4 ms·

The immense second- and third- order consequences of legislation are why I oppose term limits. Legislation should be crafted by experienced experts.

DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
> Legislation should be crafted by experienced experts. Ideally, the legislators themselves won't be experts, but they'll consult their experts and advisors to come to the best - or least worst - solution. Given that crappy politics can happen with and without term limits, I get suspicious when anyone claims enacting or removing limits would solve problems.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > Ideally, the legislators themselves won't be experts, but they'll consult their experts and advisors to come to the best - or least worst - solution. The idea that people that are experts in none of the relevant domains can effectively synthesize the advice of experts in economics, labor relations, law, and other relevant domains to legislative effectively even on the first-order (much less second- and third-order) effects of policy is amusing. Is there any other area besides a legislature where you'd say that the decision makers ideally would not be experts in any of the fields related to complex decisions?
  - manquer 6y ago
    Corporate Management is somewhat similar ? You don't necessarily get managers or CEOs who have no expertise of biz under them. The idea in theory being they need to always manage many areas they don't understand very well it does not make that much of difference if they don't understand all the areas provided they can manage well. Infact having expertise in any one area may influence your decisions where you are more comfortable with, rather than what is required .
  - DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
    > Is there any other area besides a legislature where you'd say that the decision makers ideally would not be experts in any of the fields related to complex decisions? From personal experience: I've interviewed at (and received offers from) companies that wanted to hire SWEs without any experience in their specialist area (be it graphics, avionics, hardware control, etc) because they wanted people "who could bring new ideas" or "who won't be encumbered by old-school thinking". Though the implication is that those new-hires would grow-into an expert role over time, rather than never being an expert at all.
  - ghufran_syed 6y ago
    Maybe the point of having legislators is to make decisions that improve people’s lives, and so maybe you need someone whose primary loyalty is to the people (or at least, to the people that vote) to synthesize the advice of the experts? Or to put it another way, maybe you need an expert in figuring out what the public wants to synthesize the advice of the other experts?
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      > Maybe the point of having legislators is to make decisions that improve people’s lives, and so maybe you need someone whose primary loyalty is to the people (or at least, to the people that vote) to synthesize the advice of the experts? Loyalty and expertise are orthogonal, and loyalty without expertise is fruitless. Good intentions are insufficient for good results. > Or to put it another way, maybe you need an expert in figuring out what the public wants to synthesize the advice of the other experts? Sure, “understanding the public interest” is one of the domains of expertise involved in public policy (whether it's the most critical for politicians to have personally as decision makers might be debatable, it's certainly not one in which they are typically undersupplied with advisors whose notional role is providing expertise; indeed, these usually, for legislators, significantly outnumber advisers with any other even notional domain of expertise other than law and dealing with other legislators.)
baryphonic 6y ago
Also note that term limits have their own second- and third-order effects: the lobbying firms on K Street and whatever the equivalent is in Sacramento/your state are able to recruit from a pipeline of lame duck and soon-to-be lame duck legislators. The influence peddling hasn't stopped, it has merely moved into the periphery, which is more opaque and even less accountable to the people than the government is today. And any law enacted to prohibit such arrangements (and have teeth) would very likely run afoul of the First Amendment.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > the lobbying firms on K Street and whatever the equivalent is in Sacramento/your state are able to recruit from a pipeline of lame duck and soon-to-be lame duck legislators. Sure, they could, but those that aren't playing the term limit shuffle between different positions aren't building up either durable connections or deep knowledge that would be useful to lobbying firms, and the ones that are doing the shuffle aren't any more of a pipeline than legislators in a non-term-limited scheme (career unelected staffers, on the other hand, flow freely back and forth between legislative and lobbying work, and unlike fly-by-night legislators do have both durable connections and deep knowledge.)
33MHz-i486 6y ago
ok but make them retire at 65. before mental decline really kicks in
- hodgesrm 6y ago
  Please cite evidence showing how this is actually a problem. Thanks.
  - novok 6y ago
    google: age statistics of dementia
  - manquer 6y ago
    Let you grandparents set the rules of how your life should be. Bonus points if they watch fox news every day. Best way to understand why. Older people are not representative of the population, it unreasonable to expect someone born in the 40-50s era to understand the importance of privacy or the social media world of someone growing up today and more importantly shape legislation for future decades - laws are very long living. It is certainly is possible, but without hetrogenous mixture whether black , women or the young the policies will not be inclusive Environmental policies, tax, debt , lack of investment in education all favour older people . It is not just because older people vote more. They are lot more likely to know older politician to influence their decision, who is lot more likely to understand and empathize of the problems of his peer group. The voting bloc influence the baby boomers is well established.
- aaron-santos 6y ago
  Our geriarchy is functioning exactly as intended.
pwned1 6y ago
Except most legislators are morons.

DaiPlusPlus 6y ago

> Legislation should be crafted by experienced experts. Ideally, the legislators themselves won't be experts, but they'll consult their experts and advisors to come to the best - or least worst - solution. Given that crappy politics can happen with and without term limits, I get suspicious when anyone claims enacting or removing limits would solve problems.

dragonwriter 6y ago
> Ideally, the legislators themselves won't be experts, but they'll consult their experts and advisors to come to the best - or least worst - solution. The idea that people that are experts in none of the relevant domains can effectively synthesize the advice of experts in economics, labor relations, law, and other relevant domains to legislative effectively even on the first-order (much less second- and third-order) effects of policy is amusing. Is there any other area besides a legislature where you'd say that the decision makers ideally would not be experts in any of the fields related to complex decisions?
- manquer 6y ago
  Corporate Management is somewhat similar ? You don't necessarily get managers or CEOs who have no expertise of biz under them. The idea in theory being they need to always manage many areas they don't understand very well it does not make that much of difference if they don't understand all the areas provided they can manage well. Infact having expertise in any one area may influence your decisions where you are more comfortable with, rather than what is required .
- DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
  > Is there any other area besides a legislature where you'd say that the decision makers ideally would not be experts in any of the fields related to complex decisions? From personal experience: I've interviewed at (and received offers from) companies that wanted to hire SWEs without any experience in their specialist area (be it graphics, avionics, hardware control, etc) because they wanted people "who could bring new ideas" or "who won't be encumbered by old-school thinking". Though the implication is that those new-hires would grow-into an expert role over time, rather than never being an expert at all.
- ghufran_syed 6y ago
  Maybe the point of having legislators is to make decisions that improve people’s lives, and so maybe you need someone whose primary loyalty is to the people (or at least, to the people that vote) to synthesize the advice of the experts? Or to put it another way, maybe you need an expert in figuring out what the public wants to synthesize the advice of the other experts?
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > Maybe the point of having legislators is to make decisions that improve people’s lives, and so maybe you need someone whose primary loyalty is to the people (or at least, to the people that vote) to synthesize the advice of the experts? Loyalty and expertise are orthogonal, and loyalty without expertise is fruitless. Good intentions are insufficient for good results. > Or to put it another way, maybe you need an expert in figuring out what the public wants to synthesize the advice of the other experts? Sure, “understanding the public interest” is one of the domains of expertise involved in public policy (whether it's the most critical for politicians to have personally as decision makers might be debatable, it's certainly not one in which they are typically undersupplied with advisors whose notional role is providing expertise; indeed, these usually, for legislators, significantly outnumber advisers with any other even notional domain of expertise other than law and dealing with other legislators.)

baryphonic 6y ago

Also note that term limits have their own second- and third-order effects: the lobbying firms on K Street and whatever the equivalent is in Sacramento/your state are able to recruit from a pipeline of lame duck and soon-to-be lame duck legislators. The influence peddling hasn't stopped, it has merely moved into the periphery, which is more opaque and even less accountable to the people than the government is today. And any law enacted to prohibit such arrangements (and have teeth) would very likely run afoul of the First Amendment.

dragonwriter 6y ago
> the lobbying firms on K Street and whatever the equivalent is in Sacramento/your state are able to recruit from a pipeline of lame duck and soon-to-be lame duck legislators. Sure, they could, but those that aren't playing the term limit shuffle between different positions aren't building up either durable connections or deep knowledge that would be useful to lobbying firms, and the ones that are doing the shuffle aren't any more of a pipeline than legislators in a non-term-limited scheme (career unelected staffers, on the other hand, flow freely back and forth between legislative and lobbying work, and unlike fly-by-night legislators do have both durable connections and deep knowledge.)

33MHz-i486 6y ago

ok but make them retire at 65. before mental decline really kicks in

hodgesrm 6y ago
Please cite evidence showing how this is actually a problem. Thanks.
- novok 6y ago
  google: age statistics of dementia
- manquer 6y ago
  Let you grandparents set the rules of how your life should be. Bonus points if they watch fox news every day. Best way to understand why. Older people are not representative of the population, it unreasonable to expect someone born in the 40-50s era to understand the importance of privacy or the social media world of someone growing up today and more importantly shape legislation for future decades - laws are very long living. It is certainly is possible, but without hetrogenous mixture whether black , women or the young the policies will not be inclusive Environmental policies, tax, debt , lack of investment in education all favour older people . It is not just because older people vote more. They are lot more likely to know older politician to influence their decision, who is lot more likely to understand and empathize of the problems of his peer group. The voting bloc influence the baby boomers is well established.
aaron-santos 6y ago
Our geriarchy is functioning exactly as intended.

pwned1 6y ago

Except most legislators are morons.