91–100 of 123 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It was done near a scandal, but not necessarily in reaction to one. Correlation is not causation.
Does anything, anything happen in politics that isn't in reaction to a causation?
However correlating two items together based on timestamp alone is not enough to validate causation.
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> For an arbitrary example, look at the Boeing 737 max. There were some internal emails claiming that the system which turned out not to be safe wasn’t safe (the problem with these was probably that they didn’t seem to make their way up to anyone who could change the decision), and probably the fallout from them will be worse than if there were no such emails and Boeing just appeared to not have considered the possib…
"Should" for us, yes. But consider the perspective of the company—and specifically its lawyers; their takeaway may be "This stuff being in writing made things worse in court, therefore we'll instruct our employees not to put this stuff in writing." Though I would guess that having an explicit policy of "don't write down any safety concerns" would do badly in court as well. I suspect any real such policy would have to…
I’m in two minds about this. I think it’s pretty sleazy to be using signal to evade record keeping requirements. I also think it’s important to have transparency into things governments do. But I also worry that such requirements can lead to worse results. Generally in a well run organisation, you want people to be able to speak their mind and disagree about things, but if the organisation makes a bad decision and th…
When I worked with the Feds (DOJ), we documented out many "what if" or contingency scenarios. They ranged from "effectively impossible" to "absolutely happening" on one axis and irrelevant to omgwtf on another. My terminology, not official ;) But we were encouraged to explore situations and scenarios and think out the likelihood, implications, relevant existing policies, potential responses under those policies, what new policies would make sense, etc. For the most part, these are creative/exploration exercises but sometimes they're deadly serious and will drive policy going forward. You don't always know at the time.
Fast forward 5, 10 or 20 years and something similar happens. Suddenly someone who happens to remember the report or get creative searching archives screams "OMG! THERE WAS A REPORT YEARS AGO AND NO ONE LISTENED!"
Correct.. but it was never a proposal/plan, just an evaluation.
Unfortunately, understanding all of that requires nuance and perspective that doesn't fit in a headline and will be buried in policy wonk discussions. I suspect if you expose all of that and give it as much attention/credibility as fully baked proposals and policies, it will chill honest, internal assessments and debate.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> For an arbitrary example, look at the Boeing 737 max. There were some internal emails claiming that the system which turned out not to be safe wasn’t safe (the problem with these was probably that they didn’t seem to make their way up to anyone who could change the decision), and probably the fallout from them will be worse than if there were no such emails and Boeing just appeared to not have considered the possib…
"Should" for us, yes. But consider the perspective of the company—and specifically its lawyers; their takeaway may be "This stuff being in writing made things worse in court, therefore we'll instruct our employees not to put this stuff in writing." Though I would guess that having an explicit policy of "don't write down any safety concerns" would do badly in court as well. I suspect any real such policy would have to…
I can assure you that any manager or owner on the planet, at some point or another, has a conversation where it is agreed that something will never be written down in any form.
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Okay, so you believe that all conversations between lawmakers of any sort ought to be recorded?
Obviously, yes. Nixon would never have been impeached without the tapes. If there's no record, there's no accountability. That's just how it is.
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We don't only want accountability, we also want good decisions, and good advice, even on delicate topics. IMO this is quite a difficult topic. Suppose you are concerned that some variants of a policy you're thinking about may be legal or illegal. There is a pretty large gray area. You could corner the relevant legal mind after lunch, and ask his opinion. Then there is no recording, only your memory. Or you could emai…
I'm sorry, but if you require the deletion of what you said to protect yourself from the people, then you shouldn't be in a position of power. > and stating bluntly what you really mean (and what you are concerned about) In the end, people aren't judged for this. They're judged for the actions that they take, and then communications like this are used for context. If your decision is so bad that they had to make a FO…
In reality if a politician makes a genuine error or prediction that turns out to be wrong he will face demands that he resigns for deliberately misleading the public. The media have created this toxic environment where normal debate and discourse is impossible
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More generally: anything that is made public, will be politicised. I agree that it's a fair concern. Another recent example: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jul/07/foreign-off...
The logical conclusion of that is secret government - perfectly "apolitical", but impossible to question or participate in.
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So all conversations between politicians ought to be recorded. What about all conversation between government employees?
Yes. If you are performing a public duty, it must be done in open society. Anything less is corrupt by definition. Secret meetings are the opposite of open society.
It's a most unfortunate dilemma, but it's a strong, well-documented phenomenon and you can't wish it away.
An example of groupthink:
I've been in a room, chairing a meeting, where everyone agreed on a definite course of action. Full consensus (except me).
When I asked each person after the meeting what they personally wanted, literally 100% of them disagreed with the decision they had affirmatively consented to. The actual decision was something nobody wanted. The option was only even brought up because people believed (wrongly) that other people would want it.
All of them "went along" with what they believed was the view of others in the room. They wanted lower friction; nobody wanted problems from dissenting (which includes time wasted in meetings due to believing there are different views to reconcile, even when that isn't actually true).
Unfortunately all guessed incorrectly what the view of others was, then went along with their guess.
When it's a big decision, it's tragic when that happens. Public duty has a lot of those.
When performing public duty, you must have transparency, and avoid corruption, but you also must have intelligent group information sharing, reasoning and decisions.
But you can't have them all. Wishing won't make it so. Choose your poison.
Or better, choose a multi-layered system with well-placed compromises to get both intelligence and transparency in some measure, in whatever arrangement provides best results.
I like what the Chatham House Rule wikipedia page says on this:
> It is designed to reduce the risk of what has come to be described as groupthink, where unpopular views are excluded from discussion, reducing the range of opinions an organisation can discuss.
With regards to corruption, one theory is that you need enough transparency that corruption cannot thrive; beyond that you get diminishing returns along with negative consequences in other areas. For a manufacturing analogy to corruption: To perform quality assurance that a batch of components is good, you don't need to measure every component, you only need to measure a random subset, chosen by the tester.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
More generally: anything that is made public, will be politicised. I agree that it's a fair concern. Another recent example: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jul/07/foreign-off...
The logical conclusion of that is secret government - perfectly "apolitical", but impossible to question or participate in.
Consider the incident with the British ambassador to the US, that I linked above. The ambassador's job was to evaluate the Trump presidency. His conclusions were damning, and when the document leaked, there were predictable political consequences. If such reports are made open as a matter of policy, they become worthless, as they can no longer be plainly honest.