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Comment by setecgastronomy | Hacker News Reader

> He was brazen enough to admit, early on, that he does not care whether or not his plan is unpopular and that what the public thinks makes no difference whatsoever.

Looks like it. It's pretty surprising how ambivalent the guy is to public pressure.

Also, we really need to look into how government and regulation works in this country. What's the point of having a regulatory system for industries if the officials of companies in these industry lead the governmental/regulatory agencies?

If former goldman sachs officials run financial agencies and if a former verizon official runs the FCC, what's the point of these agencies?

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There is nothing specific wrong with industry people working at regulatory agencies; in fact, good regulation should include the input of the regulated industries (failure to do so was a causative factor in the bankruptcy of railroads in the 60s and 70s). The problem with this proceeding is that it is based only on industry comments and ignores other voices, which is the worst way to create regulation.

Remember that Wheeler was a former cable industry lobbyist. Unlike Pai, he actually listened to non-industry voices during his proceeding and created rules based on inputs from many different sources. He did not give net neutrality advocates everything we wanted, but he did listen and did create something much better than what the industry has been demanding.

Industry people working at regulatory agencies is an obvious conflict of interest. Taking inputs from various parties, including the industry and the general public, to then make an informed decision about the best course of action in the general interest, is a completely different thing.

"Industry people working at regulatory agencies is an obvious conflict of interest."

Not necessarily. An obvious conflict of interest would be someone who has a significant financial stake in the industry, or someone who is married to a CEO in that industry, etc.

Also consider this: who is actually qualified to regulate an industry? It is often the case that the only qualified candidates are people who have worked in the industry or who have worked against it (which is just as much of a conflict of interest). Someone who is clueless could be worse: they could be more susceptible to lobbying pressure, since they have no prior knowledge of the issues they are dealing with.

In theory the job of the Senate should be to determine whether or not a candidate will be able to serve the public instead of their former industry bosses. Such people definitely exist -- Tom Wheeler is a prominent example. We also have an impeachment procedure to deal with the possibility of failure i.e. the possibility of the Senate confirming a regulator who fails to serve the public; by now there is ample evidence that confirming Pai was a mistake, but with today's hyper-partisan Congress there is not much hope for impeachment.

> Also consider this: who is actually qualified to regulate an industry?

Off the top of my head, economists and lawyers?

I don't think you need first-hand experience in an industry to regulate it. We need experts in regulation that can take input from industry and consider the public perspective.

I'm not convinced it's possible to have a career in a field and not have your opinion tainted by that experience. This is why neither industry insiders or opponents should be responsible for regulation.

> There is nothing specific wrong with industry people working at regulatory agencie

Sure. In the abstract. But in practicality, it doesn't pass the smell test. Just like if I committed a crime and my mother was judge of the case, there isn't anything specifically wrong with it. But there are potential issues of conflict of interest and she should probably recuse herself from the case.

> in fact, good regulation should include the input of the regulated industries (failure to do so was a causative factor in the bankruptcy of railroads in the 60s and 70s).

Of course regulatory agencies need input from the industry. But there is a difference between providing input and leading the agency. I'm all for input. I'm not too keen on former Directors, CEOs, etc of banks, ISPs, etc leading agencies that regulate those companies. Especially when we have people going back and forth between regulatory agencies and companies.

If you committed a crime and your mother was on the case, that would be a conflict of interest since your mother has vested interest in you.

If you have an ex-Verizon person they shouldn’t have any loyalty to the company. If they do, then there would be a conflict of interest.

I get the argument about the ex-Verizon employee - the much bigger conflict of interest is that such a person is a future-Verizon employee, as the fate of other such officials in e.g. finance sector illustrates; we get regulatory capture because the industry lobbyists promise and hand out lucrative deals to individual regulators after their term is done.

Employees do have an interest in their old companies. If nothing else working for successful companies is a good sign on a resume. But, high level employees often have close ties to other people in management and a much easier time being brought back.

> If you have an ex-Verizon person they shouldn’t have any loyalty to the company.

Yes, and people should be good at all times and not lie.

They don't necessarily have loyalty, exactly, but they do have a detailed understanding of the company's point of view and interests, coupled with possibly a much shallower understanding of the viewpoints and interests of the public.

ex-<company name> execs almost invariably have plenty of equity and personal connections with their former employer and the industry at large, so that would de facto disqualify pretty much all of them.

Generally, you want someone who is a legal/policy nerd for the regulated industry to head that industry's regulatory agency.

For most industries, the only people who are interested enough to become legal/policy nerds are either people who work in the industry in legal/policy executive positions, or a small number of academics who specialize in those industries. The academics are usually a little too theoretical to deal with actually running an agency, and so that pretty much just leaves people from the industry.

Nothing happens in a vacuum so even telecom regulation has impacts outside the telco industry. For this reason I do not think first hand experience is that important in regulating an industry. I would much rather see someone with a history of balancing competing interests in charge rather than someone with a strong bias.

> It's pretty surprising how ambivalent the guy is to public pressure.

It actually could be expected. He is not an elected official, so he can easily do the bidding of corporate masters, instead of serving the public, especially if he feels that legislative power is too dysfunctional to do anything about it. It can happen even with elected officials, even more so with appointed ones.

Corporate masters implies he’s still under the employ and compensation of Verizon.

If Verizon is bribing him, they certainly wouldn’t need a former employee to do so. They can just invest in PACs or lobbyists, or even straight up bribe any elected official.

> under the employ and compensation of Verizon

Not necessarily direct employ, but serving their interest. They wouldn't be so stupid as to publicly employ him.

> they certainly wouldn’t need a former employee to do so

It was the path of least resistance for them. He was already in the FCC, and he was always backing the interests of ISP incumbents against the public, if you paid attention.

We understand his broken incentives and allegiances. But most people have at least a small amount of allegiance to and empathy with the general population. Perhaps they won't necessarily listen if the opposition is weak, or if they think they can get away with it.

But Pai has tens of millions of people vehemently opposing him. He is probably recieving jeers and hate mail and rude gestures every time he goes out in public. And people have even started harassing his family - at what point does the money cease to be worth it? Most people would have given up under a hundredth of that backlash.

One of the dirtiest aspects I've seen in this whole NN debate has been the very ugly behavior of NN proponents. That, as much as anything, has eliminated any support I might have had for NN.

Pai digs in and fights back against racist death threats? Good for him. Shame on anyone expecting him to back down in the face of that.

If you're going to dismiss a cause because some of the proponents use ugly tactics then I don't see how you can maintain any moral convictions whatsoever.

>some of

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2QorHUU-Kg

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>You can't say "One thing that should remain Sacred is family, wife, and kids"... when there are families who make a living by working online. If this goes through MILLIONS of people will be fucked... I can assure you .. If this falls through, go into witness protection or some shit because you are gonna get killed. Period. 384 upvotes

>This twatwaffle needs to be burned at the stake. 301 upvotes

These are people promoting Net Neutrality. I don't support that. It is disgusting.

> I don't support that

But you implied that don't support NN itself, not disgusting comments. So do you support monopolists?

You completely ignore the actual point, logical fallacies everywhere on your part.

strawman: misrepresenting argument to make it easier to attack

ad hominem: attacking your opponent's character or personal traits instead of engaging with their argument

appeal to emotion: manipulating an emotional response in place of a valid or competing argument

texas sharpshooter: cherry-picking data clusters to suit an argument, or finding a pattern to fit a presumption

Yeah cause upvoting Reddit and Hackernews posts and typing your name into some website is really going to do anything.

If this guy is going to play dirty then I don't see why others shouldn't fight back.

That's a very self-destructive position to take. Unfortunately it also hurts the rest of us.

In that light, his performance has been stellar. Not even personal threats to him or his family sway this guy, he'll be the perfect scapegoat when this is over.

This was all Ajit's fault, but he's been sacked from public office, rejoice!

> he'll be the perfect scapegoat when this is over

Reminds me a story, where there was an official who had an arrangement to receive a payment for every day in prison (if he ever ended up there as a scapegoat for actual criminal overlords, whose crimes he was covering up).

A former Verizon employee probably has no more ties or vested interests in Verizon anymore. If they have stock or other interests then they shouldn’t be in those regulatory offices.

while the president's sons run his company and the president's daughter has an office in the White House

ethics have gone out the window for this presidency, shouldn't doesn't matter anymore

The quid pro quo usually comes later, after they leave their government post. In the form of board seats or high level positions in the companies that benefited. So, hard to police since the payoff is down the road.

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