> And yet you're suggesting government regulation that moves more quickly, which implies that the government shouldn't wait that conversation and consensus to h

> And yet you're suggesting government regulation that moves more quickly, which implies that the government shouldn't wait that conversation and consensus to happen. That's right. If the government waits for a consensus, it will never arrive. No action will be taken and society will crumble. > (Leaving aside whether the government should do it even if people do support it, it certainly seems even worse to do it if there isn't such a consensus.) Why does it seem worse? The entire premise of not having a full democracy is that sometimes the people are not capable of determining what will help the country prosper in 20-50 years. We elect a body of smart people to help set these courses. It seems obvious and built-in to the system that the government must occasionally pass unpopular legislation. > You are presuming agreement with your premise. This is all past-tense though. All of this has already happened, is fact now, and so I feel 100% comfortable stating things that agree with history, as fact that agrees with my points. We have already lost our democracy and a lack of regulation is very clearly at fault, both in electoral law and in tech regulation. > And you are furthermore presuming that the resulting regulation will work, and will not cause worse damage I will happily invite studies on this. But there is significant work already that shows that power corrupts, that greed has no end, that we live in a tragedy of the commons where unrestricted markets do not produce optimal outputs for the population. > I don't think it's a given that that damage would be less than the problem it's trying to solve. Given the absolutely immense damage that has already occurred, I disagree. I think it is a given that regulation would solve far more problems than it would 'cause'.