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North Dakota law lists fake critical minerals based on coal lawyers' names

bismarcktribune.com

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Re: North Dakota law lists fake critical minerals based on coal lawyers' names

#91

Post by nemomarx »

simonw wrote: post #42
Analemma_ wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t want to pick on you specifically, because this is just one example of a very common pathology, but this is such an “HN-brained” comment. “They didn’t use version control” is ten million miles from the real problem here, and adopting version control would improve literally nothing about this situation.

I deliberately didn't say version control (which would imply git or similar, and we know they're not going to learn that). I said version tracking. They use word processors to write the things, they could at least learn to turn on "track changes". I genuinely do believe that a law that says "all laws must be able to show author tracking on a per-line basis" would improve democracy. Convince me otherwise!

I think what you'd see is people writing changes on some other document (or on paper) and then coordinating who's office and who's aides will make the traceable commit to the law, in that case?

In the same way that right now industry interest groups write up proposed laws and then hand them to a favored allied lawmaker to "introduce" the proposal for them, and so on?

Re: North Dakota law lists fake critical minerals based on coal lawyers' names

#92

Post by 3eb7988a1663 »

simonw wrote: post #29

I find the fact that nobody seems to know how those names got into the bill particularly frustrating. Lawmakers really need to learn to use version tracking properly. It's shouldn't be possible for a single line of text to make it into a bill without a digital trail leading back to whoever added it.

Does not give you any insight in the provenance, but Philip James has an awesome talk[0] where he uses Datasette to collect city government documents to be in a more structured format for analysis. Lots of clever automation to extract data from PDFs. Really some amazing work for surfacing civic decisions.

[0] https://pyvideo.org/pybay-2024/automate-your-city-data-with-... "Automate Your City Data with Python"

Re: North Dakota law lists fake critical minerals based on coal lawyers' names

#93

Post by Arrowmaster »

Ericson2314 wrote: post #64
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Lawmakers really need to learn to use version tracking properly Not how reconciliation-based negotiations work. Behind every material lawmaker you’d have redlines circulating among their staff. Each industry group would have them circulating among its members. Each citizen group, too. These will be haphazardly combined among the groups, sometimes transparently, sometimes strategically. It’s still traceable. But not…

Nothing you write here is not compatible with regular version control systems

The point is that they don't want it to be that transparent to everyone.

Re: North Dakota law lists fake critical minerals based on coal lawyers' names

#94

Post by blell »

superkuh wrote: post #34

Nearly as bad, this website encrypts it's text using a simple cipher intentionally breaking it for those that don't successfully run all of their untrusted third party code. >kAm%96 :?4=FD:@? @7 7:4E:@?2= DF3DE2?46D :D 36:?8 42==65 2? 6>32CC2DD>6?E 3J @?6 DE2E6 @77:4:2=[ 2 A@DD:3=6 AC24E:42= ;@ JDE:7J:?8 3J E96 =2H>2 @?:E@C]4@>^a_ad^`a^`h^?@CE9\52 :?6C2=D\32D65\@?\4@2=\=2HJ6CD\?2>6D^Q E2C86ElQ03=2? That's the first t…

Not very useful, since Grok, Gemini, and ChatGPT could decrypt it.

Re: North Dakota law lists fake critical minerals based on coal lawyers' names

#95

Post by londons_explore »

I would like to see a nation whose laws are limited to what people can remember.

Ie. In a court, a jury makes their decision about if the accused has broken the law simply on their recollection of the law.

In turn, this means all rules must necessarily be far simpler and less precise.

Lawmakers wouldn't write laws so much as advertise what they think the law should be, and if the population remembered and agreed with the new law then it becomes the law, since that would be what the courts are enforcing.

Re: North Dakota law lists fake critical minerals based on coal lawyers' names

#96

Post by mmooss »

3eb7988a1663 wrote: post #90
mmooss wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That often happens. Some bills are released to lawmakers without enough time to read them.

Wouldn't the obvious answer to be vote against? If you do not know the terms of the deal, maintaining the status quo seems superior.

My understanding: You are one legislator among many; you have almost no power on your own. To deliver results for your constituents or to accomplish anything depends especially on party leadership and on other members of your party prioritizing your wishes over many other things. If you don't follow leadership, if you aren't on the team, they won't do anything for you.

Re: North Dakota law lists fake critical minerals based on coal lawyers' names

#97

Post by vpribish »

londons_explore wrote: post #95

I would like to see a nation whose laws are limited to what people can remember. Ie. In a court, a jury makes their decision about if the accused has broken the law simply on their recollection of the law. In turn, this means all rules must necessarily be far simpler and less precise. Lawmakers wouldn't write laws so much as advertise what they think the law should be, and if the population remembered and agreed with…

I would like to opt out of your theocratic ideocracy

Re: North Dakota law lists fake critical minerals based on coal lawyers' names

#98

Post by toomuchtodo »

teddy-smith wrote: post #74
Analemma_ wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t want to pick on you specifically, because this is just one example of a very common pathology, but this is such an “HN-brained” comment. “They didn’t use version control” is ten million miles from the real problem here, and adopting version control would improve literally nothing about this situation.

I'm sorry you're not able to see that version control can really help in contexts outside of tech. You can track changes, and diff, and blame. Wouldn't solve the corruption in this case but could definitely shine a light on it.

The corruption is what prevents the use of the version control, by the people who would like to continue being corrupt. You would need a disinterested party with authority to mandate its use.

Re: North Dakota law lists fake critical minerals based on coal lawyers' names

#99

Post by JumpCrisscross »

Ericson2314 wrote: post #64
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Lawmakers really need to learn to use version tracking properly Not how reconciliation-based negotiations work. Behind every material lawmaker you’d have redlines circulating among their staff. Each industry group would have them circulating among its members. Each citizen group, too. These will be haphazardly combined among the groups, sometimes transparently, sometimes strategically. It’s still traceable. But not…

Nothing you write here is not compatible with regular version control systems

> Nothing you write here is not compatible with regular version control systems

What systems are you thinking of?

I’ve provided private feedback on state and federal bills. I was, myself, soliciting feedback from friends and acquaintances. In some cases, that was a back and forth over text. Sometimes it was redlines. I consolidated that into an email that was sometimes a redline, sometimes a strike-this-add-that. If I were required to use a state-mandated version control system (a) I’d flip out at whoever required that and (b) just push the consolidated version once I was satisfied with it from my end.

Many other times, these bills are workshopped in person or—increasingly—over Zoom. Part of what makes that work is you can say something dumb, be corrected, and then not have that be part of any permanent record.

Re: North Dakota law lists fake critical minerals based on coal lawyers' names

#100

Post by JumpCrisscross »

Arrowmaster wrote: post #93
Ericson2314 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing you write here is not compatible with regular version control systems

The point is that they don't want it to be that transparent to everyone.

> point is that they don't want it to be that transparent to everyone

One part, yes. The balance between compromise and partisan showboating shifts when everything is public.

But nine parts, it’s just not how multi-party devolved negotiations work. Everyone has their own preferred system, whether it’s Word redlines, in-person edits, text and e-mailed strike-outs or possibly a formal version-control system. They aren’t compatible and they don’t generally have to be.

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