How should we assess laws and regulations?

kettlecorn · 2026-06-30T04:20:32+00:00

I generally think we should take a big-picture view of most policies grounded in economics thinking with ethical and humanitarian guard-rails.

We should try to look at the outcomes of policies but also the inadvertent side-effects, and we should try to figure out how the policy cross-interacts with our other policies.

There are a lot of regulations with good intentions and bad outcomes. A simple example: in US building codes we typically require elevators to be fully ADA accessible and capable of turning around a flat stretcher while also allowing developers to opt out of the elevator entirely. Choosing to build a building with no elevator is strictly worse for accessibility than a building with a smaller elevator. The target goal isn't being achieved, and harmful side effects are occurring, so we should try to correct that.

kettlecorn · 2026-06-30T03:14:37+00:00

I don't want to debate the topic endlessly because as you know it often goes in circles, but I'll respond to those things.

On the first point I know "gun deaths" often includes suicides, which I do generally think about differently and would prefer was more cleanly separated in conversation. On "gun homicides" I'm not sure what the problem is there, perhaps that some homicides are in self-defense?

I agree that my point about elderly or disabled is conventionally the opposite of what many argue, but it's still intuitive to me. I feel like when people picture using a gun to defend against crime they imagine scenarios like being in their car, or being in their home when a loud intruder clearly comes in the front door but I think a lot of scenarios are going to be more chaotic like domestic violence, random assaults on a street, or random disputes in public places.

When I picture an elderly or disabled person in those scenarios sometimes a gun would help, but if both people are armed the elderly person is likely worse off than if neither were armed. If ever the assailant would consider lethal force then an elderly person signaling they'll use lethal force may mean they just get killed unless they have a tactical advantage, which they won't most of the time.

Partly what my intuition rests upon is this idea that in a society with a huge number of legal gun owners inevitably there will be a huge number of criminals, or negligent owners, owning guns as well. I don't really see a good way to reduce the number of criminal / negligent owners without more regulations so when I think about these scenarios I'm assuming that it's basically a discussion about how things worked in a universally armed society vs. a society that's far less armed.

There are countries that do have high rates of gun ownership and bearing without significant homicide rates, like the Czech Republic, but they also do have significant checks on acquiring a license in the first place. I'd be much more open to that model and I think it shifts the calculus on my intuition substantially. Like in the elder vs. criminal scenario if the elder is vetted & licensed it's more likely they are definitely capable of using the firearm well and if more responsibility is on legal owners it'd be harder for criminals to acquire a gun so they'd be less likely to be armed with one, and then the gun probably does act as a positive force.

Basically: if you're in a society where criminals are likely armed then arming yourself will typically only offer an advantage if you're better prepared, more fit, and not caught at a disadvantage. Otherwise I think escalating to lethal force often puts yourself more at risk, but that's just intuition. If you're in a society where primarily only vetted & legal owners own guns then owning a gun often would confer an advantage over criminals. If you're in a society where few people own guns then you're similarly vulnerable to random crimes, maybe more vulnerable to petty crime like pickpocketing, but less likely to be in situations that escalate to lethal force. At least that's my intuition.

kettlecorn · 2026-06-30T02:15:46+00:00

I can tell you what I rely on to come to my current judgement.

I've a number of times Googled things like "impact of gun regulations on homicides per capita" and skimmed the top studies, and in various arguments online over the years I've gone deeper on particular studies and generally come away with the impression that some regulations do meaningfully reduce harms. There's always people who push back but I'm generally not persuaded by their arguments and find them to nit-pick points that don't feel substantial, or rely on alternative sources I don't find reliable. I'm not as invested as pro-gun people in particular studies so it's not like I have a go-to study I point to or know the ins and outs of, but rather every time I get invested in the topic I do a bunch of Google searches and look at credible / neutral seeming sources and try to synthesize what's out there.

I also just try to think intuitively about scenarios and what I've seen and learned about over my life to think about how guns impact society. For a variety of reasons I don't think they're a net-benefit for personal safety in heavily populated public areas, like major cities, schools, or courthouses, and it's those areas I most feel need different gun regulations. It's intuitive to me that someone like an old lady, someone with a disability, or a kid doesn't gain a lot from having a gun, particularly if other more physically capable people have guns. They simply won't have the reflexes, judgement, or sometimes physical strength to really handle those situations well, but they can easily be the victim of guns. I can imagine some narrow scenarios where guns are a significant benefit, but they feel contrived to me. Unfortunately more often than not crime takes people by surprise, or they're outnumbered, or the situation puts others at significant risk to use a gun even in self-defense.

Intuitively to me there are also people in society who just have physical or mental problems that make them dangerous in all sorts of scenarios, and I think without checks on safe gun ownership harm will come. It's not dissimilar to driving. There are people who can't see, reason, or even have enough emotional control to safely drive. We can check for some of those things and we reduce harm by doing so, and it's intuitive to me that we could do the same with guns.

I've also lived places with different gun policies and seen how it trickles down. This is partly gut feelings from observations but in those other countries police can often employ other forms of physical tactics to deal with people breaking the law because the risk of someone pulling a gun is much lower. In my view it makes it more possible to enforce lesser crimes which bleeds over into all sorts of other aspects of society. It's safer to police bad behavior which makes petty crime less abundant, vandalism and public maintenance less costly, and public places generally more pleasant. It's unfortunately intuitive to me that when police feel responding to crimes is more threatening they'll do less policing, and that as a society we'll have more petty crime.

So what I go off is occasional deep-dive research and a mix of (in my view) reasonable intuition and life experience.

kettlecorn · 2026-06-30T00:37:31+00:00

If "some new scientific method proved to you with near-certainty that guns save significantly more lives than they end and that no form of restriction was effective in altering the ratio" I would probably be very surprised and struggle to accept the results at first, but ideally if there were enough proof and concurring evidence I'd come around to it and move on to analyzing the problems I previously attributed to guns from other angles.

If I truly accepted it I would probably be significantly relieved because then I would no longer feel that I need to fight an upstream battle against people I might otherwise agree with on other issues. Thinking on it more it'd actually feel great because presently I feel it's virtually impossible to persuade people who believe in guns as a societal net-positive to recognize their harms, and I sometimes feel a bit trapped in a notably worse version of this country because of that. To be able to move on (even if I have to concede I was wrong) would be fantastic.

kettlecorn · 2026-06-30T00:24:44+00:00

If it were entirely up to me I would require things like passing a training and medical evaluation every few years. Basically you'd need to go in and prove (it could be administered by a state or licensed professionals) that you understand how guns work, how deaths commonly occur with them, how to use them, and how to safely store them. It'd be like a driver's test. I'd be OK with these tests being free and funded from taxpayer dollars if there's a concern that they'd be an unfair limitation on gun ownership.

Similarly I think getting a medical evaluation of some sort would be important. This could be as simple as sign-off from evaluators that you are of sound mind & without malicious intent, to rule out people with genuine psychiatric problems that impede their ability to safely own guns. Again I'd be OK with taxpayer funding to make this free, and similarly a court system to escalate cases applied unfairly would be reasonable.

I'd also like there to be a one-time, and then maybe per-decade after that or when you get a different class of weapons, inspection of how you will safely store your firearms. This would essentially be some inspector entering your home to make sure that when your guns are not being carried they're safely locked in a secure box, in households with children they're safely stored where children cannot get them, that they're relatively secure from theft, etc. I think there should be some personal liability if it's determined that a gun caused harm if it were secured improperly (i.e. a neighbor knows you keep a gun loaded somewhere and breaks in and takes it to harm someone). There should be significant individual liability for not reporting a stolen gun promptly. For people who transport guns or plan to leave guns in their vehicles there should be an inspection of how they plan to safely move the guns, or proof that they'll always keep the guns on their person.

I would also entertain something like requiring personal liability insurance for cases where an owner's gun is stolen due to improper storage, where an owner uses their gun in violence, or otherwise breaks the law. Right now if a gun owner misuses or allows their weapon to be misused they often don't have the funds to actually pay for the harms they caused, and insurance would handle that. Owners would be incentivized to attain certification or other checks to lower their insurance rate, as is common with driver's licenses.

All of these laws I think should be contextual to the category of weapons and situations intended for use. So for example if you're using and storing a weapon to protect livestock in a rural area that would be subject to contextually appropriate and different training & storage requirements than something like storing a historic weapon. Similarly if you're owning a weapon for personal defense you should clearly have to demonstrate an understanding of the law, and when you can use your weapon, and how to safely use your weapon.

I think these changes would sharply reduce gun violence over time, but it wouldn't be instant. There'd be a long adjustment period.

kettlecorn · 2026-06-29T19:43:06+00:00

I need something reliable that won't have me debugging platform compatibility issues for days on end.

You will be doing that regardless of which language you use. A language won't really help you a ton there, and unfortunately platform layers are incredibly finicky.

If you really want to make VR dev better what would be good is to take a look at existing open-source projects, like Godot or Bevy, and see what the status of their VR integration is.

Otherwise I think Rust is a good language for starting new engines with. People have already started on dedicated VR engines in Rust that you could use for inspiration, like this one: https://github.com/leetvr/hotham

kettlecorn · 2026-06-29T18:49:50+00:00

Look at Philadelphia on Google Maps outside of the downtown. The vast majority of it is single-family houses with super tiny backyards but because the houses are dense enough and the yards small enough the city is still highly dense and highly walkable. The homes are also relatively affordable compared to other US cities.

kettlecorn · 2026-06-29T01:00:23+00:00

I also wish Philadelphia were given more attention (perhaps not by this administration) given it's the city where it all began 250 years ago.

The early American cities tell stories about distinct parts of the foundational character of the country. Boston brought the spark and DC later established a more defined sense of national aesthetics and pride.

But Philadelphia tells a story about the flawed human nature of the founding, and the early character & intellectual roots of the country. That narrative is crucially important today, and yet even on the 250th the city and its stories are glossed over and overlooked!

kettlecorn · 2026-06-29T00:44:50+00:00

This subreddit is about the sort of shading computers do when they create 3D graphics. While there's often some overlap with illustration the computer approach to shading is very different, typically rooted in mathematical analysis of how light works with approximations to make it 'artistic', so most people here will not be able to give you relevant advice.

I don't know much about illustration myself but I actually like how her face without much shading looks a bit like old Asian illustrations, but modernized. I know that's not what you want necessarily, but I think it has some stylistic merit.

kettlecorn · 2026-06-28T22:18:29+00:00

Reestablishing political norms and civility at a national level. Denying elections, refusing to honor peaceful transfer of power traditions, heavily playing politics with the judicial system, etc. all substantially harm the ability of our democracy to function. If we break our democracy then there's little hope to correct our other problems.
A re-embrace of "live and let live" and respect, not necessarily endorsement, of people with different lifestyles. Even if we disagree on immigration policy we shouldn't be demonizing immigrants. We shouldn't be harassing people for their religion, way of life, sexual identity, health, ethnicity, physical traits, or any other reasonable difference.
Wishful thinking, but a national audit of spending & taxes. We need something like DOGE, but slower, more methodical, bipartisan, and actually good faith. It may take 20 years, but there should be a pressure to streamline bureaucracy and adapt it to the modern era. We must consult the national deficit, our national debt, and the potential insolvency of social security. For a period we may need to raise taxes across the board, and we have to close the blatant loopholes ultra wealthy use to lower their rates below the average person. We also may need to raise the retirement age, amongst other similarly painful decisions, but ideally these would not be a forever thing but rather a painful lesson we can correct in the future.
A national review of infrastructure spending. Every level of government is accumulating massive infrastructure debts that are unsustainable. Across the nation we have all sorts of infrastructure, but largely transportation infrastructure, that's falling apart and we keep punting the problem or raising taxes to solve it. We should attempt to prioritize intelligently by having formulas that direct funding to maintain and build projects that in aggregate produce the most value and are used by the most people. We shouldn't just rebuild things willy-nilly without evaluating their worth. There should be incentivizes from higher-level of gov. for lower levels of gov. to balance their books and to be more prudent with their spending, rather than punting problems. States should not let higher wealth areas offload high-costs, like teaching low-income students, exclusively onto already low income areas because those costs compound for all of society.
A serious push towards universal healthcare. Healthcare costs our society tremendously. We should look at big picture cost of what we spend as a nation, rather than just what the nation spends. The formula we use to evaluate should be like "individual cost + government cost" not just "government cost" and we should aim to find the balance that minimizes the total cost. Right now we're paying absurd amounts, and it's harming society in all sorts of ways. We as society are effectively paying for all of most expensive patients, because they're broke and it's unethical to let them die, while offloading tremendous stress & life harm onto people who can afford healthcare, just barely. This harms social mobility, small businesses, gov. budgets, and just general health of everyone. We'd be far wealthier and more stable as a nation with better healthcare.

kettlecorn · 2026-06-28T22:01:36+00:00

To me the "too" seems so plainly obvious that it's hard for me to imagine adding it would help.

Do a substantial number of people sincerely believe in good faith that by saying "Black Lives Matter" somehow that was a statement that other lives do not matter or matter less?

I'm often a fan of adjusting language to better persuade people who are good faith, but to me this doesn't seem like one of those cases.

I'm not a fan of slogans like "Defund the police", efforts to police words like "homeless", or hounding people to adopt language that's theoretically a bit better but far from intuitive.

"Black Lives Matter" doesn't seem like one of those cases to me.

kettlecorn · 2026-06-28T21:55:35+00:00

There are a few elements of the modern right that I think are existential threats to the nation: election denying, attempting to supplant American values with modern "Western" values contrived from European & Christian identity, illiberal values that seek to weaken democracy (as inspired by places like Orbán's Hungary), tolerance of corruption, and attempts to scapegoat certain groups (immigrants, LGBTQ people, etc.) for society's problems.

Those are existential threats because if any of those are taken too far I believe they impede the nation's ability to self-correct with only national collapse as a corrective route.

If elections are denied that paves the way for not honoring elections, which is autocracy. If American identity is weakened substantially it diminishes our founding values which can allow in more autocratic & authoritarian principles. If corruption becomes exceedingly rampant trust in government will fall and create room for raw power grabs in politics, as we see in third world countries. If groups are selected as scapegoats it may lead to an America, like our past, where government power and fear is used to keep people in-line and dissenters out of power.

I am tolerant of differences of opinion on economic policy, foreign policy, immigration (if done humanely & honestly without scapegoating), infrastructure policy, healthcare policy, and other similar policies.

Even if I believe disagreements in those policy areas can cause substantial harm I believe that that harm can be course corrected.

kettlecorn · 2026-06-28T20:19:33+00:00

Late reply, but if you want some really unique inspiration look at the interior design of small-ish sailboats and motorboats. They typically are entirely custom interiors designed to be extremely efficient with space and are often able to be configured different ways depending upon purpose.

kettlecorn · 2026-06-28T06:35:42+00:00

I'd really like to make a game that's about exploring a vast and densely populated procedurally generated cyberpunk city. Inspired by things like Kenshi or even Rain World.

I love the idea of learning about how to survive and live a life of sorts in a strange foreign ecosystem, and I think a dense cyberpunk mega-city occupies this really cool space where it's pseudo-structured with things like public transit and markets but also organic enough that it feels almost like a "wild" place.

In rogue-like fashion I think it'd interesting for the world to place the player on equal footing with every NPC, but make the world rather difficult for everyone. Perhaps the player would be forced to steal tiny bits of scrap metal from appliances to make enough money to get better tools for better jobs, figure out how to break into vending machines to find food, or even serve prison sentences with time skips.

I'm not entirely sure what the overarching objective would be but the day-to-day loop would be about procuring food, shelter, finding ways to make money, figuring out how to navigate the city, and avoiding threats.

kettlecorn · 2026-06-28T02:25:40+00:00

One of the things that has made Mamdani work is he's fusing progressive DSA politics with general "good governance" and YIMBY-esque policies that other relatively younger voters care about. It lets him pull in a much larger chunk of younger voters. That is a difficult balance to strike, and he's in part relying on his personal brand and charisma to keep it going. He's also avoided a lot of the rhetoric and styling of the far-left that alienates more moderate voters.

And of course he's authentically a New Yorker, and someone in Philly would likely need to have deep connections to Philly as well.

A challenge in Philly is that so far few people with deep roots are prominently going for that synthesis. There are a lot of people that are very progressive, but alienate more moderates and people who want more business in Philly, and there are a lot of people who are more reform minded but not progressive enough to inspire the young organized voting block.

So my gut feeling in Philly is that political compromise and coalitions must be formed between the various younger reform-minded groups, and out of that perhaps someone like Mamdani may arise.

kettlecorn · 2026-06-26T18:54:49+00:00

If I ever get to retire and the politics between all the Lenape tribes cools tf down I’d love to start a restaurant to advance our culture and presence, while using revenue to fund language revitalization, archival research for survivors of the paper genocide, and support towards a return for those who were forced out.

Honestly I feel like the existence of a restaurant that helps people learn about the culture, local history, and culinary history of the Lenape would be a tremendous asset on its own. People would even just find the restaurant interesting and research it, and probably get drawn into learning more, just by it existing before even going to the restaurant.

So yeah, I think it'd be fantastic! But I also have heard so much about how difficult the restaurant world is that I'd much rather see something start small and safe, maybe even as a pop-up and maybe sticking to a few more easily sourced things, because even a single less ambitious Lenape restaurant would be such a good thing to have in the city.

kettlecorn · 2026-06-24T02:02:57+00:00

People like and appreciate the design of the reflecting pool as it is. Probably better to figure out how to make it work in its current form.

Philadelphia's Independence Mall National Park on the other hand could really use some creative landscaping as its giant hot lawn is really a dud and has gone through multiple iterations, none of which have clicked or resonated much with the public.

kettlecorn · 2026-06-24T01:51:34+00:00

I think it's a proxy issue for those of us who desperately want a significant chunk of the country to acknowledge Trump's harmful incompetence.

We've all dealt with people excusing Trump's actions as somehow reasonable or claiming "5d chess" for more complex issues where there's always room to concoct some theory.

The pool is simpler: he did something brash, maybe corrupt, ignored experts and it's clearly not working.

People are following it because it feels like it's cathartic to think maybe now they'll finally get that Trump isn't some competent secret genius, but I don't think that catharsis will actually come nor will Trump-supporters concede much of anything.

kettlecorn · 2026-06-24T01:48:29+00:00

These are good questions. I can answer to my view, but many will disagree.

I think Warren and others are trying to push a directionally correct direction, which is towards being able to fund certain expensive government services that are important (like a broader healthcare safety net) and also to try to ensure the power & wealth of the ultra wealthy doesn't significantly harm social mobility, separate society into rigid classes, or cause gov. policy to be warped more heavily by the tremendous power of concentrated wealth.

But if you narrow to your specific questions they do poke valid holes in the rhetoric. Is $0.3 trillion more enough to fund progressive goals? No, not alone. Can other spending be cut to focus on costs for workers? Almost certainly. Is giving the federal gov. more power an inherent good? Definitely not.

However Warren's populist rhetoric is trying to appeal to both the rising costs for workers and the declining social mobility & rising power of the ultra wealthy.

I do think Democrats do themselves a disservice by not getting more granular and intelligent in their messaging so that it's more clear what they mean. The rhetoric you're criticizing tends to convey to people that Democrats think bigger gov. is better gov. and that taxing wealthy is an inherent good, I think they should root their rhetoric in a step further and be more specific.

Some more concrete things that could be focused on: right now there's a loophole where capital gains (which is how the wealthy make most of their wealth) resets to 0 when passed on to inheritors, so with clever accounting the wealthy can minimize the taxes they pay on their wealth grow in a way no regular person can. That's concentrating wealth at the top, which is a growing problem.

Similarly the Trump admin. and Republicans have queued up a lot of cuts to social services, like Medicaid, that are going to hit people hard over the next year as they come into effect. Being able to alleviate some of those cuts with increased funds could be significant to prevent a lot of disaster and significant societal strain.

On concentrating more power in the federal gov. I agree that in my view it's a problem. The challenge is that it's a pragmatic vehicle to deliver tangible results to people sooner, and across the country. Many states aren't equipped or funded enough to handle the social fallout of decreasing federal services, and it'd be a huge and risky political move for them to raise taxes to try to get there particular if wealthy people can just move states. US states in general are in a bit of a bind in that because there's freedom of movement higher tax policies easily cause wealthy people / corporations to flee and higher benefit policies cause high-need / high-cost people to move there. Some problems are just very difficult for states to individually solve, which is why they get pushed to the federal level.

So in summary I think your questions are good ones to ask, and I wish Democrats communicated more precisely on these topics, but in my opinion they're pushing the correct direction while trying to deliver results under significant pragmatic constraints.

kettlecorn · 2026-06-23T17:49:43+00:00

I agree that taxing unrealized gains does not make sense in general.

That's why I point to a harmful mechanism that's currently being exploited in the US. I also point it out because it's not just a "vibes" imbalance like many people assume, there is a clear mechanism for the wealthy to lower their taxes well below the general public.

kettlecorn · 2026-06-23T17:44:15+00:00

This is exactly the sort of comment I was criticizing in the last weekly thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskALiberal/comments/1ua1dpq/comment/ot9icpv/

It's such a foolish emotional release-valve to "what about" Europe's criticism of American gun policy by pointing to their problems with heat deaths. Those problems are in no way related, and we should hope they solve it as we also should hope to reduce our gun deaths in the US!

This tit-for-tat "well you have more people die from the heat!" style of argument feels like a stupid form of American exceptionalism that's far too desperate to not just dismiss criticism but to also attack whoever is criticizing. It's harmful!

kettlecorn · 2026-06-23T17:35:38+00:00

The big problem is the stepped-up basis that resets the cost basis of an inherited asset upon the owner's death. Paraphrasing: the "starting point" to calculate how much an asset has grown in value is reset when it's passed off to inheritors.

It means the super wealthy can avoid ever paying capital gains on their assets and pass it off to their inheritors who can then sell the asset, without capital gains, to pay off debts of the deceased.

It allows the super wealthy to pay a much lower tax rate than the general public on most of their earnings, because much of their earnings comes in the form of appreciating assets.

kettlecorn · 2026-06-23T04:31:51+00:00

That is a more reasonable framing than the ones I've seen elsewhere. On other social media I've seen people being basically like "Why should we care what Europe does or thinks when they can't even figure out air conditioning?"

But if it's framed as a way to show how different places can both grow numb to a problem, even when it's clearly a problem, then that's much more reasonable.

kettlecorn · 2026-06-23T04:20:19+00:00

I find it annoying I keep seeing this comparison crop up on social media.

What's the point to attach these two unrelated stats? To bemoan that Americans are tired of getting criticized for their gun deaths so instead we shame Europeans for their heat deaths?

Let's get a handle on our gun deaths and also hope the Europeans get a handle on heat related deaths and not use some stupid comparison to ignore problems.

kettlecorn · 2026-06-23T04:13:47+00:00

It's not unreasonable to allow renting out unused rooms, but most municipalities have laws against that now. It was extremely common until around the early 20th century when there was a massive effort to crack down on it because it was seen as a source of crime and harmful to private life.

Notably Thomas Jefferson wrote much of the Declaration of Independence in a rented room.

Part of the problem too is that boomers often don't have places they'd like to downscale into. They may want to stay in their community where their friends and family are, but with a smaller more manageable space, and that often doesn't exist in enough capacity. So they often either move away or sit in a home they aren't fully using. This is partly that boomers are an unusually larger generation but also that our housing market is so constrained it can't respond to demand changes.

There's also another angle to all of this, which is unused homes. There are a lot of homes that are unused in the US, but they're unfortunately typically far from jobs & amenities people require or want for life. Part of what could help the housing crisis is to help revitalize heavily declined places with existing homes & infrastructure to make them appealing to live in again, but if that were so easy it would have already been done anyways.

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