Yes, and of course the result of building codes can often be justice — the people who died in the Haïti earthquake died of a lack of building codes, after all.<p>I agree that we take learn to things for granted quickly.  I think that&#x27;s unfortunate and leads to a lot of unhappiness.  Forcing our addiction to needless luxuries on others is a significant way that it leads to unhappiness, but far from the only one.  You also see people dying of lack of physical activity, for example.<p>I don&#x27;t think it makes sense to talk about &quot;the intent of a building code&quot;.  Since we have not yet produced artificial general intelligence, building codes are not yet sentient entities with intent.  Different people who supported the enaction of the building code had a wide variety of intents; the different people who convert it from a piece of paper into a pattern of human behavior, by enforcing it, also have a wide variety of intents.  Most of these are unknowable.