Compared to a world in which there are no noise regulations and people are randomly distributed across neighborhoods, the actual world has relatively little problems with noise. To what extent do you credit regulations and to what extent do you credit people’s freedom of movement? We could also consider a third factor interacts with the other two, social norms.
We could also consider a third factor interacts with the other two, social norms.
I think social norms are probably much more important for people*. The reason why is my own personal experience in a dog-owning family; every time my parents would notice the dogs barking, they’d go yell at them or yell at me to yell at them, because they were afraid what the neighbors would think. (Sometimes they’d appeal to regulations/laws in justifying this to me, but we could both see how hollow an argument that was.)
I notice that when I was very young, I couldn’t’ve cared less about whether the dogs were barking or not, but that as I grew older, a nameless terror would descend upon me when the dogs began barking.
* I say people because when I consider industrial settings or transportation, then regulation is more important than social norms; the airport doesn’t care what the surrounding people think, but will care about lawsuits.
Compared to a world in which there are no noise regulations and people are randomly distributed across neighborhoods, the actual world has relatively little problems with noise. To what extent do you credit regulations and to what extent do you credit people’s freedom of movement? We could also consider a third factor interacts with the other two, social norms.
I think social norms are probably much more important for people*. The reason why is my own personal experience in a dog-owning family; every time my parents would notice the dogs barking, they’d go yell at them or yell at me to yell at them, because they were afraid what the neighbors would think. (Sometimes they’d appeal to regulations/laws in justifying this to me, but we could both see how hollow an argument that was.)
I notice that when I was very young, I couldn’t’ve cared less about whether the dogs were barking or not, but that as I grew older, a nameless terror would descend upon me when the dogs began barking.
* I say people because when I consider industrial settings or transportation, then regulation is more important than social norms; the airport doesn’t care what the surrounding people think, but will care about lawsuits.