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Capitol Hill Quiet On Tech
An anonymous reader writes "This year's Democratic-controlled Congress largely ignored technological issues in favor of social problems, CNet notes in another 2007 retrospective. Issues important to the tech industry (such as net neutrality) received short shrift, while the political body spent a considerable amount of time decrying the evils of the Internet. 'Hot topics this time around included foreign cybersecurity threats to U.S. government systems, terrorist cells flourishing on the Web, inadvertent file sharing through peer-to-peer networks, and sexual predators ensnaring unsuspecting youth through online social sites. And for a third time, the House passed not just one, but two, different bills aimed at deterring spyware.'"
Because, that's what your typical voter is concerned about because that's what they understand and what's been hyped in the media. Of course Congress is going to spout off about those things. They want to get elected. The other topics are topics that only the tech folks are really concerned about and there's not enough of them to pander to to get elected. Joe "Tech Ignorant, Keep my job and Family values" Schmoe is were to get the votes.
I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.
Especially when you consider how badly they're dealing with the social ones. Keep them away from tech until we are willing to vote for more freedom minded legislators. Gridlock is good. It slows the creation of bad, authoritarian laws.
What?
Cyril Northcote Parkinson knew it already. Not only does work fill up all available time for its completation, the most discussed items at an agenda are not the ones most important, but the ones most participants believe to know something about.
Funding for (computer) science research also got the shaft this year, in the budget for FY 2008, despite a prior commitment to double the budget over the next 10 years.
USACM has a nice perspective: http://usacm.acm.org/usacm/weblog/index.php?p=558 and so does the Computing Research Association: http://www.cra.org/govaffairs/blog/archives/000646.html
Unfortunately, pork $$$ in the near-term wins over long-term benefits for the entire country...
happy holidays,alex
Because, that's what your typical voter is concerned about because that's what they understand and what's been hyped in the media.
The keyword here is YOUR.
Whose voters are these, anyway?
Well, the summary of the article gives it away:
I don't think most high-IQ leftist intellectuals [e.g. your typical university professors] yet realize quite how profoundly stupid the typical Democrat voter has become.
Frankly, there are vast armies of Democrat voting blocks which are, for all intents and purposes, mentally retarded.
By the way, this question - namely, the catastrophic decline of intelligence, and the exponential rise in stupidity - will very soon come to dwarf all other socio-political phenomena.
If you want to get an excellent preview of the general day-to-day rhythm & tenor of the remainder of your life, then rent Idiocracy: If smart people don't start making more babies, and start making them soon, then we are all doomed.
Democrats concentrated on social issues...this is a shock?
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
That's a silly, artifical divide. Pretty much all the issues discussed in the article are both tech and social issues; so are net neutrality and other issues near and dear to techies' hearts. If Congress were focusing on "pure" tech issues, we'd have legislators trying to tell us how to program, what CPU's to use, etc. Do you want that? I sure as hell don't.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
It's a feature of democracy, not a bug.
Govt can't fix and provide simple systems, say, levees, roads, can't get itself to undertake rather simple means necessary to fix the school system. How could it fix a lot more intricate, complicated and advanced realm like technology then?
And beware of the negative side effects, like with "net neutrality" that is a bad idea whose time has come and, fortunately for us all, gone.
Suppose govt signs obsolete & proprietary tech into law (need I point at some document standards?). That would stifle innovation instead of invigorating it.
No, tech is better off without govt meddling. It's only basic research that it can't screw up because physics laws fortunately can't be screwed up by govt incompetence, at worst it can waste money or underfund important science like ITER.
Python is nice quick and flexible... but it provides so much rope a monkey would hang the whole ecosystem with it. -- in
They don't actually solve social problems, they merely talk about solving social problems, and then create even more problems with their idea of a solution. It's a form of job security, albeit a rather pathetic one.
There are many people who will switch their vote to the other guy (or in many cases get out and vote for someone when they wouldn't otherwise have) just because one side says "we will do x" or "we wont do x".
"block filth on the internet", "keep kids safe from scumbags online", "keep terrorists and bad foriegn governments from using the internet to attack America", "help me stop my kid downloading illegal stuff from the internet"
These are all "hot button issues" for voters.
On the other hand, issues like "stop hackers from stealing my credit card numbers/bank details", "stop AT&T from messing with my google search results", "stop Microsoft from trying to kill free software" are issues that geeks and tech people care about but the general public doesn't give a stuff for the most part.
What we need is a way to make the general public care (particularly about phishing and identity theft)
Abercrombie & Fitch? Georgio Armani? Levi's? Nike?
... and then they built the supercollider.
Where you were correct: The average American today has as smaller vocabulary, lower IQ and more specialized knowledge leading to less understanding across broad subject matter.
Where you were incorrect: It's a Political Party issue. It's mutually inclusive from Both Parties that the general intelligence of the consumer is less broad/less deep today. However, people who flock to social programs tend to be in a state of non-self-determination. Their hands are more tied and thus form lower income strata. The Far Right have equally exploited their ignorant followers through doctrines of Imminent Fear of Terrorism and Immoral Family Values.
To forecast the future outcomes of the Democratically controlled Congress of 2008 and beyond by 2007 is both unscientific and myopic.
After the 2008 Election which sees a Democrat take the Presidency and gain Super Majority in both branches of Congress, judge the progress of their "words" after a year.
I neither speak as a disillusioned Republican or a disgruntled Democrat. I speak as a registered Libertarian. The Republican juggernaut manipulated by dogma and big brother in the guise of "father knows best" has diseased that party to a level unseen for decades. Only a few years of the Democrats failing miserably would ever allow for a third party to get a crack at it.
Either way, the person who called you a racist should have just proclaimed you suffering from a diarrhetic case of partisanship. Show your intelligence and find solutions to improve the landscape through innovation.
"They never adhere to a fundamentally fallacious economic policy which ignores such basic concepts as moral hazard."
This is favorite gut reflex of left-liberals (there's nothing classically liberal about contemporary "liberals", they are sort of libertines in favor of government regulating hedonism, everyone gets their share of tax-funded orgasmic experiences).
"They never try to mingle church and state."
Ever met conservatives that _really, actually try or argue_ to do that? You just wrote vague innuendo. And I'm not even conservative, just a plain vanilla libertarian.
As someone insightfully noted, western theocrats do happen, but they are rarer than hen's teeth. State your facts, not your hysteries and hatreds.
"They never try to "protect us from ourselves" by outlawing common everyday activities"
Like what? Riding a bike without a helmet? Smoking? Eating fat foods? Doing a business? Drinking, except for adolescents?
About the only common activity that conservatives try to outlaw is dope.
Again, you're just a gut-motivated maniac, not a fact researcher.
"They never try to protect our freedom by destroying it through such authoritarian policies as:
----requiring permits for protests and limiting them to "free speech zones".
----allowing warrantless wiretaps and sifting of people's emails, then trying to pass ex post facto laws to protect a president who performed them.
----blackballing dissenters/opposition to their policies, and even going so far as to label them as "enemy combatants" and "disappear" them to gitmo.
----demanding the establishment of a "papers please" society."
This is what the left wants. Tony Blair in UK has established exactly such a society, perfectly controlled so the kid's parents could be fined if they don't give the kid fruits three times a day. The left is after social utility, "social justice", not liberty, freedom of speech, etc. These are all secondary or tertiary priorities to the left, what matters to the left is that everyone behaves in a manner loved and prescribed by the left. They are after the full stomach of their beloved puppies, so tyranny and totalitarianism are not a measure that the left will abstain from.
In contrast, conservatives are after _small_ govt, limited to military and security, domestic and external. So their state is limited, so like a typical liar you ignore the totalitarian tendencies of left and overblow conservatives' tendencies.
Most of this "homeland security" nonsense was done by Bush only because unfortunately, voters expected security first and foremost. So it was done by conservatives for political reasons, but exactly opposite to what you try to suggest, they don't really like it.
Python is nice quick and flexible... but it provides so much rope a monkey would hang the whole ecosystem with it. -- in