4 ms·

Technology is about to accelerate. Because Chevron deference is over

27 points by MrBuddyCasino 2y ago

lupusreal 2y ago
This argument hinges on the premise of regulators not being able to make up new rules anymore. However this isn't the case, they can still do that. The difference is now you can more effectively challenge those rules in federal courts. But to challenge regulators in federal court will still require a lot of legal resources, which means small guys will still be effectively bound by the rules but large companies will be relatively untethered. Those large players are simultaneously less likely to innovate anyway due to being large and therefore more ossified in their thinking and a tendency to protect their present products and organization structures. Therefore I think the acceleration will be far less pronounced than the OP post suggests.
- redserk 2y ago
  You don’t have to have a regulation be declined by the courts. You just need a court to more easily issue months-long stays on a given executive action. My concern with all of this is that a handful of courts will see this as an opportunity to get trigger-happy with issuing stays on executive agencies, causing a complete deadlock with any new law.
- itsdavesanders 2y ago
  I think the counter point to that is that we have think tanks and political organizations who have rich donors with which to hire high power law firms, who find the regulation they want to axe, and then search the country for a case with standing and then pursue those cases until the regulation dies. You are right that it won’t be the little guys doing this, but they might be represented by very powerful organizations who take down laws professionally and are doing so for their own benefit. And with the way politics has entered everything, who knows which things will be targeted next, or what new cruelties they care to inflict. At the same time, again due to the current political climate, it doesn’t do us any good to have all the rules thrash back and forth with each new administration. This is what we get as we get more and more polarized and laws aren’t being written with compromise. Congress and elections need serious reform.
- jaybrendansmith 2y ago
  Great point. Our problem is not big government. It's big corporation. This will only make it worse for the little guy, easier for the big guy, harder for the regulators, and harder for the people. This ruling will slow down competition and innovation and break both good and bad regulations across the board. This ruling is vehemently anti-citizen, pro-corporation. Government by the people vs government by the big faceless org.
hanniabu 2y ago
It's important to note that balajis is anti-regulation, so his bias points out all the downsides of Chevron while ignoring the benefits.
- somenameforme 2y ago
  What were the benefits? The problem I have with the system is that if there was some concept that 'needed' to be regulated, there's absolutely nothing stopping Congress from doing so. In fact there's also nothing stopping various regulatory agencies from doing so. But Chevron deference essentially removed the check-and-balance that the judicial system provided, in cases where regulators may have gone beyond their legal authority, or even contravened it.
  - redserk 2y ago
    Congress could have issued a law in the last 40 years —- where there were opportunities for both political parties —- clarifying this if the legislative branch disagreed. …if we’re going along with the logic this court has been working with here.
  - hanniabu 2y ago
    > if there was some concept that 'needed' to be regulated, there's absolutely nothing stopping Congress from doing so Theoretically, but in reality there's corruption and partisan gridlock and nothing gets done
  - StewardMcOy 2y ago
    One benefit of Chevron was the recent banning of non-competes. If you're interested in fostering innovation, banning non-competes is a good idea. [1] The idea that Congress could and pass regulations in a timely manner is a nice one. Unfortunately, Congress is almost completely dysfunctional, so there's a near-zero chance of that happening. Many of the recent Supreme Court rulings seem to hinge on this idea that Congress can and should fulfill its role. And while that would be great, it completely ignores the reality of modern Congress. I fear we're going to suffer some extreme effects because the court is ruling based on how they think things ought to be, rather than what things are. 1: https://hbr.org/2023/02/banning-noncompetes-is-good-for-innovation https://hbr.org/2023/02/banning-noncompetes-is-good-for-inno...
gryfft 2y ago
I look forward to hearing all about how liberals and regulations will be to blame for the negative impacts of a world where corporations are unfettered by regulations. Maybe if we just give them _more_ power it will all just work out. Maybe the Supreme Court will rule that the Second Amendment means that Fortune 500 companies have an inalienable right to own nuclear weapons.
hapticmonkey 2y ago
The examples are so horrendous I thought it was satire. I can’t wait for genome, cryptocurrency, and nuclear power startups to “move fast and break things” and screw up so badly and remind us why we had these regulations to begin with.
- hanniabu 2y ago
  It's especially cringe how he mocks safety by putting it in quotes
- api 2y ago
  My reaction to genomics, nuclear power, cryptocurrency was “one of these is not like the others.”
- lupusreal 2y ago
  The NRC (and most other regulatory bodies) predate Chevron deference, so you should count on them sticking around and still doing their thing. A nuclear startup could try taking them to court to circumvent all their rules and build naked nuclear piles in residential neighborhoods or something, but even if they got a federal judge to go along with that, it should be an easy political win for legislators to smack it down with some new more specific laws. And although the regulatory interpretation of those laws could also be challenged in court, successfully doing so shouldn't be considered a given. Judges generally do have some sense you know, as a class they decide important matters in boring uncontroversial ways across the country every days. The controversial outcomes that make news cycles are newsworthy specifically because they're unusual.
  - hanniabu 2y ago
    > it should be an easy political win for legislators to smack it down with some new more specific laws. Which is a lengthy process and relies on Congress actually being effective and free of corruption, which they aren't.
    - nine_k 2y ago
conartist6 2y ago
Really poorly written tweet which is long without being more than talking points for people who already agree
stavros 2y ago
I find it interesting how the culture in the US is to chastize China for its "anything goes" policies when it comes to entrepreneurship, while simultaneously lamenting how regulation kills innovation. You kind of can't both say "damn those Chinese for not respecting IP and stealing my hard work" and also "I don't want regulation, I want to be able to do whatever I want". Or do you not consider IP protection laws regulation?
- lupusreal 2y ago
  "US culture" is not one person and comprises of many people who frequently disagree with each other vehemently. "US culture" simultaneously says that baseball is better than football and football is better than baseball. That's not a contradiction because it's different people saying those things.
  - stavros 2y ago
    Yes, I hear that argument whenever anyone says anything about more than one person. I don't care much for that argument because it basically denies that culture exists by saying "different people have different preferences". Sure, they do, but also it's clearly true to say "the US culture is against regulation" and "the EU culture is for regulation". Plus, I don't even think it's that hard to find people who dislike regulation but also dislike people copying their intellectual property (for example, every single company ever).
    - lupusreal 2y ago
      It's not "denying that culture exists", it's refuting your erroneous and unreasonable expectation that culture should be consistent as though it were a person (even though individual people are themselves frequently inconsistent!)
- glimshe 2y ago
  I don't think the "US culture" criticizes China for their entrepreneurship. You hear criticisms against their totalitarian state, cheap goods, IP theft (as you mention) and the transfer of US jobs to China, but the average American doesn't think about their policies and their relation to free enterprise. You probably heard that from a loud minority and assumed it's representative of the country. I also don't think most pro-business advocates will say that they want no laws or regulation of any kind. Business need the enforcement of contract laws, trademark laws and, yes, intellectual property laws to function. Most pro-business people aren't defending anarchy. The criticism regarding regulation is about excessive regulation which, more often than not, exists to benefit certain parties (established businesses, compliance equipment and service providers) over others (new and small businesses).
sillyfluke 2y ago
Guy whose salary depends on not understanding stuff chooses not to understand stuff...news at 10.
jauntywundrkind 2y ago
The kind of juvenile ra-ra-istic commentary you'd expect from this dude. Meanwhile the odds of consumers getting anything radically shrinks. Consumer privacy or transparency is much less likely to happen. Technology probably do a better job paving people over.
DueDilligence 2y ago
[dead]
ChrisArchitect 2y ago
More discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40820949 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40820949
daft_pink 2y ago
The reality of it is not that these things should or shouldn’t be illegal, but that congress should have to discuss, compromise and pass a law about it. This rule gives the power back to congress where a supermajority of senators has to pass everything instead of the regulator.
7e 2y ago
Supreme Court kills any semblance of working government. AI soon to kill us all. Thanks, religious nut jobs!

27 points by MrBuddyCasino 2y ago

This argument hinges on the premise of regulators not being able to make up new rules anymore. However this isn't the case, they can still do that. The difference is now you can more effectively challenge those rules in federal courts. But to challenge regulators in federal court will still require a lot of legal resources, which means small guys will still be effectively bound by the rules but large companies will be relatively untethered. Those large players are simultaneously less likely to innovate anyway due to being large and therefore more ossified in their thinking and a tendency to protect their present products and organization structures. Therefore I think the acceleration will be far less pronounced than the OP post suggests.

redserk 2y ago
You don’t have to have a regulation be declined by the courts. You just need a court to more easily issue months-long stays on a given executive action. My concern with all of this is that a handful of courts will see this as an opportunity to get trigger-happy with issuing stays on executive agencies, causing a complete deadlock with any new law.
itsdavesanders 2y ago
I think the counter point to that is that we have think tanks and political organizations who have rich donors with which to hire high power law firms, who find the regulation they want to axe, and then search the country for a case with standing and then pursue those cases until the regulation dies. You are right that it won’t be the little guys doing this, but they might be represented by very powerful organizations who take down laws professionally and are doing so for their own benefit. And with the way politics has entered everything, who knows which things will be targeted next, or what new cruelties they care to inflict. At the same time, again due to the current political climate, it doesn’t do us any good to have all the rules thrash back and forth with each new administration. This is what we get as we get more and more polarized and laws aren’t being written with compromise. Congress and elections need serious reform.
jaybrendansmith 2y ago
Great point. Our problem is not big government. It's big corporation. This will only make it worse for the little guy, easier for the big guy, harder for the regulators, and harder for the people. This ruling will slow down competition and innovation and break both good and bad regulations across the board. This ruling is vehemently anti-citizen, pro-corporation. Government by the people vs government by the big faceless org.

hanniabu 2y ago

It's important to note that balajis is anti-regulation, so his bias points out all the downsides of Chevron while ignoring the benefits.

somenameforme 2y ago
What were the benefits? The problem I have with the system is that if there was some concept that 'needed' to be regulated, there's absolutely nothing stopping Congress from doing so. In fact there's also nothing stopping various regulatory agencies from doing so. But Chevron deference essentially removed the check-and-balance that the judicial system provided, in cases where regulators may have gone beyond their legal authority, or even contravened it.
- redserk 2y ago
  Congress could have issued a law in the last 40 years —- where there were opportunities for both political parties —- clarifying this if the legislative branch disagreed. …if we’re going along with the logic this court has been working with here.
- hanniabu 2y ago
  > if there was some concept that 'needed' to be regulated, there's absolutely nothing stopping Congress from doing so Theoretically, but in reality there's corruption and partisan gridlock and nothing gets done
- StewardMcOy 2y ago
  One benefit of Chevron was the recent banning of non-competes. If you're interested in fostering innovation, banning non-competes is a good idea. [1] The idea that Congress could and pass regulations in a timely manner is a nice one. Unfortunately, Congress is almost completely dysfunctional, so there's a near-zero chance of that happening. Many of the recent Supreme Court rulings seem to hinge on this idea that Congress can and should fulfill its role. And while that would be great, it completely ignores the reality of modern Congress. I fear we're going to suffer some extreme effects because the court is ruling based on how they think things ought to be, rather than what things are. 1: https://hbr.org/2023/02/banning-noncompetes-is-good-for-innovation https://hbr.org/2023/02/banning-noncompetes-is-good-for-inno...

gryfft 2y ago

I look forward to hearing all about how liberals and regulations will be to blame for the negative impacts of a world where corporations are unfettered by regulations. Maybe if we just give them _more_ power it will all just work out. Maybe the Supreme Court will rule that the Second Amendment means that Fortune 500 companies have an inalienable right to own nuclear weapons.

hapticmonkey 2y ago

The examples are so horrendous I thought it was satire. I can’t wait for genome, cryptocurrency, and nuclear power startups to “move fast and break things” and screw up so badly and remind us why we had these regulations to begin with.

hanniabu 2y ago
It's especially cringe how he mocks safety by putting it in quotes
api 2y ago
My reaction to genomics, nuclear power, cryptocurrency was “one of these is not like the others.”
lupusreal 2y ago
The NRC (and most other regulatory bodies) predate Chevron deference, so you should count on them sticking around and still doing their thing. A nuclear startup could try taking them to court to circumvent all their rules and build naked nuclear piles in residential neighborhoods or something, but even if they got a federal judge to go along with that, it should be an easy political win for legislators to smack it down with some new more specific laws. And although the regulatory interpretation of those laws could also be challenged in court, successfully doing so shouldn't be considered a given. Judges generally do have some sense you know, as a class they decide important matters in boring uncontroversial ways across the country every days. The controversial outcomes that make news cycles are newsworthy specifically because they're unusual.
- hanniabu 2y ago
  > it should be an easy political win for legislators to smack it down with some new more specific laws. Which is a lengthy process and relies on Congress actually being effective and free of corruption, which they aren't.
  - nine_k 2y ago

conartist6 2y ago

Really poorly written tweet which is long without being more than talking points for people who already agree

stavros 2y ago

I find it interesting how the culture in the US is to chastize China for its "anything goes" policies when it comes to entrepreneurship, while simultaneously lamenting how regulation kills innovation. You kind of can't both say "damn those Chinese for not respecting IP and stealing my hard work" and also "I don't want regulation, I want to be able to do whatever I want". Or do you not consider IP protection laws regulation?

lupusreal 2y ago
"US culture" is not one person and comprises of many people who frequently disagree with each other vehemently. "US culture" simultaneously says that baseball is better than football and football is better than baseball. That's not a contradiction because it's different people saying those things.
- stavros 2y ago
  Yes, I hear that argument whenever anyone says anything about more than one person. I don't care much for that argument because it basically denies that culture exists by saying "different people have different preferences". Sure, they do, but also it's clearly true to say "the US culture is against regulation" and "the EU culture is for regulation". Plus, I don't even think it's that hard to find people who dislike regulation but also dislike people copying their intellectual property (for example, every single company ever).
  - lupusreal 2y ago
    It's not "denying that culture exists", it's refuting your erroneous and unreasonable expectation that culture should be consistent as though it were a person (even though individual people are themselves frequently inconsistent!)
glimshe 2y ago
I don't think the "US culture" criticizes China for their entrepreneurship. You hear criticisms against their totalitarian state, cheap goods, IP theft (as you mention) and the transfer of US jobs to China, but the average American doesn't think about their policies and their relation to free enterprise. You probably heard that from a loud minority and assumed it's representative of the country. I also don't think most pro-business advocates will say that they want no laws or regulation of any kind. Business need the enforcement of contract laws, trademark laws and, yes, intellectual property laws to function. Most pro-business people aren't defending anarchy. The criticism regarding regulation is about excessive regulation which, more often than not, exists to benefit certain parties (established businesses, compliance equipment and service providers) over others (new and small businesses).

sillyfluke 2y ago

Guy whose salary depends on not understanding stuff chooses not to understand stuff...news at 10.

jauntywundrkind 2y ago

The kind of juvenile ra-ra-istic commentary you'd expect from this dude. Meanwhile the odds of consumers getting anything radically shrinks. Consumer privacy or transparency is much less likely to happen. Technology probably do a better job paving people over.

DueDilligence 2y ago

[dead]

ChrisArchitect 2y ago

More discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40820949 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40820949

daft_pink 2y ago

The reality of it is not that these things should or shouldn’t be illegal, but that congress should have to discuss, compromise and pass a law about it. This rule gives the power back to congress where a supermajority of senators has to pass everything instead of the regulator.

7e 2y ago

Supreme Court kills any semblance of working government. AI soon to kill us all. Thanks, religious nut jobs!