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Comment by brown9-2 | Hacker News Reader

I'm not sure that this article has much of a point beyond what is on the surface, or that it is necessarily making an argument for or against regulation based on economic principles.

The article's sole goal seems to be to help explain how a country with a large history of Earthquake experience has learned from it's history, and how the lessons and how they applied to their building structure helps explain how they might be able to deal with an 8.9 magnitude earthquake much better and with greater loss of life than if this earthquake had struck somewhere else.

I don't think there is a secret meaning in every New York Times article.

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So all the people voting for this title on Reddit and Hacker News aren't making any statement on strict government regulation, they merely find it interesting that the Japanese have learned from their history?

Perhaps I'm misreading you, but you seem to be fishing for a specific answer. Is that the case? If so, why?

Yes, it just seems apparent to me (like an earlier commenter grouk said) that the underlying point of the article and the discussion around it appears to be about competing ideas of libertarian vs. interventionist market principles. I was asking my last question to see who agreed. I guess not too many people, or I was unclear with my question. (edit) And I was frustrated with the implication made that a person who may think this is a conspiracy theorist that finds hidden meanings in every New York Times article.

My apologies if my last comment read that way - I did not mean to lump you in with conspiracy theorists. I often see people trying to read between the lines in NYT articles, not just in regards to current events and political viewpoints but even in the Styles or Weekend section (perhaps I read too many NYC-focused blogs).

> Yes, it just seems apparent to me that the underlying point of the article and the discussion around it appears to be about competing ideas of libertarian vs. interventionist market principles.

You see what you want to see, even when it's not there. It's not very objective to assume there's a political agenda behind everything.

I have no idea why other people are voting the way they are; this is impossible to answer. Honestly I could not care less why other people are up-voting it.

I find this story interesting both on an engineering level and as something news-worthy to explain how Japan may have been able to avoid a far greater tragedy.

So here's why I'm upvoting it: because I feel it is important and worthwhile to underscore the role of good engineering in human safety.

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