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It's not that weird, its there job is to enforce not teach. The FDA, EPA, etc set the rules and enforce those rules. They do not hold a company's hand following

It's not that weird, its there job is to enforce not teach. The FDA, EPA, etc set the rules and enforce those rules. They do not hold a company's hand following those rules.

ethanbond 3y ago
FDA is actually pretty collaborative with pharma companies. But also pharma companies’ business models aren’t entirely dependent on circumventing regulation and they aren’t openly combative with regulators.
- tolmasky 3y ago
  Only because they found it much more effective to "collaborate" on the regulations such that they'd be allowed to label opioids however they'd like and addict millions of people in one of the biggest health crises in the history of our country.
  - ethanbond 3y ago
    "Only because?" Strongly disagree. I think it's actually because there are human beings who work at FDA who, like all human beings, have had loved ones suffer, get sick, or die. Everyone (presumably) wants safer and more effective treatments for sources of suffering, and e.g. interpreting drug trial data is really fucking hard, even for the people who create the drugs. Separately, yes, there are also instances of straight-up corruption. It's totally divorced from reality to suggest that collaboration is "only because" of corruption though.
    - willcipriano 3y ago
      I believe people at the FDA and NIH are allowed to have financial interests in the drugs they regulate[0]. I'd bet the SEC doesn't permit that. That would probably explain the difference. [0]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC545012/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC545012/
      - ethanbond 3y ago
        I don’t believe that’s true of FDA and it actually should be true of NIH. NIH isn’t a regulatory body, it’s a research institution. NIH researchers (and their funders, US taxpayers) should be getting paid more in royalties from commercialized research.
        deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
        deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
    - tolmasky 3y ago
      The "only because" relates to why they don't fight the regulators. As in "why fight them when you can have a revolving door agreement where they get cushy jobs in your company after they leave the FDA". In other words, I am not implying that there aren't other reasons for collaboration with the FDA, I am implying that there isn't a culture of "fighting regulations" because there is instead a culture of manipulating regulations. This in no way implies that there isn't also good collaboration.
tolmasky 3y ago
Just because we decided it that way arbitrarily, right? It's not some natural law that this is how it should be, that the rule makers can't possibly explain rules, only enforce them. I mean, you could make the same argument about the IRS and Congress with respect to taxes: it's not their job to make it easy on us, just to punish us when we make a mistake on our tax returns. I mean, I guess... But just because we wrote the law that way. Plenty of other places have put 2 and 2 together and figured out that if the goal is to collect taxes and not to enrich TurboTax, then they can make the process dramatically simpler. Similarly, if your actual goal is to reduce the occurrences of "bad behaviors" (which is presumably the whole point of creating these rules to begin with), then it doesn't seem that unreasonable to have someone try to lay it out clearly, right? If for no other reason than maybe a bunch of people negatively affected by these behaviors would have been spared since there wouldn't have been this grey area to operate in for so long? That's who we're ultimately doing this for, right? The public that is hurt by securities that are misrepresented? Now, if your goal is to punish people, then yes, the current system makes more sense.
- hef19898 3y ago
  There are, regardless of regulation, from aerspace over drugs to finance, tonsbof law firms, counsultants and experts out there explaining the rules and how to follow them. The problem is that a whole generation of wannabe start-up bros, starting with Uber the latest, just cannot be bother with learning and respecting rules it seems. Most of those flog to crypto lately.
  - tolmasky 3y ago
    Not that I have a ton of experience on this, but from what I've seen, lawyers do not generally have a unified opinion on stuff like this (stuff that has never been litigated on in general). A lot of them will tell you "this is what I think, but look, this is untested." To separate this from the emotionally-charged subject for a second: just look at Google vs. Oracle. It took over a decade to decide whether APIs are covered by copyright or not. And the reality is that that was closer to a coin toss than any of us would like to admit, since it was trying to apply a law that in no way imagined something like APIs to APIs, and relied heavily on the judge/etc being able to wrap their heads around it. The verdict could have easily gone the other way. When it comes to how regulations apply to new technologies, the uncomfortable truth is that there is no "objective truth" to the law, and unfortunately comes down more to how much money the parties throw at the problem and legal process. I am sure on the Oracle side there were plenty of people talking just like you: "these people don't respect copyright and flagrantly copy APIs that are obviously protected IP and they think just because they're in hippy open source land the law doesn't apply to them". The reality is that until the verdict, there effectively was no rule around copyright and APIs. For an opposite example: look at the famous case of Diamond v. Chakrabarty (1980). The patent agency rejected an application for a genetically engineered bacteria that could break down oil, saying you can't patent living organisms. It went to the Supreme Court, that decided 5-4 that they could. Are you going to sit here and tell me this was obvious from the beginning? Given that the patent agency had the opposite opinion than the Supreme Court, and that the Supreme Court was basically split 50/50 on the decision? Do we think they made the right decision given no background in biology? Do we think Chakrabarty was a wannabe biology bro that didn't care about the law, given that almost every lawyer at the time would have told you was commonly accepted did not allow patenting living organisms? * > tonsbof law firms, counsultants and experts out there explaining the rules and how to follow them.* Hopefully you see now that a ton of those law firms are out there telling you "I think we can win on this, it has happened many times before, and the reality is that law really isn't written until we make our case".
WinstonSmith84 3y ago
enforce what exactly? The rules are made up. Gensler is truly a clown, he doesn't have a clue what he is talking about. Look at this, that was just one month ago, about Ethereum, the second largest and he cannot give a clear answer https://twitter.com/sassal0x/status/1648338351832064003 https://twitter.com/sassal0x/status/1648338351832064003 So again, what shall the SEC enforce exactly? If you don't see the endgame here ...
AzzieElbab 3y ago
No argument about that, but Coinbase has been begging for a clear set of rules to follow for ages. Now SEC is suing Coinbase for not registering with SEC as a broker/exchange, but the SEC itself wouldn't let them register because they(the SEC) couldn't decide if crypto is a currency or security. The whole thing is a political fallout of the FTX crisis.
- rwmj 3y ago
  They have set clear rules, just not ones that Coinbase likes.
  - AzzieElbab 3y ago
    Can you explain what those rules are wrt crypto?
    - ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
      in order to learn more about them, the term to look for is "securities law" I assume you aren't asking that person to "explain" all of securities law in a HN comment
      - AzzieElbab 3y ago
        But SEC refused to categorize crypto as securities
        ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
        I'm sorry, I'm not familiar with the history, did they explicitly say that crypto were not securities? explicitly saying they are is not necessary for them to be.
- FireBeyond 3y ago
  No, they haven't, they've put out Press Releases to that effect. But when it actually comes time for court filings, which are what really matter, they instead acknowledge that they know exactly what the rules are, but that they "disagree". And why do they disagree? "because for numerous tokens, regulation would require undue effort or not be financially viable [for Coinbase]". "Your rules are not profitable for us", essentially.
zztop44 3y ago
I mean, the US federal government doesn’t have an internally consistent stance on cryptocurrency regulation, with different agencies in conflict as to whether a securities or commodities regulatory framework applies. And no consistent clear determination has been made. It’s currently effectively impossible to get actionable legal advice about how to follow the rules, which is different to the situation with the FDA, EPA, et al. You could say that the conclusion is then that it’s all illegal full stop and that all cryptocurrency related businesses in the US should cease operations immediately. But if that’s the case, you’d hope that would be clearly expressed somewhere. Right now, the rules (or rather, the probabilities of facing adverse legal action) are being inferred after the fact by analysing patterns of enforcement action.
- billythemaniam 3y ago
  Crypto isn't some completely new thing that needs a new set of regulatory rules. The tech behind it is new, but it's really just another currency for the most part. Are there some differences? Yes! But it is not so different that most of the rules either don't apply or it's hard to see how they apply.
  - mrguyorama 3y ago
    A crime isn't not a crime just because you do it with a bunch of math!
- pwb25 3y ago
  So maybe they should align within themselves before going after others?
pwb25 3y ago
But how can they enforce what they don't know? Coinbase and others asked several times, what should they do. Then get no answer. Then get attacked?

It's not that weird, its there job is to enforce not teach. The FDA, EPA, etc set the rules and enforce those rules. They do not hold a company's hand following those rules.

ethanbond 3y ago

FDA is actually pretty collaborative with pharma companies. But also pharma companies’ business models aren’t entirely dependent on circumventing regulation and they aren’t openly combative with regulators.

tolmasky 3y ago
Only because they found it much more effective to "collaborate" on the regulations such that they'd be allowed to label opioids however they'd like and addict millions of people in one of the biggest health crises in the history of our country.
- ethanbond 3y ago
  "Only because?" Strongly disagree. I think it's actually because there are human beings who work at FDA who, like all human beings, have had loved ones suffer, get sick, or die. Everyone (presumably) wants safer and more effective treatments for sources of suffering, and e.g. interpreting drug trial data is really fucking hard, even for the people who create the drugs. Separately, yes, there are also instances of straight-up corruption. It's totally divorced from reality to suggest that collaboration is "only because" of corruption though.
  - willcipriano 3y ago
    I believe people at the FDA and NIH are allowed to have financial interests in the drugs they regulate[0]. I'd bet the SEC doesn't permit that. That would probably explain the difference. [0]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC545012/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC545012/
    - ethanbond 3y ago
      I don’t believe that’s true of FDA and it actually should be true of NIH. NIH isn’t a regulatory body, it’s a research institution. NIH researchers (and their funders, US taxpayers) should be getting paid more in royalties from commercialized research.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
  - tolmasky 3y ago
    The "only because" relates to why they don't fight the regulators. As in "why fight them when you can have a revolving door agreement where they get cushy jobs in your company after they leave the FDA". In other words, I am not implying that there aren't other reasons for collaboration with the FDA, I am implying that there isn't a culture of "fighting regulations" because there is instead a culture of manipulating regulations. This in no way implies that there isn't also good collaboration.

tolmasky 3y ago

Just because we decided it that way arbitrarily, right? It's not some natural law that this is how it should be, that the rule makers can't possibly explain rules, only enforce them. I mean, you could make the same argument about the IRS and Congress with respect to taxes: it's not their job to make it easy on us, just to punish us when we make a mistake on our tax returns. I mean, I guess... But just because we wrote the law that way. Plenty of other places have put 2 and 2 together and figured out that if the goal is to collect taxes and not to enrich TurboTax, then they can make the process dramatically simpler. Similarly, if your actual goal is to reduce the occurrences of "bad behaviors" (which is presumably the whole point of creating these rules to begin with), then it doesn't seem that unreasonable to have someone try to lay it out clearly, right? If for no other reason than maybe a bunch of people negatively affected by these behaviors would have been spared since there wouldn't have been this grey area to operate in for so long? That's who we're ultimately doing this for, right? The public that is hurt by securities that are misrepresented? Now, if your goal is to punish people, then yes, the current system makes more sense.

hef19898 3y ago
There are, regardless of regulation, from aerspace over drugs to finance, tonsbof law firms, counsultants and experts out there explaining the rules and how to follow them. The problem is that a whole generation of wannabe start-up bros, starting with Uber the latest, just cannot be bother with learning and respecting rules it seems. Most of those flog to crypto lately.
- tolmasky 3y ago
  Not that I have a ton of experience on this, but from what I've seen, lawyers do not generally have a unified opinion on stuff like this (stuff that has never been litigated on in general). A lot of them will tell you "this is what I think, but look, this is untested." To separate this from the emotionally-charged subject for a second: just look at Google vs. Oracle. It took over a decade to decide whether APIs are covered by copyright or not. And the reality is that that was closer to a coin toss than any of us would like to admit, since it was trying to apply a law that in no way imagined something like APIs to APIs, and relied heavily on the judge/etc being able to wrap their heads around it. The verdict could have easily gone the other way. When it comes to how regulations apply to new technologies, the uncomfortable truth is that there is no "objective truth" to the law, and unfortunately comes down more to how much money the parties throw at the problem and legal process. I am sure on the Oracle side there were plenty of people talking just like you: "these people don't respect copyright and flagrantly copy APIs that are obviously protected IP and they think just because they're in hippy open source land the law doesn't apply to them". The reality is that until the verdict, there effectively was no rule around copyright and APIs. For an opposite example: look at the famous case of Diamond v. Chakrabarty (1980). The patent agency rejected an application for a genetically engineered bacteria that could break down oil, saying you can't patent living organisms. It went to the Supreme Court, that decided 5-4 that they could. Are you going to sit here and tell me this was obvious from the beginning? Given that the patent agency had the opposite opinion than the Supreme Court, and that the Supreme Court was basically split 50/50 on the decision? Do we think they made the right decision given no background in biology? Do we think Chakrabarty was a wannabe biology bro that didn't care about the law, given that almost every lawyer at the time would have told you was commonly accepted did not allow patenting living organisms? * > tonsbof law firms, counsultants and experts out there explaining the rules and how to follow them.* Hopefully you see now that a ton of those law firms are out there telling you "I think we can win on this, it has happened many times before, and the reality is that law really isn't written until we make our case".

WinstonSmith84 3y ago

enforce what exactly? The rules are made up. Gensler is truly a clown, he doesn't have a clue what he is talking about. Look at this, that was just one month ago, about Ethereum, the second largest and he cannot give a clear answer https://twitter.com/sassal0x/status/1648338351832064003 https://twitter.com/sassal0x/status/1648338351832064003 So again, what shall the SEC enforce exactly? If you don't see the endgame here ...

AzzieElbab 3y ago

No argument about that, but Coinbase has been begging for a clear set of rules to follow for ages. Now SEC is suing Coinbase for not registering with SEC as a broker/exchange, but the SEC itself wouldn't let them register because they(the SEC) couldn't decide if crypto is a currency or security. The whole thing is a political fallout of the FTX crisis.

rwmj 3y ago
They have set clear rules, just not ones that Coinbase likes.
- AzzieElbab 3y ago
  Can you explain what those rules are wrt crypto?
  - ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
    in order to learn more about them, the term to look for is "securities law" I assume you aren't asking that person to "explain" all of securities law in a HN comment
    - AzzieElbab 3y ago
      But SEC refused to categorize crypto as securities
      - ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
        I'm sorry, I'm not familiar with the history, did they explicitly say that crypto were not securities? explicitly saying they are is not necessary for them to be.
FireBeyond 3y ago
No, they haven't, they've put out Press Releases to that effect. But when it actually comes time for court filings, which are what really matter, they instead acknowledge that they know exactly what the rules are, but that they "disagree". And why do they disagree? "because for numerous tokens, regulation would require undue effort or not be financially viable [for Coinbase]". "Your rules are not profitable for us", essentially.

zztop44 3y ago

I mean, the US federal government doesn’t have an internally consistent stance on cryptocurrency regulation, with different agencies in conflict as to whether a securities or commodities regulatory framework applies. And no consistent clear determination has been made. It’s currently effectively impossible to get actionable legal advice about how to follow the rules, which is different to the situation with the FDA, EPA, et al. You could say that the conclusion is then that it’s all illegal full stop and that all cryptocurrency related businesses in the US should cease operations immediately. But if that’s the case, you’d hope that would be clearly expressed somewhere. Right now, the rules (or rather, the probabilities of facing adverse legal action) are being inferred after the fact by analysing patterns of enforcement action.

billythemaniam 3y ago
Crypto isn't some completely new thing that needs a new set of regulatory rules. The tech behind it is new, but it's really just another currency for the most part. Are there some differences? Yes! But it is not so different that most of the rules either don't apply or it's hard to see how they apply.
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  A crime isn't not a crime just because you do it with a bunch of math!
pwb25 3y ago
So maybe they should align within themselves before going after others?

pwb25 3y ago

But how can they enforce what they don't know? Coinbase and others asked several times, what should they do. Then get no answer. Then get attacked?