Comment by AngryData | Hacker News Reader

Comment by AngryData | Hacker News Reader

The problem isn't that the licensing exists, the problem is licensing, once implemented, is almost never critically reexamined and regularly gets pushed for more difficult requirements regardless of those requirement's efficacy or results. Why? Because harder to obtain licenses means anyone who already has a license has much less competition and thus easier and more profits.

Why does someone who never uses a straight razor ever in their hair stylist career need to learn all about straight razor shaving? Why does a barber that doesn't apply or even possess any hair dye agents need to learn about hair dyes? The license could easily be split into categories, split into multiple licenses or otherwise be examined, but instead it is all packed into one license that is much harder to get without having money pouring out of your ass already to pay for 'schooling'.

I have a beauty school in my town, it doesn't make better stylists, it just pumps them all out of their money and then throws them to the wind with their piece of paper. They just followed some directions on a piece of paper and didn't majorly fuck up, they don't actually have to understand what or why they do certain things and definitely don't need to be skilled. "directions: Shave some hair and clean the razor properly" "Oh wow I managed to do it a single time, now im qualified for it! (yea right) Now I just gotta do 1000 hours of unrelated highlights and buzz cuts, and regardless of quality or fuckups, I still get my license!" Yeah some people do study and become good stylists, the majority of them however are just passed through because they are paid to do so.

This is the crux of it - these licensing boards, inspectors, and licensed professionals have become their own little fiefdoms serving their own entrenched power rather than the public good.

When it comes down to it, the only thing licensure does is set a bar to keep out the extreme boneheads [0]. And that is necessary for sure - I've been around long enough to see how many indiligent jokers there are in the world. But I still philosophically believe everybody has an inherent right to do their own work.

I came across a court case a while ago - Meyer vs Nantucket - of a guy who was building his own house and did his own plumbing in Massachusetts [1]. The ensuing saga reads like scenes from the movie Brazil. He made it all the way to the state supreme court with photo documentation of how the plumbing met code, and how the Nantucket plumbing inspector was not following their own internal regulations. Meyer even found and hired a licensed plumber [2] as an independent inspector. and he found no defects. The court stayed logical through two rounds of appeals, and then suddenly nosedived into nonsense about local boards having ultimate authority of all interpretation, and kicked the case back down - seemingly having gotten the memo that if they were to do the right thing, the status quo would be disrupted. Then the town fiefdom forced him to pay a plumber to destroy the entirety of the work he did and have it redone - basically pure vindictive punishment for thinking he could rock the boat in the first place. This is the attitude that every bureaucratic institution develops after they are taken for granted.

The code bodies operate in the same rent-seeking manner. The National Electrical Code - law that we are all bound by - used to be up as a PDF on public.resource.org, until they were bullied through the legal system into taking it down. Now it is only available from magnet URLs. In a just world, it would be published prominently on states' own websites alongside the rest of the law.

[0] And just in case you don't know, work being done "to code" is a bare minimum. It implies little about the actual quality or longevity of said work.

[1] It's fine to do your own electrical, although many inspectors still become hostile. But plumbing is strictly verboten.

[2] Retired, from out of the area. Because any licensed plumber still earning their living would not want to get on the shit list.

>the problem is licensing, once implemented, is almost never critically reexamined and regularly gets pushed for more difficult requirements regardless of those requirement's efficacy or results.

There's also the "license fee" treadmill, where the state sees an easy way to get more money from a captive audience by raising fees. For example in California this year the license renewal fee for being a locksmith went from $45 to $500 every 3 years, and it's still just a paper card they mail you that certifies that you sent them a form and a fingerprint livescan once, usually many years ago.

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