201–210 of 221 posts
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> There's no difference between companies and people here; no one, spending their company's money or their own, should be able to influence solely through money. There is because individuals are not normally the clients of lobbyists, nor do they - normally - approach politicians directly with money in hand except for some countries where campaign donations are a thing. They shouldn't be because they are effectively c…
> And that is a much harder task. Because you could replace employees until the cows come home, if the system remains the same nothing will really change. There are lots of things where we trust individuals to do a good job. If we can identify things as being the results of corruption via lobbying, why not fire them or prosecute them?
That's an excellent question. In many places 'lobbying' is legal, technically it is supposedly to inform the clueless legislators about various interests. But in practice it very quickly turns into 'soft' corruption, meetings in holiday resorts (oh, do bring your family) and so on. Whatever lines are drawn the amount of money available to get around them is practically infinite and politicians (and civil servants) are not all equally good at determining when they are targeted and might be across the line before they realize it (and then it gets much harder to go back than to have never crossed it before).
Occasionally people are terminated, and occasionally there are prosecutions. But there is a very large amount of information about who may have been involved in corruption and only a limited amount of prosecution and investigatory power so the bulk of these cases will end up being ignored.
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No, this is just more doublespeak that ignores what's actuallygoing on. Corruption is the correct word.
In the EU, lobbyists need to get registered. Here's a few examples of registered organisations that lobby the EU: * the Electronic Frontier Foundation https://ec.europa.eu/transparencyregister/public/consultatio... * the Mozilla Foundation https://ec.europa.eu/transparencyregister/public/consultatio... Do you think it's corruption when they inform the EU of the risks of legislation (like eIDAS) and fight against pote…
I was upset at the parliament for even considering this and extremely relieved that they chose not to pursue this draconic instrument. That said, we as citizens will have to remain vigilant and let our voices be heard because the onslaught on our privacy is constant from both commercial interests, spy agencies and state actors. These parties have no issue keeping pressure up over decades whereas we the citizens can b…
The EU parliament did its job pretty much 100% correctly in my opinion. Their job is to consider the laws the EU commission suggests and thats what they did. They correctly determined it was a shitty law and voted it down. In my opinion you should be upset at the EU commission, and especially commissioner Ylva Johansson from Sweden who seems to be the one pushing this stupid stuff.
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The better word is "informing". Lobbyists inform policymakers about perspectives of certain groups (those employing the lobbyists). It just happens that most lobbyists are paid by groups who are seeking to enrich themselves at the cost of everyone else. However, there are some lobbyists who work for organizations that attempt to guide policy that helps under-represented groups (like nature, animal welfare, human welf…
No, this is just more doublespeak that ignores what's actuallygoing on. Corruption is the correct word.
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The fight is never over. That's why we have strong checks and balances, the commission (made up of appointees of the 26 EU government heads) will push things, the council (made up of those heads) have to agree, and the Parliament (made up from a popular vote) has to agree, then if all that fails the courts step in But the fight isn't as much against the government, it's the hearts and minds of the people to make them…
> The fight is never over. Checks and balances are working this time hopefully. Regardless our (good) multi-stage processes and multi-chamber structure and even, regardless matters of lobbying and money - in the moment of quiet while smoke is still on the wind - look for the shooter. "Who wants this?" and "What are their fears?" leads to a better leverage point closer to values than parameters. There are a lot of peo…
I'm sure some companies would make a fortune, but their lobbying power would be outweighed by other multinational companies like whatsapp and smaller companies like mullvad.
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> And that is a much harder task. Because you could replace employees until the cows come home, if the system remains the same nothing will really change. There are lots of things where we trust individuals to do a good job. If we can identify things as being the results of corruption via lobbying, why not fire them or prosecute them?
> If we can identify things as being the results of corruption via lobbying, why not fire them or prosecute them? That's an excellent question. In many places 'lobbying' is legal, technically it is supposedly to inform the clueless legislators about various interests. But in practice it very quickly turns into 'soft' corruption, meetings in holiday resorts (oh, do bring your family) and so on. Whatever lines are draw…
I don't think many people would get such a pass. The whole point of paying them from money taken from people's incomes is so they can be impartial. There's no point having them if they don't add value.
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> If we can identify things as being the results of corruption via lobbying, why not fire them or prosecute them? That's an excellent question. In many places 'lobbying' is legal, technically it is supposedly to inform the clueless legislators about various interests. But in practice it very quickly turns into 'soft' corruption, meetings in holiday resorts (oh, do bring your family) and so on. Whatever lines are draw…
> politicians (and civil servants) are not all equally good at determining when they are targeted and might be across the line before they realize it (and then it gets much harder to go back than to have never crossed it before). I don't think many people would get such a pass. The whole point of paying them from money taken from people's incomes is so they can be impartial. There's no point having them if they don't…
You'd be surprised. Especially if the last review of the rules is a while ago or if they have been recently updated. People are sloppy, especially if they think nobody is looking and that it doesn't matter.
> The whole point of paying them from money taken from people's incomes is so they can be impartial.
That's the theory, but as the US supreme court proves that doesn't mean much.
> There's no point having them if they don't add value.
It's never that black and white except for the most extreme cases and those are the ones that in the end usually do make it to prosecution. Also note that in the EU different member states have entirely different views on what constitutes corruption and normality.
Despite the lobbying from American organisations (Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon, Palantir and others who worked with Thorn on this [1][2]) the EU Parliament did the right thing this time. [1] https://www.thorn.org/partnerships/ [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20130420162917/http://www.wearet...
The thing that I find shocking about lobbying is just how cheap it is. In the FTX trial the amount they spent lobbying politicians for pro-crypto laws was released and we're talking low five figures. SBF even said lobbying was very cheap for the impact you can get. Naively I thought it would cost millions to get a politician to support you but actually it's cheap enough a FAANG engineer could individually pay enough…
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> tri(a?)logue It’s not a trial-ogue. It’s a tri-logue because it involves three parties.
Another spelling for trilogue is trialogue* * https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/trialogu...