6 ms·

I don't mean to sound cynical (as in, this is a genuine question) but do these hearings amount to anything more than political grandstanding so that the relevan

I don't mean to sound cynical (as in, this is a genuine question) but do these hearings amount to anything more than political grandstanding so that the relevant Congresspersons can claim to have been 'tough' on whatever topic was discussed?

advisedwang 9y ago
Hearings like this are part of the process towards actual action, and if the process continues, then it's not grandstanding. However if they do hearings and no more, it's worthless. We can't tell from the hearings themselves whether they will lead to action... which is why it's such effective way to grandstand!
cmurf 9y ago
It depends very much on the particular Congresscritter in question.
komali2 9y ago
Hard to say in 2017 :/ I'm of the opinion that the US is irretrievably lost in the hole of plutocracy / oligarchy. Recall during the election Donald Trump bragging he can buy politicians [1]. I'm finding "hero politicians" to be less and less common, and dare they raise their head, the establishment usually does everything in their power to mow the lawn. See - Bernie Sanders, alongside a couple other rare US Federal politicans, an actual good egg that appears to not be bought and paid for by corporate lobbyists. There's lots of people trying to paint in black in white how obvious it is you can pay a politician to pass laws to protect you - we can go on for hours about Big Telecom minging about in local jurisdictions to prevent new providers, Big Oil essentially preventing a nuclear revolution in the USA, etc, but this site[2] paints a pretty clear picture in my opinion: Given that a corporation is expected to generate profit on dollars spent, why would BlueCross BlueShield and UnitedHealthcare be dumping money onto politicians? What reason could there possibly be other than to protect their profits? I dunno man, other people are better than espousing the problem of money in politics than me, I just am cynical as hell after seeing time and time again obviously anti-WeThePeople votes bought for mere thousands. So, to answer your question, in my un-professional opinion, the reason these hearings are good is they can inform the media and general public. They can get something on the record. We still reference hearings from decades ago - and can use that to apply pressure. "Senator, weren't you in x hearing, why then did you not do anything about y?" It can also inform the select few Hero politicians who can actually do good work for us with this new information - they're busy as fuck and this is one hell of a way to get data to them. Ancillaries include giving new ammunition to Word Wars - various politicians can use buzzlines from the hearing to further their own goal, which might help us, might not, god only knows. So my opinion, I'm glad these happen, but I think afterwards it'd be cool if people like Troy Hunt used their position to drum up donations to buy a couple of the politicians in the hearing, or at the very least throw more money at Twitter so that the Comcast and BroadBandForAmerica lobbyist propaganda promoted tweets can be buried under pro-WeThePeople material. [1](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-bragged-that-his-money-bought-off-politicians-just-not-this-time/2016/09/07/00a9d1e4-750b-11e6-be4f-3f42f2e5a49e_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-bragged-that-h...) [2](https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/issuesum.php?id=HCR&year=2017 https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/issuesum.php?id=HCR&year=2...)
- iiiete22 9y ago
  You are right to point out the extent of how corrupt our political system is. It's understandable that you've become cynical after all this. But I hope your cynicism doesn't discourage you from trying to make things better. The corruption is allowed to exist because so many people, who should be outraged, simply throw up their hands and say that nothing can be changed. Troy is doing what he can to make a difference. We shouldn't have unrealistic expectations of what this can accomplish. But we should applaud the effort. We can force companies and governments to change their approach to security. But we need to start talking about these issues outside of HN. We need to get organized. We need to force change in our own companies.
  - komali2 9y ago
    I feel you. I do my part, writing my congressfolks, kicking up shitstorms in their voicemails occasionally. My end-game though is to become Really Goddamned Rich and start swinging my big cash dick around. I'm kind of curious why folks like Musk don't do that more often. Gates did it once and nearly irradiated an entire species of virus (polio). EDIT: Btw, this is a great tool for pestering all your reps at once: https://democracy.io/#!/ https://democracy.io/#!/
mythrwy 9y ago
Off topic but I just have to say it. There isn't a damn thing wrong with being cynical. Cynicism (at whatever level) is a very valid philosophy and no one should have to apologize for having it. http://richardbayan.typepad.com/the_cynics_sanctuary/cynicism/ http://richardbayan.typepad.com/the_cynics_sanctuary/cynicis...
- mythrwy 9y ago
  ^^ For proof of cynicism's legitimacy see downvotes. Some people think motive and human nature should be viewed with rose colored glasses. Many people urging others to hold this viewpoint stand to gain by advocating it. But not me. I expected. Back to the original off topic point. Don't apologize for being cynical. It's a mental model that is quite often accurate. <edit because I really have to get this off my chest as it's so annoying> Here's what I think. I think you have observed a pattern of hearings that appeared to be little more than political grandstanding. And maybe you haven't ever observed a hearing that was anything different, as in, designed to get to the bottom of something and produce results. If the above is true you understandably expect a continuation of the same pattern. Yet you feel the need to apologize for this perfectly intelligent and rational expectation. Why? Possibly because you have been conditioned against being "negative" and led to believe that cynicism is somehow evil? Well I just have to say... Fuck That! You are right from what I can see.

advisedwang 9y ago

Hearings like this are part of the process towards actual action, and if the process continues, then it's not grandstanding. However if they do hearings and no more, it's worthless. We can't tell from the hearings themselves whether they will lead to action... which is why it's such effective way to grandstand!

cmurf 9y ago

It depends very much on the particular Congresscritter in question.

komali2 9y ago

Hard to say in 2017 :/ I'm of the opinion that the US is irretrievably lost in the hole of plutocracy / oligarchy. Recall during the election Donald Trump bragging he can buy politicians [1]. I'm finding "hero politicians" to be less and less common, and dare they raise their head, the establishment usually does everything in their power to mow the lawn. See - Bernie Sanders, alongside a couple other rare US Federal politicans, an actual good egg that appears to not be bought and paid for by corporate lobbyists. There's lots of people trying to paint in black in white how obvious it is you can pay a politician to pass laws to protect you - we can go on for hours about Big Telecom minging about in local jurisdictions to prevent new providers, Big Oil essentially preventing a nuclear revolution in the USA, etc, but this site[2] paints a pretty clear picture in my opinion: Given that a corporation is expected to generate profit on dollars spent, why would BlueCross BlueShield and UnitedHealthcare be dumping money onto politicians? What reason could there possibly be other than to protect their profits? I dunno man, other people are better than espousing the problem of money in politics than me, I just am cynical as hell after seeing time and time again obviously anti-WeThePeople votes bought for mere thousands. So, to answer your question, in my un-professional opinion, the reason these hearings are good is they can inform the media and general public. They can get something on the record. We still reference hearings from decades ago - and can use that to apply pressure. "Senator, weren't you in x hearing, why then did you not do anything about y?" It can also inform the select few Hero politicians who can actually do good work for us with this new information - they're busy as fuck and this is one hell of a way to get data to them. Ancillaries include giving new ammunition to Word Wars - various politicians can use buzzlines from the hearing to further their own goal, which might help us, might not, god only knows. So my opinion, I'm glad these happen, but I think afterwards it'd be cool if people like Troy Hunt used their position to drum up donations to buy a couple of the politicians in the hearing, or at the very least throw more money at Twitter so that the Comcast and BroadBandForAmerica lobbyist propaganda promoted tweets can be buried under pro-WeThePeople material. [1](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-bragged-that-his-money-bought-off-politicians-just-not-this-time/2016/09/07/00a9d1e4-750b-11e6-be4f-3f42f2e5a49e_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-bragged-that-h...) [2](https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/issuesum.php?id=HCR&year=2017 https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/issuesum.php?id=HCR&year=2...)

iiiete22 9y ago
You are right to point out the extent of how corrupt our political system is. It's understandable that you've become cynical after all this. But I hope your cynicism doesn't discourage you from trying to make things better. The corruption is allowed to exist because so many people, who should be outraged, simply throw up their hands and say that nothing can be changed. Troy is doing what he can to make a difference. We shouldn't have unrealistic expectations of what this can accomplish. But we should applaud the effort. We can force companies and governments to change their approach to security. But we need to start talking about these issues outside of HN. We need to get organized. We need to force change in our own companies.
- komali2 9y ago
  I feel you. I do my part, writing my congressfolks, kicking up shitstorms in their voicemails occasionally. My end-game though is to become Really Goddamned Rich and start swinging my big cash dick around. I'm kind of curious why folks like Musk don't do that more often. Gates did it once and nearly irradiated an entire species of virus (polio). EDIT: Btw, this is a great tool for pestering all your reps at once: https://democracy.io/#!/ https://democracy.io/#!/

mythrwy 9y ago

Off topic but I just have to say it. There isn't a damn thing wrong with being cynical. Cynicism (at whatever level) is a very valid philosophy and no one should have to apologize for having it. http://richardbayan.typepad.com/the_cynics_sanctuary/cynicism/ http://richardbayan.typepad.com/the_cynics_sanctuary/cynicis...

mythrwy 9y ago
^^ For proof of cynicism's legitimacy see downvotes. Some people think motive and human nature should be viewed with rose colored glasses. Many people urging others to hold this viewpoint stand to gain by advocating it. But not me. I expected. Back to the original off topic point. Don't apologize for being cynical. It's a mental model that is quite often accurate. <edit because I really have to get this off my chest as it's so annoying> Here's what I think. I think you have observed a pattern of hearings that appeared to be little more than political grandstanding. And maybe you haven't ever observed a hearing that was anything different, as in, designed to get to the bottom of something and produce results. If the above is true you understandably expect a continuation of the same pattern. Yet you feel the need to apologize for this perfectly intelligent and rational expectation. Why? Possibly because you have been conditioned against being "negative" and led to believe that cynicism is somehow evil? Well I just have to say... Fuck That! You are right from what I can see.