the length and number of regulations is, I think, helpful only to the extent that it reduces, or at least doesn't increase, complexity.
- dagw 10y ago
  Completely agreed. That and reducing ambiguity. On the whole Increasing both length and number is perfectly acceptable if doing so reduces complexity and ambiguity. Much like with code really. Your cleve 2 line function is really clever, but most of the time the easy to read 30 lines and 3 function version if probably better.