> Most people would think an entire town deciding to exclude minorities is morally repugnant
What? I'm not saying I don't. It's just irrelevant to the issue.
> shouldn't be allowed.
That's like saying that "these people over here cannot be allowed to decide over their own neighborhood, because they might decide things that I find repugnant". Well, who are you going to trust with the power?
> What if an entire town decides they don't want to allow minorities to live there?
Yes, what if they do? Should they not get to decide because they might haver the wrong opinion? Who should decide instead? What if they have the wrong opinion?
> Why is xenophobia and NIMBYism acceptable in one case and not the other?
What two cases are you referring to?
Also, it's not obvious that NIMBY, as in "yes, do thing X, but not in my backyard", is relevant here, because it's not necessarily so that anyone is saying "yes, do thing X". For "NIMBY" to be a meaningful concept at all, it really needs to be about a situation when someone is pushing X onto someone else, while refusing to accept X in their own lives. If "NIMBY" used simply to describe a position of "no X, please", or even "no X, please, at least not in my backyard where I might have a say in it", then it's not useful, because those are perfectly reasonable positions to have about things.
> Why do the rights of the local people trump the rights of people from "elsewhere"?
On at least some level, I find it reasonable that the people who live in a certain place decide over that place. In any case, that is rather conventional, isn't it? It's particularly clear on the level of countries, which is why I mentioned it in my comment. Only citizens or residents of a country, not the rest of the world, get to vote in elections.
> The major question is what harm is being done to the local people by the existence of 50 story buildings
That's really a matter of their personal opinion. Some of us find such buildings repulsive.
> How much right should I have to control what other people do because it might bother me?
That's a valid question for every law or other governmental decision. But we can think of an idealized case, where an entire town, or state, or country, agree that they don't want 50-story buildings, even if there exists outsiders who would like to move into such buildings. In this case, we need only recognize the right of the local people to decide what happens in their area, even if it is against the will of people from elsewhere.
> If there's no market for them, they won't get built.
That's something else, isn't it? The people who already live there might not want 50-story buildings, even if there are other people who would move into them if they were built.
Cool! I've been wondering if there is a feed of only the good stuff. If HN itself doesn't provide one, maybe there should be a separate site that does that filtering. I was thinking it would be manually curated, but maybe a list like yours would work as well.
Maybe you should set up such a site. All it would have to do is link to the articles and to the corresponding HN discussions.
I recently returned to HN, having read it a little a few years back. I remembered it as a low-volume, high-quality feed, where I was hesitant to speak, because all the other comments were so full of knowledge.
Now, HN seems to have become like any other place, full of noise like politics, social commentary, and just regular news. I guess the commenters are still knowledgeable about technological subjects, though.
Because I think you shouldn't take deciding what other people are allowed to do lightly. Such things should only be done in extreme cases, like self defense or, perhaps, to prohibit ruining nature through littering.
As far as I can see, that is orthogonal to the issue at hand.
> all this law does is to impose the costs on those who incur it.
We might consider littering to be immoral, and might therefore feel that we have a right to prohibit others from doing it, but it does not follow that we have a right to prohibit people from using, selling, owning or manufacturing bags (or fine or tax them for doing those things).
Yes, deciding what others are allowed to do is something I am morally uncomfortable with. That is not to say that I have come up with something else that is not also questionable.
In any case, I do think that we should strive toward having just a bare minimum of laws. However, it seems to be too much fun to make laws, once you get in a position to do so, for people to abstain from it.
I'm trying to nail down what the actual issue of debate is, or should be. You are merely sharing your opinion on that issue. That is fine, but beside the point I was getting at.
I am confused. You seem to be saying that the law had negative consequences for you and that you therefore think the cost needs to be increased to correct you into the intended behavior.
> Ireland did something similar years ago and the results were incredible. An almost overnight transformation of the cleanliness of the cities and countryside. Nobody would like to reverse the decision now despite significant opposition before-hand.
Are you suggesting that the issue of debate was whether it would lead to less litter? That's almost obvious, isn't it? Surely, the question must rather be whether it is morally acceptable for us to impose such a rule on other people.
What? I'm not saying I don't. It's just irrelevant to the issue.
> shouldn't be allowed.
That's like saying that "these people over here cannot be allowed to decide over their own neighborhood, because they might decide things that I find repugnant". Well, who are you going to trust with the power?