>You, strictly speaking, don't need any amount of square footage to live

I'd argue that you do, considering it's -4 to -22F outside for half of the year, and historically have gone as low as -58F

I disagree.

Not only do we not see those tempretures here, we stopped using Farenheit before I was born and the locals lived happily for several tens of thousands of years semi nomadically with minimal shelter requirements.

You might have missed the global part of the discussion topic and of the HN forum.

>You might have missed the global part of the discussion topic and of the HN forum.

Indeed, because it's a global discussion it's important to point out that the point is not globally applicable, because there are lots of areas where people indeed do need shelter to survive. Just because it's possible in some downtown with favorable external conditions doesen't make it very viable generally

It's free to walk to warmer weather.

It isn't a binary choice, you can disable the function for situations it's not suited for. Nothing should be forcing us to enable harmful scenarios just because.

well, the law explicitly says mandatory. Defaults tend to stick.

I think they have a great point though, accurate measurement of the types of incidents is just as important if not more than the total.

This conjures the fear that the agency in question is bad at this. Do you have evidence that they are? Can it happen? Yes. We could also have it so that no wrecks from minorities are counted, such that we are blind to how they are impacted. Would be terrible. No evidence that that has happened.

> This conjures the fear that the agency in question is bad at this. Do you have evidence that they are?

Yes. This was my movivation for questioning the "data says" logic. The NHTSA has made decisions based on data that were poor decisions because they misunderstood the problem domain and became overly reliant on specific metrics. Here is a copy-paste of an earlier comment in this thread:

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> the NHTSA is a pretty cautious organization, and they like numbers.

They may be cautious but they're not necessarily smart. Their vehicle safety ratings only measure the safety of occupants in that vehicle. Result? An arms race where cars keep getting bigger, heavier, and taller to do better in crash tests against bigger, heavier, and taller cars. These "safer" vehicles are now more deadly to everyone else, especially pedestrians and bicyclists.

McNamara fallacy in action.

I'm at against bigger cars as you can be. Literally biking to places when I can. I am not clear that this is the nhtsa's fault.

That said, I could cede this point if you can show evidence of it in these studies. The org is a bunch of people, so I grant they could make mistakes. Without specific concerns, this is the definition of fud. You aren't giving criticism of these studies and actions, but seeding doubt on their data.

You'd think there was time to prepare for this since retirement doesen't just suddenly appear like a leg injury