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Why the New Obamacare Website Is Going to Work This Time

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Re: Why the New Obamacare Website Is Going to Work This Time

#71

Post by jsun »

pdeuchler wrote: post #55
redthrowaway wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can both support building a tool to give people healthcare and be against government surveillance. Most people are able to compartmentalize their support or opposition for various government policies and do not see the doing of one thing they don't like as a reason not to support any other thing the government does.

That's kind of my question though, is how do you compartmentalize that? This may be a personal character flaw, but I definitely wouldn't be able to. The NSA revelations aren't just some small political transgressions, this is a rather world shaking development that shows we have been subject to vast, malicious (i.e. not for our good but for the good of others), and illegal surveillance that has steadily eroded many o…

Well... I'm pragmatically there's things I'm going to agree with and things I'm going to disagree with for every. single. administration. So the choices are either working within the context of the system that exists today, or anarchy. Working within the context of the system includes reinforcing the things that can positively affect people's lives (healthcare) and fighting things that can negative affect them (spying). Fighting "the system" as a whole is paramount to advocating anarchy.

Re: Why the New Obamacare Website Is Going to Work This Time

#72

Post by rch »

brandonb wrote: post #7
rch wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any chance we could live stream this in Boulder?

Unfortunately we're not doing any recordings -- it's hard to be candid and recorded for all history at the same time. :(

I understand your concern, but how about just a similarly controlled space in Boulder? There are a few to choose from, each with adequate equipment and personnel.

Re: Why the New Obamacare Website Is Going to Work This Time

#73

Post by tunesmith »

pdeuchler wrote: post #55
redthrowaway wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can both support building a tool to give people healthcare and be against government surveillance. Most people are able to compartmentalize their support or opposition for various government policies and do not see the doing of one thing they don't like as a reason not to support any other thing the government does.

That's kind of my question though, is how do you compartmentalize that? This may be a personal character flaw, but I definitely wouldn't be able to. The NSA revelations aren't just some small political transgressions, this is a rather world shaking development that shows we have been subject to vast, malicious (i.e. not for our good but for the good of others), and illegal surveillance that has steadily eroded many o…

The government isn't one thing. It might be worth doing some reading on systems thinking, for instance some of the writing by Donella Meadows. People inhabit a government system and they either set boundaries for themselves, or have those boundaries asserted onto them; boundaries between their area of influence and other areas of the system they consider out of bounds. If they didn't, no one would be able to focus and get things done.

People often think that the failings of a system are chiefly because of the motivations of the actors in the system. But what's more accurate is that the failings are often because of the structure of the system, and the inhabitants often don't feel they have the ability to change the structure.

The least effective way to change the behavior of a system is to twiddle the various buttons and knobs that each inhabitant has ready access to. The most effective way to change the behavior of a system is to change the overall goal of the system, which would necessitate a complete restructuring.

So that's why it is easy to believe that various NSA wrongdoings aren't entirely because of nefarious motivations (although that is probably part of it), and very much driven by system structure (log and analyze data) that simply weren't "checked" as their technological tools and abilities increased over time. What many of us have failed to realize is that our own personal security has been a form of security-through-obscurity in the past. We can put personal data up on a website and not tell anyone, and before search spiders, it might have stayed private. But we can't expect such a website to stay private these days, because of how technology has increased. It's the same with our private data, and how our browsing habits can be mined to create freakishly accurate personal profiles. There was never any privacy protection there to begin with other than obscurity, and we just convinced ourselves it was there by believing in social mores that hadn't been challenged until technology increased too much.

Meanwhile, the health system was about constructing an entirely new structure/system for health insurance, benefits, and penalties.

So... I wouldn't say it is a matter of compartmentalizing. It's more a matter of appreciating that the government is a huge collection of disparate systems and motivations, and that there can be simultaneous breakdowns and successes.

Re: Why the New Obamacare Website Is Going to Work This Time

#74

Post by nhaehnle »

mseebach wrote: post #48
bicknergseng wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Build a federal gov run IT branch that isn't the NSA instead of contracting things like this out?

And what are the dynamics that will make this work better, especially recalling the iron law of bureaucracy? http://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html

One important dynamic is that contracting, due to its slippery nature, attracts the kind of people whose skill is siphoning money away from government while minimizing what they deliver.

Think about it: Even contracted physical construction gets screwed up in large scale government projects, and building good contracts about software development is much harder that contracts about physical construction.

In-house development simply doesn't have the kind of indirection where the bloodsuckers can get in.

Re: Why the New Obamacare Website Is Going to Work This Time

#75

Post by srj »

protomyth wrote: post #8
brandonb wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately we're not doing any recordings -- it's hard to be candid and recorded for all history at the same time. :(

You're talking about a government website and not recording? I am a little worried that you don't think you can be candid about what is being done with our tax money.

I imagine recording a discussion is particularly stifling when it pertains to government contracted work. In government it's all about how blame should be assigned and not about moving forward productively.

Re: Why the New Obamacare Website Is Going to Work This Time

#76

Post by niels_olson »

brandonb wrote: post #2

A bunch of the folks in this article are Y Combinator or Google alumni, and we're giving a talk on Saving HealthCare.gov next Thursday in SF for anyone who's interested: http://www.eventbrite.com/e/saving-healthcaregov-tickets-118... Let us know if you have questions! Or if you want to help. UPDATE: we seem to be sold out. Trying to find a larger venue. In the meantime, feel free to sign up on the waiting list and yo…

Even if you don't release it until after a successful open enrollment, please record video! And please, during Q&A, remind the speakers to repeat the question so it's captured on audio! Or capture the audio from the active audience microphone!

Re: Why the New Obamacare Website Is Going to Work This Time

#77

Post by bicknergseng »

brandonb wrote: post #23
bicknergseng wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Build a federal gov run IT branch that isn't the NSA instead of contracting things like this out?

Good idea. If you're interested in this type of thing, check out 18F, which is a brand-new engineering office run from within the government in San Francisco and DC: https://18f.gsa.gov/

Very cool. Taking a look and signed up for the Eventbrite above.

Re: Why the New Obamacare Website Is Going to Work This Time

#78

Post by mhartl »

ceejayoz wrote: post #49
abstractbill wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YC talks aren't recorded, for similar reasons. When you know every word you say will be potential fodder for a sensationalist news story, it's harder to be blunt about what went right and wrong.

This doesn't make sense to me. I can write down an out-of-context statement and report it with or without a recording. If anything, a recording is positive because you can contest what I claim you said with a hard-to-fake, in-context version of things.

There's a big difference between a quote someone wrote down and a video of same. Plus, with YC talks there's an assumption of audience discretion.

Re: Why the New Obamacare Website Is Going to Work This Time

#79

Post by rayiner »

pdeuchler wrote: post #27
brandonb wrote: post #2

A bunch of the folks in this article are Y Combinator or Google alumni, and we're giving a talk on Saving HealthCare.gov next Thursday in SF for anyone who's interested: http://www.eventbrite.com/e/saving-healthcaregov-tickets-118... Let us know if you have questions! Or if you want to help. UPDATE: we seem to be sold out. Trying to find a larger venue. In the meantime, feel free to sign up on the waiting list and yo…

Not to start a political flame war, but... How do you, as technologically savvy people who are in a better position than most to understand the grave transgressions of the NSA, reconcile your support of an administration that has shown complete disregard for our privacy and civil liberties (specifically within the scope of the NSA/Snowden scandal) with your inherent duty, as an engineer of powerful systems, to above…

Here is something that'll blow your mind: lots of technologically savvy people don't think surveillance is a policy so bad that it destroys the governments overall credibility. Some even don't see a problem with it.

Re: Why the New Obamacare Website Is Going to Work This Time

#80

Post by pdeuchler »

tunesmith wrote: post #73
pdeuchler wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's kind of my question though, is how do you compartmentalize that? This may be a personal character flaw, but I definitely wouldn't be able to. The NSA revelations aren't just some small political transgressions, this is a rather world shaking development that shows we have been subject to vast, malicious (i.e. not for our good but for the good of others), and illegal surveillance that has steadily eroded many o…

The government isn't one thing. It might be worth doing some reading on systems thinking, for instance some of the writing by Donella Meadows. People inhabit a government system and they either set boundaries for themselves, or have those boundaries asserted onto them; boundaries between their area of influence and other areas of the system they consider out of bounds. If they didn't, no one would be able to focus an…

First, thanks for the book recommendation... the quickest way to my heart is giving me something interesting to read.

While I mostly agree with you, it's important to realize that a single administration (speaking directly of the President, his close advisors, and officials he has put in place) has both encouraged the NSA in their actions and also produced the ACA. At what point do we write off the machinations of a political machine as the intricacies of a complicated system, or vice versa? Do we merely ignore common threads that point to a single motive as conspiratorial thinking, or do we act assuming the worst?

I'm not so naive as to think the NSA has become what it is through the directions of a single person or group. I mostly agree that you hit the nail on the head, but the fact remains that many people in our current administration were given a high level overview of current processes, projects, and operations and gave the O.K. to not only continue in the current direction, but intensified efforts, brushing aside the consequences and ramifications that only a stupid person would have ignored. And I refuse to believe that these people got to where they are via stupidity.

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