If US lawmakers are good at anything, it's failing at technology

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Comments

  • Reply 21 of 54
    maximaramaximara Posts: 409member
    JP234 said:
    tht said:

    Ultimately, you can probably blame the electorate for electing these folks. That's what the majority of voters wanted. To change it, the voters have to vote different.
    If you don't understand the problem, you're the problem.
    The problem is thanks to gerrymandering many voting districts are autowins for many candidates.  Some are so messed up you could run a brain damaged chimp and it would win.  Take the case of David Andahl who won the election for Representative...even through he was dead.  The really sad thing is there is a fix to this and related insanity — Single Transferable Vote and Shortest-Splitline.  Either one of those would majorly clean up the fluster fubar that many democratic republics are and combined they would be a near knockout punch.  But lots of luck getting either of those set up as it takes away the one thing politicians want - power.
    watto_cobrajony0
  • Reply 22 of 54
    thttht Posts: 5,421member
    Japhey said:
    tht said:
    Given the U.S. government's history with technological incompetence, however, it's a certainty that we'll continue to see bad laws coming from the halls of Congress.
    Oh, it's not just "technology" that Congress has very little knowledge of. It's everything, everything, that they don't know about save for the one thing that acutely affects them: their ability to be elected. So, tech is no special cookie here. You perhaps think it is because you are intimately knowledgeable of this particular cookie. Their knowledge of being elected and a politician, that's pretty damn good for the multi-termers.

    I'm sure this or that politician is actually very knowledgeable about certain things, as much as any well studied and educated person can be, but legislation isn't some collegiate discussion involving facts and proper courses of action. It's a knockdown drag-out fight of acquiring the necessary votes in a room with a 48:48:4 split of yes:no:whoknows. The yes:no decision making is not based on some ethical calculus in a topic. It's "how does it effect my next election cycle".

    Ultimately, you can probably blame the electorate for electing these folks. That's what the majority of voters wanted. To change it, the voters have to vote different.
    100% agree with this. We need legislative term limits, because career politicians seem to care about reelection first, and anything else second. 
    Not sure if it will solve it. Probably won't. Voters vote in the candidate they want, and the winner will try carry out what they promised that would do. What the majority of voters want can often spiral into craziness.

    It's a vicious spiral of one-upmanship between voters and the elected politician. It spirals until something structural changes, like district maps being redrawn or population and demographics changing. Today's speed and ubiquity of communication has basically homogenized out a lot of the independence of candidates, with national parties being able to make the vast majority of in-group politicians vote in party blocks.

    An idea I've been pondering is randomizing the district maps every 4 years or so. Just have a computer program randomly redraw equally populous district maps every 4 years along geographically continuous blocks, though islands are possible if they are close enough. This is all just wishful thinking as it's a deadlock now where change is impossible. 

    I had written an entirely different post earlier involving an analogy of a made-up Senator Ioannes Quentius Publicus bullshitting in the Senate about Carthaginian currency stealing the Roman man's vitality and business and Rome should not accept it to illustrate that this stuff goes way back, but I decided not to post it as dollars to donuts, Roman Senators said some crazy crazy propaganda against Carthage, they utterly destroyed Carthage, and there are definitely people today who want to do that their perceived enemies. In today's world, that should never happen.

    Anyways, I don't want leave that impression that the government is a problem per se. You really can't argue against the USA's successful across it's 200 year arc. The issue is global warming and environment. The USA has had a great reserve of resources and comfortable climate to power its way through mis-governance. That reserve is dwindling, the climate is warming, and this stress, the same stress the whole world will see, is going to do some crazy things.
    watto_cobramaximara12Strangers
  • Reply 23 of 54
    viclauyycviclauyyc Posts: 849member
    JFC_PA said:
    viclauyyc said:
    Not 100% true about digital yuan.

    Many mainland Chinese are using a message app called WeChat. You can do a lot more thing than WhatsApp or iMessage. People can put money in their WeChat account and e-transfer money to other or use it to pay for services and buy things online.

    So preemptive to stop using digital yuan  in US is actually a good thing. 
    Though American laws have zero applicability to mainland Chinese. 
    True. But I will not say all, but most Chinese in American who originally from mainland China use WeChat to communicate with other Chinese in US or China. 

    That is why when trump tried to ban WeChat in US, it really upset many Chinese as it is the only means for them to message their friends and family in China. And many of them used it to do business in Chinese community. 
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 24 of 54
    swineoneswineone Posts: 66member
    Newsflash: politicians are incompetent!

    You know what, if I knew someone was incompetent, I’d want to strip them off their ability to do harm through their incompetence, taking away their power and money.

    Yet people call for ever and ever more government interference and playing Robin Hood. People here are quick to realize politicians have zero clue about technology (and really, if this was a site about X, they’d realize just as well they have zero clue about X), but do they really think they are any less clueless about economics, science, health, education or any other topic?
    watto_cobramaximara
  • Reply 25 of 54
    JapheyJaphey Posts: 1,767member
    Japhey said:
    Japhey said:
    Japhey said:
    Rubio attended South Miami Senior High School, graduating in 1989. He attended Tarkio Collegein Missouri for one year on a football scholarship before enrolling at Santa Fe Community College(now Santa Fe College) in Gainesville, Florida. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from the University of Florida in 1993 and his Juris Doctor cum laude from the University of Miami School of Law in 1996.[20][21] Rubio has said that he incurred $100,000 in student loans. He paid off those loans in 2012.[

    Braun was born in Jasper, Indiana, on March 24, 1954.[4] He graduated from Jasper High School. Braun was a three-sport star athlete; he married his high school sweetheart, Maureen,[5] who was a cheerleader.[6] He attended the all-male Wabash College, where he was a member of Phi Delta Theta fraternity and graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor's degree in economics, and Harvard Business School, where he earned an MBA.

    Cotton was accepted to Harvard College after graduating from high school in 1995. At Harvard, he majored in government and was a member of the editorial board of The Harvard Crimson, often dissenting from the liberal majority.[5] In articles, Cotton addressed what he saw as "sacred cows" such as affirmative action.[6] He graduated with an A.B. magna cum laude in 1998 after only three years of study. Cotton's senior thesis focused on The Federalist Papers.[4]

    After graduating from Harvard College in 1998, Cotton was accepted into a master's program at Claremont Graduate University. He left in 1999, saying that he found academic life "too sedentary", and instead enrolled at Harvard Law School.[4] He graduated with a J.D. degree in 2002.

    This is the continental divide between Congress and HighTech. 

    (sigh) Here we go again with this guy. Congratulations, you know how to cut and paste.  Please just stop. 
    Let the truth of facts be known to all, not hidden by evil. LOL
    Sure, though I don’t see how that statement is at all relevant here. Everyone here knows what you are doing, and why you’re doing it. 
    LOL ?
    The facts I posted is 100% compatible with the topic of this article.  Why can't you understand it? 
    Please  remind us all where you are from. 
    Please elaborate how does this relate to the discussion? 
    I will gladly elaborate. As soon as you answer the question. You’re all about the truth, yes?
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 26 of 54
    Paul_BPaul_B Posts: 82member
    swineone said:
    Newsflash: politicians are incompetent!

    You know what, if I knew someone was incompetent, I’d want to strip them off their ability to do harm through their incompetence, taking away their power and money.

    Yet people call for ever and ever more government interference and playing Robin Hood. People here are quick to realize politicians have zero clue about technology (and really, if this was a site about X, they’d realize just as well they have zero clue about X), but do they really think they are any less clueless about economics, science, health, education or any other topic?

    The great majority of politicians are extremely incompetent, and when thought about don't posses any skill in any trade.  However, you will come across a few individuals that only work for the Governments orders, and control a giant Company such as Alphabet.  They are fully aware that Technology, has/is taking away from their powers, and were warned and did not listen.  It is too late for all Governments of the world to control.
  • Reply 27 of 54
    avon b7avon b7 Posts: 7,625member
    "Of course, tech illiteracy isn't exclusive to the U.S. The European Union, for example, is pushing toward a mandate to require all devices use a USB-C port. The major problem there is that enshrining a specific piece of technology into law doesn't account for the pace of advancement."

    To be fair, the EU proposal does not have technology at its core so technological advancement is irrelevant. 

    It is about e-waste and making life easier for consumers:

    https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20220412IPR27115/common-charger-meps-agree-on-proposal-to-reduce-electronic-waste

    That said, long before this even became a formal proposal, one of the goals was to not hinder innovation going forward:

    "Will the proposal be an obstacle to innovation?

    The Commission's proposal aims at providing consumers with an open and interoperable solution and, at the same time, enabling technological innovation. The proposal encourages innovation for wired and wireless technology charging.

    Any technological developments in wired charging can be reflected in a timely adjustment of technical requirements/ specific standards under the Radio Equipment Directive. This would ensure that the technology used is not outdated.

    At the same time, the implementation of any new standards in further revisions of Radio Equipment Directive would need to be developed in a harmonised manner, respecting the objectives of full interoperability. Industry is therefore expected to continue the work already undertaken on the standardised interface, led by the USB-IF organisation, in view of developing new interoperable, open and non-controversial solutions."

    https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/QANDA_21_4614

    The EU has been very accommodating to industry in this area and the move to micro USB was a huge success even though a legal mandate was never implemented. There was only a memorandum of understanding. 

    Although that was a success it still left gaping holes that industry was not willing to fill, hence the need for the new proposals. 

    Industry has had plenty of time to get its act together but done little to tackle what the EU is going for. 

    Apple filled drawers with millions of 5W chargers which were often woefully slow, prompting users to purchase faster chargers, or accumulate them as they upgraded their phones. 

    This proposal is just one of many that are being tabled and they all firm part of a bigger puzzle. 

    The other pieces include things like repairability (including designing for repairability ), guarantees, software upgrading (and downgrading), batteries, lifespan information at purchase, different scales for environmental impact, better labeling etc.

    All in all, and seen for what they were designed for, these proposals are aiming to tackle far more than the notion of technology for the sake of technology. It is more about harmonisation across industry, consumer protection and the environment. 
    edited May 2022 crowleymuthuk_vanalingamjony0
  • Reply 28 of 54
    How good has the tech media really been in terms of understanding the issues?

    Example A: the constant focus on the 30% commission like it was important (a big nothing burger in the courts AND legislative activity)

    Example B: treating game streaming apps not passing App Store review as if it's a significant issue per competition (Apple doesn't operate a game streaming service AND native iOS ports of PC/console games do get approved)








    thtmaximara
  • Reply 29 of 54
    waveparticlewaveparticle Posts: 1,497member
    Japhey said:
    Japhey said:
    Japhey said:
    Japhey said:
    Rubio attended South Miami Senior High School, graduating in 1989. He attended Tarkio Collegein Missouri for one year on a football scholarship before enrolling at Santa Fe Community College(now Santa Fe College) in Gainesville, Florida. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from the University of Florida in 1993 and his Juris Doctor cum laude from the University of Miami School of Law in 1996.[20][21] Rubio has said that he incurred $100,000 in student loans. He paid off those loans in 2012.[

    Braun was born in Jasper, Indiana, on March 24, 1954.[4] He graduated from Jasper High School. Braun was a three-sport star athlete; he married his high school sweetheart, Maureen,[5] who was a cheerleader.[6] He attended the all-male Wabash College, where he was a member of Phi Delta Theta fraternity and graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor's degree in economics, and Harvard Business School, where he earned an MBA.

    Cotton was accepted to Harvard College after graduating from high school in 1995. At Harvard, he majored in government and was a member of the editorial board of The Harvard Crimson, often dissenting from the liberal majority.[5] In articles, Cotton addressed what he saw as "sacred cows" such as affirmative action.[6] He graduated with an A.B. magna cum laude in 1998 after only three years of study. Cotton's senior thesis focused on The Federalist Papers.[4]

    After graduating from Harvard College in 1998, Cotton was accepted into a master's program at Claremont Graduate University. He left in 1999, saying that he found academic life "too sedentary", and instead enrolled at Harvard Law School.[4] He graduated with a J.D. degree in 2002.

    This is the continental divide between Congress and HighTech. 

    (sigh) Here we go again with this guy. Congratulations, you know how to cut and paste.  Please just stop. 
    Let the truth of facts be known to all, not hidden by evil. LOL
    Sure, though I don’t see how that statement is at all relevant here. Everyone here knows what you are doing, and why you’re doing it. 
    LOL ?
    The facts I posted is 100% compatible with the topic of this article.  Why can't you understand it? 
    Please  remind us all where you are from. 
    Please elaborate how does this relate to the discussion? 
    I will gladly elaborate. As soon as you answer the question. You’re all about the truth, yes?
    Why don't you introduce yourself? 
  • Reply 30 of 54
    charlesncharlesn Posts: 820member
    It's so great to have tech illiterates determining our tech policy. I wrote to my House and Senate reps to oppose attempts to break open Apple's closed ecosystem under the guise of "consumer choice," when doing so would have exactly the opposite effect. Consumers already have choice--you can opt for the wide open Android ecosystem, which has its pluses and minuses or, if security and privacy are your top priorities, you can choose Apple's closed and tightly regulated ecosystem. Breaking Apple's regulation of iOS apps doesn't give me "more freedom," it gives me less. 
  • Reply 31 of 54
    seanjseanj Posts: 318member
    US lawmakers seem to fail on a great many topics, the saddest being gun-control. The USA is the only Western democracy to regularly suffer school shooting massacres…
    avon b7macxpress12Strangersdanoxmaximara
  • Reply 32 of 54
    9secondkox29secondkox2 Posts: 2,666member
    viclauyyc said:
    Not 100% true about digital yuan.

    Many mainland Chinese are using a message app called WeChat. You can do a lot more thing than WhatsApp or iMessage. People can put money in their WeChat account and e-transfer money to other or use it to pay for services and buy things online.

    So preemptive to stop using digital yuan  in US is actually a good thing. 
    Agreed. The author is coming from an ideology not consistent with real life. 

    Would also be great if USA based companies were restricted from investing hundreds of billions of dollars into countries that hates the USA. 
  • Reply 33 of 54
    9secondkox29secondkox2 Posts: 2,666member
    Is there any government that’s good at technology?
    China seems pretty dang adept, unfortunately. 
    danoxjony0
  • Reply 34 of 54
    waveparticlewaveparticle Posts: 1,497member
    viclauyyc said:
    Not 100% true about digital yuan.

    Many mainland Chinese are using a message app called WeChat. You can do a lot more thing than WhatsApp or iMessage. People can put money in their WeChat account and e-transfer money to other or use it to pay for services and buy things online.

    So preemptive to stop using digital yuan  in US is actually a good thing. 
    Agreed. The author is coming from an ideology not consistent with real life. 

    Would also be great if USA based companies were restricted from investing hundreds of billions of dollars into countries that hates the USA. 
    Correction. What you really want to say is "Would also be great if USA based companies were restricted from investing hundreds of billions of dollars into countries that the USA hates." 
    danox9secondkox2uraharajony0
  • Reply 35 of 54
    doggonedoggone Posts: 377member
    Back in the nineties, I used to work for a professor who was on the science advisory board for the President.  He said that when the republicans held office in the 80's until 92, they were extremely dismissive of any advice coming out from the board because it did not agree with their agenda and philosophy.  During that time many funding organizations including the NIH were starved of funds and stagnated as a result.
    When Clinton was elected, the attitude was completely the opposite.  The new President accepted the advice of the board with very little push back and it initiated a massive influx of investment into basic research.  All areas benefited and a boom in new technologies resulted because on that.  The advances that we now take for granted owe a lot to the willingness of the Clinton administration to listen to the experts.
    The US has had a great history on investing in innovation and is one of the main reasons why it has its position in the world.  But innovation and development in the US comes in waves because ideology can get in the way and the powers that be want to hold onto their control.
    danoxurahara
  • Reply 36 of 54
    9secondkox29secondkox2 Posts: 2,666member
    viclauyyc said:
    Not 100% true about digital yuan.

    Many mainland Chinese are using a message app called WeChat. You can do a lot more thing than WhatsApp or iMessage. People can put money in their WeChat account and e-transfer money to other or use it to pay for services and buy things online.

    So preemptive to stop using digital yuan  in US is actually a good thing. 
    Agreed. The author is coming from an ideology not consistent with real life. 

    Would also be great if USA based companies were restricted from investing hundreds of billions of dollars into countries that hates the USA. 
    Correction. What you really want to say is "Would also be great if USA based companies were restricted from investing hundreds of billions of dollars into countries that the USA hates." 
    That’s not correction. That’s a falsehood and distortion. 

    The original intent was to point out that USA based companies should not be investing hundreds of billions into funding countries thst hate the USA - such as China. 

    Learn to read and comprehend. 
    maximara
  • Reply 37 of 54
    waveparticlewaveparticle Posts: 1,497member
    viclauyyc said:
    Not 100% true about digital yuan.

    Many mainland Chinese are using a message app called WeChat. You can do a lot more thing than WhatsApp or iMessage. People can put money in their WeChat account and e-transfer money to other or use it to pay for services and buy things online.

    So preemptive to stop using digital yuan  in US is actually a good thing. 
    Agreed. The author is coming from an ideology not consistent with real life. 

    Would also be great if USA based companies were restricted from investing hundreds of billions of dollars into countries that hates the USA. 
    Correction. What you really want to say is "Would also be great if USA based companies were restricted from investing hundreds of billions of dollars into countries that the USA hates." 
    That’s not correction. That’s a falsehood and distortion. 

    The original intent was to point out that USA based companies should not be investing hundreds of billions into funding countries thst hate the USA - such as China. 

    Learn to read and comprehend. 
    China does not hate USA. A lot of Americans hate China. Ask George. 
  • Reply 38 of 54
    The us government should be dissolved we need to start over from scratch. 
    waveparticle
  • Reply 39 of 54
    davidwdavidw Posts: 2,036member
    NYC362 said:
    The article states that the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment was dissolved in 1995 as being wasteful.   

    That is a fact, but just to add to it a little bit:  The office was killed as part of the Republican Party takeover of the House of Representatives that year after winning a majority in the 1994 midterms.  House Republicans saw the OTA as, "as duplicative, wasteful, and biased against their party. During the 1994 elections, then-Representative Newt Gingrich (R–GA) vowed to kill the office if his party took control of Congress, which it did. At the time of OTA's dismantling in 1995, it had about 140 staffers and a budget of roughly $21 million."  (Source: https://www.science.org/content/article/house-democrats-move-resurrect-congress-s-science-advisory-office)

    I'll stop there, but just wanted to be clear who is to blame for the OTA's disappearance.     As that article states, current House Democrats are trying to bring the office back. 
    But the OTA was not dissolved. The 1995 Congress just stopped funding it. And since 2001, nearly every Congress had the chance to start funding it again, but didn't. In 2021, Congress almost got funding for it but the funding didn't make it into the final budget. 

    Here's a very long assessment of the OTA, but just reading the summary and skimming through the sections will provide a better understanding of its history, of why Congress stopped funding the OTA and why it hasn't been re-funded during multiple Congresses in the past 20 years.

    https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/R46327.html

    No doubt that the OTA ended up being another government bureaucracy by 1995 and it was a Republican Congress that stopped its funding, but who are you going to blame for why it's still not funded today? In 1995, Congress used the  Clinton Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 (OBRA) as an excuse to stop funding the OTA. Bush Congress budget had to deal with the recession after the DotCom bust and aftermath of 9/11. Obama Congress budget had to deal with TARP and the housing bubble burst. Trump Congress budget had to deal with Trump and the COVD19 pandemic. Biden Congress budget is still dealing with the pandemic and now runaway inflation. It seems every Congress since 1995, had excuses to not re-fund the OTA, no matter what party had control.

    I can understand the 1995 Congress cutting off OTA funding as this was before "tech" as we know it today, really took off. "Tech"  didn't seem all that complicated at the time. But I doubt that even the OTA back then, could have predicted any of the future consequences of the internet. Both beneficial and decremental. And in a timely matter.  In a way, we all probably better off for it, as if still having the OTA, our government might have ended up throwing the baby out, with the bath water, (at the very start). It's no doubt that the government, consumers and tech, greatly benefitted because the government did little to control "tech", at the start. Imagine if the US government took the EU approach of "ex-ante", to control the advancement of tech in the 90's, in order to prevent something that they don't even know if it's going to happen or would even be a problem when it happens. Just to try to solve a current problem, that isn't a problem.     

    The other problem I see with the OTA is that it's headed by 6 Congress-person. (3 Demo and 3 Rep.). it's suppose to be bipartisan but not government independent.  To me, this would seem to make it easier for lobbyist to influence Congress, as they would only need to influence the 6 Congress-person heading the OTA, to have more control on how Congress vote. Maybe it's better that each Congress-person seeks their own way of being inform, hopefully also from independent sources, rather than all depend on just another government committee that can be influenced by lobbyist. Providing of course they want to be more informed about tech, before voting on laws dealing with tech. Which is the real problem.      

     
    edited May 2022
  • Reply 40 of 54
    CheeseFreezeCheeseFreeze Posts: 1,247member
    There should be a law that forces an equality of age when it comes to representatives (e.g age groups), or when this isn’t practically possible, some sort of mandatory fully public advisory board consisting of younger people and subject matter experts serving up their findings to the representatives which are at the same time then posted on the internet, not just text, but also in the form of summarized videos with infographics, to serve the public and to explain concepts to the ones they advise. 

    Laws are set in place for a future generation yet they are drafted by old farts. Old farts have experience, which is just as important too, but it needs to be counter balanced by ‘new knowledge’.
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