Dear Internet: It's no Longer OK Not to Know How Congress Works • Hacker News Board

Re: Dear Internet: It's no Longer OK Not to Know How Congress Works

#91

Post by klbarry » Mon, Dec 19, 2011, 6:16 PM UTC

JonnieCache wrote: post #11

American geeks: if you want to fix your congress using your preexisting l33t hacker skillz rather than getting directly involved in politics (and who could blame you,) then here is my best advice: Force your legislature to start using version control. * No more sneaking revisions through in the middle of the night without anyone noticing. * Being able to do `git blame` style operations to resolve individual clauses d…

Counterpoint: There are some strong arguments that a senate operating behind closed doors would be more effective at ignoring special interests and working together than otherwise. The writers of the constitution did just this (they swore secrecy of anything they talked about in the convention to avoid voter backlash) [1]

This is why they initially wanted health care debates behind closed doors - the lobbyists can make much more use of transparency than the uninterested voter can. Fareed Zakaria wrote a lot about this in The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad.

{1} [A Brilliant Solution: Inventing the American Constitution by Carol Berkin]

Re: Dear Internet: It's no Longer OK Not to Know How Congress Works

#92

Post by mdemare » Mon, Dec 19, 2011, 6:31 PM UTC

Hear hear! Finally an article placing the blame where it belongs - on our shoulders. It is naive to expect Congress to figure out what laws are best for the nation. Instead we should be forcing the laws we want down their throats.

All that the MPAA/RIAA can offer to congress is money, but we have something they want much more: votes. When the NRA or the AARP cough, congressmen sit up and listen. The reason? They have millions of members.

Now what about the organization representing our interests? Pro startup, pro contractors, pro net neutrality, anti censorship, anti patent? Why isn't there such an organization with a million members?

We hackers are smart, we're prosperous, there's no excuse for being so damn unorganized.

https://www.eff.org/

Re: Dear Internet: It's no Longer OK Not to Know How Congress Works

#93

Post by joe_the_user » Mon, Dec 19, 2011, 6:48 PM UTC

klbarry wrote: post #91

JonnieCache wrote: post #11

American geeks: if you want to fix your congress using your preexisting l33t hacker skillz rather than getting directly involved in politics (and who could blame you,) then here is my best advice: Force your legislature to start using version control. * No more sneaking revisions through in the middle of the night without anyone noticing. * Being able to do `git blame` style operations to resolve individual clauses d…

Counterpoint: There are some strong arguments that a senate operating behind closed doors would be more effective at ignoring special interests and working together than otherwise. The writers of the constitution did just this (they swore secrecy of anything they talked about in the convention to avoid voter backlash) [1] This is why they initially wanted health care debates behind closed doors - the lobbyists can ma…

Up voted for a strong argument even though I'm not sure I agree...

One thing to consider is that while secrecy might a way for congress to create consensus free of outside influences, modern technology has somewhat foreclosed the possibility - so we may as well have the best openness we can get instead.

Another point is the atmosphere of each congressman constantly campaigning has forced them effectively outside of Washington and so barely know each and thus have a hard time finding consensus.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/01/03/no-more-was...

Re: Dear Internet: It's no Longer OK Not to Know How Congress Works

#94

Post by mjwalshe » Mon, Dec 19, 2011, 6:53 PM UTC

JonnieCache wrote: post #11

American geeks: if you want to fix your congress using your preexisting l33t hacker skillz rather than getting directly involved in politics (and who could blame you,) then here is my best advice: Force your legislature to start using version control. * No more sneaking revisions through in the middle of the night without anyone noticing. * Being able to do `git blame` style operations to resolve individual clauses d…

realy not surprised that some on brings up version control - oh dear yes parliamentary based organizations have version control predating any IT use.

Go read Citrine or for US types Roberts.

The trouble is executives have a lot of ways of playing the game - they controll the agenda.

However of they don't do it it all ready It would be a good idea to see who proposed and seconds any amendments (is this not in the public domain already)

As the UK parliament and Lords do (they have fined expelled and put in jail MP's and Lords who asked questions for money or proposing amendments)

Re: Dear Internet: It's no Longer OK Not to Know How Congress Works

#95

Post by alex_c » Mon, Dec 19, 2011, 6:54 PM UTC

klbarry wrote: post #91

JonnieCache wrote: post #11

American geeks: if you want to fix your congress using your preexisting l33t hacker skillz rather than getting directly involved in politics (and who could blame you,) then here is my best advice: Force your legislature to start using version control. * No more sneaking revisions through in the middle of the night without anyone noticing. * Being able to do `git blame` style operations to resolve individual clauses d…

Counterpoint: There are some strong arguments that a senate operating behind closed doors would be more effective at ignoring special interests and working together than otherwise. The writers of the constitution did just this (they swore secrecy of anything they talked about in the convention to avoid voter backlash) [1] This is why they initially wanted health care debates behind closed doors - the lobbyists can ma…

The problem with that argument is that it requires voters to trust their representatives' competence and motivations to represent their best interests behind closed doors. That trust is in really short supply right now.

Re: Dear Internet: It's no Longer OK Not to Know How Congress Works

#96

Post by caseysoftware » Mon, Dec 19, 2011, 6:56 PM UTC

JonnieCache wrote: post #11

American geeks: if you want to fix your congress using your preexisting l33t hacker skillz rather than getting directly involved in politics (and who could blame you,) then here is my best advice: Force your legislature to start using version control. * No more sneaking revisions through in the middle of the night without anyone noticing. * Being able to do `git blame` style operations to resolve individual clauses d…

The concept you're looking for is Citability - http://citability.org/

The lead on the concept - Silona Bonewald, a good friend - pushes the concept that we should be able to cite bills down to any granularity we want under any version we want.

The quick and dirty solution right now is to mine Thomas and load it into Git.. but we still lose the "who did it" part. :(

Re: Dear Internet: It's no Longer OK Not to Know How Congress Works

#97

Post by beefman » Mon, Dec 19, 2011, 7:16 PM UTC

No no no, a thousand times no. It is the job of the Congress to understand the things it regulates! They employ thousands of "expert" staffers and are supposed to be drawn from among the best and brightest of the citizenry. It may be hard to believe, but details actually matter when you're screwing around with a $15T/yr socioeconomic machine.

Re: Dear Internet: It's no Longer OK Not to Know How Congress Works

#98

Post by JoshTriplett » Mon, Dec 19, 2011, 7:22 PM UTC

JonnieCache wrote: post #11

American geeks: if you want to fix your congress using your preexisting l33t hacker skillz rather than getting directly involved in politics (and who could blame you,) then here is my best advice: Force your legislature to start using version control. * No more sneaking revisions through in the middle of the night without anyone noticing. * Being able to do `git blame` style operations to resolve individual clauses d…

The measures you describe would help track huge volumes of data. That Congress produces huge volumes of data seems like the problem in the first place. The Constitution includes a clause stating that Congress must meet at least once a year, because the founders thought that otherwise Congress might have so little to do that they needn't bother meeting. Let's get back to that situation, please, and then it won't require excessive tools to track what Congress does. Let's get back to a world where Congress actually doing something makes the national news as a rare occurrence, and then we'll have transparency as a matter of course.

Have you ever read through the list of what Congress passes in a single day? For every SOPA that gets people's attention, Congress passes thousands of random subsidies, one-off import tariff exceptions or tax exceptions that just scream "paid special-interest".

Re: Dear Internet: It's no Longer OK Not to Know How Congress Works

#99

Post by zackzackzack » Mon, Dec 19, 2011, 7:34 PM UTC

JamisonM wrote: post #41

zackzackzack wrote: post #33

Where is google/facebook in all of this? They are the dictators of the internet. Why aren't they educating the crap out of our representatives?

I think technology companies are sort of notorious for not being very good at the lobbying game. MS just started getting serious about it in the late '90s (and I think they have no dog in this particular fight) so we should expect Google to start figuring it out in a few years and Facebook later still. (MS's PAC was funded to the tune of $16,000 in 1995, 100x that 5 years later.)

Hope five years from now is not too late.

Re: Dear Internet: It's no Longer OK Not to Know How Congress Works

#100

Post by city41 » Mon, Dec 19, 2011, 7:35 PM UTC

JonnieCache wrote: post #11

American geeks: if you want to fix your congress using your preexisting l33t hacker skillz rather than getting directly involved in politics (and who could blame you,) then here is my best advice: Force your legislature to start using version control. * No more sneaking revisions through in the middle of the night without anyone noticing. * Being able to do `git blame` style operations to resolve individual clauses d…

Isn't this just us trying to "fix" congress exactly how the media industry is trying to "fix" piracy? Just like the pirates will work around SOPA or any other law that gets passed, the lobbiests will work around anything that gets put in place and find ways to get their influence into the laws.

The solution to piracy is to make the legitimate route so enticing most people don't bother to pirate. Isn't that the same with congress too? If we simply create an environment where it's advantageous for congress to do the right thing, then they will. No patches, laws, systems or oversite will prevent corruption.