6 ms·

The fact that mostly corporations were invited to the negotiations and not the civil society probably didn't help that whole "communication issue" either.

by mtgx 10y ago

Natsu 10y ago
Yeah, I think it's a bit more than a communications issue when they secretly negotiated a treaty that planned to take away the rights of everyone online to give a few media giants even more control over what people can say online. The EFF has a long list of reasons to oppose it here: https://www.eff.org/issues/tpp https://www.eff.org/issues/tpp
- dba7dba 10y ago
  EFF and Trump admin on same page on something? What is going on?
  - veidr 10y ago
    Even a non-literate white nationalist clock is right twice a day.
  - kobeya 10y ago
    Your preconceptions are collapsing.
  - colordrops 10y ago
    You are only now just seeing that Trump agreeing with something doesn't make it bad by default? It's not Good vs Evil here. Reality is more nuanced. Glen Greenwald, Edward Snowden, and Julian Assange also espouse certain views that match those of Trump, even though they all despise the man. It's not like Trump just went down a check list and picked the "evil" option for every issue. And the left, such as Hillary, didn't go down the list and choose the "good" option for every issue. Both sides have issues for which they have horrible self-serving stances that the other side opposes, and thus you will find people you look up to often agreeing with your "enemy".
  - dba7dba 10y ago
    No one can detect a joke when it involves Trump...
  - ddw 10y ago
    Well I'm pretty sure that they are against it for different reasons. Government surveillance is something that a paranoid, insecure person like Trump is going to love.
    - candiodari 10y ago
      Sadly that seems to be a very bipartisan attitude: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_on_mass_surveillance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_on_mass_surveilla... Actually, one might have some (small) hope that Trump is actually libertarian enough to tone the surveillance state down. Not hoping for much though.
- 3131s 10y ago
  > I think it's a bit more than a communications issue when they secretly negotiated a treaty Sure, but at least they made this cartoon to help the plebs see the light: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtNfLixcJO4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtNfLixcJO4
- niftich 10y ago
  You're not wrong, but you're proving my point. I've said before [1] that "TPP [is] the largest cross-national, non-military cooperation pact of our time. It's a huge power play with serious geopolitical consequences", a perspective that likely echoes that of US allies [2] and yet the conversation in the tech sphere focused solely on IP. This is a good fight -- one I applaud and support the EFF for pursuing relentlessly -- but this is just one issue in a gigantic compromise legislation that has to attain broad legislative support inside the US [3][4] as well as support from the other signatories, of which there are many. It was in fact a failure of messaging to not get out ahead of, or in response to these vocal oppositions, as the public's ire was allowed to foment. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11893512#11894446 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11893512#11894446 [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/07/world/asia/trans-pacific-partnership-china-australia.html?_r=0 https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/07/world/asia/trans-pacific-... [3] http://www.politico.com/story/2015/10/trade-trans-pacific-partnership-214807 http://www.politico.com/story/2015/10/trade-trans-pacific-pa... [4] http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/293344-mcconnell-tpp-not-coming-up-this-year http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/293344-mcconnel...
  - Ericson2314 10y ago
    My understanding is that the other countries were not pushing to adopt our IP policies (though Japan did), so construing that point as compromise is a bit disingenuous. I think that, with the exception of environmental policy on the part of the poorer counties, I'd prefer the other countries' notiations. (Other than IP I have no evidence though, as others have said it's hard to come by.)
  - Natsu 10y ago
    I do not see it as a communication problem because there's nothing they could tell me that would make me support those IP provisions.
  - goodplay 10y ago
    Then they shouldn't have grouped the orthogonal issues together in an all-or-nothing affair.
- chiaro 10y ago
  The EFF was actually invited to negotiate the treaty too, but they refused, opting to instead throw stones from the dark.
ajross 10y ago
Do you have an example of a trade agreement that wasn't negotiated "in secret" and which involved "civil society". Treaties, free trade treaties foremost among them, are almost never public before the final text is available, because if they were they'd never get that far. Too many interests. Look, it's a free trade agreement. It says, basically, "no tariffs at all for trade between the signatories". Except of course that every signatory has a list of a thousand "but..." clauses to protect whatever proprietary interests have their ear. So the end results is a big mess of exceptions and clarifications, which is why everyone hates it. There is literally something in there in there that everyone will hate! By design! I mean, look: it's hardly the most important bill of the decade, and I'm not crying that it failed. But to pretend that this was some collusion of the global illuminati to stick it to the hippies, or white nationalists, or whoever you happen to identify with is just insane. It's a ?!@#!$ trade treaty, for god's sake.
- digler999 10y ago
  > It's a ?!@#!$ trade treaty, for god's sake. its ramifications would have affected billions of people just as if it were a new civil and criminal law, that's what was so scary about it. Citizens aren't bound to obey international treaties. That's why we have governments.
- gech 10y ago
  Oh i guess no big deal then, can't criticize something that wasn't even made available, for god's sake. Insane
- Gargoyle 10y ago
  The fact that it's always been done that way is not a sufficient excuse.
- jordanb 10y ago
  The fact that most trade agreements are negotiated in secret by special interests doesn't make it right. The TPP was full of provisions that would have made profits higher for corporations and very little that would genuinely protect workers and the environment. This is understandable given that most the voices in the room were representing corporations.

The fact that mostly corporations were invited to the negotiations and not the civil society probably didn't help that whole "communication issue" either.

by mtgx 10y ago

The fact that mostly corporations were invited to the negotiations and not the civil society probably didn't help that whole "communication issue" either.

Natsu 10y ago

Yeah, I think it's a bit more than a communications issue when they secretly negotiated a treaty that planned to take away the rights of everyone online to give a few media giants even more control over what people can say online. The EFF has a long list of reasons to oppose it here: https://www.eff.org/issues/tpp https://www.eff.org/issues/tpp

dba7dba 10y ago
EFF and Trump admin on same page on something? What is going on?
- veidr 10y ago
  Even a non-literate white nationalist clock is right twice a day.
- kobeya 10y ago
  Your preconceptions are collapsing.
- colordrops 10y ago
  You are only now just seeing that Trump agreeing with something doesn't make it bad by default? It's not Good vs Evil here. Reality is more nuanced. Glen Greenwald, Edward Snowden, and Julian Assange also espouse certain views that match those of Trump, even though they all despise the man. It's not like Trump just went down a check list and picked the "evil" option for every issue. And the left, such as Hillary, didn't go down the list and choose the "good" option for every issue. Both sides have issues for which they have horrible self-serving stances that the other side opposes, and thus you will find people you look up to often agreeing with your "enemy".
- dba7dba 10y ago
  No one can detect a joke when it involves Trump...
- ddw 10y ago
  Well I'm pretty sure that they are against it for different reasons. Government surveillance is something that a paranoid, insecure person like Trump is going to love.
  - candiodari 10y ago
    Sadly that seems to be a very bipartisan attitude: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_on_mass_surveillance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_on_mass_surveilla... Actually, one might have some (small) hope that Trump is actually libertarian enough to tone the surveillance state down. Not hoping for much though.
3131s 10y ago
> I think it's a bit more than a communications issue when they secretly negotiated a treaty Sure, but at least they made this cartoon to help the plebs see the light: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtNfLixcJO4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtNfLixcJO4
niftich 10y ago
You're not wrong, but you're proving my point. I've said before [1] that "TPP [is] the largest cross-national, non-military cooperation pact of our time. It's a huge power play with serious geopolitical consequences", a perspective that likely echoes that of US allies [2] and yet the conversation in the tech sphere focused solely on IP. This is a good fight -- one I applaud and support the EFF for pursuing relentlessly -- but this is just one issue in a gigantic compromise legislation that has to attain broad legislative support inside the US [3][4] as well as support from the other signatories, of which there are many. It was in fact a failure of messaging to not get out ahead of, or in response to these vocal oppositions, as the public's ire was allowed to foment. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11893512#11894446 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11893512#11894446 [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/07/world/asia/trans-pacific-partnership-china-australia.html?_r=0 https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/07/world/asia/trans-pacific-... [3] http://www.politico.com/story/2015/10/trade-trans-pacific-partnership-214807 http://www.politico.com/story/2015/10/trade-trans-pacific-pa... [4] http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/293344-mcconnell-tpp-not-coming-up-this-year http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/293344-mcconnel...
- Ericson2314 10y ago
  My understanding is that the other countries were not pushing to adopt our IP policies (though Japan did), so construing that point as compromise is a bit disingenuous. I think that, with the exception of environmental policy on the part of the poorer counties, I'd prefer the other countries' notiations. (Other than IP I have no evidence though, as others have said it's hard to come by.)
- Natsu 10y ago
  I do not see it as a communication problem because there's nothing they could tell me that would make me support those IP provisions.
- goodplay 10y ago
  Then they shouldn't have grouped the orthogonal issues together in an all-or-nothing affair.
chiaro 10y ago
The EFF was actually invited to negotiate the treaty too, but they refused, opting to instead throw stones from the dark.

ajross 10y ago

Do you have an example of a trade agreement that wasn't negotiated "in secret" and which involved "civil society". Treaties, free trade treaties foremost among them, are almost never public before the final text is available, because if they were they'd never get that far. Too many interests. Look, it's a free trade agreement. It says, basically, "no tariffs at all for trade between the signatories". Except of course that every signatory has a list of a thousand "but..." clauses to protect whatever proprietary interests have their ear. So the end results is a big mess of exceptions and clarifications, which is why everyone hates it. There is literally something in there in there that everyone will hate! By design! I mean, look: it's hardly the most important bill of the decade, and I'm not crying that it failed. But to pretend that this was some collusion of the global illuminati to stick it to the hippies, or white nationalists, or whoever you happen to identify with is just insane. It's a ?!@#!$ trade treaty, for god's sake.

digler999 10y ago
> It's a ?!@#!$ trade treaty, for god's sake. its ramifications would have affected billions of people just as if it were a new civil and criminal law, that's what was so scary about it. Citizens aren't bound to obey international treaties. That's why we have governments.
gech 10y ago
Oh i guess no big deal then, can't criticize something that wasn't even made available, for god's sake. Insane
Gargoyle 10y ago
The fact that it's always been done that way is not a sufficient excuse.
jordanb 10y ago
The fact that most trade agreements are negotiated in secret by special interests doesn't make it right. The TPP was full of provisions that would have made profits higher for corporations and very little that would genuinely protect workers and the environment. This is understandable given that most the voices in the room were representing corporations.