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Congress Is Woefully Unprepared to Regulate Tech

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Re: Congress Is Woefully Unprepared to Regulate Tech

#11

Post by lockhouse »

lapcat wrote: post #10
lockhouse wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. They had a lot of great ideas for the prevention of tyranny. They weren't perfect, and some parts of the Constitution as originally ratified were simply a product of reaching a compromise that both Northern and Southern states would both be on board with. The beauty of the Constitution is that it can be changed via amendments, but it is intentionally resistant to change to ensure proper debate and comprom…

> They had a lot of great ideas for the prevention of tyranny. c/had/borrowed > some parts of the Constitution as originally ratified were simply a product of reaching a compromise that both Northern and Southern states would both be on board with. A compromise that didn't even work well or last, as violently evidenced by the Civil War. > The beauty of the Constitution is that it can be changed via amendments In the…

> Amendments to the Constitution have become practically nonexistent.

Why is that a bad thing? What specifically needs to be amended?

Re: Congress Is Woefully Unprepared to Regulate Tech

#12

Post by gameman144 »

lapcat wrote: post #10
lockhouse wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. They had a lot of great ideas for the prevention of tyranny. They weren't perfect, and some parts of the Constitution as originally ratified were simply a product of reaching a compromise that both Northern and Southern states would both be on board with. The beauty of the Constitution is that it can be changed via amendments, but it is intentionally resistant to change to ensure proper debate and comprom…

> They had a lot of great ideas for the prevention of tyranny. c/had/borrowed > some parts of the Constitution as originally ratified were simply a product of reaching a compromise that both Northern and Southern states would both be on board with. A compromise that didn't even work well or last, as violently evidenced by the Civil War. > The beauty of the Constitution is that it can be changed via amendments In the…

> Amendments to the Constitution have become practically nonexistent.

It seems that you're taking this as a sign that the Constitution isn't still relevant. I'd ask you to consider that this might be a sign of the exact opposite, and that we can't get broad buy-in on the things that some groups see as obvious additions.

If the MLB were trying to update the rules of baseball to make it more exciting, and one camp wanted to do that by increasing the number of home runs while the other wanted to do it by increasing the number of strike-outs, it makes sense that they should sort out which approach is best before passing rules (or allowing flip-flopping every year)

> The Constitution never benefited the country as a whole

For citizens, this is so demonstrably false that I feel like I must be misinterpreting you here.

Re: Congress Is Woefully Unprepared to Regulate Tech

#13

Post by nh23423fefe »

lockhouse wrote: post #6
exabrial wrote: post #5

> Congress Is Woefully Unprepared to do anything Fixed if for you. Unless it's giving themselves a raise of course.

The founding fathers would tell you that this is a feature, not a bug. They really didn't want it to be easy for the federal government to do much. The states were meant to hold most of the power as they were closer to the people.

Fetishizing the founders and imagining that current times are playing out as they intended makes no sense. In less than 100 years the system they set up resulted in civil war.

They aren't smarter than us and they don't know anything about the present. I don't care what the founders thought nor what people today imagine they would think.

Re: Congress Is Woefully Unprepared to Regulate Tech

#14

Post by lockhouse »

nh23423fefe wrote: post #13
lockhouse wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The founding fathers would tell you that this is a feature, not a bug. They really didn't want it to be easy for the federal government to do much. The states were meant to hold most of the power as they were closer to the people.

Fetishizing the founders and imagining that current times are playing out as they intended makes no sense. In less than 100 years the system they set up resulted in civil war. They aren't smarter than us and they don't know anything about the present. I don't care what the founders thought nor what people today imagine they would think.

I don’t think current times are playing out at all as they intended. The federal government is much too large and too powerful, and Congress is too insulated from their constituents. This emboldens their corruption and playing to special interests instead of the people they are supposed to represent.

This is more an indictment of 20th and 21st century politicians than it is the founders.

Re: Congress Is Woefully Unprepared to Regulate Tech

#15

Post by jfengel »

lockhouse wrote: post #9
lapcat wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The founding fathers would tell you Why should we care in the 21st century? The founders weren't omniscient, benevolent gods. They were just wealthy landowners looking out for their own interests — it's crucial to note that they ignored over half the population of the colonies, i.e., women and black people — and they borrowed the majority of their (now long outdated) ideas from 17th century British philosopher John…

I disagree. They had a lot of great ideas for the prevention of tyranny. They weren't perfect, and some parts of the Constitution as originally ratified were simply a product of reaching a compromise that both Northern and Southern states would both be on board with. The beauty of the Constitution is that it can be changed via amendments, but it is intentionally resistant to change to ensure proper debate and comprom…

The problem is that it's so resistant that there isn't any debate. Those in favor of "no change" have a huge thumb on the scale, both in amendments and in legislation. There is no reason for them to ever engage in debate when simply saying "no" suits them.

Even when something has overwhelming support, it can be nearly impossible. Often, people will support something (as they indicate to pollsters) but vote against it because of the ties of politics: "I'll vote against the thing that bugs you if you'll vote against the thing that bugs me".

We've had no nontrivial amendments in half a century, and even nontrivial laws are rare. The national conversation has taken a nosedive, and I believe a considerable piece of it is that there is a large minority who benefits from nothing happening. Any "compromises" happen by skirting the rules: Supreme Court judgments, Executive branch declarations, and other actions that bypass the intended routes of discussion.

Re: Congress Is Woefully Unprepared to Regulate Tech

#16

Post by lesuorac »

lockhouse wrote: post #14
nh23423fefe wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fetishizing the founders and imagining that current times are playing out as they intended makes no sense. In less than 100 years the system they set up resulted in civil war. They aren't smarter than us and they don't know anything about the present. I don't care what the founders thought nor what people today imagine they would think.

I don’t think current times are playing out at all as they intended. The federal government is much too large and too powerful, and Congress is too insulated from their constituents. This emboldens their corruption and playing to special interests instead of the people they are supposed to represent. This is more an indictment of 20th and 21st century politicians than it is the founders.

> Congress is too insulated from their constituents.

+1

When you're running for a district you can slice the population up into various causes and then run on that. It doesn't matter if your platform is "far-X" because if you can scoop up 20% of the population that's a win at the ballot.

Congress really needs to be larger than it is, the citizen:representative ratio should really be fixed at a ratio and not fixed at the #of representatives. Plenty of other countries have more representatives than the US despite a smaller population. Assuming that we picked say 150k citizens: 1 representative then you should also be able to forfeit your vote along with ~150k other people to select a representative.

Re: Congress Is Woefully Unprepared to Regulate Tech

#17

Post by lockhouse »

jfengel wrote: post #15
lockhouse wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. They had a lot of great ideas for the prevention of tyranny. They weren't perfect, and some parts of the Constitution as originally ratified were simply a product of reaching a compromise that both Northern and Southern states would both be on board with. The beauty of the Constitution is that it can be changed via amendments, but it is intentionally resistant to change to ensure proper debate and comprom…

The problem is that it's so resistant that there isn't any debate. Those in favor of "no change" have a huge thumb on the scale, both in amendments and in legislation. There is no reason for them to ever engage in debate when simply saying "no" suits them. Even when something has overwhelming support, it can be nearly impossible. Often, people will support something (as they indicate to pollsters) but vote against it…

This is mostly due to the Democrat and Republican Party focusing on wedge issues to get reelected instead of compromising on the real national issues (common defense and interstate commerce mostly) and leaving these wedge issues to the state level instead.

Re: Congress Is Woefully Unprepared to Regulate Tech

#18

Post by nh23423fefe »

lockhouse wrote: post #14
nh23423fefe wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fetishizing the founders and imagining that current times are playing out as they intended makes no sense. In less than 100 years the system they set up resulted in civil war. They aren't smarter than us and they don't know anything about the present. I don't care what the founders thought nor what people today imagine they would think.

I don’t think current times are playing out at all as they intended. The federal government is much too large and too powerful, and Congress is too insulated from their constituents. This emboldens their corruption and playing to special interests instead of the people they are supposed to represent. This is more an indictment of 20th and 21st century politicians than it is the founders.

This is more of what I said I don't care about. I don't care what you imagine the 15th-generation ancestors, of some minority of the living population, think.

I don't care if you want to blame someone else for "not implementing the obvious vision of the founders."

They aren't here and can't make any decisions for us that we couldn't better make ourselves. They aren't wiser than us.

Our present state isn't some deviation from their potential utopia. Their intentions are completely irrelevant. Comporting our behavior and desires with whatever someone might imagine they would want is nonsense.

Re: Congress Is Woefully Unprepared to Regulate Tech

#19

Post by lapcat »

lockhouse wrote: post #11
lapcat wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They had a lot of great ideas for the prevention of tyranny. c/had/borrowed > some parts of the Constitution as originally ratified were simply a product of reaching a compromise that both Northern and Southern states would both be on board with. A compromise that didn't even work well or last, as violently evidenced by the Civil War. > The beauty of the Constitution is that it can be changed via amendments In the…

> Amendments to the Constitution have become practically nonexistent. Why is that a bad thing? What specifically needs to be amended?

Well, I would change a lot, but I don't think this is the place to have a long debate about that, and I doubt that it would be productive, since you seem to think things are basically fine as they are, so we don't have much common ground.

Re: Congress Is Woefully Unprepared to Regulate Tech

#20

Post by lapcat »

gameman144 wrote: post #12
lapcat wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They had a lot of great ideas for the prevention of tyranny. c/had/borrowed > some parts of the Constitution as originally ratified were simply a product of reaching a compromise that both Northern and Southern states would both be on board with. A compromise that didn't even work well or last, as violently evidenced by the Civil War. > The beauty of the Constitution is that it can be changed via amendments In the…

> Amendments to the Constitution have become practically nonexistent. It seems that you're taking this as a sign that the Constitution isn't still relevant. I'd ask you to consider that this might be a sign of the exact opposite, and that we can't get broad buy-in on the things that some groups see as obvious additions. If the MLB were trying to update the rules of baseball to make it more exciting, and one camp want…

> I'd ask you to consider that this might be a sign of the exact opposite, and that we can't get broad buy-in on the things that some groups see as obvious additions.

Polls show that we do have broad buy-in on a number of issues, sometimes across partisan lines, but the way the system is designed, a small minority can block almost any action. Also, the leaders of both major political parties often act against the desires of their own "supporters", by which I mean voting supporters rather than their financial supporters.

> For citizens, this is so demonstrably false that I feel like I must be misinterpreting you here.

Here's what I said: "The founders weren't omniscient, benevolent gods. They were just wealthy landowners looking out for their own interests — it's crucial to note that they ignored over half the population of the colonies, i.e., women and black people". How exactly are you interpreting that?

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