4 ms·

Exactly, I just think it's a tough sell when the difference between the non-believer case which sees this as ineffective, and the believer case that sees this a

by moxie 14y ago

Exactly, I just think it's a tough sell when the difference between the non-believer case which sees this as ineffective, and the believer case that sees this as a "win," is sufficiently low expectations about what this achieves (nothing). The larger question is a tension, not about what this process produces, but about what this process reproduces. The really dangerous aspect of ineffective but affirming processes like these is the implication that We the People have the power no matter how much evidence accumulates to the contrary. It follows logically that when The People don’t affect changes in our system, we must not want to change it. Hypothetically, we believe in justice, freedom, etc. or we would not have formed a democracy. Since we freedom-loving, democratic people would naturally act to end oppression as soon as we found it out, it follows that if a policy, law or practice does not change then it must not truly oppress people. Clearly, this train of thought has not, does not and will never transport us to a genuinely free society.

snowwrestler 14y ago
There are still disagreements within a genuinely free society, and those are what the government exists to adjudicate. We The People do have the power, but to exercise it in one's preferred direction, one needs to get most of the People to agree on the same direction and priorities. That is not easy to do, regardless of how self-evident the benefits of a particular policy direction might appear to oneself individually.
sinak 14y ago
So I think we've achieved a "win" in getting the White House to say publicly that they support this. The original petition them to either convince the Librarian to reverse the decision (which I realized at the time was kind of impossible), or to champion a bill in Congress. They aren't quite championing a bill, but the response indicates that "The Obama Administration would support a range of approaches to addressing this issue, including narrow legislative fixes." I'd much prefer a broad fix, repealing Section 1201 of the DMCA, So that's what I'm working on next. Having the WH says that there are real problems that need to be addressed by Congress seems like a "win" - but perhaps of the milder kind. A loss would have been if they defended carrier/CTIA positions, or simply stated that the Librarian of Congress has authority and that they can't take action. Both of those were definitely a possibility. Generally, I agree about the danger of affirming processes that don't result in real action. If the bombard-congress-campaign I'm working on at FixtheDMCA.org works, we've got the abstraction in place to let other people create similar campaigns relatively easily. Which will hopefully those freedom-loving, democratic folk get more involved in the political process, which is ultimately what we want. I think other similar platforms, for example Causes or Change.org fall woefully short in actually affecting change legislatively. Hopefully what we're working on will be better in those regards.
- dvogel 14y ago
  In the 3rd paragraph of your petition you allude to unlocking your phone for use on multiple carriers: "Consumers will be forced to pay exorbitant roaming fees to make calls while traveling abroad." If their response only applies to situations where you've let your service contract expire, it doesn't seem to allow you to unlock your phone for use on multiple carriers while under contract with the carrier from which the phone was purchased. Could you clarify whether you're satisfied that their approach would avoid criminal liability in such a situation?
  - morpher 14y ago
    You can be a current customer with outside of the (typically two year) contract period. Currently AT&T (and possibly other carriers?) will unlock the phone for you in this situation. But, it wouldn't be terrible to have this specifically allowed/required.
- trotsky 14y ago
  You sound like you've thought a lot about the issue, so i'm curious what impact you think the WIPO Copyright Treaty will have. Since anti-circumvention is required by a treaty that we ratified, doesn't that make trying to totally repeal it an extremely uphill battle? Are there any recent examples where we did that? What is the impact on the US with WIPO if we officially contradict it? What are the pros and cons versus trying to amend it down until it didn't apply to much of anything?
  - sinak 14y ago
    Yep, this is definitely a tricky part of it. Trying to figure this out with the EFF at the moment. Will try and elaborate soon, on a really tight deadline at the moment.
pekk 14y ago
It isn't reasonable to think that an online petition site created by a presidential administration will directly result in passed legislation without the involvement of Congress. Publicizing the issue and getting an official favorable response from the President is not actually nothing. I'm curious what you propose as an alternative, which will allow one individual among several hundred million to feel as if they are politically empowered even when the majority of the country completely disagrees with them, meaning that in reality they have no influence. Or is the point that special people (you?) should be empowered more than others?
- moxie 14y ago
  Just the opposite. What I'm suggesting is that it's better to recognize the lack of agency we have than to reproduce processes which give us a false sense of agency.
  - mc32 14y ago
    I think for a given case that may be true. That is, for case 'A' where the WH agrees but the other branches disagree, then it will seem as if it's a false sense of power (a placebo mechanism). However, just because this is true in some cases does not preclude there being case 'B' where the WH agrees and the other branches agree, in which case one would have exerted influence. I think people do understand that not all their wishes can come true and that there are others whose wishes are the exact opposite (with respect to rules and. So long as the process is predictable and somewhat transparent, then I think people's expectations will be reasonable.
rayiner 14y ago
> We the People You're confused about who "We the People" are. "We the People" are not the technolgenstia that hangs out on HN. "We the People" are my wife's parents in rural Oregon. There are things they care about, but this is not one of those things. "What this process reproduces" is inaction on issues that don't rile up more than a tiny minority of people. I'm not sure why this is surprising.
- moxie 14y ago
  """ > "We the People" are not the technolgenstia that hangs out on HN. "We the People" are my wife's parents in rural Oregon. There are things they care about, but this is not one of those things. """ Processes like this affirm the logic that government fails us because we the people are too apathetic, or too unaware, or too stupid, or too anything at all to yield our immense power (!) as we ought. That, yes, if we enlightened/progressive few could only mobilize, inform, or educate the public, then everything would work out beautifully! Power can rest easy as long as we place blame on ourselves and not them for our alienated position in modern society, and that will continue until we recognize the lack of agency that we have, rather than reproducing processes which give us a false sense of agency.
  - derleth 14y ago
    > we the people are too apathetic, or too unaware, or too stupid, or too anything at all to yield our immense power This is what has been happening: We've been too hesitant to wield our immense power, meaning we've been yielding it by default to those who are willing to use it. (The autocorrect error here was way too apropos to pass up.)
  - ordinary 14y ago
    As I see it, there's basically two ways to effect change. One is to trust that the abstract entity 'government' is a benevolent being and that we have but to supply a couple of good arguments to make it do the right thing. The other is to take matters into our own hands and to force them to make those decisions that we want, if only by making a clear statement of: "if you want to keep your little seat of power, you better do these things we want or we'll vote in someone who will". Approach one is naive at best: even if people in government are generally willing to make the right decisions (which is by no means a given), identifying what decisions those are is a hard problem to begin with, and that's is compounded by the fact that there are many more forces at play than mere morality (pah!). Positive change doesn't just magically come about because many people sit on their couches being really, really in favour of something. They come about when many people get off their couches and take action. Our governments fail us because we've largely forgotten that democracy is more than going into the voting booth every 4 years and choosing between bad and worse. That is an uncharitable way of putting it though. There are some very good reasons (or excuses) for our failure to fulfil our part of the contract in a healthy democracy. If you work 12 hours a day just to make ends meet, live paycheck to paycheck, and all you have energy for in the evenings and weekends is sitting on the couch and absorbing whatever dribble the telly feeds you, it's hard to summon the willpower to improve your long term perspectives. Similarly (though I don't mean to equate the two scenarios), if you're a privileged software engineer who makes 6 figures, it's hard to summon the motivation or even detect the problem. What do you mean? What problem? I'm doing fine, and so do all the other (privileged rich) people I know. You know what? I started out writing this to disagree with you, to place the blame squarely with a lazy and inactive citizenry. Now... I'm not so sure any more. So thanks for giving me something to think about!

by moxie 14y ago

snowwrestler 14y ago

There are still disagreements within a genuinely free society, and those are what the government exists to adjudicate. We The People do have the power, but to exercise it in one's preferred direction, one needs to get most of the People to agree on the same direction and priorities. That is not easy to do, regardless of how self-evident the benefits of a particular policy direction might appear to oneself individually.

sinak 14y ago

So I think we've achieved a "win" in getting the White House to say publicly that they support this. The original petition them to either convince the Librarian to reverse the decision (which I realized at the time was kind of impossible), or to champion a bill in Congress. They aren't quite championing a bill, but the response indicates that "The Obama Administration would support a range of approaches to addressing this issue, including narrow legislative fixes." I'd much prefer a broad fix, repealing Section 1201 of the DMCA, So that's what I'm working on next. Having the WH says that there are real problems that need to be addressed by Congress seems like a "win" - but perhaps of the milder kind. A loss would have been if they defended carrier/CTIA positions, or simply stated that the Librarian of Congress has authority and that they can't take action. Both of those were definitely a possibility. Generally, I agree about the danger of affirming processes that don't result in real action. If the bombard-congress-campaign I'm working on at FixtheDMCA.org works, we've got the abstraction in place to let other people create similar campaigns relatively easily. Which will hopefully those freedom-loving, democratic folk get more involved in the political process, which is ultimately what we want. I think other similar platforms, for example Causes or Change.org fall woefully short in actually affecting change legislatively. Hopefully what we're working on will be better in those regards.

dvogel 14y ago
In the 3rd paragraph of your petition you allude to unlocking your phone for use on multiple carriers: "Consumers will be forced to pay exorbitant roaming fees to make calls while traveling abroad." If their response only applies to situations where you've let your service contract expire, it doesn't seem to allow you to unlock your phone for use on multiple carriers while under contract with the carrier from which the phone was purchased. Could you clarify whether you're satisfied that their approach would avoid criminal liability in such a situation?
- morpher 14y ago
  You can be a current customer with outside of the (typically two year) contract period. Currently AT&T (and possibly other carriers?) will unlock the phone for you in this situation. But, it wouldn't be terrible to have this specifically allowed/required.
trotsky 14y ago
You sound like you've thought a lot about the issue, so i'm curious what impact you think the WIPO Copyright Treaty will have. Since anti-circumvention is required by a treaty that we ratified, doesn't that make trying to totally repeal it an extremely uphill battle? Are there any recent examples where we did that? What is the impact on the US with WIPO if we officially contradict it? What are the pros and cons versus trying to amend it down until it didn't apply to much of anything?
- sinak 14y ago
  Yep, this is definitely a tricky part of it. Trying to figure this out with the EFF at the moment. Will try and elaborate soon, on a really tight deadline at the moment.

pekk 14y ago

It isn't reasonable to think that an online petition site created by a presidential administration will directly result in passed legislation without the involvement of Congress. Publicizing the issue and getting an official favorable response from the President is not actually nothing. I'm curious what you propose as an alternative, which will allow one individual among several hundred million to feel as if they are politically empowered even when the majority of the country completely disagrees with them, meaning that in reality they have no influence. Or is the point that special people (you?) should be empowered more than others?

moxie 14y ago
Just the opposite. What I'm suggesting is that it's better to recognize the lack of agency we have than to reproduce processes which give us a false sense of agency.
- mc32 14y ago
  I think for a given case that may be true. That is, for case 'A' where the WH agrees but the other branches disagree, then it will seem as if it's a false sense of power (a placebo mechanism). However, just because this is true in some cases does not preclude there being case 'B' where the WH agrees and the other branches agree, in which case one would have exerted influence. I think people do understand that not all their wishes can come true and that there are others whose wishes are the exact opposite (with respect to rules and. So long as the process is predictable and somewhat transparent, then I think people's expectations will be reasonable.

rayiner 14y ago

> We the People You're confused about who "We the People" are. "We the People" are not the technolgenstia that hangs out on HN. "We the People" are my wife's parents in rural Oregon. There are things they care about, but this is not one of those things. "What this process reproduces" is inaction on issues that don't rile up more than a tiny minority of people. I'm not sure why this is surprising.

moxie 14y ago
""" > "We the People" are not the technolgenstia that hangs out on HN. "We the People" are my wife's parents in rural Oregon. There are things they care about, but this is not one of those things. """ Processes like this affirm the logic that government fails us because we the people are too apathetic, or too unaware, or too stupid, or too anything at all to yield our immense power (!) as we ought. That, yes, if we enlightened/progressive few could only mobilize, inform, or educate the public, then everything would work out beautifully! Power can rest easy as long as we place blame on ourselves and not them for our alienated position in modern society, and that will continue until we recognize the lack of agency that we have, rather than reproducing processes which give us a false sense of agency.
- derleth 14y ago
  > we the people are too apathetic, or too unaware, or too stupid, or too anything at all to yield our immense power This is what has been happening: We've been too hesitant to wield our immense power, meaning we've been yielding it by default to those who are willing to use it. (The autocorrect error here was way too apropos to pass up.)
- ordinary 14y ago
  As I see it, there's basically two ways to effect change. One is to trust that the abstract entity 'government' is a benevolent being and that we have but to supply a couple of good arguments to make it do the right thing. The other is to take matters into our own hands and to force them to make those decisions that we want, if only by making a clear statement of: "if you want to keep your little seat of power, you better do these things we want or we'll vote in someone who will". Approach one is naive at best: even if people in government are generally willing to make the right decisions (which is by no means a given), identifying what decisions those are is a hard problem to begin with, and that's is compounded by the fact that there are many more forces at play than mere morality (pah!). Positive change doesn't just magically come about because many people sit on their couches being really, really in favour of something. They come about when many people get off their couches and take action. Our governments fail us because we've largely forgotten that democracy is more than going into the voting booth every 4 years and choosing between bad and worse. That is an uncharitable way of putting it though. There are some very good reasons (or excuses) for our failure to fulfil our part of the contract in a healthy democracy. If you work 12 hours a day just to make ends meet, live paycheck to paycheck, and all you have energy for in the evenings and weekends is sitting on the couch and absorbing whatever dribble the telly feeds you, it's hard to summon the willpower to improve your long term perspectives. Similarly (though I don't mean to equate the two scenarios), if you're a privileged software engineer who makes 6 figures, it's hard to summon the motivation or even detect the problem. What do you mean? What problem? I'm doing fine, and so do all the other (privileged rich) people I know. You know what? I started out writing this to disagree with you, to place the blame squarely with a lazy and inactive citizenry. Now... I'm not so sure any more. So thanks for giving me something to think about!