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Comment by negative_zero | Hacker News Reader

You cannot rely on that limit though. People WILL plug in more than that. The whole system has to be kept inherently safe. All other concerns are solvable, but I don't see how you solve this, bar having a special balcony-solar-socket installed where an electrician has verified that it will be safe in all scenarios.

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Why? It works in many countries without incident. What makes the US different?

Americans are, for the most part, fucking morons. We invented the infamous warning labels like DO NOT EAT THE TONER CARTRIDGE or DO NOT HOLD THE CHAINSAW BY THE BLADE or REMOVE CHILD BEFORE FOLDING STROLLER or PEANUTS: CONTAINS NUTS

We're also very litigious, as it isn't hard to convince a jury to award damages to a fellow moron.

Everybody in the world is a moron. Americans just recognize some places where we are morons and try to prevent stupid people (which includes me and you!) from doing some stupid things.

Not everything, Americans do get by with doing other moronic things that other countries do things to prevent. However other countries also do their own moronic things that Americans are much less likely to.

Italy has the "Do not store your cat under the seat" warning. They do NOT put it on Italian-market scooters and they definitely DO put them on US-market scooters.

https://members.modernvespa.net/brian_herwick_-_coolass/uplo...

It would in practice be (mostly) fine, just as it is elsewhere. But electrical safety principles in the US are typically "must be safe regardless of the dumbest possible use" so that "mostly" is a big obstacle.

I would contest it's without incident. The US is higher risk since it uses 120V => the currents are x2 higher and US electrical safety standards are an eclectic mess of: world leading and 3rd world.

Not picking on the US though. These panels in their current incarnation, are lowering the level of safety of electrical everywhere.

This is all just my opinion though. A lot of my background is in compliance. I've been frustrated by some obvious electrical safety advancements that are STILL not being implemented. I also have first hand experience with many many signed off electrical systems which were death traps. This all biases me heavily towards not compromising on electrical safety. But maybe I am overreacting.

I sincerely get your concern. Clearly explain on the box what NOT to do and be explicit about the risk. Use an icon of a house on fire. Done. Life is risk, and regulating and banning things based on the lowest common denominator of human judgement is a fool's errand. Should we ban vehicles as well since about 40k people die from vehicle related fatalities annually?

In my view it's more that: electrical safety has advanced to it's current "version" and allowing these panels is a regression in safety. There's already plenty of products/theoretical-products that are banned and/or tightly controlled for electrical safety sakes (suicide cable is the poster child).

To use your car analogy, we're not banning vehicles. We're disable one of the airbags when enabling fuel economy mode.

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