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I would be surprised if politicians and regulators even know what a web browser is, so this might be a tough sell to them.

k_roy 3y ago
can they use it to exploit us and collect more money? That's the real decider
bryanrasmussen 3y ago
Given that 5.07 billion people use the web https://www.demandsage.com/internet-user-statistics/ https://www.demandsage.com/internet-user-statistics/ it would be surprising if the politicians and regulators of the countries that HN users reside in are not at least some of them among those users. As there are many regulations and court cases in the EU and the US (and I presume in other places as well) aimed at some of the richest companies in the world that have to do with browsers behavior it seems that they would have to know what a browser is.
- judge2020 3y ago
  Using the web isn't the same as knowing what the difference between a web browser and a computer OS is. Most people don't buy personal computers anymore, politicians are likely only using office PCs and their phone.
  - bryanrasmussen 3y ago
    I use a train to get to work every day, but I don't really know anything about how the technology works (beyond a superficial level, the same degree of trivial superficiality whereby I know that Khartoum is the capital city of Sudan) Even if I didn't know the word 'train' I think most reasonable users of English would still agree that I know what a train is. People who use a browser to go on the web, even if they don't know the name for the category of application they are using is "browser" and all the technical functioning of the browser and how the internet works, can be said in normal English usage to know what a browser is - it is one of a class of applications that they use to go on the web. They click on an icon, a window opens up they go on the internet. The "browser"
- komali2 3y ago
  > it seems that they would have to know You'd think they would have to know what a browser is. Certainly some people within the courts and legislative bodies do. But, I challenge the "have to," because I want to give credence to my anecdotal theory that a ton of people have no idea, especially older people, and most politicians are super old. Why do they "have to?" Couldn't a lot of boneheaded decisions we've seen over the years be because they don't understand? They could maliciously be applying law per their lobbyist needs, which is probably a thing that happens, but they also could just be ignorant. Remember "series of tubes?" What about David Cameron's push in 2014 to "protect kids from porn" that was really just a PRC style great firewall? Pretend it wasn't a malicious attempt at massive state surveillance - how does it stop kids from getting porn from Twitter, Youtube? Anybody with a glancing familiarity with the internet would know why stopping porn is essentially impossible without blocking literally EVERYTHING and creating a country intranet, combined with a massive, pervasive state surveillance operation with police that have broad powers. Impossible in a liberal democracy (the effective porn blocking, not the attempts to have pervasive state surveillance - the issues come when it's time to start arresting). Some quotes from when Zuckerberg was in front of congress: "If I’m emailing within WhatsApp … does that inform your advertisers?" Senator Brian Schatz "What was Facemash?" Senator Billy Long "How do you sustain a business model in which users don’t pay for your service?" Orrin Hatch (the "senator... we run ads" quote) Why are so many politicians opposed to encryption? Because they're fascists that want better state surveillance? Maybe, but I think more likely is they hear that it makes it harder for the FBI to track down two murderers in San Bernadino and they think "Encryption? Affecting law enforcement? Do we need it? Just make it illegal." Tangent: This makes me wonder about a broader topic I've been questioning: I think we assign too much competence and reasoning to eachother and to our leaders. Random examples: Musk put a big flashing X on the roof of the twitter offices, it's obviously against code, it's obviously horrible, but there are people arguing "Genius marketing move! No press is bad press!" Really? Or, when Bezos climbed into a rocket. "He wouldn't get into it if he wasn't sure it was mostly safe. You don't get to be a billionaire without knowing what you're doing." A couple years later and a submarine that the most layperson of laypeople would point out is a deathtrap proves that idea wrong. This on top of the fact that sometimes it seems like entire financial markets depend on people making "rational" decisions. A housing crash because "the banks would never maintain these portfolios as AA if they weren't rock-solid!" A dot-com crash because "www is the future, it'll make money somehow!" It keeps happening. We keep giving ourselves way too much credit. I think climate change is going to be the greatest example of this, should we survive it. "We'll let it go far, but not past a certain point. Someone will stop this before it's actually irreversible. Or if necessary, at some point, the people will rise up and destroy oil pipelines." No, I don't think so, I think we'll keep thinking we're too smart to let something like that happen.
whoopdedo 3y ago
Google spends around $10million each year to make sure politicians know what a web browser is.
- abeyer 3y ago
  ...and carefully look the other direction while crafting legislation

k_roy 3y ago

can they use it to exploit us and collect more money? That's the real decider

bryanrasmussen 3y ago

Given that 5.07 billion people use the web https://www.demandsage.com/internet-user-statistics/ https://www.demandsage.com/internet-user-statistics/ it would be surprising if the politicians and regulators of the countries that HN users reside in are not at least some of them among those users. As there are many regulations and court cases in the EU and the US (and I presume in other places as well) aimed at some of the richest companies in the world that have to do with browsers behavior it seems that they would have to know what a browser is.

judge2020 3y ago
Using the web isn't the same as knowing what the difference between a web browser and a computer OS is. Most people don't buy personal computers anymore, politicians are likely only using office PCs and their phone.
- bryanrasmussen 3y ago
  I use a train to get to work every day, but I don't really know anything about how the technology works (beyond a superficial level, the same degree of trivial superficiality whereby I know that Khartoum is the capital city of Sudan) Even if I didn't know the word 'train' I think most reasonable users of English would still agree that I know what a train is. People who use a browser to go on the web, even if they don't know the name for the category of application they are using is "browser" and all the technical functioning of the browser and how the internet works, can be said in normal English usage to know what a browser is - it is one of a class of applications that they use to go on the web. They click on an icon, a window opens up they go on the internet. The "browser"
komali2 3y ago
> it seems that they would have to know You'd think they would have to know what a browser is. Certainly some people within the courts and legislative bodies do. But, I challenge the "have to," because I want to give credence to my anecdotal theory that a ton of people have no idea, especially older people, and most politicians are super old. Why do they "have to?" Couldn't a lot of boneheaded decisions we've seen over the years be because they don't understand? They could maliciously be applying law per their lobbyist needs, which is probably a thing that happens, but they also could just be ignorant. Remember "series of tubes?" What about David Cameron's push in 2014 to "protect kids from porn" that was really just a PRC style great firewall? Pretend it wasn't a malicious attempt at massive state surveillance - how does it stop kids from getting porn from Twitter, Youtube? Anybody with a glancing familiarity with the internet would know why stopping porn is essentially impossible without blocking literally EVERYTHING and creating a country intranet, combined with a massive, pervasive state surveillance operation with police that have broad powers. Impossible in a liberal democracy (the effective porn blocking, not the attempts to have pervasive state surveillance - the issues come when it's time to start arresting). Some quotes from when Zuckerberg was in front of congress: "If I’m emailing within WhatsApp … does that inform your advertisers?" Senator Brian Schatz "What was Facemash?" Senator Billy Long "How do you sustain a business model in which users don’t pay for your service?" Orrin Hatch (the "senator... we run ads" quote) Why are so many politicians opposed to encryption? Because they're fascists that want better state surveillance? Maybe, but I think more likely is they hear that it makes it harder for the FBI to track down two murderers in San Bernadino and they think "Encryption? Affecting law enforcement? Do we need it? Just make it illegal." Tangent: This makes me wonder about a broader topic I've been questioning: I think we assign too much competence and reasoning to eachother and to our leaders. Random examples: Musk put a big flashing X on the roof of the twitter offices, it's obviously against code, it's obviously horrible, but there are people arguing "Genius marketing move! No press is bad press!" Really? Or, when Bezos climbed into a rocket. "He wouldn't get into it if he wasn't sure it was mostly safe. You don't get to be a billionaire without knowing what you're doing." A couple years later and a submarine that the most layperson of laypeople would point out is a deathtrap proves that idea wrong. This on top of the fact that sometimes it seems like entire financial markets depend on people making "rational" decisions. A housing crash because "the banks would never maintain these portfolios as AA if they weren't rock-solid!" A dot-com crash because "www is the future, it'll make money somehow!" It keeps happening. We keep giving ourselves way too much credit. I think climate change is going to be the greatest example of this, should we survive it. "We'll let it go far, but not past a certain point. Someone will stop this before it's actually irreversible. Or if necessary, at some point, the people will rise up and destroy oil pipelines." No, I don't think so, I think we'll keep thinking we're too smart to let something like that happen.

whoopdedo 3y ago

Google spends around $10million each year to make sure politicians know what a web browser is.

abeyer 3y ago
...and carefully look the other direction while crafting legislation