
Japan's Strict Building Codes Saved Lives - brodie
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/12/world/asia/12codes.html
======
solson
I'm not sure I understand the point here. Is it that strict government
regulation saves lives?

If so, yes I suppose that could be true. Fewer people would die in traffic
accidents if we had a stoplight on every corner, we had to drive Sherman
Tanks, and the speed limit was 20MPH. The problem is we'd be way less
productive and we'd be much poorer.

If China had Japan's strict building codes from 1980 to present, China's
economic growth would have been far slower, but in an earthquake, more people
may die in China. Is that a good thing or bad thing? Over the last 20 years,
strong economic growth in China has likely saved far more lives than strict
building codes may have saved. But that is too complex to get into here.

Also note Japan's poor economic growth during over the last 10-20 years.

Are some people in Japan better off because of strict building codes? Yes, no
doubt. Is everyone in Japan better off due to strict building code? much
harder to say.

~~~
drzaiusapelord
Decent building codes don't necessarily stop economic growth. Housing is
slightly more expensive and it takes more capital to build, but its really not
2 or 10x the price of an unsafe home. Heck, some safer designs are cheaper
than unsafe designs.

I don't really buy the "safety is cost prohibitive" argument much. Modern
societies have no problem absorbing the cost. Not to mention the cost of post-
earthquake cleanup is less.

~~~
billswift
The bigger problem from a libertarian point is that regulation does not
necessarily result in better safety. A lot of it simply results in higher
costs, and redistribution of money to "licensed professionals". As an earlier
commenter pointed out, many insurance companies actually require greater
degrees of safety in buildings they insure than building codes do.

~~~
drzaiusapelord
I'm not seeing how bureaucracy and "licensed professionals" hired from the
for-profit insurance industry to maintain their codes is better than doing the
same in government. In fact, I would argue that the government alternative is
superior as it doesn't involved the overhead of making a profit and growing
markets (see socialized healthcare vs private healthcare).

Unfortunately, its popular now in the USA to dismiss public safety as being
less important than profits and to praise horribly unsafe countries run by
dictators for their "growth." Not to mention, the intangibles here with the
libertarian approach - massive brain drain to safer countries, lower quality
of life, lower lifespans, etc. I'd rather be taxed out the wazoo in Germany
than be tax-free in Somalia. I'd rather be in an earthquake in the USA or
Japan than in China or Libya.

~~~
WalterBright
Somalia is the antithesis of a libertarian country.

~~~
jshen
how?

~~~
WalterBright
A libertarian ideal country requires the protection and guarantee of
individual rights.

~~~
jshen
that doesn't mean anything. In America, the wealthiest nation in the world, do
I have the right to not starve to death if I become disabled? Do I have the
right to live in a building with strict earthquake standards if I'm in an
earthquake zone? Doesn't that conflict with the right of the business
constructing the building to build it as they see fit? Do I have the right to
breathe clean air? Doesn't that conflict with the factories right to pump
pollutants into the air?

One persons individual rights inevitably conflict with someone else's
individual rights. I have no idea what libertarianism is by your definition.
For it to mean anything you have to lay out a value system that gives a
default answer when one persons individual rights conflict with someone
else's.

~~~
solson
It's a debate surrounding positive rights vs. negative rights -
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_rights> Libertarianism
generally supports negative rights arguing that the establishment of positive
rights will always violate someone's negative rights and that negative rights
are the natural state of human beings given the absence of violence. That
means that you would not have a right to "not starve" if that meant you had to
hire someone (the government) to club me over the head and steal my sandwich
so you don't starve. But you do have the right to try to convince me to
voluntarily give you half of my sandwich. It is the use of violent aggression
as means to an end that Libertarians universally oppose, so by definition
Somalia is not a libertarian paradise.

~~~
jshen
You dodged the hard questions and are using language again that doesn't mean
much of anything.

Are you opposed to all taxes? If not, then you believe in some violent
aggression? Do you believe in protecting peoples rights with violent
aggression? Will you use the force of government to prevent someone from
dumping toxins into a river? How do libertarians deal with things like water
rights? Borders? Can a mexican freely come across the border and get a job?
I.e. is labor as free as capital?

I still have no idea what libertarianism is from your explanation.

~~~
solson
You're asking for specific answerers to many complex questions. I'm not going
to try to put them in a few words here. If you are honest about your desire to
understand libertarian ideas read "Healing our World in an Age of Aggression"
by Dr. Mary Ruwart. [http://www.amazon.com/Healing-Our-World-Age-
Aggression/dp/09...](http://www.amazon.com/Healing-Our-World-Age-
Aggression/dp/0963233661)

I will say this, government has become so big and so complex I can't imagine
ever unraveling it. The best I hope for is that someday we will actually
shrink the government a bit instead of constant growth. The current government
growth is unsustainable so it might be a forgone conclusion anyway. I am a
libertarian (small l) because it is the only political philosophy which
honestly wants to reduce the size of the government. I also want to bring
awareness to people that the use of the law is the use of violence and that we
should be aware that when make new laws, we understand that we are advocating
violence against those who don't comply. For example, do we really want to
arrest and lock someone in jail when they refuse to wear a seat belt and don't
pay the fine or when they smoke a cigarette in a bar? Is that what we've
become? If so, what's next? I do believe in the rule of law, but we've made
the rule of law trivial and arbitrary... anyway, off the soapbox.

~~~
jshen
Reading a book is a large investment of time. You have to give me something to
make me think it's worthwhile. This narrative of violence doesn't make any
sense to me. Should we use violence to enforce contract law? Should we use
nuclear power, and if so should we use violence to raise taxes to manage
nuclear power plants? Should we use violence to prevent child labor?

I'm still trying to find some core libertarian values that I can understand
and is consistent. I'm not motivated to spend hours reading a book without
that.

~~~
solson
Are you looking for some universal value? How about, "We should not use
violence or coercion against peaceful people, and we must intelligently and
slowly begin to work toward that goal. Violence is not an acceptable answer to
our problems." But you are clearly an intelligent person, and you know that
life is nuanced. Social interactions aren't 100% consistent all the time. But
this is clearly an ideal we could work toward.

I'm starting to think I'm feeding a troll. I feel like you are just trying to
get me to say, something like "Child labor should be legal." But I'm not
saying that, I'm saying that the answer can be solved - over time - without
violence.

How could you learn about a thing without investing some time?

A few reasons why reading the book would be worth your while:

1\. Why do you believe violence is a necessary ingredient for the achievement
of the above goals?

2\. Is working toward a less violent world worthwhile, even if it seems remote
at this moment?

3\. To gain understanding. Even if you're sure there is no possible way you'd
agree with anything you'll read in such a book, you would learn about the
philosophy that is embraced by an estimated 10-20% of the American public, not
enough to "win" an election, but certainly enough to lose one if you piss them
off.

Go ahead and have the last word...

~~~
jshen
I've asked a few simple questions and haven't gotten an answer. How does that
make me a troll?

'I feel like you are just trying to get me to say, something like "Child labor
should be legal."'

No, I'm trying to get you to explain how you prevent it without violence.

"I'm saying that the answer can be solved - over time - without violence."

How?

"How could you learn about a thing without investing some time?"

There is an effectively infinite number of things I could learn about, sadly I
have a small finite amount of time. This makes me picky about what I spend
time on.

"Why do you believe violence is a necessary ingredient for the achievement of
the above goals?"

For many reasons. One, it's in individuals personal interest to take advantage
of others. This could be child labor, pollution, outright fraud, breaking a
contract, etc. How would you deal with these? I still don't know. Two, some
people are plain crazy, and do stupid things. And that still leaves the more
complicated issues like water rights. How does a libertarian system deal with
water flowing throw a river on someones property? Can the person upstream suck
it out or build a damn? Can they dump pollutants into it? How does a
libertarian system resolve that, and more importantly how would you enforce
the resolution?

"Is working toward a less violent world worthwhile, even if it seems remote at
this moment?"

This doesn't mean anything. How do you deal with situations where one persons
interests and liberty are in conflict with another persons interests and
liberty?

------
Vivtek
_All_ strict building codes save lives. That's the whole point of building
codes. Sheesh. You'd think New Yorkers would get that.

~~~
OstiaAntica
Building codes were on the books in Haiti too. There is a lot more to this
question, including the presence of honest government, the ability of an
economy to afford the code, and a healthy insurance market.

Insurance companies often require higher standards than building code demands.

Also, politically, the reason some societies have strict building codes is
because there is a group-- insurance companies-- that have an economic
incentive to push for stronger codes.

~~~
dmlorenzetti
There's also political pressure in the opposite direction, from the
construction industry.

I heard a lecture once by a structural engineer who had worked in hurricane
alleys in Florida. He said there was a cycle of tightening up rules (for
instance on the number of nails needed to hold down a roof) after big storms,
then relaxing them as the years went by. Without a big storm to remind people
just why the rules were tightened up, there was inevitable pressure to relax
them in order to make it cheaper to build.

This is more off-topic, but another interesting thing he said was that you
could get a sense of maximum local wind speeds by looking at airstream-type
trailers. They are, as you might expect, extremely well engineered to resist
the sorts of wind pressures you get at highway speeds, so winds of 60-80mph
don't tend to rip the hide off them. But you get above a certain threshold,
and they all tend to give way at once.

~~~
OstiaAntica
Florida is an interesting example. If development patterns there were left to
market forces, the coasts of Florida would not be as significantly developed.
Insurance costs would prohibit it. But the state's insurance regulations
control prices and force inland homeowners to subsidize the insurance rates of
coastal homeowners. Even worse, as insurance companies flee this distorted
market, the state stepped in and now runs its own insurance company, which is
building a massively underfunded risk portfolio. Literally the state of
Florida is at risk of bankruptcy if another hurricane Andrew hits.

Another factor is, if the storm is big enough, the feds step in with FEMA and
bailout people who are underinsured.

People living in Florida's hurricane alley pay nowhere near the cost of the
risk of living there, and the result is overbuilding, and catastrophic
property losses when the big one eventually does hit.

~~~
sbov
Sorta like earthquakes in the SF bay area. Humans aren't rational. Considering
relatively few people actually get earthquake insurance in California, I'm
sure theres some level of the cognotive dissonance by many of those who agree
with the main thrust of your point.

~~~
dantheman
They are rational in this case. They are getting others to cover the expense
of their lifestyle. If someone is going to bail you out why would you bother
not living as you'd like.

------
NZ_Matt
The media are failing to point out that the Earthquake was 200+km offshore.
There is a huge difference between an 8.9M 200km offshore and an 8.9M directly
below a city. The ground motions recorded were relatively low in the cities
and not very destructive. PGV (peak ground velocity) is a more accurate way to
estimate the strain put on infrastructure. This shakemap shows that the
intensity was relatively low:
[http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/shakemap/global/shake...](http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/shakemap/global/shake/c0001xgp)

Many people said the same thing about building codes after the 7.1 in
Christchurch last September. That earthquake was 40km away from the city.
Cruelly the 6.3 on Feb 22nd with its epicenter directly below the City showed
the difference that proximity to the epicenter makes. Proximity to the
epicenter and PGV is almost more important than magnitude when accessing how
well buildings performed.

~~~
icarus_drowning
This particular article actually seems to focus more on the seawalls designed
to protect from the resultant tsunami.

------
dmm
Everything has a cost and these costs are not always obvious. Government
regulations like building codes and food safety generally ensure that
buildings are safe and food is not contaminated, but they do so by defining
acceptable things.

There are perfectly safe building designs which would never pass building
codes. This is a huge barrier to innovation.

To be legally allowed to construct something that is not explicitly allowed by
codes can require years and lots of money to hire engineers and lawyers.

Also, who writes these building codes? It's engineers employed by the
construction and construction material industries. They have a perspective
shaped by the status quo. So the codes require specific materials and
techniques.

Codes also empower lots of unelected officals. A food safety inspector can
shut down your plant and force you to throw away all of your products, with
absolutely no form of appeal.

I don't really mind building codes. I just wish there were some objective
criteria that designs went through. For example, if you could demonstrate your
building can withstand an earthquake, regardless of it's method of
construction, it's permissible. If you could demonstrate your food was not
contaminated with bacteria, etc.

If you give a damn about any of this check out Mike Ohler's "The Fifty Dollar
and Up Underground House Book" for the evils of building codes and Joel
Salatin's "Everything I want to do is illegal" for food regulations.

~~~
jlangenauer
The building codes _are_ the objective criteria. Most government building
codes I've seen will require compliance with certain engineering standards,
and the engineering standards themselves will say things like "a building
built in this part of the country must be able to withstand x ms-2 in vertical
acceleration and y ms-2 in lateral acceleration". It doesn't get any more
objective than that.

~~~
dmm
Well... kind of. There is a whole lot of shit like this:

    
    
        705.1 General. Each portion of a building separated by one or more fire        walls that comply with the
        provisions of this section shall be considered a separate building. The     extent and location of such fire walls shall
        provide a complete separation. Where a fire wall also separates groups that are required to be separated by a fire
        barrier wall, the most restrictive requirements of each separation shall apply. Fire walls located on property lines
        shall also comply with Section 503.2. Such fire walls (party walls) shall be constructed without openings. (from the 2000 ICC building codes)
    

It is specifying a specific arrangement of firewalls. What if I can make
buildings even safer with nothing resembling firewalls? It's not nearly as
clear cut or simple as "building must be able to withstand x forces".

Plus it's not as though housing contractors actually build experimental
buildings in earthquake test facilities to see if they comply. What they do is
screw a bunch of prefabricated pieces together. All of which are accepted by
the inspectors as following the codes. The result is a monoculture which is
highly reluctant to accept new ideas. Remember that building boards consist of
people from the construction industries, they people who make and use these
materials.

The people who make the decisions on whether your buildings are unelected
boards who have investments in the status quo. They can force you to spend
100s of thousands in engineering fees to convince them that your design is
safe enough for you to live in.

~~~
brudgers
It's not requiring fire walls. It is allowing their use as a method of code
compliance - Trust me, the ability to use fire walls to create separate
buildings provides enormous economic savings to developers and owners every
day.

------
Hovertruck
The irony is that this is the top item on reddit right now:
<http://i.imgur.com/eGSKJ.jpg>

~~~
pclark
I don't get it? Why wouldn't you read that?

~~~
Hovertruck
It means to say that no such article will exist, so you can't read it.

~~~
AlexC04
Indeed. I'd imagine that the image of the tweet on Reddit was seen by someone
at NYT then created with the hopes of pulling viewers because it was clearly a
hot button topic.

The opposite of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Journalists look to Reddit to see what people are interested in, write the
article, point back to self. Reap rewards.

Right? It's the content production business after all, just makes good
business sense.

------
ffffruit
I find the comparison with SE Asia rather poor with regards to investment as
I've been to Sri Lanka and the amount of money that is available for basic
infrastructure, let alone anti-tsunami barricades, is negligible compared to
Japan unfortunately.

~~~
hinathan
From the article: "unlike Southeast Asians, many of whom died in the 2004
Indian Ocean tsunami because they lingered near the coast despite clear
warnings to flee"

Interesting way to put it (implying that the issue was behavioral/cultural
rather than one of engineering)

~~~
mc32
I think they were referring to the annual drills institutionalized in Japan.
From the drills conducted annually, people knew how to react to disasters,
whereas people who don't experience drills (in, say SEA) ignored the warnings
or didn't know how to react since they had no reference.

------
jakegottlieb
25 people have died in China and they didn't receive the bulk of the
destruction. This attests to Japan's high end building codes.

------
blahblahblah
It sounds like the strict building codes served them well for residential
housing and commercial spaces. However, it looks like the engineering
standards for their nuclear reactors could stand to be a little more strict
([http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42025882/ns/world_news-
asiapacif...](http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42025882/ns/world_news-
asiapacific/)). Perhaps the news article is overly sensational, but I can't
help but wonder, "Why are we even talking about the possibility of a meltdown
in 2011?" Shouldn't loss of reactor cooling capability result in an automatic
reactor shutdown? Wasn't the lesson of the Three Mile Island accident that you
should build your reactor so that the default thing that happens when you lose
power (and therefore lose cooling capability) is that the control rods drop
via gravity and stop the reaction? Any nuclear engineers out there care to
comment on the design of Japan's reactors?

~~~
foobarbazetc
Please don't spread misinformation about this. The reactors stopped
automatically, but you still have to cool them. They ran out of diesel, so
they're getting mobile power units in to cool the rest.

They're not morons.

~~~
blahblahblah
So, basically, MSNBC did a crappy job of writing their article -- it should
have explicitly stated that a shutdown happened...

~~~
foobarbazetc
Yeah, but every news agency is.

The BBC had a "live feed" of a huge blazing fire, and the caption was
"Government declares Nuclear Emergency".

The fire was at a natural gas storage tank...

I don't know if these news agencies like stoking mass panic, but you need to
be a little sceptical about reporting in the media about "contentious" issues
like nuclear power.

Here's the IAEA post about the current issue:

<http://www.iaea.org/press/?p=1133>

It's standard procedure in these situations to evacuate a 3km radius from the
plant, just in case. If the situation gets slightly more... interesting (as
in, they need to vent some steam), they evacuate 10km.

TL;DR: Let's wait and see what happens before declaring that Japan is about to
be annihilated by nuclear fallout.

Edit: here's the current status of each reactor:

[http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-
com/release/11031207-e....](http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-
com/release/11031207-e.html) [http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-
com/release/11031212-e....](http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-
com/release/11031212-e.html) [http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-
com/release/11031213-e....](http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-
com/release/11031213-e.html) [http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-
com/release/11031214-e....](http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-
com/release/11031214-e.html)

I.e., all shut down. Need cooling. Pressure being vented in the Daiichi
reactor.

------
power78
Please don't get mad at this, but the reason I love hackernews is because its
not like reddit has become: there are no silly posts or posts that don't
relate to technology and programming. This post seems necessary for reddit,
but not for hacker news. Please don't let this community change!

------
orenmazor
I dont have a nytimes account.

not even readability can save me here.

~~~
apike
Copy the title of the article and paste it into Google. The link from Google
will always return the full article.

~~~
_delirium
Only the first page of the full article, unfortunately; I hit the login wall
when I try to go to page 2.

------
Semiapies
I'm not sure of the _news_ aspect of this. Japan has a long history of
damaging earthquakes and tsunamis, and they're famous for their preparations
for the same.

Someone needed column inches.

~~~
masklinn
> I'm not sure of the news aspect of this. Japan has a long history of
> damaging earthquakes and tsunamis, and they're famous for their preparations
> for the same.

Yet they still "needed" the Great Hanshin Earthquake 16 years ago to fix
numerous issues, especially in disaster planning, prevention and response, and
in infrastructure management.

~~~
Semiapies
And "16 years ago" makes it news how? How does that reform invalidate that
modern Japan has been doing far more in terms of earthquake-related
preparedness for decades than other countries?

~~~
masklinn
That their fame might be somewhat understated.

~~~
Semiapies
Japan is and has been pre-eminent in earthquake prepareness for decades.
Whether they decided to increase efforts doesn't diminish that.

At this point, you're trolling.

(Also, I think you meant to type "overstated".)

------
ollysb
"Multimedia" seems like such a quaint term now.

------
bluedanieru
When people talk about the America's crumbling infrastructure, it isn't just
potholes folks.

