I truly, TRULY do not know how to say this, because the fact that I have to say it makes me feel like I am losing my grip on reality. But no, in the post-capitalistic anarchist utopia, I will not be relying on “autistic minecraft girlies” to be building inspectors because - and this may shock you - one of those occupations takes years of education in how to read and interpret hundreds of thousands of lines of regulations based on complicated math and physics that were the result of decades of tragedy and death, and the other one involves playing a children’s video game.
I have no idea why this is suddenly getting notes, but it’s auspicious timing since my code class started today and I get to spend the next ten days learning how to parse the thousand pages of the National Electric Code to make sure I don’t accidentally blow up a hospital or something.
The original post annoyed me not because I think it’s a mainstream opinion that needs to be taken seriously, but because it’s part of a larger trend of hypocrisy I’ve noticed among leftists. Construction is an important trade that takes a lot of skill and knowledge, but things like inspections and engineering can be done by anyone with a passing interest in architecture. Worker’s rights and safe working conditions are of the utmost importance, but actual safety regulations and building codes are just bureaucracy meant to keep us dependent on the government. You should unionize and demand the full value of your labor, but tradespeople who charge a fair price are scum and union members who retire millionaires after a lifetime of manual labor are class traitors who get the wall. We need to respect blue collar workers and how difficult their work is, but also we should abolish the division of labor because those jobs are so simple that people can just take a class in high school to learn how to do them. A lot of leftists claim to respect labor but constantly show that they still buy into the “blue collar labor is unskilled work for people too stupid for academia” stereotypes.
I don’t really have a point but after ten hours of reading densely packed legalese about the minute differences between classifications of hazardous locations and all the extremely particular precautions you need to take to stop them from blowing up the first time you flip a light switch, it’s really annoying to get online and see people advocating for getting rid of building codes because they’re “authoritarian” or whatever.
We literally just had a submarine implode due to someone thinking safety regulations were restrictive, oppressive, and unnecessary.
Here’s a tip: if a belief you have lines up perfectly with a vocal Silicon Valley executive’s stance on the issue you should probably reconsider your belief.