- - The original note follows - -
From: Michael Raymond Feely <mf2x+@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: AIA discussion
Date: Wed, 16 Feb 1994 23:46:42 -0500
eafaust@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Andrew Faust) writes...
>>How does your free market allow the victims and/or survivors to recover
>>damages? What negligence is there if your archi-wannabe isn't required to
>>'have reasonably known' that, say, foam core doesn't actually work in
>>real life? What happens when people die?
>That is why we have contracts and courts of law. I don't mean to sound
>callous, but (again to bring up the idea of reputation) anyone who
>undertakes to build using an inexperienced architect is facing great
>risk.
And what constitutes, for purposes of this principle, an experienced
architect? I can be as experienced as you want with single family homes.
I can have fifty years experience with them. And I won't be any better
at designing safe fifty story buildings than Joe Average.
Contracts are very nice, and courts of law to arbitrate them are
nice too. (Albeit, in the modern world, there are a great many people
who seem to make careers simply of suing folks, and then settling out of
court for just less than it would have cost you to defend yourself.) But
that sort of arbitration is ex post facto. The building is still a pile
of rubble, and the people who died in the archi-fuckup are still dead.
> No-one is making anyone build with an architect of
>questionable reputation.
Sure. The free market will provide acceptable protection for all, right?
I'm sorry, but I don't buy it. The "free market" is a place where
little guys get crushed. Go read Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" and then
come back and tell me about the free market, and how we should avoid
regulating people whose work or product involves the public trust.
I don't like the liscencing exam, I don't like the IDP requirements,
and I don't like being told what to do by the government. But I think
that the alternative, at least in this case, is worse.
>There are nuances which can be worked out over the course of time...
>questions of mis-representation, fraud, etc.
The present system *is* what has been worked out over time.
>If I'm not good enough to make it in 'my free market'
>because of my own ignorance or stupidity, then I don't make it. Noone
>can protect me from my own incompetence.
Liscencing isn't there to protect you from your own incompetence.
It's there to protect the rest of us from your incompetence. If it were
only the architect who was at stake when a building fell down, or
developed a killer case of sick building syndrome, or didn't work, I'd
be all for throwing out the requirements. But it isn't. Not by a long
shot.
>I said nothing of the sort. What I did say, or at least I implied it,
>was that the mechanisms in place have a stifling effect on the pursuit of
>quality in architecture.
Umm. Precisely what sort of "quality" do you have in mind here?
Visual? Structural? Functional? Economic?
>I do say also that anyone should be able to
>design buildings, but not _because_ licensed architects make mediocre
>buildings, but because it's their _right_.
Along with Rights come Responsibilities. It is an observed
phenomenon that most people will take all the Rights they can get, while
shirking as much Respoinsibility as possible. Regulatory agencies are in
place specifically to prevent the shirking of so much Responsibility
that someone gets killed.
I admire your freedom-of-expression spirit, I admit. I do, however,
think that there are very sound reasons for regulating the profession to
some degree. (We can, however, argue *forever* over exactly what that
degree ought to be.)
MRF
=======------======------======------
Michael - rational romantic mystic cynical idealist
"Bad bottom. No safeword."
CMU did make me this way, but they'll never admit it.
Michael Feely, 5719 Elwood Ave. Apt #8, Pittsburgh, PA 15232
* mf2x+@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx ** Anon - an2105@xxxxxxxxxxxxx *
From: Michael Raymond Feely <mf2x+@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: AIA discussion
Date: Wed, 16 Feb 1994 23:46:42 -0500
eafaust@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Andrew Faust) writes...
>>How does your free market allow the victims and/or survivors to recover
>>damages? What negligence is there if your archi-wannabe isn't required to
>>'have reasonably known' that, say, foam core doesn't actually work in
>>real life? What happens when people die?
>That is why we have contracts and courts of law. I don't mean to sound
>callous, but (again to bring up the idea of reputation) anyone who
>undertakes to build using an inexperienced architect is facing great
>risk.
And what constitutes, for purposes of this principle, an experienced
architect? I can be as experienced as you want with single family homes.
I can have fifty years experience with them. And I won't be any better
at designing safe fifty story buildings than Joe Average.
Contracts are very nice, and courts of law to arbitrate them are
nice too. (Albeit, in the modern world, there are a great many people
who seem to make careers simply of suing folks, and then settling out of
court for just less than it would have cost you to defend yourself.) But
that sort of arbitration is ex post facto. The building is still a pile
of rubble, and the people who died in the archi-fuckup are still dead.
> No-one is making anyone build with an architect of
>questionable reputation.
Sure. The free market will provide acceptable protection for all, right?
I'm sorry, but I don't buy it. The "free market" is a place where
little guys get crushed. Go read Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" and then
come back and tell me about the free market, and how we should avoid
regulating people whose work or product involves the public trust.
I don't like the liscencing exam, I don't like the IDP requirements,
and I don't like being told what to do by the government. But I think
that the alternative, at least in this case, is worse.
>There are nuances which can be worked out over the course of time...
>questions of mis-representation, fraud, etc.
The present system *is* what has been worked out over time.
>If I'm not good enough to make it in 'my free market'
>because of my own ignorance or stupidity, then I don't make it. Noone
>can protect me from my own incompetence.
Liscencing isn't there to protect you from your own incompetence.
It's there to protect the rest of us from your incompetence. If it were
only the architect who was at stake when a building fell down, or
developed a killer case of sick building syndrome, or didn't work, I'd
be all for throwing out the requirements. But it isn't. Not by a long
shot.
>I said nothing of the sort. What I did say, or at least I implied it,
>was that the mechanisms in place have a stifling effect on the pursuit of
>quality in architecture.
Umm. Precisely what sort of "quality" do you have in mind here?
Visual? Structural? Functional? Economic?
>I do say also that anyone should be able to
>design buildings, but not _because_ licensed architects make mediocre
>buildings, but because it's their _right_.
Along with Rights come Responsibilities. It is an observed
phenomenon that most people will take all the Rights they can get, while
shirking as much Respoinsibility as possible. Regulatory agencies are in
place specifically to prevent the shirking of so much Responsibility
that someone gets killed.
I admire your freedom-of-expression spirit, I admit. I do, however,
think that there are very sound reasons for regulating the profession to
some degree. (We can, however, argue *forever* over exactly what that
degree ought to be.)
MRF
=======------======------======------
Michael - rational romantic mystic cynical idealist
"Bad bottom. No safeword."
CMU did make me this way, but they'll never admit it.
Michael Feely, 5719 Elwood Ave. Apt #8, Pittsburgh, PA 15232
* mf2x+@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx ** Anon - an2105@xxxxxxxxxxxxx *