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As an outsider, it really is difficult to understand why these practices are supported/allowed by the public. Is this information even available to people outsi

As an outsider, it really is difficult to understand why these practices are supported/allowed by the public. Is this information even available to people outside of the tech community? What in the hell is wrong with US politics* that allows for this to happen so blatantly, and so regularly, without any repercussions at all? * I'm aware that it's not (in general) a US-only problem, but for Tesla and the car dealership world, it seems that this is a real problem

easytiger 12y ago
> allowed by the public Well, democracy is largely bullshit so your phrase endears the democratic process with more credit than it is due. We suppose that our quality of life and our pace of change are side effects of our current leadership process. I personally suppose that is is but a partial input to a more complex contrivance of systems which have led us to where we are.
- atlantic 12y ago
  Don't be too quick to condemn democracy. Granted, most of the propaganda about the vox populi is false. But its key virtue is that it allows change of government without bloodshed. As Popper said, "We are democrats, not because the majority is always right, but because democratic traditions are the least evil ones of which we know". It's not the best system, but it's probably the least bad one.
  - TeMPOraL 12y ago
    > But its key virtue is that it allows change of government without bloodshed. This is a strongest point I ever heard in favour of democracy, and ironically, I don't remember ever being taught it in school or see it mentioned often.
    - atlantic 12y ago
      Karl Popper takes a parallel approach to epistemology and political theory. In his theory of knowledge, he is not worried about how theories provide a representation of reality, but rather with how they can be falsified or disproved through critical experiments. Similarly, in politics he is not concerned with how governments represent the people, but simply with how the citizenry can throw out and replace the government. It's a refreshingly pragmatic approach.
    - CamperBob2 12y ago
      It's easily refuted by pointing out the identical nature of the two major parties in the US, in practice if not in platform. It's been demonstrated over and over again that we can't "throw the bums out," because the replacement bums will soon emulate their predecessors.
      - TeMPOraL 12y ago
        I don't think this refutes the essence of this idea, i.e. bloodless transfer of power. Sure that all new politicians end up being like the old ones, but thanks to short terms and established procedures of power transfer politicians don't feel the need of killing their way to the top or violently defending their seats. After all, even if you lose your seat this time, you can get it back in few years.
  - greedo 12y ago
    "...it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." -WLS Churchill
flyinglizard 12y ago
Anti competitive, interest driven legislative behavior happens everywhere, as does the mixture of money and politics. See the Amazon law in France as an example. If anything, in the USA citizens seems more aware and active in such cases. The fact there's a constitution as a moral compass doesn't hurt, either.
ohazi 12y ago
The problem is that politicians are not accountable to the voting public. They're supposed to be, but it's basically a big joke. This comment from another one of today's discussions seems particularly fitting here [1]: > > We want to make sure that the incentives of the people in power are aligned with the people who are not in power. > This is really a tough ask. Unless decision makers, i.e., those in power, are accountable, every single day, to those not in power, decision makers will soon align themselves with private, capitalist corporations. You have a multi billion dollar arms manufacturer, oil corporations funding millions to election campaigns of US presidents. And then you have US citizens who get to vote once in five years; we also know that the voting itself can be rigged, public opinion can be swayed and etc., Now, whom do you think would the president side with? Oil corporation or US citizens? The answer is obvious! [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8466080 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8466080
jmckib 12y ago
The costs of this legislation are distributed across all consumers, while the benefits are concentrated in the hands of a small group of automobile dealers. This gives the dealers a large incentive to lobby politicians, and little incentive for consumers to pay attention and vote accordingly. This is the same reason Uber is facing a lot of flak right now from governments around the world. On the bright side, in the long run new technologies tend to win out, even though the delays caused by concentrated interests can be quite significant. One way to fix this problem would be to restrict the scope of government so that politicians simply aren't able to do things like this, no matter how much the automobile industry lobbies them. If there are other solutions I'd be very interested to hear them.
- anon1385 12y ago
  >This is the same reason Uber is facing a lot of flak right now from governments around the world. It isn't though. Governments are in conflict with Uber because of things like Uber drivers not being insured. The German government wants Uber to ensure that their drivers are insured. Uber refused to do that. That is why Uber was 'banned'. Uninsured drivers is a cost spread across society, but the gains are concentrated with Uber. Exactly the kind of situation where government should be stepping in. People can hand-wave all they like about 'new technology' and 'disruption' but at the end of the day the vasty majority of people in society think drivers should have valid insurance and there is no sign of that opinion shifting. There is no need for a 'fix' to government in this case. It is working as it should. The fact that Silicon Valley gurus are backing Uber so strongly in their quest to fill our roads with uninsured drivers just makes the rest of the world view them as greedy sociopaths looking to make society more dangerous for their own personal gain. Sadly the rest of the technology sector then gets tainted by this asshole behaviour.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - briandear 12y ago
    Uber drivers are insured. It's a requirement to drive a car. The opposition to Uber is because te cities lose out on the punitively expensive tax medallion revenue.
throwawayaway 12y ago
Tesla's rivals are big employers in Michigan. That is also a factor, their employee's have only experienced the positive side of protectionism.
- wittekm 12y ago
  It's possible the Big 3 would actually prefer a Tesla-like direct-to-consumer model; for example, Chrysler tried opening a Chrysler-owned store in LA a few years ago, only to have it shot down by local law. I'd imagine that if one of the Big 3 started doing direct sales, dealers would stop selling their cars en masse. There's no way for an established manufacturer to stop selling to dealers.
  - throwawayaway 12y ago
    The dealers are probably big employers in Michigan too!
  - smackfu 12y ago
    Dealers are nice because they hold inventory on their books instead of the manufacturers. Tesla doesn't care about that much because they don't have any inventory.
    - toomuchtodo 12y ago
      So charge customers more who want to take a vehicle off the lot vs waiting for it to be produced on demand. If there is a cost, pay for it if you want it.
cdnsteve 12y ago
Why is it that first world countries have the most unaccountable political systems ever seen? Even here in Canada, Rob Ford anyone? Here too in Canada we've banned Zenn, a Canadian electric car company - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZENN http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZENN but we're making prominent bike lanes, go figure.
- colomon 12y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_choice http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_choice
CalRobert 12y ago
This may get me downvoted, but I think the problem has more to do with the voters than the politicians. If people took the time to research candidates and issues independently instead of voting for whoever had the loudest ads, we might not see so much money in politics. Also, they're lazy and they don't care. Nerds on HN do, but talk to normal folks and they just. don't. care. about much of anything political, and they use their horribly inadequate math skills and emotion to make decisions, instead of reason.
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  I'm first to call out all the bullshit general population believes in, but in this case I think it is counterproductive to blame people. Behind all politicians there is a system designed to optimize for deceiving the electorate into believing what the politicians want. Millions if not billions of dollars and man-hours are spent every year to improve that system (that's not counting the private research branch known as advertising industry). Your average citizen Joe doesn't stand a chance here. The fact that general population doesn't care about important issues (hint: what's on the news is mostly irrelevant) is a different thing and it hurts me, but I have no clue what we can do with it.
  - CalRobert 12y ago
    But the electorate could at least do some simple mathematics and rudimentary cost-benefit analysis. Why does the US spend disproportionately more addressing (supposedly) terrorism than it does road safety? Why do people fear crime when it's at historically low levels? Why can politicians get elected by making economically, or even mathematically, impossible promises? I think that at some point you have to consider whether the voter is complicit in the situation the US is in by being wantonly, even willfully, ignorant.
- danielweber 12y ago
  Also, they're lazy and they don't care. Nerds on HN do, This is, at best, silly. It's not like people on HN are any more informed on politics than the average person. They think they're more informed, which makes for worse political discussion, because they've invested more of their identity[1] in being right. Most people are rationally ignorant about politics. It's not like being more aware will necessarily lead to the positions you want. It wouldn't take much to convince workers in Michigan to pass a law that makes things more difficult for cars made in California. [1] http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html
hnnewguy 12y ago
>Is this information even available to people outside of the tech community? You overestimate how much people outside of the tech industry care about what is, at this point, a rich person's toy. Most people couldn't care less whether someone buying a $100,000+ vehicle is modestly inconvenienced. When/if circumstances change, and Tesla builds a car for the masses, the laws will change accordingly. People are self-interested.
maxerickson 12y ago
To a first approximation, 0% of voters care if they can buy a Tesla. Some large portion of people also wouldn't see the problem with requiring a dealership (or would prefer it, because of whatever concerns about service (I'm not endorsing that argument, just pointing it out)).
mikeash 12y ago
It's because US politics (and no implication is intended about how similar or different it is in other countries) is basically a team sport. The real-world consequences of politics matters much less than "our side" winning. Sides are often defined by political parties, but can also be defined by geography or industry. The elected officials here are members of the right party or cater to the right industry or are from the right region, so they'll continue to get elected. What they do in office matters comparatively little.

easytiger 12y ago

> allowed by the public Well, democracy is largely bullshit so your phrase endears the democratic process with more credit than it is due. We suppose that our quality of life and our pace of change are side effects of our current leadership process. I personally suppose that is is but a partial input to a more complex contrivance of systems which have led us to where we are.

atlantic 12y ago
Don't be too quick to condemn democracy. Granted, most of the propaganda about the vox populi is false. But its key virtue is that it allows change of government without bloodshed. As Popper said, "We are democrats, not because the majority is always right, but because democratic traditions are the least evil ones of which we know". It's not the best system, but it's probably the least bad one.
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  > But its key virtue is that it allows change of government without bloodshed. This is a strongest point I ever heard in favour of democracy, and ironically, I don't remember ever being taught it in school or see it mentioned often.
  - atlantic 12y ago
    Karl Popper takes a parallel approach to epistemology and political theory. In his theory of knowledge, he is not worried about how theories provide a representation of reality, but rather with how they can be falsified or disproved through critical experiments. Similarly, in politics he is not concerned with how governments represent the people, but simply with how the citizenry can throw out and replace the government. It's a refreshingly pragmatic approach.
  - CamperBob2 12y ago
    It's easily refuted by pointing out the identical nature of the two major parties in the US, in practice if not in platform. It's been demonstrated over and over again that we can't "throw the bums out," because the replacement bums will soon emulate their predecessors.
    - TeMPOraL 12y ago
      I don't think this refutes the essence of this idea, i.e. bloodless transfer of power. Sure that all new politicians end up being like the old ones, but thanks to short terms and established procedures of power transfer politicians don't feel the need of killing their way to the top or violently defending their seats. After all, even if you lose your seat this time, you can get it back in few years.
- greedo 12y ago
  "...it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." -WLS Churchill

flyinglizard 12y ago

Anti competitive, interest driven legislative behavior happens everywhere, as does the mixture of money and politics. See the Amazon law in France as an example. If anything, in the USA citizens seems more aware and active in such cases. The fact there's a constitution as a moral compass doesn't hurt, either.

ohazi 12y ago

The problem is that politicians are not accountable to the voting public. They're supposed to be, but it's basically a big joke. This comment from another one of today's discussions seems particularly fitting here [1]: > > We want to make sure that the incentives of the people in power are aligned with the people who are not in power. > This is really a tough ask. Unless decision makers, i.e., those in power, are accountable, every single day, to those not in power, decision makers will soon align themselves with private, capitalist corporations. You have a multi billion dollar arms manufacturer, oil corporations funding millions to election campaigns of US presidents. And then you have US citizens who get to vote once in five years; we also know that the voting itself can be rigged, public opinion can be swayed and etc., Now, whom do you think would the president side with? Oil corporation or US citizens? The answer is obvious! [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8466080 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8466080

jmckib 12y ago

The costs of this legislation are distributed across all consumers, while the benefits are concentrated in the hands of a small group of automobile dealers. This gives the dealers a large incentive to lobby politicians, and little incentive for consumers to pay attention and vote accordingly. This is the same reason Uber is facing a lot of flak right now from governments around the world. On the bright side, in the long run new technologies tend to win out, even though the delays caused by concentrated interests can be quite significant. One way to fix this problem would be to restrict the scope of government so that politicians simply aren't able to do things like this, no matter how much the automobile industry lobbies them. If there are other solutions I'd be very interested to hear them.

anon1385 12y ago
>This is the same reason Uber is facing a lot of flak right now from governments around the world. It isn't though. Governments are in conflict with Uber because of things like Uber drivers not being insured. The German government wants Uber to ensure that their drivers are insured. Uber refused to do that. That is why Uber was 'banned'. Uninsured drivers is a cost spread across society, but the gains are concentrated with Uber. Exactly the kind of situation where government should be stepping in. People can hand-wave all they like about 'new technology' and 'disruption' but at the end of the day the vasty majority of people in society think drivers should have valid insurance and there is no sign of that opinion shifting. There is no need for a 'fix' to government in this case. It is working as it should. The fact that Silicon Valley gurus are backing Uber so strongly in their quest to fill our roads with uninsured drivers just makes the rest of the world view them as greedy sociopaths looking to make society more dangerous for their own personal gain. Sadly the rest of the technology sector then gets tainted by this asshole behaviour.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- briandear 12y ago
  Uber drivers are insured. It's a requirement to drive a car. The opposition to Uber is because te cities lose out on the punitively expensive tax medallion revenue.

throwawayaway 12y ago

Tesla's rivals are big employers in Michigan. That is also a factor, their employee's have only experienced the positive side of protectionism.

wittekm 12y ago
It's possible the Big 3 would actually prefer a Tesla-like direct-to-consumer model; for example, Chrysler tried opening a Chrysler-owned store in LA a few years ago, only to have it shot down by local law. I'd imagine that if one of the Big 3 started doing direct sales, dealers would stop selling their cars en masse. There's no way for an established manufacturer to stop selling to dealers.
- throwawayaway 12y ago
  The dealers are probably big employers in Michigan too!
- smackfu 12y ago
  Dealers are nice because they hold inventory on their books instead of the manufacturers. Tesla doesn't care about that much because they don't have any inventory.
  - toomuchtodo 12y ago
    So charge customers more who want to take a vehicle off the lot vs waiting for it to be produced on demand. If there is a cost, pay for it if you want it.

cdnsteve 12y ago

Why is it that first world countries have the most unaccountable political systems ever seen? Even here in Canada, Rob Ford anyone? Here too in Canada we've banned Zenn, a Canadian electric car company - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZENN http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZENN but we're making prominent bike lanes, go figure.

colomon 12y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_choice http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_choice

CalRobert 12y ago

This may get me downvoted, but I think the problem has more to do with the voters than the politicians. If people took the time to research candidates and issues independently instead of voting for whoever had the loudest ads, we might not see so much money in politics. Also, they're lazy and they don't care. Nerds on HN do, but talk to normal folks and they just. don't. care. about much of anything political, and they use their horribly inadequate math skills and emotion to make decisions, instead of reason.

TeMPOraL 12y ago
I'm first to call out all the bullshit general population believes in, but in this case I think it is counterproductive to blame people. Behind all politicians there is a system designed to optimize for deceiving the electorate into believing what the politicians want. Millions if not billions of dollars and man-hours are spent every year to improve that system (that's not counting the private research branch known as advertising industry). Your average citizen Joe doesn't stand a chance here. The fact that general population doesn't care about important issues (hint: what's on the news is mostly irrelevant) is a different thing and it hurts me, but I have no clue what we can do with it.
- CalRobert 12y ago
  But the electorate could at least do some simple mathematics and rudimentary cost-benefit analysis. Why does the US spend disproportionately more addressing (supposedly) terrorism than it does road safety? Why do people fear crime when it's at historically low levels? Why can politicians get elected by making economically, or even mathematically, impossible promises? I think that at some point you have to consider whether the voter is complicit in the situation the US is in by being wantonly, even willfully, ignorant.
danielweber 12y ago
Also, they're lazy and they don't care. Nerds on HN do, This is, at best, silly. It's not like people on HN are any more informed on politics than the average person. They think they're more informed, which makes for worse political discussion, because they've invested more of their identity[1] in being right. Most people are rationally ignorant about politics. It's not like being more aware will necessarily lead to the positions you want. It wouldn't take much to convince workers in Michigan to pass a law that makes things more difficult for cars made in California. [1] http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html

hnnewguy 12y ago

>Is this information even available to people outside of the tech community? You overestimate how much people outside of the tech industry care about what is, at this point, a rich person's toy. Most people couldn't care less whether someone buying a $100,000+ vehicle is modestly inconvenienced. When/if circumstances change, and Tesla builds a car for the masses, the laws will change accordingly. People are self-interested.

maxerickson 12y ago

To a first approximation, 0% of voters care if they can buy a Tesla. Some large portion of people also wouldn't see the problem with requiring a dealership (or would prefer it, because of whatever concerns about service (I'm not endorsing that argument, just pointing it out)).

mikeash 12y ago

It's because US politics (and no implication is intended about how similar or different it is in other countries) is basically a team sport. The real-world consequences of politics matters much less than "our side" winning. Sides are often defined by political parties, but can also be defined by geography or industry. The elected officials here are members of the right party or cater to the right industry or are from the right region, so they'll continue to get elected. What they do in office matters comparatively little.