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Why does the government need another office to provide this commentary? The onus is on those seeking change to explain why its necessary not on those for the st

Why does the government need another office to provide this commentary? The onus is on those seeking change to explain why its necessary not on those for the status quo. Government 'independent' offices are not immune from political spin. Congressional committees are ultimately the ones tasked with making policy and they have authlrity to call whomever they want to testify. If the OTA wouldn't say what they wanted to hear, they'd just call someone else. The United states does not suffer from a dearth of scientists. We should be able to get everything we need from the OTA via private commissions and private subpoenas.

SamBam 7y ago
> The onus is on those seeking change to explain why its necessary not on those for the status quo. The issue is that those who listen to the arguments and make the decision may not know enough to counter the arguments. Any tech company can come up with some argument to explain why a given change is necessary.
- tathougies 7y ago
  > The issue is that those who listen to the arguments and make the decision may not know enough to counter the arguments. Sure. Congresspeople are neither scientists nor technologists. I get that. Congresspeople do have the power to spend government funds though, and they are more than capable of commissioning an outside research agency with expertise in the given area to provide commentary. In fact, this is better than a government agency with only 140 employees. First of all, not all 140 of those employees are researchers. Assume -- generously -- that 120 are. That is still only 120 researchers. The idea that 120 people can be enough to exhaustively provide expertise on all possible ranges of technology and science, etc, is ridiculous. 120 people would barely be able to offer expertise on all the various computer science topics, much less physics, climate science, etc. Instead of pretending that this limited office could actually be an expert in everything, it's much better to be realistic, and just pay someone else to prepare a study, and testify, like an expert witness would. If you are worried about bias, make it so that commissions have to hire two agencies -- it's probably still cheaper than funding a government bureaucracy and giving them all pensions anyway.
Nasrudith 7y ago
Well even if you favor the status quo being informed is kind of neccessary for everyone doing their job directly for evaluating arguements properly. Trusting the source with a conflict of interest? While it may be in the congressional authority to do their own research having a shared resource helps all do so and acts as a well of institutional knowledge which makes the system less dependent upon incumbent's assembled teams. Plus one upside of bueracracies is that they are an anti-spoils system by being harder to sway in a "he who pays the piper sets the tune". If they are wrong then their own private researchers should be able to make a case refuting it. Willfull ignorance is still unfortunately always possible but having one removes the cover and excuses from bad actors.
- tathougies 7y ago
  > Well even if you favor the status quo being informed is kind of neccessary for everyone doing their job directly for evaluating arguements properly. Trusting the source with a conflict of interest? You do not need a government office to provide expertise. There is a large private market economy to provide skeptical research regarding all sorts of topics. Banks and financiers regularly pay outside companies to conduct critical research regarding investments, etc. There is no reason the government cannot pay outside, private scientific research firms to provide expert advice on particular topics. Congress in particular has absolute authority over the federal checkbook, so they have no excuse that they are unable to come up with the funds. > Plus one upside of bueracracies is that they are an anti-spoils system by being harder to sway in a "he who pays the piper sets the tune". If they are wrong then their own private researchers should be able to make a case refuting it. When someone tells me something like this with a straight face, I am forced to conclude that they must have so far lived their life without having ever met someone who may not think like them. Government bureaucracies are literally the epitomy of spoils-based systems. They rarely ever are eradicated. Once government agencies fulfill their initial mission, they are forced to come up with yet more fake problems to justify their continued existence, and government bureaucrats typically enjoy better pay and benefits and job stability than their private sector counterparts. Aside from extreme lobbying by the government employees, there is no way to explain this discrepancy. It is ridiculous. I suggest reading a bit of Thomas Sowell. You may end up hating the man, but at least you will be exposed to someone who may not think like you, and you won't make these kinds of absolute statements without sufficient justification. > Willfull ignorance is still unfortunately always possible but having one removes the cover and excuses from bad actors. Oh right, I forgot that having a Congressional budget office means that Congress always passes a reasonable budget that reduces the public deficit of the United States!
andrerm 7y ago
For the same reason "user consent" is inaccurate when used as an argument by big tech: big tech can't fully inform people because they have a conflict of interest. Moat of the time, it's not unethical or something, it's just a true, unavoidable, conflict of interest.

SamBam 7y ago

> The onus is on those seeking change to explain why its necessary not on those for the status quo. The issue is that those who listen to the arguments and make the decision may not know enough to counter the arguments. Any tech company can come up with some argument to explain why a given change is necessary.

tathougies 7y ago
> The issue is that those who listen to the arguments and make the decision may not know enough to counter the arguments. Sure. Congresspeople are neither scientists nor technologists. I get that. Congresspeople do have the power to spend government funds though, and they are more than capable of commissioning an outside research agency with expertise in the given area to provide commentary. In fact, this is better than a government agency with only 140 employees. First of all, not all 140 of those employees are researchers. Assume -- generously -- that 120 are. That is still only 120 researchers. The idea that 120 people can be enough to exhaustively provide expertise on all possible ranges of technology and science, etc, is ridiculous. 120 people would barely be able to offer expertise on all the various computer science topics, much less physics, climate science, etc. Instead of pretending that this limited office could actually be an expert in everything, it's much better to be realistic, and just pay someone else to prepare a study, and testify, like an expert witness would. If you are worried about bias, make it so that commissions have to hire two agencies -- it's probably still cheaper than funding a government bureaucracy and giving them all pensions anyway.

Nasrudith 7y ago

Well even if you favor the status quo being informed is kind of neccessary for everyone doing their job directly for evaluating arguements properly. Trusting the source with a conflict of interest? While it may be in the congressional authority to do their own research having a shared resource helps all do so and acts as a well of institutional knowledge which makes the system less dependent upon incumbent's assembled teams. Plus one upside of bueracracies is that they are an anti-spoils system by being harder to sway in a "he who pays the piper sets the tune". If they are wrong then their own private researchers should be able to make a case refuting it. Willfull ignorance is still unfortunately always possible but having one removes the cover and excuses from bad actors.

tathougies 7y ago
> Well even if you favor the status quo being informed is kind of neccessary for everyone doing their job directly for evaluating arguements properly. Trusting the source with a conflict of interest? You do not need a government office to provide expertise. There is a large private market economy to provide skeptical research regarding all sorts of topics. Banks and financiers regularly pay outside companies to conduct critical research regarding investments, etc. There is no reason the government cannot pay outside, private scientific research firms to provide expert advice on particular topics. Congress in particular has absolute authority over the federal checkbook, so they have no excuse that they are unable to come up with the funds. > Plus one upside of bueracracies is that they are an anti-spoils system by being harder to sway in a "he who pays the piper sets the tune". If they are wrong then their own private researchers should be able to make a case refuting it. When someone tells me something like this with a straight face, I am forced to conclude that they must have so far lived their life without having ever met someone who may not think like them. Government bureaucracies are literally the epitomy of spoils-based systems. They rarely ever are eradicated. Once government agencies fulfill their initial mission, they are forced to come up with yet more fake problems to justify their continued existence, and government bureaucrats typically enjoy better pay and benefits and job stability than their private sector counterparts. Aside from extreme lobbying by the government employees, there is no way to explain this discrepancy. It is ridiculous. I suggest reading a bit of Thomas Sowell. You may end up hating the man, but at least you will be exposed to someone who may not think like you, and you won't make these kinds of absolute statements without sufficient justification. > Willfull ignorance is still unfortunately always possible but having one removes the cover and excuses from bad actors. Oh right, I forgot that having a Congressional budget office means that Congress always passes a reasonable budget that reduces the public deficit of the United States!

andrerm 7y ago

For the same reason "user consent" is inaccurate when used as an argument by big tech: big tech can't fully inform people because they have a conflict of interest. Moat of the time, it's not unethical or something, it's just a true, unavoidable, conflict of interest.