When I moved to a developing country with very few rules and regulations, sometimes I could feel the libertarianism leaving my body. There is definitely a happy regulatory medium which doesn't involve having to check the shower with a multimeter when moving in.
It was amazing just being able to build things back then. These days you need to cough up $1500 for a PDF of ISO 26262 to even think about doing something commercially with automotive ECUs. Depending on what you're trying to do, there are dozens of additional standards with thousands of pages. Not even to mention CARB compliance.