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> immature industry of hackers This hacker news, after all. Hackers built this stuff, and they laugh at the bureaucrats who try to make rules to control it. >

> immature industry of hackers This hacker news, after all. Hackers built this stuff, and they laugh at the bureaucrats who try to make rules to control it. > our engineering should be held the same standards as bridges, airplanes, etc In principle, I'd agree. BUT that's only going to happen when the practitioners have the ability to say "no" to bad designs and short deadlines. Which requires some kind of professional engineering certification, and requirements that only certified software engineers be allowed to do certain things, and certified software engineers that actually have the guts to say no. Lacking that, we'd just have to regulate the designs themselves - and, as soon as government regs get their hands on any software design, I guarantee you innovation of those designs will freeze. (Same reason why innovation of private aircraft has frozen - the cessna, the most popular private aircraft, is an eighty year old design because innovation is virtually impossible, because regulations, because safety.) > Look at the endless problems and costs caused by our crappy quality: National security harms and risk, privacy violations, endless fraud, systems that are almost impossible to adequately secure. Yes, but look at the incredible pace of innovation which the lack of regulation has allowed: web browsers, operating systems, word processors, scripting languages, world-wide communication and freedom from oppression. You can't stop the signal.

wolverine876 3y ago
> Hackers built this stuff, and they laugh at the bureaucrats who try to make rules to control it. Even the IT industry is much more mature than that. That and the rest of the comment are an old fantasy that reality left behind long ago. Look at the reality of these things: > Yes, but look at the incredible pace of innovation which the lack of regulation has allowed: web browsers, operating systems, word processors, scripting languages, world-wide communication and freedom from oppression. You can't stop the signal. An inverse relationship between pace of innovation and regulation is an unsupported claim by people who simply want to do whatever they like and/or want unrestricted personal Of course some regulation could impede innovation, while some could greatly improve it. Imagine innovation in privacy, for example, because regulations require it, rather than ignoring privacy because it's almost entirely unregulated (in the US). > innovation which the lack of regulation has allowed: web browsers, operating systems, word processors, scripting languages, world-wide communication All those innovations go back to the 1990s. > freedom from oppression. You can't stop the signal. In fact, oppression has increased and democracy and freedom have retreated for the last 20 years. Many SV leaders are against or ambivalent about democracy, and push anti-democratic narratives (which favor giving more power to them, of course). End-user control, including freedom-as-in-speech, in IT is almost a forgotten issue. And once the oppressors got the hang of it, they now very ably use the Internet and other technology to conduct effective information warfare directly against the public.
- generalizations 3y ago
  > Even the IT industry is much more mature than that The IT industry is like the average googler - competent enough to use the tools designed for them. They aren't who I'm talking about. > an unsupported claim by people who simply want to do whatever they like The claim that regulation doesn't hamper innovation is an unsupported assertion of control freaks. And regulation that directs innovation only does so because it makes alternative innovations harder - not because it makes certain innovations easier. > All those innovations go back to the 1990s. Don't take such things for granted. Their age makes them no less relevant; regulation would have killed them just as easily as chatgpt. I picked old tech as examples because their benefit to the world - and the lax regulatory environment they were created in - are both incontrovertible. That makes them no less examples of innovation. > oppression has increased and democracy and freedom have retreated One of the best weapons to implement these kinds of changes are an ever-increasing regulatory burden. Small wonder that's increased alongside the harms you describe. > misinformation Everyone does it, everyone gets fooled by it, everyone thinks they're special. More signal, more information - not less - is the only hope for a solution there. But that's not what I meant. I meant that I have gcc on my laptop, and I can compile code there that runs on linux, and no one can stop me from writing code and sharing it. But they can add ever greater regulations to the infrastructure involved until the friction kills the community.
  - wolverine876 3y ago
    > I meant that I have gcc on my laptop, and I can compile code there that runs on linux, and no one can stop me from writing code and sharing it. But they can add ever greater regulations to the infrastructure involved until the friction kills the community. Much of that gcc-on-Linux compiled code is absolute crap (generally, not yours), as we can see by the outcomes. We need much higher standards for anything engineered for the public. >> oppression has increased and democracy and freedom have retreated > One of the best weapons to implement these kinds of changes are an ever-increasing regulatory burden. Could you give an example? China, Russia, Hungary, Turkey, India, etc. are not known for their regulatory burdens. The EU has plenty of regulation and is arguably the leading region for democracy. > The claim that regulation doesn't hamper innovation is an unsupported assertion of control freaks. And regulation that directs innovation only does so because it makes alternative innovations harder - not because it makes certain innovations easier. I didn't say regulation doesn't hamper innovation, I said it depends on the regulation. Some regulations make innovation easier; for example, standardized Internet protocols fostered incredible innovation, instead of everyone reinventing incompatible wheels.

wolverine876 3y ago

> Hackers built this stuff, and they laugh at the bureaucrats who try to make rules to control it. Even the IT industry is much more mature than that. That and the rest of the comment are an old fantasy that reality left behind long ago. Look at the reality of these things: > Yes, but look at the incredible pace of innovation which the lack of regulation has allowed: web browsers, operating systems, word processors, scripting languages, world-wide communication and freedom from oppression. You can't stop the signal. An inverse relationship between pace of innovation and regulation is an unsupported claim by people who simply want to do whatever they like and/or want unrestricted personal Of course some regulation could impede innovation, while some could greatly improve it. Imagine innovation in privacy, for example, because regulations require it, rather than ignoring privacy because it's almost entirely unregulated (in the US). > innovation which the lack of regulation has allowed: web browsers, operating systems, word processors, scripting languages, world-wide communication All those innovations go back to the 1990s. > freedom from oppression. You can't stop the signal. In fact, oppression has increased and democracy and freedom have retreated for the last 20 years. Many SV leaders are against or ambivalent about democracy, and push anti-democratic narratives (which favor giving more power to them, of course). End-user control, including freedom-as-in-speech, in IT is almost a forgotten issue. And once the oppressors got the hang of it, they now very ably use the Internet and other technology to conduct effective information warfare directly against the public.

generalizations 3y ago
> Even the IT industry is much more mature than that The IT industry is like the average googler - competent enough to use the tools designed for them. They aren't who I'm talking about. > an unsupported claim by people who simply want to do whatever they like The claim that regulation doesn't hamper innovation is an unsupported assertion of control freaks. And regulation that directs innovation only does so because it makes alternative innovations harder - not because it makes certain innovations easier. > All those innovations go back to the 1990s. Don't take such things for granted. Their age makes them no less relevant; regulation would have killed them just as easily as chatgpt. I picked old tech as examples because their benefit to the world - and the lax regulatory environment they were created in - are both incontrovertible. That makes them no less examples of innovation. > oppression has increased and democracy and freedom have retreated One of the best weapons to implement these kinds of changes are an ever-increasing regulatory burden. Small wonder that's increased alongside the harms you describe. > misinformation Everyone does it, everyone gets fooled by it, everyone thinks they're special. More signal, more information - not less - is the only hope for a solution there. But that's not what I meant. I meant that I have gcc on my laptop, and I can compile code there that runs on linux, and no one can stop me from writing code and sharing it. But they can add ever greater regulations to the infrastructure involved until the friction kills the community.
- wolverine876 3y ago
  > I meant that I have gcc on my laptop, and I can compile code there that runs on linux, and no one can stop me from writing code and sharing it. But they can add ever greater regulations to the infrastructure involved until the friction kills the community. Much of that gcc-on-Linux compiled code is absolute crap (generally, not yours), as we can see by the outcomes. We need much higher standards for anything engineered for the public. >> oppression has increased and democracy and freedom have retreated > One of the best weapons to implement these kinds of changes are an ever-increasing regulatory burden. Could you give an example? China, Russia, Hungary, Turkey, India, etc. are not known for their regulatory burdens. The EU has plenty of regulation and is arguably the leading region for democracy. > The claim that regulation doesn't hamper innovation is an unsupported assertion of control freaks. And regulation that directs innovation only does so because it makes alternative innovations harder - not because it makes certain innovations easier. I didn't say regulation doesn't hamper innovation, I said it depends on the regulation. Some regulations make innovation easier; for example, standardized Internet protocols fostered incredible innovation, instead of everyone reinventing incompatible wheels.