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I was on BloombergTV talking SOPA today - how'd I do?

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Re: I was on BloombergTV talking SOPA today - how'd I do?

#81

Post by dgeb »

edw519 wrote: post #19

Alexis, you did great. Cool, calm, collected, and sharp. You did a great job advocating what most of us here understand and champion. But here is the problem I see with this whole SOPA debate... I didn't see anything that would help my Uncle Art understand what this is all about in his language and why he should care. This is what he sees: - There is a bill in congress. - It's to stop people from stealing other peopl…

We really need to do a better job arguing this case. This is about justice vs. injustice, not jobs in tech vs. jobs in movies/tv.

Here's the analogy I tweeted a couple weeks ago: "SOPA is the equivalent of allowing Disney to shut down a restaurant because a customer drew Mickey Mouse on a napkin."

I think anyone can recognize the injustice in that.

Re: I was on BloombergTV talking SOPA today - how'd I do?

#82

Post by sc00ter »

kevinalexbrown wrote: post #73

Some criticisms on style: - You said "you know" reflexively while she asked questions. - You look young. The cool hair (which I like, personally) makes you look even younger. - You bob your head. - You mentioned PIPA without defining it. Most people you need to convince won't know what you're talking about. - Emphasizing "One Million Dollars!" doesn't sound too huge compared with how often we hear "Billion" and "Tril…

"SOPA lets the government intervene [...] just to bail out the movie industry"

The implication here is that he movie industry is in trouble, and needs bailing out. And no-one wants to see the movie industry go under.

Does Hollywood really need a bail-out?

Re: I was on BloombergTV talking SOPA today - how'd I do?

#83

Post by mattlong »

edw519 wrote: post #19

Alexis, you did great. Cool, calm, collected, and sharp. You did a great job advocating what most of us here understand and champion. But here is the problem I see with this whole SOPA debate... I didn't see anything that would help my Uncle Art understand what this is all about in his language and why he should care. This is what he sees: - There is a bill in congress. - It's to stop people from stealing other peopl…

I agree that getting our aunts, uncles, etc to "get it" is very important. But I wonder if most of them even know this is an issue. Time for an anecdote:

While visiting my parents for Christmas, I scoffed when we drove past a car with a Lamar Smith bumper sticker (they live in TX). My parents asked me why I didn't like him; he was a stand-up representative as far as they knew. I mentioned SOPA and how horrible it is and they both drew a blank...turns out they had never even heard of SOPA. I was shocked since they watch the local and national news almost daily and discuss any story they see regarding technology/the internet with me.

Re: I was on BloombergTV talking SOPA today - how'd I do?

#84

Post by JoshTriplett »

trunnell wrote: post #62
edw519 wrote: post #19

Alexis, you did great. Cool, calm, collected, and sharp. You did a great job advocating what most of us here understand and champion. But here is the problem I see with this whole SOPA debate... I didn't see anything that would help my Uncle Art understand what this is all about in his language and why he should care. This is what he sees: - There is a bill in congress. - It's to stop people from stealing other peopl…

My favorite analogy on the DNS and monitoring problems: Since shoplifters use roads to make their getaway, SOPA would have us set up roadblocks to catch all the thieves. Could we catch more thieves by setting up roadblocks? Of course! So why don't we? For the same reasons SOPA would be bad law: we don't stop and search people in roadblocks (4th amendment prevents unreasonalbe search and seizure). Also, as a practical…

Doesn't work very well, because police do in fact set up roadblocks for any number of reasons, such as drunk driving "checkpoints", and for that matter borders. Anyone using that analogy would just trigger a response of "but SOPA only targets foreign companies, and we do set up roadblocks on our borders".

Using an analogy to aid understanding can seriously backfire when your opponents make fallacious arguments from analogy, because the audience doesn't actually understand the issue so they go with whatever the analogies makes believable.

Re: I was on BloombergTV talking SOPA today - how'd I do?

#85

Post by TheEskimo »

edw519 wrote: post #19

Alexis, you did great. Cool, calm, collected, and sharp. You did a great job advocating what most of us here understand and champion. But here is the problem I see with this whole SOPA debate... I didn't see anything that would help my Uncle Art understand what this is all about in his language and why he should care. This is what he sees: - There is a bill in congress. - It's to stop people from stealing other peopl…

It's a little more in depth than the shop lifting analogy.

I like to use the following: "A person tells the government that they saw a TV in the local pawn shop which is really theirs. They never asked the pawn shop owner for it back and they have no reason to suspect the pawn shop owner knows it is stolen. The government will then shut down the pawn shop without even talking to the owner first or having significant proof that the item was really stolen. Every phone book will be required to remove the pawn shop's phone number from it and maps will not be allowed to show the pawn shop. The pawn shop can then attempt to get their store back from the government but if it turns out that the item really was stolen then the government will not return it." In the analogy the pawn shop is a website, the owner of the item is the copyright holder, the item is copyrighted content, and the removal of the phone number and map info is dns-delisting and search-engine de-indexing.

I think the above analogy holds up fairly well and clearly demonstrates the ridiculous measures SOPA goes to. It's also much more easily understandable by non-tech-savvy people. Please tell me if it is not accurate in some way or is unclear.

Re: I was on BloombergTV talking SOPA today - how'd I do?

#86

Post by kn0thing »

edw519 wrote: post #19

Alexis, you did great. Cool, calm, collected, and sharp. You did a great job advocating what most of us here understand and champion. But here is the problem I see with this whole SOPA debate... I didn't see anything that would help my Uncle Art understand what this is all about in his language and why he should care. This is what he sees: - There is a bill in congress. - It's to stop people from stealing other peopl…

Thanks. I love this feedback and agree that connecting with normals is vital; it's something that comes up again & again with my girlfriend as I "pitch" her on how to discuss these bills.

The struggle I have with metaphors like yours is that it doesn't accurately describe piracy (because it's not the same as theft). This feels a bit disingenuous, but definitely makes for a great soundbyte.

It's a catch-22: the thoughtful, reasonable explanation of why it's a terrible idea will never get through to anyone except the people who already know.

Re: I was on BloombergTV talking SOPA today - how'd I do?

#87

Post by JoshTriplett »

squeee wrote: post #8

I love how everyone keeps asking where is the compromise from the tech industry. This bill is like someone saying "Hi Bob, this store you have here is great, but sometimes someone comes in and steals one of my products off your shelves and since you can't guarantee me that I will get paid for every one of my products that walks out the door I'm going to have to shut down your store until you can." But, to answer your…

> I love how everyone keeps asking where is the compromise from the tech industry.

Politics lives by the fallacy of middle ground: the compromise is always right, and anyone refusing to compromise is always wrong and can be safely ignored. Put that together with the Overton window (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window), and politics compromises its way towards whatever position it wants. Zeno's Paradox, applied to law.

Re: I was on BloombergTV talking SOPA today - how'd I do?

#88

Post by kn0thing »

TheEskimo wrote: post #85
edw519 wrote: post #19

Alexis, you did great. Cool, calm, collected, and sharp. You did a great job advocating what most of us here understand and champion. But here is the problem I see with this whole SOPA debate... I didn't see anything that would help my Uncle Art understand what this is all about in his language and why he should care. This is what he sees: - There is a bill in congress. - It's to stop people from stealing other peopl…

It's a little more in depth than the shop lifting analogy. I like to use the following: "A person tells the government that they saw a TV in the local pawn shop which is really theirs. They never asked the pawn shop owner for it back and they have no reason to suspect the pawn shop owner knows it is stolen. The government will then shut down the pawn shop without even talking to the owner first or having significant…

Thanks for writing this. While it's more thoughtful, it's also much more verbose -- deadly in our soundbyte-driven media.

Re: I was on BloombergTV talking SOPA today - how'd I do?

#89

Post by kn0thing »

Timothee wrote: post #32
edw519 wrote: post #19

Alexis, you did great. Cool, calm, collected, and sharp. You did a great job advocating what most of us here understand and champion. But here is the problem I see with this whole SOPA debate... I didn't see anything that would help my Uncle Art understand what this is all about in his language and why he should care. This is what he sees: - There is a bill in congress. - It's to stop people from stealing other peopl…

To be fair to Alexis, this was for BloombergTV so I think his emphasis on the creation of wealth (or lack thereof) and the economic impact of SOPA was appropriate. It's true indeed that this wouldn't be helpful for your Uncle Art.

I was trying to hit my audience of bankers, daytraders, and wealthy people, but I'm very mindful of these Uncle Arts, because in the end they're the ones who will win the day: http://navantigroup.com/content/world-changing-power-reasona...

Re: I was on BloombergTV talking SOPA today - how'd I do?

#90

Post by ianstormtaylor »

TheEskimo wrote: post #85
edw519 wrote: post #19

Alexis, you did great. Cool, calm, collected, and sharp. You did a great job advocating what most of us here understand and champion. But here is the problem I see with this whole SOPA debate... I didn't see anything that would help my Uncle Art understand what this is all about in his language and why he should care. This is what he sees: - There is a bill in congress. - It's to stop people from stealing other peopl…

It's a little more in depth than the shop lifting analogy. I like to use the following: "A person tells the government that they saw a TV in the local pawn shop which is really theirs. They never asked the pawn shop owner for it back and they have no reason to suspect the pawn shop owner knows it is stolen. The government will then shut down the pawn shop without even talking to the owner first or having significant…

It is definitely more accurate than the shoplifting story. However, pawn shops don't have the best reputations to begin with, so you'd be comparing yourself to something that people already find sleazy/sketchy/dirty/etc.

Edit: If you want to add some sympathy, replace pawn shop with Salvation Army and TV with pair of jeans.

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