6 ms·

I met her at an SVLG dinner and had a discussion about encryption; it became instantly clear she doesn’t know what a computer is past that it is a TV that takes

by borski 4y ago

I met her at an SVLG dinner and had a discussion about encryption; it became instantly clear she doesn’t know what a computer is past that it is a TV that takes input, and that encryption is just “evil people wanting to do evil things.” There was no reasoning with her either, frankly because she is well-aged, and thus thinks herself “wise” with very little left to learn. It was honestly infuriating. [edit] In case anyone thinks I’m exaggerating, I promise I’m not. I went back to look at my texts to my now-wife after that meeting, and I was livid and extremely disappointed. She was at a table of, at the time, a dozen or so cybersecurity experts from industry and academia, and instead of listening to (or rather, hearing) what they had to say, she pushed forward an agenda of “trying to stop evil” while “protecting the children” and “thanking us for our concerns,” all while explaining that she understands encryption and knows how important it is, but that it’s more important for the military to have it and normal people don’t really need it as much. After all, it’s not like we don’t talk to other people in coffee shops where people can overhear and stuff. Ugh.

pc86 4y ago
Even among the dinosaurs in the US Senate, Feinstein stands alone in her striking ability to be willfully ignorant about anything developed after the steam locomotive. The country would be an objectively better place if both the House and Senate had a mandatory retirement age.
- borski 4y ago
  My instinct is to say “no, that’s ageist” because there are plenty of older people who are legitimately brilliant. But honestly, she’s a fantastic example of why we should have term limits, at the very least.
  - morkalork 4y ago
    Leave administration to younger, more capable people. The ones who are too old but are brilliant can still be advisors and mentors.
- Alupis 4y ago
  Why do these people continue to be re-elected at all? Surely there's some other (D) that could have replaced Feinstein a decade ago - but California keeps re-electing her? There's near unanimous agreement she "lost it" long ago - yet here she still is. A mandatory retirement age is great and all... but maybe we need to figure out why people vote for someone nearly nobody wants in the first place. Just the "safe" vote? That can't be all of the story...
  - hermannj314 4y ago
    Senators get OP with longevity. Having a bunch of old senators is an emergent behavior of the rules of the Senate.
    - Alupis 4y ago
      I don't personally think age is really the problem - mental (and to some extent, physical) abilities are, however. There's the good 80 years old, and then there's the bad 80 years old. We all know it when we see it... and we're watching it in real time in multiple places within our federal government right now. We, as a country, are about to face this very same question again, as President Biden is expected to announce his re-election bid shortly. Are we OK with that as a country, given his obvious decline in the past few years? Objectively, and without red or blue coloring, he's not the Joe Biden of 2008. So, what do we do?
      - pc86 4y ago
        This is going to be an unpopular opinion, but I don't want people born before Hitler rose to power to be in the government at all. I don't care how sharp you are and I don't care how progressive or conservative you are. If you're old enough to have had strong opinions about LBJ when he was in office, your time has passed and we really don't need you in the Senate, or the White House, or anywhere else in government making decisions that will have impacts decades after you're gone.
    - pc86 4y ago
      Is this true, or are these just benefits of someone who has been in the Senate for 30 years having good working relationships with 70 other Senators, and the branch new Senator being lucky to know one or two? Put another way, what rules of the Senate benefit length of service over anything else?
- prottog 4y ago
  I think the reasoning behind not having an age cap in Congress is that if the people want to elect someone who is old, they should be able to do so. The ultimate check in a democratic society is the people, and like a different commenter said, it's strange that the voters of California continue to vote for Feinstein.
  - morkalork 4y ago
    Presumably they vote for her because she is a democrat and the other viable candidate, a republican, is completely unpalatable to them. The problem is internal party politics that appear to have an unwritten rule of re-running the same candidate until they lose.
    - dllthomas 4y ago
      California has had a jungle primary for a bit now, and there has been at least one general election that pitted Feinstein against a Democrat in the general election. As I mentioned elsewhere, the most common argument I got from Democrats around me for voting for her was seniority, for committee appointments and such.
      - hellojesus 4y ago
        Seems odd to knowingly choose a candidate that will work to make the lives of Americans worse solely to keep seniority. In fact, doing so seems like you would be empowering a terrible person beyond a normal terrible person, thus ensuring the lives of Americans are that much worse. Bonkers.
        dllthomas 4y ago
        I mean, I don't think they believe she is "work[ing] to make the lives of Americans worse", even if they think the other candidate might be better. They agree with a lot of her positions. Heck, I agree with a lot of her positions, I just disagree with too many important ones.
    - 4y ago
- pdonis 4y ago
  You don't need a mandatory retirement age, just term limits. For example, no more than two terms as a Senator, no more than three as a House member.
  - tric 4y ago
    Why do you recommend different term limits for house members?
    - OkayPhysicist 4y ago
      House positions last a third the amount of time (2 years versus 6).
- jimbob45 4y ago
  In fairness, she’s announced that she won’t seek re-election in 2024.
  - kelnos 4y ago
    And her health has been failing recently, which has been a big problem for operations in the Senate (judicial appointments have stalled as there is now no party majority on the judiciary committee). She claims she will still serve the rest of her term, but I think there's a decent chance she'll eventually see the light and step down within the next few months. (Though this might just be wishful thinking on my part.) The downside there is that Gov. Newsom then gets to appoint someone to serve the rest of her term, and then will have the incumbent advantage in 2024, even if they turn out to be not that great. But I think that's probably preferable to the current situation.
  - pc86 4y ago
    Not sure how this is relevant to the point.
- lockhouse 4y ago
  She's not any more intelligent regarding other topics. Firearms being a prime example.
JPKab 4y ago
I met her in 2003, along with her aides at a party I was invited to (in a fluke) in Palm Springs. She was a moron then, and now she's a senile moron. Her aides, who ended up hanging out with me all weekend, were a perfect illustration of the donor class kids who weren't that smart but got into ivy League schools by legacy admissions. Zero intellectual curiosity, super aware of social status, everything they said seemed preplanned and inauthentic.... Just gross.
- yieldcrv 4y ago
  That’s interesting because we’ve all had the same two decades to learn new things and I know many people her age that have there’s people that make excuses for it and there’s people that don’t. I don’t buy “brain plasticity”, my observation is that it comes down to who your peers are, what social consequences you have
- dang 4y ago
  Please make your substantive points without calling names. No one is saying you owe your least favorite senators better, but you owe the community better if you're posting here. I can't link to the guidelines because I'm on my phone - but this is in there!
  - Dalewyn 4y ago
    It's one thing to demand not calling ordinary people names, but Feinstein isn't an ordinary person. If one can't call a person in power names, that implies many things you probably didn't want to imply.
    - yieldcrv 4y ago
      That he’s not a free speech absolutist? big deal, nobody is no platform is, thats the expected default behavior everywhere you go and there is zero reason why HN would be different. I’m not even going to go into how this is a private platform with clearly stated rules for you because it doesn't even matter, just take the L
r3trohack3r 4y ago
Everyone should watch these two hearings: https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/hearings/open-hearing-fisa-legislation https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/hearings/open-hearing-fi... https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/hearings/open-hearing-fisa-legislation-0 https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/hearings/open-hearing-fi... Feinstein shows her true colors. The first is 2013, right after Snowden leaked the presidential surveillance program. These are our elected officials who oversaw the program. They knew of its existence before the leak. The second is 2017, right after the Supreme Court ruled the presidential surveillance program was illegal (one justice calling it "Orwellian" in their comments). Listen to these people in 2013 defend their actions and, in 2017, try to defend themselves and justify their actions. Not only is it clear that they don't think they've done anything wrong, at least one of these people thought they had a viable chance at running for president after this. We the people trusted them to keep secrets responsibly. We trusted them to oversee programs that citizens could not hold accountable. They utterly failed and, if they had their way, would have continued failing in their responsibility. From watching these hearings I get the distinct feeling that these elected officials consider the problem to be the leak, not that someone had to utterly ruin their own life in order to expose this group's crimes. The only person who demonstrated they may be fit for their position is Sn. Wyden. Listen closely to Wyden's statement. He is unable to disclose secrets, but he very clearly (and strongly) suggests that the U.S. clandestine groups are harvesting geolocation data without warrants in mass under these programs.
- rnk 4y ago
  Wyden is great, he's my model of what I'd like to work on if I was lucky enough to be a politician.
  - hellojesus 4y ago
    He's almost great. He still gets taxes very wrong.
rnk 4y ago
This is why we need more tech people to get into politics. And I'm not thinking billionaire ceos. I'm talking about devs, qa, pm, people that did actual work.
- kelnos 4y ago
  The problem is that politics has become a career. If you want to get elected to anything beyond a low-level local position, you need to put years of your life into it, and decades if you want a national political role with any clout. That essentially means that these tech people won't have time for a career in tech anymore. Maybe some would find that interesting or desirable, but I'd bet most would not.
kelnos 4y ago
Absolutely disgusting that people like this are responsible for making legislative decisions about technology. Her retirement in 2024 can't come soon enough. Though with her failing health, her retirement actually may come soon enough. We really need term limits for Congresspeople. I hesitate to suggest age limits, as one's ability and aptitude for governing later in life depends on many factors, but that may be appropriate as well.

by borski 4y ago

pc86 4y ago

Even among the dinosaurs in the US Senate, Feinstein stands alone in her striking ability to be willfully ignorant about anything developed after the steam locomotive. The country would be an objectively better place if both the House and Senate had a mandatory retirement age.

borski 4y ago
My instinct is to say “no, that’s ageist” because there are plenty of older people who are legitimately brilliant. But honestly, she’s a fantastic example of why we should have term limits, at the very least.
- morkalork 4y ago
  Leave administration to younger, more capable people. The ones who are too old but are brilliant can still be advisors and mentors.
Alupis 4y ago
Why do these people continue to be re-elected at all? Surely there's some other (D) that could have replaced Feinstein a decade ago - but California keeps re-electing her? There's near unanimous agreement she "lost it" long ago - yet here she still is. A mandatory retirement age is great and all... but maybe we need to figure out why people vote for someone nearly nobody wants in the first place. Just the "safe" vote? That can't be all of the story...
- hermannj314 4y ago
  Senators get OP with longevity. Having a bunch of old senators is an emergent behavior of the rules of the Senate.
  - Alupis 4y ago
    I don't personally think age is really the problem - mental (and to some extent, physical) abilities are, however. There's the good 80 years old, and then there's the bad 80 years old. We all know it when we see it... and we're watching it in real time in multiple places within our federal government right now. We, as a country, are about to face this very same question again, as President Biden is expected to announce his re-election bid shortly. Are we OK with that as a country, given his obvious decline in the past few years? Objectively, and without red or blue coloring, he's not the Joe Biden of 2008. So, what do we do?
    - pc86 4y ago
      This is going to be an unpopular opinion, but I don't want people born before Hitler rose to power to be in the government at all. I don't care how sharp you are and I don't care how progressive or conservative you are. If you're old enough to have had strong opinions about LBJ when he was in office, your time has passed and we really don't need you in the Senate, or the White House, or anywhere else in government making decisions that will have impacts decades after you're gone.
  - pc86 4y ago
    Is this true, or are these just benefits of someone who has been in the Senate for 30 years having good working relationships with 70 other Senators, and the branch new Senator being lucky to know one or two? Put another way, what rules of the Senate benefit length of service over anything else?
prottog 4y ago
I think the reasoning behind not having an age cap in Congress is that if the people want to elect someone who is old, they should be able to do so. The ultimate check in a democratic society is the people, and like a different commenter said, it's strange that the voters of California continue to vote for Feinstein.
- morkalork 4y ago
  Presumably they vote for her because she is a democrat and the other viable candidate, a republican, is completely unpalatable to them. The problem is internal party politics that appear to have an unwritten rule of re-running the same candidate until they lose.
  - dllthomas 4y ago
    California has had a jungle primary for a bit now, and there has been at least one general election that pitted Feinstein against a Democrat in the general election. As I mentioned elsewhere, the most common argument I got from Democrats around me for voting for her was seniority, for committee appointments and such.
    - hellojesus 4y ago
      Seems odd to knowingly choose a candidate that will work to make the lives of Americans worse solely to keep seniority. In fact, doing so seems like you would be empowering a terrible person beyond a normal terrible person, thus ensuring the lives of Americans are that much worse. Bonkers.
      - dllthomas 4y ago
        I mean, I don't think they believe she is "work[ing] to make the lives of Americans worse", even if they think the other candidate might be better. They agree with a lot of her positions. Heck, I agree with a lot of her positions, I just disagree with too many important ones.
  - 4y ago
pdonis 4y ago
You don't need a mandatory retirement age, just term limits. For example, no more than two terms as a Senator, no more than three as a House member.
- tric 4y ago
  Why do you recommend different term limits for house members?
  - OkayPhysicist 4y ago
    House positions last a third the amount of time (2 years versus 6).
jimbob45 4y ago
In fairness, she’s announced that she won’t seek re-election in 2024.
- kelnos 4y ago
  And her health has been failing recently, which has been a big problem for operations in the Senate (judicial appointments have stalled as there is now no party majority on the judiciary committee). She claims she will still serve the rest of her term, but I think there's a decent chance she'll eventually see the light and step down within the next few months. (Though this might just be wishful thinking on my part.) The downside there is that Gov. Newsom then gets to appoint someone to serve the rest of her term, and then will have the incumbent advantage in 2024, even if they turn out to be not that great. But I think that's probably preferable to the current situation.
- pc86 4y ago
  Not sure how this is relevant to the point.
lockhouse 4y ago
She's not any more intelligent regarding other topics. Firearms being a prime example.

JPKab 4y ago

I met her in 2003, along with her aides at a party I was invited to (in a fluke) in Palm Springs. She was a moron then, and now she's a senile moron. Her aides, who ended up hanging out with me all weekend, were a perfect illustration of the donor class kids who weren't that smart but got into ivy League schools by legacy admissions. Zero intellectual curiosity, super aware of social status, everything they said seemed preplanned and inauthentic.... Just gross.

yieldcrv 4y ago
That’s interesting because we’ve all had the same two decades to learn new things and I know many people her age that have there’s people that make excuses for it and there’s people that don’t. I don’t buy “brain plasticity”, my observation is that it comes down to who your peers are, what social consequences you have
dang 4y ago
Please make your substantive points without calling names. No one is saying you owe your least favorite senators better, but you owe the community better if you're posting here. I can't link to the guidelines because I'm on my phone - but this is in there!
- Dalewyn 4y ago
  It's one thing to demand not calling ordinary people names, but Feinstein isn't an ordinary person. If one can't call a person in power names, that implies many things you probably didn't want to imply.
  - yieldcrv 4y ago
    That he’s not a free speech absolutist? big deal, nobody is no platform is, thats the expected default behavior everywhere you go and there is zero reason why HN would be different. I’m not even going to go into how this is a private platform with clearly stated rules for you because it doesn't even matter, just take the L

r3trohack3r 4y ago

Everyone should watch these two hearings: https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/hearings/open-hearing-fisa-legislation https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/hearings/open-hearing-fi... https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/hearings/open-hearing-fisa-legislation-0 https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/hearings/open-hearing-fi... Feinstein shows her true colors. The first is 2013, right after Snowden leaked the presidential surveillance program. These are our elected officials who oversaw the program. They knew of its existence before the leak. The second is 2017, right after the Supreme Court ruled the presidential surveillance program was illegal (one justice calling it "Orwellian" in their comments). Listen to these people in 2013 defend their actions and, in 2017, try to defend themselves and justify their actions. Not only is it clear that they don't think they've done anything wrong, at least one of these people thought they had a viable chance at running for president after this. We the people trusted them to keep secrets responsibly. We trusted them to oversee programs that citizens could not hold accountable. They utterly failed and, if they had their way, would have continued failing in their responsibility. From watching these hearings I get the distinct feeling that these elected officials consider the problem to be the leak, not that someone had to utterly ruin their own life in order to expose this group's crimes. The only person who demonstrated they may be fit for their position is Sn. Wyden. Listen closely to Wyden's statement. He is unable to disclose secrets, but he very clearly (and strongly) suggests that the U.S. clandestine groups are harvesting geolocation data without warrants in mass under these programs.

rnk 4y ago
Wyden is great, he's my model of what I'd like to work on if I was lucky enough to be a politician.
- hellojesus 4y ago
  He's almost great. He still gets taxes very wrong.

rnk 4y ago

This is why we need more tech people to get into politics. And I'm not thinking billionaire ceos. I'm talking about devs, qa, pm, people that did actual work.

kelnos 4y ago
The problem is that politics has become a career. If you want to get elected to anything beyond a low-level local position, you need to put years of your life into it, and decades if you want a national political role with any clout. That essentially means that these tech people won't have time for a career in tech anymore. Maybe some would find that interesting or desirable, but I'd bet most would not.

kelnos 4y ago

Absolutely disgusting that people like this are responsible for making legislative decisions about technology. Her retirement in 2024 can't come soon enough. Though with her failing health, her retirement actually may come soon enough. We really need term limits for Congresspeople. I hesitate to suggest age limits, as one's ability and aptitude for governing later in life depends on many factors, but that may be appropriate as well.