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This Twitter account, and the DC scene reaction to it, is actually a condemnation of our current state of American national politics and government. People are

This Twitter account, and the DC scene reaction to it, is actually a condemnation of our current state of American national politics and government. People are acting like this guy is some sort of savant. But we're talking about knowledge that a 20 year old UK college student picked up in his spare time by watching TV and reading a few books. It's not rocket science! Congressional procedure is not even remotely as complex as what you need to know to build an average office building, something that is being done all over the U.S. every day to a very high level of competence. The commentary on this Twitter account (including this article) says way more about the people commenting on it. Specifically it reveals how few national politicians, consultants, staffers, reporters, etc. in DC want to do boring-seeming work like reading a procedural manual and some history. All of which is freely available to anyone.

namdnay 3y ago
No one ever got elected to higher office for putting their head down and doing a good job It’s kind of similar to office politics in a way, you have to spend most of your effort on visibility
- boznz 3y ago
  ..and for every person who does put their head down and do a good job, there is a politician behind them taking the credit.
- slyall 3y ago
  Some politicians will know a lot more about procedure. Especially if they want to go for a leadership position. People like Lyndon Johnson knew Senate rules backward. If you could win or lose a critical vote based on some obscure rule last used 30 years ago it was worth learning them.
astrea 3y ago
I agree, it’s quite the scathing indictment. This is nothing to be proud or excited about. Unfortunately, if there’s one thing politicians lack, it’s shame. Also, what does that say about Georgetown’s program?
mistermann 3y ago
> Specifically it reveals how few national politicians, consultants, staffers, reporters, etc. in DC want to do boring-seeming work like reading a procedural manual and some history. I think Hanlon's Razor is thrown around far too casually in this era/culture....I find it very hard to believe that all of this is mere accidental incompetence.
romwell 3y ago
>People are acting like this guy is some sort of savant. And we have an extensive record that shows that he is one. >Congressional procedure is not even remotely as complex as what you need to know to build an average office building [Citation needed]. Unless you're both a congressman and a construction worker, this is just an unqualified (i.e., worthless) opinion. In contrast, the opinion that this guy is some sort of savant is that of professional staff on the Hill (named in the article), and is, by definition, qualified. >But we're talking about knowledge that a 20 year old UK college student picked up in his spare time by watching TV and reading a few books You just described every historian which learns from primary sources. And "watching TV" is a very peculiar way to describe "watching live broadcasts of Congressional hearings and pouring through the archives". >Specifically it reveals how few national politicians, consultants, staffers, reporters, etc. in DC want to do boring-seeming work like reading a procedural manual and some history. "I refuse to acknowledge that a 20 year old can be exceptional, so I baselessly assert that literally everyone in the field must be stupid and inept instead" >The commentary on this Twitter account (including this article) says way more about the people commenting on it. Indeed it does. And to a larger extent than you seem to be aware of.
- pdonis 3y ago
  > the opinion that this guy is some sort of savant is that of professional staff on the Hill (named in the article), and is, by definition, qualified. "Qualified" based on their personal experience with what is apparently common practice for Congress and its staffers, yes. But that just means that the common practice for Congress and its staffers involves an appalling level of ignorance about the rules and procedures of the very institution they are working for. To run with the construction analogy, it's as if a bunch of structural engineers were calling a college student on Twitter who isn't even majoring in engineering a "savant" for having and sharing detailed knowledge of how to do load calculations to determine what size I-beams are required for a bridge or a building, based on reading the reference works that describe the details of those calculations. Yes, it would be impressive that a college student not majoring in engineering could gain such a detailed knowledge of structural engineering calculations in their spare time. But it would emphatically not be impressive for the people who are supposed to already have all that knowledge to be calling the college student a "savant".
vr46 3y ago
As a fellow Brit with an American Studies degree, I follow US news and events to this day with a detached eye that really helps understand it, which I cannot possibly do with the UK, at least not politics, and having formally studied US history, culture, politics, foreign policy, means I know more about it than any of my American friends - so far - and I expect the converse to be true about Americans studying the UK. This guy, however, is un-fucking-believable, because he's doing this for FUN and he possesses an amazing power that few people have - TO READ THE FINE MANUAL. Simply awesome.
- ttepasse 3y ago
  It's fascinating how distance encourages both absurd curiosity (“How does that work?”) and some form of detachment (“At least it isn’t personal to me.“). As a German I started following British politics in the Brexit years, first for the fun of an utterly funny parliamentary culture (“ORDAAAAH!”) – then a few months later I found myself looking into Erskine May. But I'll be never on that guys level, too easily satisfied after a small-ish dose of something different.
  - chatmasta 3y ago
    I'm American in the UK for the past seven years, and this resonates with me. It's nice to be outside the daily fray and constant social commentary in the US, but still have the ability to watch and participate when I feel like it. The funny thing is, I don't care about UK politics at all... I enjoy learning the procedures but I don't follow the drama. Another point from the article that resonated with me: > Another advantage of his geographic distance: Congress generally gavels in around 10 a.m., perfect timing for Surdy, whose classes are just coming to an end at 3 p.m. in the UK. I absolutely love the UK timezone. It's my favorite part about living here. I work remotely for a global company, and by sitting in the UK, I get significant overlap with people from California all the way through Japan. It's particularly nice for me as a night owl, because I don't mind evening meetings and chats. But I would hate to wake up at 530am like some on the West coast need to do. Sometimes living in the UK really feels like having a head start on the US... I like to say that I'm geographically GMT, but biologically EST :)
  - 3y ago
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
maweaver 3y ago
> “When was the last time a ruling of the chair was overturned on appeal in the House?” > Less than a minute later, the mysterious account responded with an answer — 1938 — and a decades-old edition of the Congressional Record to prove it. It's not so much that he knows procedures well, it appears that he has some sort of didactic memory that he has focused on this topic. He would have had to basically already memorized this fact obscure enough that a congressional scholar was tweeting for an answer.
- nolongerthere 3y ago
  Or perhaps really well trained AI? Until they named him I was expecting that to be the answer. That’s exactly the type of question a well trained LLM could answer, the proof is what gives it away as not AI, as most AIs I know are unable to offer up any sort of evidence to back up any claims they make bec they don’t actually know what they’re saying or why they “believe” something.
  - happypumpkin 3y ago
    And fwiw both GPT-4 and Claude 3 Opus failed to give me the correct answer.
  - romwell 3y ago
    >Or perhaps really well trained AI? We are really not there yet. Not to mention the fact that he's been pouring through video archives to do his research, and finding the information needed for research is a big part of the work he's been doing (it's not available as readily as one would hope).
- chatmasta 3y ago
  Or he knows how to use the resources available for finding the answer to this question, which is a more useful skill than memorizing facts anyway. The embarrassing part is that congressional aides don't have the same skill. I wonder if they'll stop tagging him in questions now that they know he's just a college student from the UK. Hopefully someone recognizes his talent and hires him as a staffer (there are plenty of Brits working in US government).
nescioquid 3y ago
De rigueur: [2011] https://www.theonion.com/congress-forgets-how-to-pass-a-law-1819594959 https://www.theonion.com/congress-forgets-how-to-pass-a-law-... [2011] https://www.theonion.com/twitter-messages-show-congressmen-do-not-remember-how-t-1819572119 https://www.theonion.com/twitter-messages-show-congressmen-d...

namdnay 3y ago

No one ever got elected to higher office for putting their head down and doing a good job It’s kind of similar to office politics in a way, you have to spend most of your effort on visibility

boznz 3y ago
..and for every person who does put their head down and do a good job, there is a politician behind them taking the credit.
slyall 3y ago
Some politicians will know a lot more about procedure. Especially if they want to go for a leadership position. People like Lyndon Johnson knew Senate rules backward. If you could win or lose a critical vote based on some obscure rule last used 30 years ago it was worth learning them.

astrea 3y ago

I agree, it’s quite the scathing indictment. This is nothing to be proud or excited about. Unfortunately, if there’s one thing politicians lack, it’s shame. Also, what does that say about Georgetown’s program?

mistermann 3y ago

> Specifically it reveals how few national politicians, consultants, staffers, reporters, etc. in DC want to do boring-seeming work like reading a procedural manual and some history. I think Hanlon's Razor is thrown around far too casually in this era/culture....I find it very hard to believe that all of this is mere accidental incompetence.

romwell 3y ago

>People are acting like this guy is some sort of savant. And we have an extensive record that shows that he is one. >Congressional procedure is not even remotely as complex as what you need to know to build an average office building [Citation needed]. Unless you're both a congressman and a construction worker, this is just an unqualified (i.e., worthless) opinion. In contrast, the opinion that this guy is some sort of savant is that of professional staff on the Hill (named in the article), and is, by definition, qualified. >But we're talking about knowledge that a 20 year old UK college student picked up in his spare time by watching TV and reading a few books You just described every historian which learns from primary sources. And "watching TV" is a very peculiar way to describe "watching live broadcasts of Congressional hearings and pouring through the archives". >Specifically it reveals how few national politicians, consultants, staffers, reporters, etc. in DC want to do boring-seeming work like reading a procedural manual and some history. "I refuse to acknowledge that a 20 year old can be exceptional, so I baselessly assert that literally everyone in the field must be stupid and inept instead" >The commentary on this Twitter account (including this article) says way more about the people commenting on it. Indeed it does. And to a larger extent than you seem to be aware of.

pdonis 3y ago
> the opinion that this guy is some sort of savant is that of professional staff on the Hill (named in the article), and is, by definition, qualified. "Qualified" based on their personal experience with what is apparently common practice for Congress and its staffers, yes. But that just means that the common practice for Congress and its staffers involves an appalling level of ignorance about the rules and procedures of the very institution they are working for. To run with the construction analogy, it's as if a bunch of structural engineers were calling a college student on Twitter who isn't even majoring in engineering a "savant" for having and sharing detailed knowledge of how to do load calculations to determine what size I-beams are required for a bridge or a building, based on reading the reference works that describe the details of those calculations. Yes, it would be impressive that a college student not majoring in engineering could gain such a detailed knowledge of structural engineering calculations in their spare time. But it would emphatically not be impressive for the people who are supposed to already have all that knowledge to be calling the college student a "savant".

vr46 3y ago

As a fellow Brit with an American Studies degree, I follow US news and events to this day with a detached eye that really helps understand it, which I cannot possibly do with the UK, at least not politics, and having formally studied US history, culture, politics, foreign policy, means I know more about it than any of my American friends - so far - and I expect the converse to be true about Americans studying the UK. This guy, however, is un-fucking-believable, because he's doing this for FUN and he possesses an amazing power that few people have - TO READ THE FINE MANUAL. Simply awesome.

ttepasse 3y ago
It's fascinating how distance encourages both absurd curiosity (“How does that work?”) and some form of detachment (“At least it isn’t personal to me.“). As a German I started following British politics in the Brexit years, first for the fun of an utterly funny parliamentary culture (“ORDAAAAH!”) – then a few months later I found myself looking into Erskine May. But I'll be never on that guys level, too easily satisfied after a small-ish dose of something different.
- chatmasta 3y ago
  I'm American in the UK for the past seven years, and this resonates with me. It's nice to be outside the daily fray and constant social commentary in the US, but still have the ability to watch and participate when I feel like it. The funny thing is, I don't care about UK politics at all... I enjoy learning the procedures but I don't follow the drama. Another point from the article that resonated with me: > Another advantage of his geographic distance: Congress generally gavels in around 10 a.m., perfect timing for Surdy, whose classes are just coming to an end at 3 p.m. in the UK. I absolutely love the UK timezone. It's my favorite part about living here. I work remotely for a global company, and by sitting in the UK, I get significant overlap with people from California all the way through Japan. It's particularly nice for me as a night owl, because I don't mind evening meetings and chats. But I would hate to wake up at 530am like some on the West coast need to do. Sometimes living in the UK really feels like having a head start on the US... I like to say that I'm geographically GMT, but biologically EST :)
- 3y ago

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

maweaver 3y ago

> “When was the last time a ruling of the chair was overturned on appeal in the House?” > Less than a minute later, the mysterious account responded with an answer — 1938 — and a decades-old edition of the Congressional Record to prove it. It's not so much that he knows procedures well, it appears that he has some sort of didactic memory that he has focused on this topic. He would have had to basically already memorized this fact obscure enough that a congressional scholar was tweeting for an answer.

nolongerthere 3y ago
Or perhaps really well trained AI? Until they named him I was expecting that to be the answer. That’s exactly the type of question a well trained LLM could answer, the proof is what gives it away as not AI, as most AIs I know are unable to offer up any sort of evidence to back up any claims they make bec they don’t actually know what they’re saying or why they “believe” something.
- happypumpkin 3y ago
  And fwiw both GPT-4 and Claude 3 Opus failed to give me the correct answer.
- romwell 3y ago
  >Or perhaps really well trained AI? We are really not there yet. Not to mention the fact that he's been pouring through video archives to do his research, and finding the information needed for research is a big part of the work he's been doing (it's not available as readily as one would hope).
chatmasta 3y ago
Or he knows how to use the resources available for finding the answer to this question, which is a more useful skill than memorizing facts anyway. The embarrassing part is that congressional aides don't have the same skill. I wonder if they'll stop tagging him in questions now that they know he's just a college student from the UK. Hopefully someone recognizes his talent and hires him as a staffer (there are plenty of Brits working in US government).

nescioquid 3y ago

De rigueur: [2011] https://www.theonion.com/congress-forgets-how-to-pass-a-law-1819594959 https://www.theonion.com/congress-forgets-how-to-pass-a-law-... [2011] https://www.theonion.com/twitter-messages-show-congressmen-do-not-remember-how-t-1819572119 https://www.theonion.com/twitter-messages-show-congressmen-d...