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My takeaway from all this was that the RSC (Republican Study Committee) is somewhat disorganized, not that there is any political shift occurring. I think the t

by rm999 14y ago

My takeaway from all this was that the RSC (Republican Study Committee) is somewhat disorganized, not that there is any political shift occurring. I think the tech world turned it into a bigger news story than it should have been because we wanted to believe a shift was occurring. That said, I do think the younger, more tech-savvy generation of Derek Khanna is much more informed and critical of copyright issues than politicians. A shift will eventually occur.

jacoblyles 14y ago
Political shifts don't "occur", people make them happen. If strong-copyright stances caused congresscritters to take heat in their primary campaigns, you would see them change their tune real quick. The Republican party in particular is moved forward largely through insurgent campaigns of right-leaning outsiders discontent with the mainstream GOP (see: the Tea Party). A few Silicon Valley hackers could form a copyright liberalization insurgency fairly easily, especially in a state like California where the GOP is a skeleton.
- rprasad 14y ago
  Considering that California is home to most of America's production and distribution media companies, and derives significant direct and indirect tax revenues from these companies, it is highly unlikely that a Silicon Valley-based "copyright liberalization insurgency" would succeed. Moreover, people in SV vastly overestimate the political influence they are likely to have in the rest of the state. The silly issues that "matter" in SV (like "liberalizing copyright") quite honestly don't matter in the rest of California, where jobs and local governance are much bigger, more important issues.
  - jacoblyles 14y ago
    The tech sector is pretty big. It should be able to get its way some of the time. How big do you think Hollywood is? I would be willing to be that Google's annual revenue is bigger than all the major studios, put together. We have no excuse for being as inept as we are at politics. It is a game we can win, but first we have to decide to play.
    - tptacek 14y ago
      A single movie production employs more people than most startups or single-offering SAAS companies ever will. The tech industry is in the business of eliminating jobs. That is what "productivity" means. I'm not making a moral judgement, but you should at least grok the basic cost/benefit that legislators are grappling with. Making things easier for the Reddits of the world by making things much harder for the movie production companies of the world sure looks like a net negative on the face of it.
      - mitchty 14y ago
        True, but the fact that we work in the tech sector aside, how is the idea of keeping people employed in jobs that are redundant or being replaced any different than buggy whips in some of the first automobiles? Continuing to prop up economic models that likely won't last doesn't seem very market driven. I understand the politicians don't want to address this fact, whether republican or democrat or other, but it will eventually come to a head and need to be addressed. Eventually even our own subculture here will be at the point that the movie industry is where most programmers/it people/etc... are unnecessary.
        tptacek 14y ago
        I knew as soon as I made the observation that someone was going to mention buggy whips. The guys who set up the lighting and sound on motion picture sets have not been "obsoleted" by Reddit. The only reason this particular economic model needs "propping up" is that people have decided that they have an intrinsic right to content produced at great expense by other people on their own terms, and, despite the fact that the law prohibiting them from ignoring the terms of the content producers is clear as glass, have chosen to establish huge anonymous conspiracies to collectively ignore the law. Forgive me if I don't see this as a case of progress being held back by entrenched interests.
        temphn 14y ago
        The guys who set up the lighting and sound on motion picture sets have not been "obsoleted" by Reddit. No, but they will be by devices like Lytro and the Kinect, and video camera descendants thereof. Instagram filters are just the beginning in terms of automated digital post-processing to allow semipros to shoot pro quality photos/footage. It'll take a little longer than blogs did to disrupt print, because the underlying data (sound, video, images) is more complex, but it is inevitable.
- untog 14y ago
  Political shifts don't "occur", people make them happen. Well, obviously. Nothing really happens without people causing it. But a lot of political shifts are gradual, large processes that can't be attributed to one individual or even a single group. Take gay marriage, for example. There has been no lightning-rod event, nor one particularly vocal advocate group for it. But over time, we see that opinions about gay marriage are shifting. While people did "make it happen", it's more of a broader consensus occurring.
  - kaliblack 14y ago
    I wonder how accurately the tech adoption model applies to political ideas. It can't be far off.
  - Steuard 14y ago
    But the shift on gay marriage has gained ground far more quickly than I recall anyone predicting. Even fifteen years ago, I doubt that most people (on any side of the issue) would have guessed we'd be remotely as far along as we are today. As far as I can tell, that progress has been largely the result of a small but significant number of gay people choosing to be much more outspoken than the previous norm and to actively make the case for equal rights (rather than just waiting for generational change).
tptacek 14y ago
Spend some time on the RSC website and a little more time learning about the RSC's history. The RSC exists specifically to perpetuate hard-right conservatism in the GOP. They're practically the embodiment of every cliche you've ever heard about Republican ideology: to create jobs, introduce a flat tax code! to reform entitlements, replace them with block grants to states! Now that those proposals are announced, score every piece of proposed legislation for conformance to our ideology! Yes, Khanna's memo does indicate disorganization at the RSC. To wit: someone was hired at the RSC not understanding what the job of the RSC is, or, alternatively, the RSC failed to predict that someone working for the RSC might go rogue and announce a policy objective that doesn't promote hard-right conservatism. Khanna says "my memo was reviewed the same way all policy memos at RSC are reviewed". My guess is he's right, and that no policy memo at the RSC receives scrutiny, because everyone already knows what to expect from any RSC policy ever. Cut taxes. Slash spending. Delegate power to the states. Eliminate regulations. Bash the Administration. Drill ANWR. Repeal EPA climate change regulations. Just repeating the RSC's policy positions makes me sound like a DailyKos commenter. I'm not caricaturing them. The RSC really is everything every HN'er believes they hate about the whole GOP. The idea that the RSC was seriously going to be the host for sweeping copyright reform is fanciful. What really probably happened is, Khanna is a smart guy, his role at RSC writing little memos saying "this bill does not increase the scope of the federal government" "this bill does increase the scope of the federal government" "this bill does not increase the scope of the federal government" "this bill does not increase the scope of the federal government" "this bill does not increase the scope of the federal government" was a dead end, and he staged a huge PR coup to find his next gig. More power to him. But let's stop pretending this is some signal of a sea change in US government.
- temphn 14y ago
  It may well be that hard-right conservatives are opposed to copyright reform. But I think you will have to agree that progressives are likewise unlikely to cover themselves in glory here, as many of the most vicious and relentless lobbyists for maximalist copyright come from progressive redoubts like Hollywood, the RIAA, and NYC media.
  - 14y ago

by rm999 14y ago

jacoblyles 14y ago

Political shifts don't "occur", people make them happen. If strong-copyright stances caused congresscritters to take heat in their primary campaigns, you would see them change their tune real quick. The Republican party in particular is moved forward largely through insurgent campaigns of right-leaning outsiders discontent with the mainstream GOP (see: the Tea Party). A few Silicon Valley hackers could form a copyright liberalization insurgency fairly easily, especially in a state like California where the GOP is a skeleton.

rprasad 14y ago
Considering that California is home to most of America's production and distribution media companies, and derives significant direct and indirect tax revenues from these companies, it is highly unlikely that a Silicon Valley-based "copyright liberalization insurgency" would succeed. Moreover, people in SV vastly overestimate the political influence they are likely to have in the rest of the state. The silly issues that "matter" in SV (like "liberalizing copyright") quite honestly don't matter in the rest of California, where jobs and local governance are much bigger, more important issues.
- jacoblyles 14y ago
  The tech sector is pretty big. It should be able to get its way some of the time. How big do you think Hollywood is? I would be willing to be that Google's annual revenue is bigger than all the major studios, put together. We have no excuse for being as inept as we are at politics. It is a game we can win, but first we have to decide to play.
  - tptacek 14y ago
    A single movie production employs more people than most startups or single-offering SAAS companies ever will. The tech industry is in the business of eliminating jobs. That is what "productivity" means. I'm not making a moral judgement, but you should at least grok the basic cost/benefit that legislators are grappling with. Making things easier for the Reddits of the world by making things much harder for the movie production companies of the world sure looks like a net negative on the face of it.
    - mitchty 14y ago
      True, but the fact that we work in the tech sector aside, how is the idea of keeping people employed in jobs that are redundant or being replaced any different than buggy whips in some of the first automobiles? Continuing to prop up economic models that likely won't last doesn't seem very market driven. I understand the politicians don't want to address this fact, whether republican or democrat or other, but it will eventually come to a head and need to be addressed. Eventually even our own subculture here will be at the point that the movie industry is where most programmers/it people/etc... are unnecessary.
      - tptacek 14y ago
        I knew as soon as I made the observation that someone was going to mention buggy whips. The guys who set up the lighting and sound on motion picture sets have not been "obsoleted" by Reddit. The only reason this particular economic model needs "propping up" is that people have decided that they have an intrinsic right to content produced at great expense by other people on their own terms, and, despite the fact that the law prohibiting them from ignoring the terms of the content producers is clear as glass, have chosen to establish huge anonymous conspiracies to collectively ignore the law. Forgive me if I don't see this as a case of progress being held back by entrenched interests.
        temphn 14y ago
        The guys who set up the lighting and sound on motion picture sets have not been "obsoleted" by Reddit. No, but they will be by devices like Lytro and the Kinect, and video camera descendants thereof. Instagram filters are just the beginning in terms of automated digital post-processing to allow semipros to shoot pro quality photos/footage. It'll take a little longer than blogs did to disrupt print, because the underlying data (sound, video, images) is more complex, but it is inevitable.
untog 14y ago
Political shifts don't "occur", people make them happen. Well, obviously. Nothing really happens without people causing it. But a lot of political shifts are gradual, large processes that can't be attributed to one individual or even a single group. Take gay marriage, for example. There has been no lightning-rod event, nor one particularly vocal advocate group for it. But over time, we see that opinions about gay marriage are shifting. While people did "make it happen", it's more of a broader consensus occurring.
- kaliblack 14y ago
  I wonder how accurately the tech adoption model applies to political ideas. It can't be far off.
- Steuard 14y ago
  But the shift on gay marriage has gained ground far more quickly than I recall anyone predicting. Even fifteen years ago, I doubt that most people (on any side of the issue) would have guessed we'd be remotely as far along as we are today. As far as I can tell, that progress has been largely the result of a small but significant number of gay people choosing to be much more outspoken than the previous norm and to actively make the case for equal rights (rather than just waiting for generational change).

tptacek 14y ago

Spend some time on the RSC website and a little more time learning about the RSC's history. The RSC exists specifically to perpetuate hard-right conservatism in the GOP. They're practically the embodiment of every cliche you've ever heard about Republican ideology: to create jobs, introduce a flat tax code! to reform entitlements, replace them with block grants to states! Now that those proposals are announced, score every piece of proposed legislation for conformance to our ideology! Yes, Khanna's memo does indicate disorganization at the RSC. To wit: someone was hired at the RSC not understanding what the job of the RSC is, or, alternatively, the RSC failed to predict that someone working for the RSC might go rogue and announce a policy objective that doesn't promote hard-right conservatism. Khanna says "my memo was reviewed the same way all policy memos at RSC are reviewed". My guess is he's right, and that no policy memo at the RSC receives scrutiny, because everyone already knows what to expect from any RSC policy ever. Cut taxes. Slash spending. Delegate power to the states. Eliminate regulations. Bash the Administration. Drill ANWR. Repeal EPA climate change regulations. Just repeating the RSC's policy positions makes me sound like a DailyKos commenter. I'm not caricaturing them. The RSC really is everything every HN'er believes they hate about the whole GOP. The idea that the RSC was seriously going to be the host for sweeping copyright reform is fanciful. What really probably happened is, Khanna is a smart guy, his role at RSC writing little memos saying "this bill does not increase the scope of the federal government" "this bill does increase the scope of the federal government" "this bill does not increase the scope of the federal government" "this bill does not increase the scope of the federal government" "this bill does not increase the scope of the federal government" was a dead end, and he staged a huge PR coup to find his next gig. More power to him. But let's stop pretending this is some signal of a sea change in US government.

temphn 14y ago
It may well be that hard-right conservatives are opposed to copyright reform. But I think you will have to agree that progressives are likewise unlikely to cover themselves in glory here, as many of the most vicious and relentless lobbyists for maximalist copyright come from progressive redoubts like Hollywood, the RIAA, and NYC media.
- 14y ago