4 ms·
Pretty sad, in my opinion. In my ideal the state should have visibility into the shape of the people present so that we can make good decisions about our combin
by arjie 5mo ago
Pretty sad, in my opinion. In my ideal the state should have visibility into the shape of the people present so that we can make good decisions about our combined organization. I think we’re making a mistake we will come to regret by intentionally damaging our data collection infrastructure.
I think a large amount of the US’s success is the result of good institutions handling granular data. Policies can be adjusted to match outcomes more rapidly than otherwise.
I understand why people decide to diminish all state capacity - they feel that governments are populated by their opponents who will use state capacity against them. But as our relative strength wanes, our ability to overcome these forces of inertia does as well. And then our governments become less capable and eventually life starts getting worse.
We don’t need house-level data immediately (except perhaps in order to place census blocks within their appropriate congressional district etc). But there are aggregation units above which we should be using as good information as we possibly could be.
- Bratmon 5mo agoBut this article is about a decision to damage the census less. If you value an accurate census, you should be celebrating!
- swiftcoder 5mo agoTFA lays out why things don't work that way. If you erode trust in the privacy of census responses, an awful lot of folks will have to start lying on their census
- Bratmon 5mo agoI think the TFA was very light on evidence that people's desire to respond to the census is increased if the government fabricates the results later
- Dylan16807 5mo agoIf they follow the rules, preserving privacy via cruder methods, the data will be much more damaged. For any particular level of privacy, the banned methods can give you more accurate data. For any particular level of accuracy, the banned methods can give you better privacy. The only way we're getting more accurate data is if the new rule causes them to largely abandon privacy. That would be bad. Harm for no benefit.
- Zoombini 5mo agoData collected by public entities or with funding from the public should be expected to be published in formats digestible by the public. There should be no gatekeeping of the source data.
- tempodox 5mo ago> I think we’re making a mistake we will come to regret by intentionally damaging our data collection infrastructure. Intentionally damaging infrastructure is the recurring theme of this administration.
- smaudet 5mo ago[flagged]
- bee_rider 5mo agoI’d be more interested in giving my state detailed info, letting them run programs. The country can have aggregate data.
- NewJazz 5mo agoThat works great for real states, but some states are just three mining companies in a trenchcoat.
- pjc50 5mo agoThe history of the VRA suggests that several states simply cannot be trusted to do that for all their residents.
- helpfulclippy 5mo agoThe feds have smart people who find the levers to work to get municipal, county, state and private data via voluntary/“voluntary” disclosure.
- projektfu 5mo agoThat would probably not be constitutional. I don't think the states are unable to run their own census, but the Constitution requires a federal one.
- bee_rider 5mo ago
- jimbokun 5mo agoThis does nothing to make government less powerful. It just makes government stupider so even if they decide they want to do the right thing, now they can’t because they don’t have the information needed to make effective decisions.
- thaumasiotes 5mo agoMaking them less able to do whatever it is they might want to do is pretty much the definition of making them less powerful.
- rescripting 5mo agoFeels like they’re hedging their bets. If Republicans stay in power they’re going to keep doing whatever they want; it’s not like they’re making data driven policy decisions today. If they are ousted then the incoming administration has bad data they can’t act on, and Republicans can go back to banging their old drum of “government is useless and dysfunctional”.
- toofy 5mo agorepeatedly we see them cause the problem then complain about it. destroy the tools to make government more effective then complain that government is ineffective.
- tw04 5mo agoNo, it gives them data to attack specific groups of people that were previously anonymized. The two options are less granular data, or data that can be abused. There is no question the end goal is data that can be abused, and anyone left who would protest their actions will be fired and replaced with more sycophants.
- ajmurmann 5mo agoThat's assuming that this undermining of trust won't result in reduced willingness to share accurate data.
- nullc 5mo ago> In my ideal the state should have visibility into the shape of the people present so that we can make good decisions about our combined organization. That ideal became tantamount to enabling genocide when the US government breached the confidentiality of the census in order to prison camp the japanese on the basis of their race. > I understand why people decide to diminish all state capacity It's not even just a question of "all". The state should have the absolute minimum capacity to carry out its necessary tasks. Collecting race (just to give one example of many) of any form is not absolutely necessary and so it should not be done. > they feel that governments are populated by their opponents who will use state capacity against them Because they may be in the future. -- but even that is too strong, the greatest harm perpetrated by state actors has consistently come from trying to "help" rather than intentionally malicious acts.
- EdwardDiego 5mo ago[dead]
- nullc 5mo agoReplying to a dead comment that demanded an example, for example, Mao's mass killing of somewhere on the order of 30-40 million people famine (in addition to the million straight up murdered in the cultural revolution) created as a result of "helping" through planned economy food distribution and the Eliminate Sparrows Campaign. People only kill at a truly massive scale because they believe they are doing something good or at least necessary (even in war, but especially outside of war). This is why hoping states aren't evil isn't sufficient-- in fact it may induce mass murder, because what could be less evil than to Do the Right thing. The universal cure is to distribute power and influence in as many ways as practicable, such that the damage from erroneous thinking is contained.
- jezzamon 5mo agoCounter point: Government inaction and easily cause deaths at a similar scale, and some types of things only really work with large scale collective action