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US Law Can't Keep Up With Technology -- and Why That's a Good Thing (newsweek.com)
HughPickens.com writes: In the 1910s, the number of cars in the US exploded from 200,000 to 2.5 million. The newfangled machines scared horses and ran over pedestrians, but by the time government could pass the very first traffic law, it was too late to stop them. Now Kevin Matley writes in Newsweek that thanks to political gridlock in the US, lawmakers respond to innovations with all the speed of continental drift. New technologies spread almost instantly and take hold with almost no legal oversight. According to Matley, this is terrific for tech startups, especially those aimed at demolishing creaky old norms—like taxis, or flight paths over crowded airspace, or money. "Drone aircraft are suddenly filling the sky, and a whole multibillion-dollar industry of drone making and drone services has taken hold," says Matley. "If the FAA had been either farsighted or fast moving, at the first sign of drones it might've outlawed them or confined them to someplace like Oklahoma where they can't get in the way of anything too important. But now the FAA is forced to accommodate drones, not the other way around." Bitcoin is another example of a technology that's too late to stop. "But have you heard the word bitcoin uttered once in any of the presidential debates? Government doesn't even understand bitcoin, and that's been really good for it." Uber and Airbnb show how to execute this outrun-the-government strategy. By the time cities understood what those companies were doing, it was too late to block or seriously limit them.
Why should laws keep up with technology? Laws should be written in such a way that the technology involved doesn't matter. Typically laws should be about an outcome more than a method. There are already so many laws on the books that the first thing to look at is if an existing law applies. If not, is there a law that should be amended to cover the new technology?
Example: Highway speed limits are for all motor vehicles and not just a specific type of vehicle. It does not matter how many wheels (car, motorcycle, tractor trailer, etc) the car has, what type of the engine (gas, diesel, electric) is under the hood, what kind of transmission (auto, manual), or if if has some fancy new electronic accessory ... the speed limit is the speed limit.
Keep the Classic Slashdot.
Once again this drivel from a worshipper of The Church of Invisible Hands and Shrugging Atlases.
I do agree that laws are not always for the best. But there ends our agreement. The worst laws are those bought by "whole multibillion-dollar industr[ies]". The shrugging (should I say bribing?) Atlases.
Someone doesn't understand how bitcoin works.
None of the examples are particularly good:
Bitcoin - lots of investigation from the SEC et al, rules laid out and restrictions put in place.
Uber - don't we pretty much have at least one story a week about Uber being banned in particular locations after failing to follow requirements for taxi services already in place?
AirBnB - massive legal issues, banned in NYC for a time, required to implement hotel taxes.
I don't think any of the examples are actually examples of things outrunning the government successfully.
So what is the assertion here- the government will stop technology as soon as it gets a whiff of what's going on? Are you sure you're not mixing up the government with your parents?
The government has no interest in stopping the forward movement of technology, nor do they have a historical record of trying to do so. The idea that they *might have* stopped the automobile or drones or bitcoin is just that, an idea you have for some reason. It's a historical counterfactual injected to frame the government as technologically regressive.
I see no evidence that the government is ideologically technologically regressive. If your point is that politicians think the internet is a like a bunch of old fashonied vacuum tubes through which messages get sent (which actually is not a terrible analogy) then consider that about as many older movie stars and writers and artists don't use or *get* modern technology as politicians, who skew heavily upwards in age.
Just recalling instances from one day's reading and listening Richard Gere isn't on Twitter and Richard Ford writes his novels longhand without a computer. So it goes.
OTOH we fund via DARPA and other programs vast amounts of the most cutting edge science, science which if it were declassified would seem like magic to us. We're talking advances in things like human cloning and quantum computers which are mind blowing even to readers of /.
So where is this "good thing they didn't know about THIS" attitude coming from? America celebrates it's inventors, tinkerers, mavericks, oddballs. All these things you cite are products of tinkering. They're not basic science but the application of well known technologies to solve problems in novel ways.
Say what you want about America, pre-emptive legislation is not in American's DNA. If something becomes big enough to start impacting innocent bystanders, broadly considered, then Congress steps in, as is its right and duty.
But somehow, conquering other nations and plundering their wealth just for your own coin mints has been frowned upon recently, and thus the gold standard had to be abandoned, as the gold available couldn't scale anymore with the gold needed for minting.
Does Mr. Matley expect the government to anticipate the next fad and outlaw it just because? Maybe the government should have outlawed Segways, they were supposed to be game changers.
The Code of Hammurabi or the Law of Moses (in particular) could probably handle most situations arising from "being a dick and hurting someone with your toys." We settled the basic problem of how to handle actual cases of hurting people with your toys about 4k-5k years ago, we just quibble on what the punishments should be. In fact, ironically, if we stole the standards of evidence used in the Law of Moses for our own system, it would put the innocence project out of business (for good reasons) because prosecutors and cops would be scared shitless to abuse the defendant, but I digress...
Most of what TFS mentions are just regulatory decisions. These are often just "nice to haves" that have little bearing on whether you can accurately say that the courts are unable to address real harms done to real people and property. The FAA might not be able to regulate the nuances of drones now, but I'd bet good money that at any point since they became commercially available, that had you caused someone's death with one (even by accident) a prosecutor could have nailed you to the wall in any court in the union.
Why should laws keep up with technology? Laws should be written in such a way that the technology involved doesn't matter.
Kind of adorable that you think that is possible. Oh you can put a general framework out there but there ALWAYS are going to be specific details that need legislation. Congress in the 1700s could not possible have written a law that deals adequately with the nuances of radio communications 200 years later. Nobody is so smart as to be able to write laws in such a way that technology doesn't matter. Furthermore any law that is so broad as to cover everything will have innumerable corner case, loopholes and problems. You need a good framework but sooner or later you are going to have to get into the ugly specifics.
That's obviously one law that's been obsoleted since the Founding Fathers couldn't have anticipated the arrival of the submachine gun and the shoulder-fired rocket.
1. Tinkerer invents something.
2. Regulator goes to office, gets cup of coffee, reads the paper, doesn't care.
3. "Wild West" economy as millions buy and use invention.
4. Regulator goes to lunch.
5. Nine Journalists report on invention as wonderful, spectacular, world-changing.
6. Regulator does some shopping on way back from lunch.
7. Tenth journalist, beaten to punch, finds "man bites dog" story, unintended consequence of invention
8. Regulator packs briefcase for ride home.
9. Legislators get panicked calls from people either hurt by invention, or afraid they'll be hurt by invention.
10. Regulator has dinner, goes to bed.
Guess what regulator reads in the paper tomorrow morning? Guess what's in the regulator's email tomorrow morning?
As a former regulator, there's nothing sinister about either the cowboy market or the regulations, and I get weary of the memes of anti-cowboy and anti-sheriff. What is broken is risk-benefit analysis, and it's probably broken at the journalism juncture. "if it bleeds, it leads" gives journalists money if they shock us, and there's nothing more shocking than a new risk we have to worry about.
Gently reply
It is odd that the New testament speaks of the end times when we will be confounded by our complexity. Beyond that we have a situation where numerous laws can be applied to many situations and the effect is that a judge can pretty much do anything he likes which in a way is the same as having no laws at all. Then we have an issue with law makers creating laws which have severely negative effects that were unexpected. A huge example is in the creation of smart guns. The intention was to keep people in our nation a bit safer. But the law that passed actually doomed the sale of smart guns completely. The problem is linked to a law passed in New Jersey that mandated that once available on the market anywhere in the US the residents of NJ would be denied the right to purchase any regular gun and buy only a smart gun. So nobody in the firearms industry and almost zero gun owners will tolerate a smart gun being made or sold. If NJ had simply passed a law saying that a gun store must offer at least one smart gun for sale then we would have smart guns all over the nation while most gun hobbyists would still buy non smart guns. We also have a lot of laws and customs that are actually causing crimes. Allowing private bail companies and failure to provide money to hire private lawyers are causing people to commit crimes to pay for lawyers and bails. But because money is involved no progress can be made to build a decent criminal justice system.
By what standard do you suggest that most people stop learning by age 25? That makes no sense whatsoever.
If you're just referring to the fact that by 25 most people have stopped going to school I'll grant you that much. Aside from the fact that its apparent many dont learn much beyond how to do keg stands while college, most everyone continues to learn throughout their lives. Even beyond retirement age. If you dont you stagnate in your career and in your relationships. And most of that learning cannot be replicated in any kind of school other than that of real life.
I commend you for taking up a musical instrument, age aside. But if you felt you needed to do that so that you continued using your mind, I'd seriously reevaluate your life.
"But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,..." - Nancy Pelosi
Many people who hail the gold standard ignore a simple fact: A gold standard for coins means constant deflation, which is bad in most economic situation, because it gives incentives for hoarding money instead of spending it.
Yes! The HORROR OF THINGS GOING DOWN IN PRICE! IT MUST BE BANNED!
Dude, we've had constant deflation in electronics prices since... well, forever, in electronics terms. Deflation is the norm in a free market, as productivity increases lead to lower prices.
You're confusing decreases in individual prices with overall increases in value of currency. These are two completely different things, and they have completely different macroeconomic effects.
Only governments think it's a bad thing, because they can tax inflation, but can't tax deflation.
Nope. Anyone who likes to spend money or invest money likes inflation. You speak about "productivity increases," but productivity increases need to be FUNDED by someone. Who funds them? Well, particularly if they require more risky or uncertain innovation, they tend to be jumpstarted by investors. And rich people have significantly less incentive to invest in risky things when they can make more money just by piling it up in their money bins, as is true in a deflationary economy.
Just stop and think about the consequences of deflation for a moment. I think people who argue in favor of it tend to believe that somehow things will "cost less" for them. But they won't -- prices may go down, but so will incomes. Wait -- you thought you'd be able to keep your same salary when everyone is paying less and earning less for investments??? No dice. Your income needs to be cut to conform with reduced revenues and investment income. Thus, prices go down, but you get paid less.
You want to buy a house? You want to open a new business? Why would you?? -- it will likely be worth significantly less in a few years. Mortgages and loans become next-to-impossible to justify either for lenders or for borrowers, because you end up paying MORE in value as your income decreases, while the value of your asset is depreciating. (With mild inflation, your principle payments decrease in purchasing power, while your income generally rises gradually.)
Why would you invest any money in any significant asset in a deflationary market, since you'll only lose money in the long run? Sure, rich people with "money to burn" will still have their luxuries, but most people won't be interested in throwing money away at depreciating assets everywhere when they could just keep it in their account and get more value. Well, actually people take money out of banks, because banks start charging people to hold money, since they can't earn interest on most investments anymore. So, there's a run on the banks and everyone stuffs cash under the mattress.
Gradually, the economy grinds to a halt as a deflationary spiral begins. Welcome to the next Great Depression. (You think I'm joking? Just take a moment and look at periods of sustained deflation in world history -- they almost always correspond to severe economic depressions.)
TL;DR: Sustained deflation of currency is NOT the same as price decreases in specific sectors. Sustained deflation of currency is generally bad for just about everyone, except rich people who already have a giant bin full of cash and will now just sit on it as it grows and grows in value, rather than moving that money around where some investments might lead to further economic activity.