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Thanks for posting authoritative sources! IMHO it's unfortunate when the kneejerk reaction to "governments / leaders do thing X" is "but did they think about o
by candu 6y ago
Thanks for posting authoritative sources!
IMHO it's unfortunate when the kneejerk reaction to "governments / leaders do thing X" is "but did they think about obvious edge case Y!?"
Yes, they thought about obvious edge case Y; they employ / engage with loads of policy and domain experts for whom thinking about obvious edge case Y is table stakes, especially if Y is something one can think up off the cuff in a comment on HN. Perhaps not all of that thinking makes its way into final policies, whether for practical or political reasons. Perhaps much of that thinking - especially where nuance, expertise, or uncertainty are concerned - gets dropped from layperson reporting on the policy. Almost always, you can find publicly-available documents, transcripts, etc. that exhaustively list these details - all the arguments, all the community consultations, all the policy whitepapers.
These all exist, and unlike in modern academic publishing, you can almost always find and read them for free! That said, I do agree that we as a society need to put much more effort into accurate communication around expert fields. Specialization, and the resulting glut of information written for and consumed by specialized audiences, is one of many forces that make it harder to build a shared, agreed-upon sense of reality. What might it look like to solve this problem in the 21st century?
- yostrovs 6y agoPerhaps your optimism about the diligence of politicians should meet the reality of history. Unintended consequences and people skirting the law are endemic to lawmaking.
- ploika 6y agoThat's not very a sophisticated take to be honest, especially when we're talking about a part of the world that gave us the word "realpolitik". Politicians disappoint and unscrupulous people exploit. Absolutely everyone already knows that. It doesn't mean that nothing ever improves.
- sgift 6y agoWhat's also endemic is people not bothering to participate in the lawmaking process and then throwing a tantrum that laws are bad. If you don't bother and the other side does: guess whose suggestions end up in the law. Democracy is not a spectator sport. If you don't show up it has consequences.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- multiplegeorges 6y agoOr perhaps we only hear about the failures because they make the news? When a policy works, it's what is expected so it's not notable.
- candu 6y agoI don't have optimism about the diligence of politicians. I have optimism about (and direct experience with!) the diligence of the bureaucracy that advises those politicians, and that carries out the actual operation of policy, maintenance of infrastructure, etc. The people you see on camera and in the news are a tiny, tiny slice of the operation of government. It is a grave misunderstanding of how society functions to equate "politicians" with "the government". This is true of any large system: a company is not its CEO, a non-profit is not its executive director, a program is not the interface it exposes to the outside world, and so on. In dealing with large systems, equating the part with the whole like this is effectively throwing away 99% of your power to understand and change those systems.
- n1xbuffoon 6y agoWelcome to social media. As far as education I just email the experts. Especially those in academia. They reply all the time. Similar to how you’re saying, yes the experts have considered the edge case, but 1 to many communication for the masses was solved decades ago. The problem is emotional political subservience. All of human history it’s been a gerontocracy telling grown men and women they’re too stupid “watch this titillating nonsense instead. Be oo’d, aah’d by our mighty social norms and mendacity!” History was ruled by what we’d now call helicopter parenting. Technologically the problem you see is solved. It’s the emotional socializing habits that are the problem. For example: the pattern you call out in your initial statement? Yep, everyone else is already an expert. Why reach out? That has nothing to do with lack of technology. Lack of humility is the problem you highlight.
- hannob 6y agoI mean the thing is: This obvious edge case was there since the start of the european emission trading system - and it wasn't adressed for more than a decade. It's good that they're finally working on it. But it's also something that should have happened a very long time ago.