9 ms·

I fundamentally distrust these people (on both sides) which will make it hard to not presume there are perverse incentives in these bills, but I’m open to it.

by gfodor 5y ago

I fundamentally distrust these people (on both sides) which will make it hard to not presume there are perverse incentives in these bills, but I’m open to it. My sense is that antitrust is as wrong a model for correcting this as the prior regime was that led to the creation of antitrust laws.

TeeMassive 5y ago
I have the same feeling. I do not trust the "except for organizations operating thematic parks" from Florida republicans nor do I trust the Democrats who have collaborated both at party and official level with the very people they claim to fight against.
- pope_meat 5y ago
  Good cop bad cop routine. You can insert team blue or red in to either role depending on your political bias. Either way though, you're under arrest xD
  - efnx 5y ago
    They are not equivalent, though.
    - pope_meat 5y ago
      of course not, the side you like is obviously a little less evil, and thus worth supporting.
      - throwaway894345 5y ago
        Plus it’s a convenient way to never have to improve—we just have to be a little better than the worst caricature of the other side! “Why are you criticizing my tribe when the other tribe is literally Hitler?”
    - jimbob45 5y ago
      Maybe not at specific points in time but, over the long term, they make exceedingly similar choices. The GOP backed No Child Left Behind which was an abject failure. Back then, it was easy for the left to claim that they would do better when given the opportunity. However, now the left is pushing Critical Race Theory in schools which is equally stupid and damaging. You can point to the left as doing a much worse job at this particular point in time but the reality is that both sides have made roughly equally stupid choices over the long run.
      - efnx 5y ago
        No, full stop. The two American parties are not equivalent in their modern forms. You can use “over the long term” to further any point you like because at one point the Republican Party was the liberal, progressive party before it adopted the original southern strategy. Studying race and systemic racism in school is absolutely not “as damaging” as dictating the terms of school funding in a way that disadvantages the poor (and subsequently non-white people). Also your argument is about the two parties being the same over the long term, but then you give a very short term anecdote, and one that isn’t very compelling. I’m sorry to appear so argumentative but it seems you are falling into the trap of false equivalence on multiple levels.
        throwaway894345 5y ago
        > Studying race and systemic racism in school is absolutely not “as damaging” as dictating the terms of school funding in a way that disadvantages the poor (and subsequently non-white people). To be fair, when people talk about CRT these days they’re talking about a specific set of beliefs about race, notably a variety of race essentialist beliefs. Reducing CRT to “merely studying race” is dishonest. Moreover, as race essentialist ideas are want to do, I posit that CRT does harm poorer people because it lets rich whites absolve themselves by way of ritual while characterizing poorer whites as the aggressors. Similarly, we prioritize issues that are almost certainly harmful for poorer communities of color, like (de facto or de jure) de-policing high-crime areas (we celebrate fewer police-related fatalities and sweep under the rug the enormous spike in murders). Note that this isn’t a partisan issue. The best criticism of CRT comes largely from liberals, progressives, and independent conservatives (CRT seems like it should be a slam dunk for establishment Republicans but in increasingly normal form they are finding innovative ways to bungle it).
bilbo0s 5y ago
I fundamentally distrust these people (on both sides) I know it sounds cliché, but that's the sign of a good citizen. You should distrust. Particularly since so much money is at stake. Anyone who doesn't distrust, is either being naive, or more likely, collecting on the graft. I also share your concern that they want to have some convoluted anti-trust regime, rather than a simple, straightforward law that says no sharing of any user data for any commercial purpose at all, ever. With draconian penalties for any infraction. That would stop all this in its tracks, so you have to wonder why they let the privacy stuff go relatively unmolested? The only answer I can come up with is that they fully intend to keep violating privacy. Maybe with different companies this time? Or different people collecting the money? But in the end, we the people are still getting shafted.
syshum 5y ago
Anti-Trust is not the best path Better action would be reforms in contract law to limit binding Arbitration, make ToS unenforceable if they do not have at least SOME provisions in favor of the users (i.e stop allowing unconscionable contracts as Terms of Service), and stronger enforcement of Truth in Advertisement For ToS, one thing that should absolutely be require for a ToS to be enforceable is a mandate that Vendors are required to provide exact justification for them terminating the agreement (i.e banning you). They should have to clearly define what EXACT terms you violate, and WHEN exactly you violated them. There should should be a mandated review process For Truth in Advertisement, many of these companies and services use Bait and Switch tactics all the time, advertising their platforms as "Free Speech" or "welcome to all person" only to then clearly and objectively favor one political convention One final thing I would prefer to see over Anti-Trust is some kine of provision that kicks in if the platform accepts "official Government Messaging" i.e if Twitter wants to allow an official government account on their platform then their should be additional requirements as that now does become an equality under the law concern if people are blocked for official communications. If they do not want to have those additional strings on their platform then they can simply refuse in the Terms to allow for any Official Government Communication
- foolmeonce 5y ago
  A laundry list of new barriers to entry is going to prevent consolidation in an industry? That's like saying if FB buying startups like WhatsApp was a problem, then let's prevent startups from ever competing. I think government can ban itself from using anything that isn't a federated protocol and should not be doing stupid things with private platforms.
  - syshum 5y ago
    The only thing in my list that could even remotely be a barrier to entry would be the additional requirements of official government communications, which IMO would be a good thing because I dont think there should be any official government communications happening on any of these platforms in the first place.
mLuby 5y ago
I trust them to respond to incentives, chief of which is to do things they think will keep them in office. The problems come when doing right by their constituents is no longer the biggest thing that keeps them in office (e.g. instead of outspending opponents on marketing). Or when there are incentives that are hidden from the public.
- Aperocky 5y ago
  > do things they think will keep them in office. You do know that for many of them they have a virtual lock on their seat and the incentive no longer aligns right? For some/most, the primary driver can be characterized as self advancement.
- eru 5y ago
  Eh, if you actually look into public opinion, you'll be glad that politicians don't listen more to their constituency.
jimbob45 5y ago
It doesn’t have to be the way you’re describing. There was a bill a while back to force bill contents to be narrowly scoped (I.e. no pork barrel spending). It failed, but that doesn’t mean we can’t push for its passage in the future anyway.
- kmeisthax 5y ago
  The problem with getting rid of pork-barrel spending is that it removes the one incentive for reps to cooperate on legislation with people they'd otherwise oppose. The only remaining force in legislation post-pork-barrel is ideological extremism.
  - zizee 5y ago
    This is a pretty poor solution for trying to get people to cooperate. If people are opposing good legislation just because it is being proposed by "the opposition", then the system is broken. Better to solve the problem directly, rather than some unplanned round-about solution with pretty clear downsides.
- PostThisTooFast 5y ago
  It might be stricken down anyway. Did you know that a bipartisan effort to grant the president line-item veto power succeeded during the Clinton administration, but was struck down by the Supreme Court?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
robomartin 5y ago
> I fundamentally distrust these people (on both sides) I always try to understand which votes they are trying to buy. Seriously. If we model politicians as individuals evolving through an evolutionary algorithm it becomes very clear that their fitness function has very few variables. Money and votes. Not sure what else. Once they learned that votes can be had with promises, rather than execution, all was lost. Politicians are now experts at manipulating the audience for votes through promises (which are nearly always false). They also manipulate the audience through incredibly creative naming of bills and programs. Every single one of them sounds amazing. And yet, nearly every time you actually study one there's plenty to be horrified about. I have no clue how we fix this. If the fitness function that drives this species does not include an evaluation of actual results (valuable, useful, positive, consistent long-term results) they will never have the evolutionary pressure required to mutate in a direction that benefits the people and the nation. They are so deep into self-serving and party-serving territory at this point that we would have to make massive changes to the way things run if there is to be any hope of correcting the type of person who goes into politics and their behavior once at their respective throne.
- DubiousPusher 5y ago
  I've thought and read about this a ton and the best I've come up with so far radical democracy (in certain key areas), randomness and a pluralist party system.
- TuringTest 5y ago
  > I have no clue how we fix this. Radical transparency. With all data of public institutions open for accountability, and a layer of independent people studying their areas of interest and creating explanations of actual execution and how it really affects us. The free press used to be this, before it got captured and become part of the opaque system. With open distributed networks, we get a second chance to build such a counter-information system, and this time make it de-centralized so it cannot be captured by owning a single node.
- eru 5y ago
  Money is not a big deal in politics. See https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/09/18/too-much-dark-money-in-almonds/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/09/18/too-much-dark-money-in... If anything there's too little money in politics, not too much.
JPKab 5y ago
I think it's important to point out here that neither side really understands tech but one side was viciously against any form of antitrust with these companies until the absolutely foolish decision by these companies to start targeting that one side for censorship. Their employees demanded it as did the Democratic party leadership. And they did their thing and lost the only friends they had on this front. Any GOP politician who tries to block this will have no leg to stand on within their own party. Something that would have been unthinkable 2 years ago is now a popular action because the base hates these companies so much now. They managed to turn Alabama Republicans into people who hate large corporations as much as your typical Berkeley protester. Based on this I'm assuming that Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey are surrounded by sycophantic idiots.
- LordDragonfang 5y ago
  >until the absolutely foolish decision by these companies to start targeting that one side for censorship. Tech companies did not start "targeting" one side for censorship, multiple internal reports have come out showing they actually have to be artificially lenient to right-wing views to avoid be perceived as being biased [1]. Right wing politics just has either a higher incidence of socially unacceptable speech, or a persecution complex - or more than likely, both. [1] https://www.theverge.com/2020/11/1/21544501/facebook-rules-protect-conservatives-instagram-bias-discipline https://www.theverge.com/2020/11/1/21544501/facebook-rules-p...

by gfodor 5y ago

TeeMassive 5y ago

I have the same feeling. I do not trust the "except for organizations operating thematic parks" from Florida republicans nor do I trust the Democrats who have collaborated both at party and official level with the very people they claim to fight against.

pope_meat 5y ago
Good cop bad cop routine. You can insert team blue or red in to either role depending on your political bias. Either way though, you're under arrest xD
- efnx 5y ago
  They are not equivalent, though.
  - pope_meat 5y ago
    of course not, the side you like is obviously a little less evil, and thus worth supporting.
    - throwaway894345 5y ago
      Plus it’s a convenient way to never have to improve—we just have to be a little better than the worst caricature of the other side! “Why are you criticizing my tribe when the other tribe is literally Hitler?”
  - jimbob45 5y ago
    Maybe not at specific points in time but, over the long term, they make exceedingly similar choices. The GOP backed No Child Left Behind which was an abject failure. Back then, it was easy for the left to claim that they would do better when given the opportunity. However, now the left is pushing Critical Race Theory in schools which is equally stupid and damaging. You can point to the left as doing a much worse job at this particular point in time but the reality is that both sides have made roughly equally stupid choices over the long run.
    - efnx 5y ago
      No, full stop. The two American parties are not equivalent in their modern forms. You can use “over the long term” to further any point you like because at one point the Republican Party was the liberal, progressive party before it adopted the original southern strategy. Studying race and systemic racism in school is absolutely not “as damaging” as dictating the terms of school funding in a way that disadvantages the poor (and subsequently non-white people). Also your argument is about the two parties being the same over the long term, but then you give a very short term anecdote, and one that isn’t very compelling. I’m sorry to appear so argumentative but it seems you are falling into the trap of false equivalence on multiple levels.
      - throwaway894345 5y ago
        > Studying race and systemic racism in school is absolutely not “as damaging” as dictating the terms of school funding in a way that disadvantages the poor (and subsequently non-white people). To be fair, when people talk about CRT these days they’re talking about a specific set of beliefs about race, notably a variety of race essentialist beliefs. Reducing CRT to “merely studying race” is dishonest. Moreover, as race essentialist ideas are want to do, I posit that CRT does harm poorer people because it lets rich whites absolve themselves by way of ritual while characterizing poorer whites as the aggressors. Similarly, we prioritize issues that are almost certainly harmful for poorer communities of color, like (de facto or de jure) de-policing high-crime areas (we celebrate fewer police-related fatalities and sweep under the rug the enormous spike in murders). Note that this isn’t a partisan issue. The best criticism of CRT comes largely from liberals, progressives, and independent conservatives (CRT seems like it should be a slam dunk for establishment Republicans but in increasingly normal form they are finding innovative ways to bungle it).

bilbo0s 5y ago

I fundamentally distrust these people (on both sides) I know it sounds cliché, but that's the sign of a good citizen. You should distrust. Particularly since so much money is at stake. Anyone who doesn't distrust, is either being naive, or more likely, collecting on the graft. I also share your concern that they want to have some convoluted anti-trust regime, rather than a simple, straightforward law that says no sharing of any user data for any commercial purpose at all, ever. With draconian penalties for any infraction. That would stop all this in its tracks, so you have to wonder why they let the privacy stuff go relatively unmolested? The only answer I can come up with is that they fully intend to keep violating privacy. Maybe with different companies this time? Or different people collecting the money? But in the end, we the people are still getting shafted.

syshum 5y ago

Anti-Trust is not the best path Better action would be reforms in contract law to limit binding Arbitration, make ToS unenforceable if they do not have at least SOME provisions in favor of the users (i.e stop allowing unconscionable contracts as Terms of Service), and stronger enforcement of Truth in Advertisement For ToS, one thing that should absolutely be require for a ToS to be enforceable is a mandate that Vendors are required to provide exact justification for them terminating the agreement (i.e banning you). They should have to clearly define what EXACT terms you violate, and WHEN exactly you violated them. There should should be a mandated review process For Truth in Advertisement, many of these companies and services use Bait and Switch tactics all the time, advertising their platforms as "Free Speech" or "welcome to all person" only to then clearly and objectively favor one political convention One final thing I would prefer to see over Anti-Trust is some kine of provision that kicks in if the platform accepts "official Government Messaging" i.e if Twitter wants to allow an official government account on their platform then their should be additional requirements as that now does become an equality under the law concern if people are blocked for official communications. If they do not want to have those additional strings on their platform then they can simply refuse in the Terms to allow for any Official Government Communication

foolmeonce 5y ago
A laundry list of new barriers to entry is going to prevent consolidation in an industry? That's like saying if FB buying startups like WhatsApp was a problem, then let's prevent startups from ever competing. I think government can ban itself from using anything that isn't a federated protocol and should not be doing stupid things with private platforms.
- syshum 5y ago
  The only thing in my list that could even remotely be a barrier to entry would be the additional requirements of official government communications, which IMO would be a good thing because I dont think there should be any official government communications happening on any of these platforms in the first place.

mLuby 5y ago

I trust them to respond to incentives, chief of which is to do things they think will keep them in office. The problems come when doing right by their constituents is no longer the biggest thing that keeps them in office (e.g. instead of outspending opponents on marketing). Or when there are incentives that are hidden from the public.

Aperocky 5y ago
> do things they think will keep them in office. You do know that for many of them they have a virtual lock on their seat and the incentive no longer aligns right? For some/most, the primary driver can be characterized as self advancement.
eru 5y ago
Eh, if you actually look into public opinion, you'll be glad that politicians don't listen more to their constituency.

jimbob45 5y ago

It doesn’t have to be the way you’re describing. There was a bill a while back to force bill contents to be narrowly scoped (I.e. no pork barrel spending). It failed, but that doesn’t mean we can’t push for its passage in the future anyway.

kmeisthax 5y ago
The problem with getting rid of pork-barrel spending is that it removes the one incentive for reps to cooperate on legislation with people they'd otherwise oppose. The only remaining force in legislation post-pork-barrel is ideological extremism.
- zizee 5y ago
  This is a pretty poor solution for trying to get people to cooperate. If people are opposing good legislation just because it is being proposed by "the opposition", then the system is broken. Better to solve the problem directly, rather than some unplanned round-about solution with pretty clear downsides.
PostThisTooFast 5y ago
It might be stricken down anyway. Did you know that a bipartisan effort to grant the president line-item veto power succeeded during the Clinton administration, but was struck down by the Supreme Court?

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

robomartin 5y ago

> I fundamentally distrust these people (on both sides) I always try to understand which votes they are trying to buy. Seriously. If we model politicians as individuals evolving through an evolutionary algorithm it becomes very clear that their fitness function has very few variables. Money and votes. Not sure what else. Once they learned that votes can be had with promises, rather than execution, all was lost. Politicians are now experts at manipulating the audience for votes through promises (which are nearly always false). They also manipulate the audience through incredibly creative naming of bills and programs. Every single one of them sounds amazing. And yet, nearly every time you actually study one there's plenty to be horrified about. I have no clue how we fix this. If the fitness function that drives this species does not include an evaluation of actual results (valuable, useful, positive, consistent long-term results) they will never have the evolutionary pressure required to mutate in a direction that benefits the people and the nation. They are so deep into self-serving and party-serving territory at this point that we would have to make massive changes to the way things run if there is to be any hope of correcting the type of person who goes into politics and their behavior once at their respective throne.

DubiousPusher 5y ago
I've thought and read about this a ton and the best I've come up with so far radical democracy (in certain key areas), randomness and a pluralist party system.
TuringTest 5y ago
> I have no clue how we fix this. Radical transparency. With all data of public institutions open for accountability, and a layer of independent people studying their areas of interest and creating explanations of actual execution and how it really affects us. The free press used to be this, before it got captured and become part of the opaque system. With open distributed networks, we get a second chance to build such a counter-information system, and this time make it de-centralized so it cannot be captured by owning a single node.
eru 5y ago
Money is not a big deal in politics. See https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/09/18/too-much-dark-money-in-almonds/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/09/18/too-much-dark-money-in... If anything there's too little money in politics, not too much.

JPKab 5y ago

I think it's important to point out here that neither side really understands tech but one side was viciously against any form of antitrust with these companies until the absolutely foolish decision by these companies to start targeting that one side for censorship. Their employees demanded it as did the Democratic party leadership. And they did their thing and lost the only friends they had on this front. Any GOP politician who tries to block this will have no leg to stand on within their own party. Something that would have been unthinkable 2 years ago is now a popular action because the base hates these companies so much now. They managed to turn Alabama Republicans into people who hate large corporations as much as your typical Berkeley protester. Based on this I'm assuming that Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey are surrounded by sycophantic idiots.

LordDragonfang 5y ago
>until the absolutely foolish decision by these companies to start targeting that one side for censorship. Tech companies did not start "targeting" one side for censorship, multiple internal reports have come out showing they actually have to be artificially lenient to right-wing views to avoid be perceived as being biased [1]. Right wing politics just has either a higher incidence of socially unacceptable speech, or a persecution complex - or more than likely, both. [1] https://www.theverge.com/2020/11/1/21544501/facebook-rules-protect-conservatives-instagram-bias-discipline https://www.theverge.com/2020/11/1/21544501/facebook-rules-p...