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Y Combinator has filed an official comment with the FCC

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: Y Combinator has filed an official comment with the FCC

#101

Post by 2arrs2ells »

alexqgb wrote: post #85
brianpgordon wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see that you also heard that episode of This American Life.

Actually I didn't. The mechanics of congressional corruption have been a long running interest of mine. But I think Ira Glass is great and if what I'm saying here is the essence of what he's saying too, that's a welcome development. For the longest time, this stuff was of interests only to wonk's wonks. Now it's slowly seeping into common awareness. That's a vital step on the way to (eventual) change. If you've got a…

Pretty sure this is the episode: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/461/t...

Re: Y Combinator has filed an official comment with the FCC

#102

Post by wisty »

gibsonf1 wrote: post #54
juliangamble wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lawrence Lessig is working on a people-power initiative to fix the problem of getting private finance out of elections: https://mayday.us/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayday_PAC

Eric Cantor proved that you can't buy an election with money. Ideas ultimately are what count in an election, and to the extent that any good ideas are removed from the public realm with this scheme, we all lose. The last thing we want is the government regulating money spent on political speech - the corruption potential is absolutely enormous - hence the First Amendment.

That's actually correct - it requires a gargantuan amount to "buy" an election (double the spending for 1% more of the vote, or something along those lines).

But politicians are a simple and superstitious folk, and they do care a lot about fund raising. And in a 50:50 fight, they'll do almost anything for an edge.

Also, while a politician might be in a safe seat, they'll gain a lot of brownie points (e.g. a promotion) if they can funnel some funds to someone in a marginal seat.

Re: Y Combinator has filed an official comment with the FCC

#103

Post by lotsofmangos »

Apologies for the cynicism, as I do support this letter, however I do think that some people will read it as reasons to block net-neutrality as y-combinator is a shopping-list of companies that annoy entrenched interests.

"It's the economy, stupid" has seemingly been replaced with "It's my economy, stupid", as the mating call of the political class.

Re: Y Combinator has filed an official comment with the FCC

#104

Post by EGreg »

vidarh wrote: post #92
EGreg wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm always curious as to why people think politicians are more motivated by reelection prospects that, say, their legacy or actually representing their personal views or convictions. I mean, I can understand why the ones that make it into office are the ones that fight hard to get elected in the first place, but once they are there, why wouldn't you expect a lot of them to take pride in actually representing their di…

Some do. But consider some simple mechanics of it: It you care about your legacy, and your opponent only cares about getting (re-)elected to benefit from the position, your opponent is at an advantage: Your opponent does not need to "waste" time, money and effort on things that does not improve their chances at (re-)election.

If doing the job IS wasting time, that means the incentives are all wrong. But still, who says that re-election is the goal? What about the places where they are limited to only 2 terms? How could re election explain ther second term actions? Or are people going to claim that at that point they're all captured by te industry using the revolving door?

Re: Y Combinator has filed an official comment with the FCC

#105

Post by EGreg »

pepr wrote: post #89
EGreg wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm always curious as to why people think politicians are more motivated by reelection prospects that, say, their legacy or actually representing their personal views or convictions. I mean, I can understand why the ones that make it into office are the ones that fight hard to get elected in the first place, but once they are there, why wouldn't you expect a lot of them to take pride in actually representing their di…

I think it's simply self-preservation. If they don't get reelected, they lose their job. Few people want that. Would you lose your job over your views on issues like gun control? May you would, but a lot (maybe majority) of people wouldn't. Look at the stories of people in former communist countries. Majority of them didn't want to even risk their jobs over much, much more serious issues than gun control, NSA, or abo…

Bureaucrats don't want to lose ther jobs. But for elected politicians the job is to do what they said for a specified term. If doing their job properly means losing it, then maybe the incentives are all wrong. We already have term limits for presidents, what about senators and congresspeople?

Re: Y Combinator has filed an official comment with the FCC

#106

Post by EGreg »

Rapzid wrote: post #90
EGreg wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm always curious as to why people think politicians are more motivated by reelection prospects that, say, their legacy or actually representing their personal views or convictions. I mean, I can understand why the ones that make it into office are the ones that fight hard to get elected in the first place, but once they are there, why wouldn't you expect a lot of them to take pride in actually representing their di…

Also, being a congressman is VERY prestigious. Just having the job and all the perks that come with it(money, status, security, influence, etc) is very desirable.

I guess to me prestige is secondary to actually doing the job. After all with the congressman's connections he or she can continue to have an impact afterwards. Look at retired US presidents and vice presidents who want to continue to make a difference! Sometimes it's even easier and more pleasant for them once they're out of office.

People also say that regulators are captured by the industry via opportunities they get in a revolving door. They are offered cushy positions at the industry after they stop being politicians, in exchange for favorable votes. I could see this as possibly being a bigger motivator than re election.

Maybe there should be some consequences to not voting according to the policies you ran on. Buy in any case, if most politicians are awayed by lobbying, then being one politician who isn't won't make a huge difference.

Re: Y Combinator has filed an official comment with the FCC

#107

Post by vasilipupkin »

EGreg wrote: post #87
alexqgb wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the essence of contemporary lobbying. Most legislators can be persuaded with campaign contributions (the carrot) but those that can't get threatened with the stick, which comes in the form of a previously unheard of but suddenly flush primary opponent. Add gerrymandering to the mix, and this tactic becomes even harder to resist, since the effective sidelining of an opposing party means that no matter what else…

I'm always curious as to why people think politicians are more motivated by reelection prospects that, say, their legacy or actually representing their personal views or convictions. I mean, I can understand why the ones that make it into office are the ones that fight hard to get elected in the first place, but once they are there, why wouldn't you expect a lot of them to take pride in actually representing their di…

Think of it this way: Suppose there exists a politician that cares deeply about N issues. She knows she can only do what's right on M out of those N due to various constraints. She is going to pick those M issues that are most important to her. She will fight tooth and nail to get reelected so that she can complete her work on those M issues. This is exactly what politicians should be doing, no?

Re: Y Combinator has filed an official comment with the FCC

#108

Post by bmelton »

knowtheory wrote: post #67
gibsonf1 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eric Cantor proved that you can't buy an election with money. Ideas ultimately are what count in an election, and to the extent that any good ideas are removed from the public realm with this scheme, we all lose. The last thing we want is the government regulating money spent on political speech - the corruption potential is absolutely enormous - hence the First Amendment.

If you genuinely couldn't by elections with money, there wouldn't be so much money flowing into politics. Money alone isn't sufficient to guarantee an election outcome, you still have to execute.

That people think it works enough to pay money for it isn't proof that it does. I dub this the 'Ion Bracelet Effect' (though there's probably a better name for it already).

"'American Crossroads, the super PAC founded by Karl Rove, spent $104 million in the general election, but none of its candidates won. The United States Chamber of Commerce spent $24 million backing Republicans in 15 Senate races; only two of them won. Sheldon Adelson, the casino mogul, spent $53 million on nine Republican candidates, eight of whom lost.' It was, as the paper noted, 'A Landslide Loss for Big Money.'"[1]

"When a candidate doubled their spending, holding everything else constant, they only got an extra one percent of the popular vote. It’s the same if you cut your spending in half, you only lose one percent of the popular vote. So we’re talking about really large swings in campaign spending with almost trivial changes in the vote."[2]

[1] - http://reason.com/archives/2014/07/14/dear-liberals-stop-fre...

[2] - http://freakonomics.com/2012/01/12/does-money-really-buy-ele...

Re: Y Combinator has filed an official comment with the FCC

#109

Post by adamtj »

chasing wrote: post #77
jsonmez wrote: post #65

I know I am in the minority here, but while I prefer net neutrality, I don't support it. I'd like to have it, but I'd rather not see it enforced, because I believe private property rights are more important than anything else. Should we really be able to force someone to use their property an a way that serves the public interest? If so, where do we draw the line? If ISPs start taking money to throttle bandwidth, alt…

> Should we really be able to force someone to use their property an a way that serves the public interest? Yes. And this happens all the time in a million different contexts. Taxes. Easements. Speed limits on cars and trucks. You are constantly being told what you can and can't do with things you own. "Freedom" isn't letting you do whatever the fuck you want to do with whatever happens to have your name attached to…

Speed limits only apply on public roads. They are a condition of using the road, not a condition imposed on your vehicle. You could build a private race track and drive as fast as you want.
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