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It worries me that people that have absolutely no understanding of even the basics of how a system works have any ability to regulate it. The worst part is, the

It worries me that people that have absolutely no understanding of even the basics of how a system works have any ability to regulate it. The worst part is, there are MPs who do have a good technical understanding, but for the most part they're drown out by the shrill cries of 'save us from ourselves!'. I cannot imagine how much torture it must have been to try and explain the concepts to someone who just does not care. It's wilful stupidity.

netcan 13y ago
Yeah. Me too. The cookie legislation, with all its pompous righteous "debates" in EU & UK parliament is the perfect example. They basically legislated a nag screen that you need to 'X' on every site you visit. It gives shoddy "web consultants" a hook to bait clients with (you are required by law to have a cookie compliant website.). It creates extra nonsense work for developers. Stupid bikeshed meeting all around the country. And a very tiny annoyance occurring 10000 time per second to someone user somewhere. Lots of website owners that know they are breaking some law someplace and decide not to bother about it which is corrosive to rule of law. Naturally, it does absolutely nothing to achieve the goals it set out to achieve (tracking?). Nothing. It's pure incompetence.
alan_cx 13y ago
Its not just technical, is all over government. Education ministers usually have no grounding in education, health ministers usually have no grounding in health, armed forces ministers usually have never serves, home secretaries usually have no grounding in law enforcement, and so on. All they know is what their supporters think and they apply that to garner votes. At best, such people only know how to manipulate parliament. This is democracy......
- Luc 13y ago
  Government ministers don't even need to be elected MPs. For a UK example: Peter Mandelson in 2008. It's the parties who decide who becomes minister, and as such they _could_ pick and choose domain experts, if they wished.
  - alan_cx 13y ago
    Well, currently we have this Tory media adviser, or what ever he is supposed to be, who is said to have influenced this current government in to not blanking cigarette packets as he is connected to a tobacco company. Dunno why you picked an old example when we have a current one, which has more of an obvious self serving connection. Mandelson can be argued to have been "advising" from principle. That said, I dont see how any one can be sure an adviser is advising and not setting policy. And if they don't have influence, there is no point having them, but then people would argue that ministers should have advice from advisers, especially as most of them have no grounding what so ever in the department they are supposed to be running.
    - Luc 13y ago
      > Dunno why you picked an old example when we have a current one Sorry, I used to live in the UK but now live in Belgium, so my knowledge of UK politics is somewhat outdated. In Belgium we had a new minister of finance appointed in March, who as far as I know has never even been up for election for anything: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koen_Geens https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koen_Geens
      - toyg 13y ago
        > In Belgium we had a new minister of finance appointed in March, who as far as I know has never even been up for election Amateurs :) Italy has had a wholly-unelected Prime Minister for two years: he was nominated Life Senator by the President and sworn in as PM a day later. In every other parliamentary democracy, this would have been called a coup d'état, but Italy works more like South-American banana republics. And the best thing is, he was drafted exactly on the basis of domain knowledge (he was a banker and euro-bureaucrat) for a country still in the grip of wide-scale economic crisis, and all his ministers were appointed on the same basis: lots of academics, high-profile intellectuals, bankers and industrialists. Results were underwhelming to say the least, and last Spring voters basically disposed of this group in a general election. But the President all but re-elected himself (to another 7-year term, which is unprecedented) and again hand-picked a PM who's basically forced to follow the same political platform of his "golpist" predecessor. So yeah, domain knowledge won't save your ass. Political problems are always political, not technical, and require political solutions, i.e. people shouting that this will not do, do that instead.
ancarda 13y ago
This is mentioned a lot in this great talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYqkU1y0AYc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYqkU1y0AYc The thing is, politicians are able to reasonably regulate almost anything with zero knowledge. The example given is you can reasonably ban the use of mobile phones inside cars without causing cars to become less useful. "Make me an internet that doesn't run BitTorrent". Well, that's not possible. But, it should be, right? Politicians don't understand general purpose computers and general purpose networks (the Internet) are so flexible they can do anything and trying to limit a particular activity does more harm than good.

netcan 13y ago

Yeah. Me too. The cookie legislation, with all its pompous righteous "debates" in EU & UK parliament is the perfect example. They basically legislated a nag screen that you need to 'X' on every site you visit. It gives shoddy "web consultants" a hook to bait clients with (you are required by law to have a cookie compliant website.). It creates extra nonsense work for developers. Stupid bikeshed meeting all around the country. And a very tiny annoyance occurring 10000 time per second to someone user somewhere. Lots of website owners that know they are breaking some law someplace and decide not to bother about it which is corrosive to rule of law. Naturally, it does absolutely nothing to achieve the goals it set out to achieve (tracking?). Nothing. It's pure incompetence.

alan_cx 13y ago

Its not just technical, is all over government. Education ministers usually have no grounding in education, health ministers usually have no grounding in health, armed forces ministers usually have never serves, home secretaries usually have no grounding in law enforcement, and so on. All they know is what their supporters think and they apply that to garner votes. At best, such people only know how to manipulate parliament. This is democracy......

Luc 13y ago
Government ministers don't even need to be elected MPs. For a UK example: Peter Mandelson in 2008. It's the parties who decide who becomes minister, and as such they _could_ pick and choose domain experts, if they wished.
- alan_cx 13y ago
  Well, currently we have this Tory media adviser, or what ever he is supposed to be, who is said to have influenced this current government in to not blanking cigarette packets as he is connected to a tobacco company. Dunno why you picked an old example when we have a current one, which has more of an obvious self serving connection. Mandelson can be argued to have been "advising" from principle. That said, I dont see how any one can be sure an adviser is advising and not setting policy. And if they don't have influence, there is no point having them, but then people would argue that ministers should have advice from advisers, especially as most of them have no grounding what so ever in the department they are supposed to be running.
  - Luc 13y ago
    > Dunno why you picked an old example when we have a current one Sorry, I used to live in the UK but now live in Belgium, so my knowledge of UK politics is somewhat outdated. In Belgium we had a new minister of finance appointed in March, who as far as I know has never even been up for election for anything: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koen_Geens https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koen_Geens
    - toyg 13y ago
      > In Belgium we had a new minister of finance appointed in March, who as far as I know has never even been up for election Amateurs :) Italy has had a wholly-unelected Prime Minister for two years: he was nominated Life Senator by the President and sworn in as PM a day later. In every other parliamentary democracy, this would have been called a coup d'état, but Italy works more like South-American banana republics. And the best thing is, he was drafted exactly on the basis of domain knowledge (he was a banker and euro-bureaucrat) for a country still in the grip of wide-scale economic crisis, and all his ministers were appointed on the same basis: lots of academics, high-profile intellectuals, bankers and industrialists. Results were underwhelming to say the least, and last Spring voters basically disposed of this group in a general election. But the President all but re-elected himself (to another 7-year term, which is unprecedented) and again hand-picked a PM who's basically forced to follow the same political platform of his "golpist" predecessor. So yeah, domain knowledge won't save your ass. Political problems are always political, not technical, and require political solutions, i.e. people shouting that this will not do, do that instead.

ancarda 13y ago

This is mentioned a lot in this great talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYqkU1y0AYc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYqkU1y0AYc The thing is, politicians are able to reasonably regulate almost anything with zero knowledge. The example given is you can reasonably ban the use of mobile phones inside cars without causing cars to become less useful. "Make me an internet that doesn't run BitTorrent". Well, that's not possible. But, it should be, right? Politicians don't understand general purpose computers and general purpose networks (the Internet) are so flexible they can do anything and trying to limit a particular activity does more harm than good.