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Strengthening Congressional Independence from Corporate Lobbyists
- sarcasmatwork 7y ago<Insert yo dawg meme here> So she wants "nerds" to fight lobbyists to fight more lobbyists and Google's money bags... Can't make this up.. hah
- bryanlarsen 7y ago> Can't make this up.. hah It was made up. Warren doesn't use the word nerd, it's just stupid websites doing SEO. "Re-funding the Office of Technology Assessment" as part of "Strengthening Congressional Independence from Corporate Lobbyists" sounds boring.
- Excel_Wizard 7y agoThis feels to me as if the politicians have recognized that they need some technically competent people to even understand how to legislate in these matters. However, if the top-level politicians, who remain technically inept, are the ones giving the orders, confusion will remain.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- rolltiide 7y agoOTA is just a government agency that existed some time into the academic computing phase, where lots of theory and conjecture was thrown around but no broad enterprise or consumer application was possible. Think like blockchain in 2019. It was defunded when those applications were just taking off in the 90s.
- mLuby 7y agos/politicians/executives and you'll see that good decisions can be made by non-technical people, as long as they have been adequately informed by technical folks.
- human20190310 7y ago> However, if the top-level politicians, who remain technically inept, are the ones giving the orders, confusion will remain. The converse would also be true though; a technologically adept leadership that didn't understand society's principles would also lead to confusion, likely worse confusion. Deeper still, a militarily adept leadership, or any other narrowly adept leadership, that didn't understand society's principles would also lead to confusion. Politicians have to deal with society as a whole, and as long as no one can master every area of expertise, they need to have someone doing analyses on their behalf.
- dev_dull 7y agoIf you think they’re going to end up with “technically competent” engineers I have some bad news for you: they’re all gainfully employed. What they’ll end up with is the same thing committees always up with: bureaucrats who wouldn’t be able to hack in the private sector.
- lonelappde 7y agoThat's fine, it will represent the views of people who don't see technology primally as a way to extract wealth from fellow residents.
- inimino 7y agoSo your argument is that there's nobody both technically competent and willing to work in an important role for the government? I can tell you for a fact you're wrong, and if you don't believe me, you may want to widen your social circle.
- thrower123 7y agoLike most government positions, I'm not sure I would trust anybody that actually wants to take that position. It's going to skew heavily towards either activists or the corrupt. In theory, anyway, I'd push for appointing people to such roles by sortition, although that would never work in practice. Politics as a duty rather than as a career.
- inimino 7y agoThere's plenty of people with the necessary skills outside of the private sector or outside of the SF/SV tech bubble. The key will be how they select the experts, if it's a revolving door from FAANG then we know it was all a sham. Sortition from what pool? I'd favor educating congresspeople (and citizens) but where's the incentive to make that happen?
- dev_dull 7y agoI think there’s an abundance of capable and willing people for government positions, but bureaucrats don’t select for these people. They select for other bureaucrats.
- pysxul 7y agoisn't that lobbying too?
- bryanlarsen 7y agoThe OTA is like a librarian. They don't go to you, you ask them questions. Of course the answers they give may be filtered through the librarian's bias, but that's fundamentally different than lobbying.
- rc_kas 7y agoGreat job of breaking this down and making it simple to understand.
- LargeWu 7y agoNo, because it's a government agency. The point is so that elected officials and other government agencies can get nonpartisan guidance on tech issues that is independent from corporate interests.
- ajross 7y agoIt's also hardly a unique idea. The Congressional budget office, the Congressional research service and the government accountability office are existing examples of successful expert agencies run by Congress on a nonpartisan basis. There's no good reason why a tech office shouldn't be there too.
- atonse 7y agoExcellent, excellent idea. What's interesting about all this isn't that this is a new idea by Warren – it's that the Government had an office like this but it was closed down by Republican leadership in the mid 90s. I have a (truly genuine) question for Republican techies here (really, really not trying to point fingers or start a political argument) – when you see that Newt Gingrich closed the OTA office, what do you feel? Maybe he did the right thing, you'd like to learn more why? Or Newt Gingrich was wrong? Or what?
- drharby 7y agoI was seven and playing donkey kong 2: diddys kongquest EDIT:More in spirit of the questions - i don't honestly care about yesteryear feelings, I care about the now. Politics is fluid. What can we do to reestablish the office and provide congress with informed decisions?
- creaghpatr 7y agoI'd be more interested in why Obama didn't re-form this office since it was so great, given the google/facebook anti-trust issues metastasized under his administration.
- ocdtrekkie 7y agoBarack Obama was so closely associated with Google, it isn't even remotely funny. The amount of interaction between Google and his administration is unprecedented; he could've been considered an employee. Suffice to say, he wasn't going to introduce a way to give the government objective understanding of issues around Google's monopoly.
- creaghpatr 7y agoTrue, he hired his CTO straight out of Google. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megan_Smith https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megan_Smith
- Operyl 7y ago
- AdmiralAsshat 7y agoWell there happens to be this guy in Boston who was recently let go by MIT and some other organization, and who's not terribly fond of Google. He might be able to help.
- yuy910616 7y agolol i'd love to see stallman in a government job. it'd be pretty entertaining.
- goatinaboat 7y agoMIT is a government contractor with a university on the side, in reality
- solidasparagus 7y agoIf you want to add someone to your org who likes to stand on his soapbox and derail everyone else's email threads and work, Stallman's your guy...
- cm2187 7y agoAs long as there aren't revolving doors with the Sillicon Valley...
- sokoloff 7y agoIf you do prevent the revolving door, you virtually guarantee yourself to exclude some of the most qualified and experienced people as you introduce an adverse selection process.
- cm2187 7y agoYep. But that is the same problem facing financial regulators. But it is the price of independance.
- sokoloff 7y agoGiven what a software engineer could make in the Valley/at a FAANG, how much would a software engineer need to be paid to take a government job that banned them from working at a FAANG[M] for the next 10 years? To make that prospect even money for someone qualified to work at a FAANG, the signing bonus for the government job would need to be in the millions (which obviously won't happen).
- holy_city 7y agoSo tax the FAANGs what it costs to regulate them, the government is pretty good at spending lots of money.
- solidasparagus 7y agoI tried to work for the government. It was a 60% pay cut and a demotion - I did quite well in my career so I didn't have the years of experience required to come in at my current level because that's how the government evaluates employees. Plus stunted salary growth. And this was for a government job that has a special salary exemption 'to be competitive with the market'. No matter how much money the government has from taxes, there is no way in hell they are going to pay enough to be competitive with FAANG. It's anathema to government culture (unless it's for a football coach). You have to let people go back to FAANG to recoup those losses or the government will never be able to hire anyone.
- objektif 7y agoThis overuse of the word “nerd” is really bothering me even if it is used positively.
- logfromblammo 7y agoI feel like we should borrow the Brit-slang terms "boffin", "swot", "spod", "anorak", and maybe "dux", to supplement "nerd", "geek", "dork", "brainiac", "neckbeard", "poindexter", "dilbert", and "square". If it makes you feel better, there are far more mildly derogatory slang terms for idiots and drunks.
- objektif 7y agoYeah i like to not insult people but if you want I also have a lot harsher insults from a bunch of other languages.
- logfromblammo 7y agoYou can't control what news outlets print. They will use the language that their readers use. If you want them to stop using "nerd", you need to offer a superior alternative. In this case, we'd probably all prefer "technology experts". That said, "nerd" does not appear at the story link now.
- fffernan 7y agoWhy Nerds? Let's hire people who are technically capable to do the job. The future is here. The minimum level of knowledge to be functional in society has increased. Lazy folks who don't pick up a book or take a course like to label the capable people as nerds.
- toxican 7y ago> technically capable to do the job Colloquially known as "nerds"
- dymk 7y agoWhen has that ever been the coloquial definition of a nerd?
- pb7 7y agoIt has a negative connotation. No one says "I want to be a nerd!" The headline could have just as easily said "hire an army of technical experts".
- CathedralBorrow 7y agoYes, headlines usually could be written in many ways but the publication needs to pick one.
- pb7 7y agoWhy then go with one that is pejorative and not consistent with what the subject of the article actually said?
- CathedralBorrow 7y agoFlair, clicks, taste, mood of the headline writer that day, or any other reason why people do things.
- toxican 7y ago
- genzoman 7y agoIf you're corrupt, the safest place to be is looking for the corruption. Refund the OTA, staff it with people friendly to you, reset the rules in your favor, now everyone of the opposite party is behind the eight ball. Sounds like a power grab to me.
- lonelappde 7y agoHeadline is clickbait garbage. HN can do better.
- ryanmarsh 7y agoRemember that time we staffed the financial regulatory bodies with ex-employees of the companies they were regulating? Yah this time is totally different.
- toxican 7y agoWell I guess we should just give up and not try to do it better this time! Who says it has to be people with ties to the tech giants? You don't need to suckle at Google's teat to understand the underlying technology and advise on it. And introducing an enforced ban on lobbying for x years (ideally forever, imo) after their government employment ends would help curb corruption.
- moate 7y agoI think your demographic analysis of those two groups would show greater diversity in the Tech sector than in finance. Look at the variety of opinions on the matter here for some anecdotal evidence.
- ryanmarsh 7y ago"tech people are different" This trope needs to die. Tech people suck as bad as finance people, maybe worse. Can someone else who's also worked in tech and finance chime in here?
- tlb 7y agoEarly tech people were different. Before there was much money in tech, only sincere nerds went into it. Since the mid-90s, there've been an increasing number of money-focused techies. Probably still a minority, though. In fact, before the 80s, finance was also mostly sincere accounting nerds. Then someone got the surprising idea that bankers could be Masters of the Universe. It happened to doctors too. And lawyers before that.
- auiya 7y agoJust a thought, but maybe the best way to attract talent is to not refer to them using pejoratives?
- nwsm 7y agoShe didn't.
- taborj 7y agoMost of the nerds I know - including myself - wear the label with a hint of pride. I've never thought of it as a pejorative, and I don't know anyone who has. Of all the hills to die on, I say let this one pass.
- pb7 7y agoFirst definition: >a foolish or contemptible person who lacks social skills or is boringly studious
- tututu 7y agoThat's an eerily accurate description of me.
- mieseratte 7y ago> I've never thought of it as a pejorative, and I don't know anyone who has. Listen here, nerd! It's a pejorative if you use it as one.
- umeshunni 7y agoThat's not Warren's description, just the description applied by the bimbo who wrote the verge article.
- efa 7y agoBimbo!? Why, because the author is blonde? I have been offended. </sarcasm>
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- h2odragon 7y agoOh, yes! Government employment, with all of the overhead that entails, like drug testing etc? And the job is to explain to ULTRA clueless users things they need to know and don't want to learn. People complain about supporting doctors, who assume their focused competence extends to all human knowledge. Politicians assume often their charm and power can substitute for understanding. If i felt the need to do civic duty, I think I'd rather join the Army than take that job. At least there's the chance of shooting someone who deserves it there. (Perhaps I'm still a little PTSD from my time supporting users) * Edit: Calmer now; I have to say it's a great idea that Congress (and whoever else in government) could have a resource to tap for specialized knowledge in technical fields they currently lack coverage of. I can't imagine they can make the job attractive enough for me
- vonmoltke 7y agoWhen I applied to the USDS a few years ago, the interview process left me with the impression that "explain[ing] to ULTRA clueless users things they need to know and don't want to learn" was the core of the job, since the interview seemed to be testing that in lieu of actual technical skills. Left me wanting to go anywhere is, 18F, or any similar government program. Of course, I also have 14 years of dealing with the DOD in technical capacities, so that didn't help.
- tomohawk 7y agoThis is the person who based a big chunk of her career on being a Native American, when she obviously was not. Note this article from 1996 where Harvard brags about her as a diversity hire. It seems very doubtful she would gotten the much coveted spot if she was honest. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1996/10/22/survey-diversity-lacking-at-hls-pa/ https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1996/10/22/survey-diversi... You could say this is OT or old news, but someone who will lie about such a basic thing for such a long time is not someone who should be listened to. They're someone who will say anything to be elected or to move up to that next position of power.
- exabrial 7y agoThis sounds ripe for abuse.
- bepvte 7y agoIf you don't think there's a problem with google and our government, I'd read this: https://www.googletransparencyproject.org/articles/the-curious-transformation-of-sen-mike-lee https://www.googletransparencyproject.org/articles/the-curio...
- milesward 7y agoUh, sign me up! @ewarren! I'm right here! Let's geek out!
- cromwellian 7y agoIn the 90s, I taught retraining courses to government computer programmers (e.g former COBOL programmers) Let’s just say “they’re not sending us their best people” roughly describes my experience. That is, people who had previously held jobs writing code by the government didn’t even know what “parenthesis key” meant or where it was located which largely led me to believe that many of the people in my class were collecting paychecks but didn’t really know how to use computers. Unless the government radically raises salaries and benefits for these positions to attract top talent, I’d be concerned with it being stacked with a bunch of people who don’t have much developer or engineering experience.
- koboll 7y agoUSDS & 18F seem to have been huge steps in the right direction. A future administration that cares about getting this right should look to them as a model.
- taurath 7y agoI mean, that was also the 90s - I’ll bet there are quite a few good programmers within government. Your point stands that salaries and the gov value proposition isn’t competitive - to me it’s almost like a charity job.
- frank_nitti 7y agoAs a dev coming from private sector and now in government, your comment rings true to my experience so far. It's true that there are many programmers in government who were promoted from within, learned on the job, and are limited on technical knowledge we would expect from a CS grad or a seasoned "software engineer" from industry. In many cases the code is written by contractors under the watch of a government employee who is responsible for delivering the system. But I have found some aspects very rewarding: guiding new programmers who are eager to learn modern languages and techniques; introducing industry tools and practices to leadership who are excited to modernize/replace legacy systems. Of course, for every ColdFusion developer who is humble and motivated update their toolbelt, there is one who resents all new technology and technologists. Not talking about the groans about going "agile", I mean people who say "react is silly, I can do all this with jquery! New devs don't know how to do it the 'real' way". Overall, there is a powerful current within these organizations that is pushing toward new tech and better talent. But I don't know how leadership will manage to bring in new grads and private sector talent while still honoring its promise to promote those in non-technical jobs after years of service.
- raxxorrax 7y agoI would do that for free!
- Zenst 7y agoFantastic, though the whole aspect of lobbyists (corporate shrills whose sole job is to peer-pressure government officials) just irks me, as I'm sure it does others. Whilst companies should have a say, the general feeling of myself and again, I'm sure others - is that they monopolise the perspective of some officials. Then you have, `donations` and for want of another way of expressing that - it is just bribery and corruption with legal window-dressing. This only leads to angst in the populus, who end up rising up and acting in ways that get heard, but equally demonised. For example - Anonymous raised many fair issues in their days, valid points. Albeit in a way that was to some extent - extreme, but when you drive people to the edge and the fall off, you can't blame them all the time. Again, this is an excellent initiative and whilst Google may not be the worst offender, they are no angel. [EDIT - that grammar and spelling error you just spot after you hit send, even though you read it thru before hitting send]
- pol-dc684f2b4 7y agoOdds are they'd be hiring people from Google to police Google. Brilliant.
- turingbike 7y agoThis is called regulatory capture. Once you know the term, you can find some good content on it, like this https://www.thisamericanlife.org/536/the-secret-recordings-of-carmen-segarra https://www.thisamericanlife.org/536/the-secret-recordings-o...
- dvdhnt 7y agoHard pass. This would be a fragile suture over the gushing wound that is corporate lobbying. It's literally allowing wolves in the hen house. If we're going to keep doing this whole Democratic Republic thing, along with the Constitution, we need to adhere to the spirit of the framework and not just the letter of it. The federal government was set (what was at the time) far away from everyday life so that our representatives would not be swayed by salesmen and their snake oil. So, if you want to make a difference Liz, do something about the root problem and help us defeat corporate lobbying.
- mostlysimilar 7y agoPart of her platform is to curb the influence of corporate lobbying. I'm not an expert and I'm sure there are places to go for more details than this, but for example: https://elizabethwarren.com/plans/congressional-independence https://elizabethwarren.com/plans/congressional-independence
- dvdhnt 7y agoThat example is resourced under "plans" but doesn't offer one. It doesn't list steps or actions that can be taken to stop corporate lobbying, just a vaguely worded closing sentence about giving congress the "tools" to combat lobbying. The business of lobbying has grown to over $3 billion per year according to OpenSecrets.org [1]. That doesn't include campaign contributions. It's impossible for so much money to make its way through individuals with their own self interests and result in a sustainable government beneficial to the people. Money will always win whenever it makes an appearance. We can't combat lobbying with tools, we have to prevent it. So, it's a non-starter until she lays out actual actions to consider or commits to ending the practice. 1. http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/ http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- peu4000 7y agoYour vague plan of just stop corporate lobbying immediately fails because the negative incentives for someone in congress vastly outweighs the positive.
- not_a_cop75 7y agoIt's an interesting idea, but one person's independent council is unfortunately another person's lobbyists. There is no, as far as I've ever seen, any scientifically proven middle ground. If there was an established and rigorously proven way to do politics and political accountability, we certainly wouldn't be in this mess. The challenge is that at every level of accountability, anyone with enough power can find a way to corrupt. There used to be a universal belief in truth, but that belief has been, in many subject matters, largely eroded away. Today, mostly there is only right for you or me. Not so much right as a whole. I find people on talk shows talking about doing "the right thing". What the hell does that begin to amount to today? Does anyone have a clue?
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- ashman5 7y agoWhat will we call the war between Corporate Lobbyist and Citizen Lobbyist?
- williesleg 7y agoOh I hope she wins the nomination. Even an impeached Trump will win against her. Rigged or not, she's like Barney fyfe.
- riazrizvi 7y agoWe have literally been there before, it's not a solution. An army of nerds hired into a government funded office has the effect of burying the issues out of the public eye. Over time, with a financially incentivized industry lobby vs a government office doing a thankless task (because it is out of the public eye), you create political imbalances (with the nice-for-some side-effect of employing a few people). The NRA (boo), EFF and Amnesty International have effective models, because their efforts remain in the public eye. I think that if you really care about this issue, it's most effective if you donate to a special interest group like the EFF, and stay informed.
- olivermarks 7y agoSurely Warren's electioneering proposal would just result in yet more layers of 'nerd' lobbyists on both sides? Other aspiring presidential candidates are suing Google and laying out plans to significantly cut back lobbying and the ability of politicians like Newt Gingrich and Howard Dean to morph into powerful lobbyists after they leave power. I think less is more in this case with far greater transparency and visibility needed.
- oldmanthrowit 7y agoIn parallel, how about hiring an army of nerds to defeat meddling in the election both by foreign agents, and by agents hired by domestic politicians. Social media and hackers have more power than corporations now. It's easier to manipulate the people with anger than it is to manipulate politicians with bribes.
- iamleppert 7y agoI went to a recruiting event for the United States Digital Service. It was a complete joke. It seemed to be a mix of early social media employees who had made their millions and now wanted “to give back” and government staffers. The rest of the technical staff was low quality (& low paid). They made a point of telling me that I’d have to take a huge pay cut and work with out of date equipment, and deal with extreme amounts of red tape. They tried to sell it as a “challenge” but all I could see was some people from the government trying to find gullible people to take advantage. At the event in SF they had stale sugar cookies & bottles of water for refreshments. Several people (myself included) got up half way during their pitch and left. Not sure I’d ever want to work for the federal government after that experience.
- president 7y agoDepends on what your values are. If you think you could make this country better by giving your service, that is to some people, more valuable than getting paid a decent tech wage. If enough talented people were willing to sacrifice to reform the system, it might be be better off for the children of tomorrow.
- cheriot 7y ago> They made a point of telling me that I’d have to take a huge pay cut and work with out of date equipment, and deal with extreme amounts of red tape. > stale sugar cookies & bottles of water for refreshments Well, that's what the government runs on. Old tech, low pay, and minimal perks. But there is impactful work to be done and some people are motivated by that.
- MuffinFlavored 7y agoSerious question: with how big the federal budget is for... pretty much everything... why is this the case? Is there truly not enough funding? How much money goes in and where does the money go? I feel like time and time again I read how private sector can do better than the public sector, in all sectors.
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- outworlder 7y ago"Nerds"? Who was the dinosaur that wrote this? When we need people who have dedicated a significant portion of their life doing nothing but studying medicine, we don't call them "nerds". We call them doctors. When we need to build a bridge, we don't call the "bridge nerds". Why does IT still have this stigma?
- president 7y agoIn most white-collar professions, people are respected through their communication skills, their demeanor, and appearance. These are the things that many programmers vehemently reject, because of course, "elite" coding skills are the only thing that matters. We have tech figureheads like Mark Zuckerberg, Richard Stallman, or Linus Stallman who are all smart and successful people but have trouble getting the general public to relate with them. In my workplace (large SV tech company), there are people walking around barefoot and with extremely bad BO because they don't want to take a shower. I never saw this when I worked in real-estate and mechanical engineering offices. Obviously this isn't representative of the entire tech industry but there are enough people like this in this industry to perpetuate this impression about tech "nerds" to the general public.
- the_watcher 7y agoI definitely agree with the sentiment, as well as the fact that the people writing (or at least green-lighting) the laws and regulations are often not at all equipped to do so. That said, what would prevent this "army of nerds" from operating as lobbyists for the government that hired them?
- r29vzg2 7y agoIf you’d like to see how this would go. Reference the FCC. Which is essentially what she is trying to create here.
- andrekandre 7y agojust a note i accidentally stopped reading after the “ADD YOUR NAME IF YOU AGREE” banner because i thought it was the end of the article seems like every page is like that, and it might be better to either redesign it or move it to the end of the page (idk just my observation)