101–110 of 227 posts
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Would be amazing if the reps actually did what we wanted instead of what they are paid by outside entities to do. We should try that!
Agreed that money should be virtually eliminated from the system. That said, people actually tend to be pretty satisfied with their representatives. It's the other Congresspeople who suck.
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I agree with parent, the full quote is: "The whole thing relies on donations to keep it afloat, which is really what tax dollars are for." I think this is a great site, love what they are doing, and support them (including a literal donation). But a government maintained website for this data is low on my list of things of what tax dollars are for. In fact, I think this is better done privately. To be clear, many of…
As a counter example, the government manages and collects all kinds of weather station data. But the trend is for private companies to get contracts to privatize the dissemination of that data through fee-based APIs etc. I would rather the government provide it instead of taxpayers having to pay twice to enrich some rent seeker.
https://api.weather.gov/
https://www.noaa.gov/nodd/datasets
https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/cdo-web/
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That sounds like the arrangement you said we have. The government provides data to private companies who then mass distribute it in various forms because those costs and needs vary.
The problem is that those very same private companies are trying really hard to ban the government from providing the same data for free to the general public, because it would be "unfair competition". They get it for free from the government. They offer it as a paid service to the general public. Then they try to ban the government from giving it away for free to any potential competition.
What if government websites were distributed & archived as a default, from the beginning? Think IPFS as a first target for publication, "normal web" only as a mirror. Is it feasible? Should we push for this default? First obvious objection is that lots of government services need backend and dynamic content, but let's say this requirement only goes for static content.
But I'm very in favor of maintaining "the record", as it were, for government websites. If we can have changelogs on bills then we should elsewhere. It informs the citizens of the actions of our government. What has changed and "who done it". That can go both ways and I hope it would incentivize those trying to actually do good and not just treated as a liability.
Hell, if the NSA can just gobble up all the Internet traffic and store it on servers in Utah then the least we can do is make public records accessible. The archival work has already been done and we've already paid for it
This may be a controversial view, but I don't think we should trust the actor in charge of regulating and limiting emissions with its own supervision. The Federal Government has a plethora of agencies which regulate pollution and energy usage; how can we trust either its legislative or executive branch to ensure that their creations are effective or efficient? To that end, I hope the Trump administration's actions ca…
The only reason we have good weather data is because the government maintains stations in remote places all over the country. Who else would maintain that?
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Agreed that money should be virtually eliminated from the system. That said, people actually tend to be pretty satisfied with their representatives. It's the other Congresspeople who suck.
Hard disagree, my rep is an idiot
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> CIA regulates itself with its own supervision too That's not true lol. There is a gigantic supervisory apparatus constantly breathing down the IC's neck, including but not limited to your very own elected Congressperson's investigative powers.
Ah ok. Well I don't see it limiting their misconduct and behavior, do you?
Perhaps you mean to say: I don't see it eliminating their misconduct and behavior.
This may be a controversial view, but I don't think we should trust the actor in charge of regulating and limiting emissions with its own supervision. The Federal Government has a plethora of agencies which regulate pollution and energy usage; how can we trust either its legislative or executive branch to ensure that their creations are effective or efficient? To that end, I hope the Trump administration's actions ca…
This notion of "the government" is the wrong premise. The US government is (supposed to be, I should say) an elaborate system of checks and balances to enable self-correction mechanisms. The Trump administration has turned that into a travesty, obviously, but the system itself is explicitly set up to be split into three branches that keep each other in check, and thus supervising itself.
What if government websites were distributed & archived as a default, from the beginning? Think IPFS as a first target for publication, "normal web" only as a mirror. Is it feasible? Should we push for this default? First obvious objection is that lots of government services need backend and dynamic content, but let's say this requirement only goes for static content.
Honestly, if anything the library of congress should be operating a system similar to the way back machine. Isn't preserving historical information one of its objectives? And what libraries do in general? But I'm very in favor of maintaining "the record", as it were, for government websites. If we can have changelogs on bills then we should elsewhere. It informs the citizens of the actions of our government. What has…
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I don’t follow. I would rather the government manage the API, like what NOAA does/did.
So then we are subsidizing Google’s outsized usage of that API?
That's a good example of how government open data can support both people and business.