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Comment by philipodonnell | Hacker News Reader

I have to admit I'm a little taken aback by the focus on how the stated rationale is weak or doesn't fit every company equally while agreeing that there are real problems that would be addressed. Is there a word for this? Its almost nit-picking? Pedantry? Like dismissing someone who is fighting against anti-vaxxers because they didn't quote the most definitive study as rationale. Explanations of policy ideas aren't targeted at experts but at laypeople so I don't see the problem with using terms or rationale they understand even if its not perfect.

I mean the core of the whole idea is that no one should both control the platform and simultaneously participate in it. Is the author against that? The pushback seems to be that it would lead to lawsuits which is almost a cliche from anyone trying to dismiss an idea.

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I think Ben is arguing (or at least _has_ argued in past posts) that the way monopolies operate in the Internet age is completely different from how Standard Oil operated in the last century. Trying to bend the narrative around these companies to fit existing anti-trust legislation is not going to be sustainable, or will be easy for firms to slip, or will result in too few cases for prosecutors to be able to pursue.

Maybe, just as one idea, new anti-network effect legislation is the right way to attack monopolies of the present and the future.

I feel like Ben does a good job of explaining the situation but we just disagree on whether it's good or bad that it's happening.

I disagree. I think Ben's main point is that regulation needs to be a vector, while Warren is proposing a scalar.

He agrees with her for raising this, and does think that some regulation should be in place, but sufficiently understanding the underlying nature of the problem is important to do less harm than good.

Except that that's perilously close to telling a patient that we don't completely understand the mechanism of action for this medication, so they're just going to have to die.

Government, like medicine, means making decisions based on insufficient information. More and better information should be preferred, but it's important to recall that doing nothing is also a decision. Its being a default decision does not make it exempt it from the possibility of doing more harm than good.

We want to make the best decision possible, but that needs to take into account that any multi-dimensional problem is easily diverted into taking no action even when there is widespread belief in favor of some action. "Belief" is one of the ways we cope with the absence of information: we just ask people and do what the majority wants. So it's very easy to take a complex problem and present multiple competing solutions, any of which would be preferred by a majority but no one of which will be the single best choice for more than half.

Sorry that that went into an abstraction, and you probably know all that. It just raises a red flag for me when somebody says "It's complicated" but means "Well, not doing anything just happens to suit me, so I can continue to declare that it's complicated indefinitely, because it is."

Title of the article: "Where Warren's Wrong"

First phrase: "Senator Elizabeth Warren deserves credit"

Rest of article: Giving Warren no credit, merely quoting her proposal and refuting parts of it.

It's clear this is a proposal, it's like Green New Deal or Medicare for All. There's almost zero chance anything like these policies would not get heavily changed in a legislative process. Politicians just release these to market themselves and guide the policy discussions pre-election.

I had the same impression. But this is how political discourse seems to work this day. Instead of making suggestions for improvement an idea gets dismissed completely and nothing happens as a result. Happened with Obamacare and also with the discussion about regulations. Instead of suggesting specific improvements it turns into a black and white debate without results.

This is why the entire second half of the article was detailing where I think focus should be.

Maybe the title was already too confrontational. How about "How I would improve Warren's plan" or something like that?

yes that would have been better. didn't finish article, but headline would have kept me reading to the end because I would have expected critique to be followed with constructive suggestions

I’m interested that many people seem to be under the impression that inaction is never the right solution.

If the choices are ”we must do something, even if it’s the wrong thing” (a fallacy) and doing nothing because we aren’t sure - I prefer the latter. Anyone with government experience should understand this.

In this case, the truth is Warren isn’t sure. No one is. This entire thing isn’t Standard Oil, it’s just a hollow campaign bulletin point to get her name used.

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