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Comment by bilekas | Hacker News Reader

> using the argument of child pornography and sex trafficking is an emotional play

It is and it's used everytime something like this comes up actually. But if you take it for what it is; most of the lawmakers don't fully undersand what their deciding on, so they depend on lobbyists for their info and unfortunately, they're always just interested in making money, so the lawmakers get a skewed view and some nice talking points. I'm not sure if I feel bad for them or just be confident that the next generation of life long politicians might be people like us who are aware of this problem and enact laws to protect privacy.

The old pendulum that swings example.

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> just be confident that the next generation of life long politicians might be people like us who are aware of this problem and enact laws to protect privacy.

Do you want a pay cut? I don't want a pay cut. Unless we take a pay cut and go become a elected, it won't be people like us who are the next generation of life long politicians.

Personally, no, I'll be the first to put my hand up and say I don't have the patience to try and deal with the bureaucracy but I do believe that there are some people who go into politics to genuinely make a difference and improve the society. As cynical as we can be about politicians, for sure there are people out there who would just like to 'fix' things. - Usually the roadblock to that is the interest bodies with influence.. It's annoying at best, but I hold out hope..

> I hold out hope

You are a better person than I.

I wouldn't say that, hope is free.. Maybe it's a dream like a unicorn. But hey, if we don't know what is better, we might never work towards it.

Someone once said to me that every politician was a class president somewhere. As I think back to every class president I've ever had, it explains pretty much everything I've ever hated about any given politician.

Douglas Adams Quotes "It is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it"

"anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job."

You don't have to take a pay cut! We from MegaCorp value excellent politicians like yourselves, if you get elected we will have many speaking and consulting opportunities for you. Just make sure that you keep doing the right thing and stand for the truth! (Unlike our previous guy, who started believing in lies about MegaCorp -- we had to discontinue his contracts.)

Brought to you by Carl's Jr.

https://youtu.be/1BYFbXJKJ8U

I don't think it's pay that's the issue. I'm sure you can survive perfectly well on a politician's salary. Some of us make little or nothing anyway, because we don't want to play the corporate games. The issue is that rational people who value established facts will have difficulty getting elected when running against people who rely on manipulating emotions and telling people what they want to hear.

Edit: also some parts of the world, like the US and UK, have district-based voting systems that favour large parties. You can't actually get anywhere in politics without the backing of such a party, and it would be difficult to convince the party to make you a candidate when you aren't playing the same political games.

Members of Congress make $174,000 a year. Some people here make significantly more, but I don't think it's most.

There are only 535 members of congress. If you're good enough to be top 500~ in the country at something you could _probably_ make more money (lobbying/extra curricular excluded...) doing something else.

Probably very true for the laughable amounts of money I generally see in news stories about political corruption. It really seems like it should take more to buy a politician than a 20k bribe for a pardon for example (https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/politics/ky-gover...)

Well if you want the top 500 people at benefiting society then if they earn much more than the median societal income they're almost certainly then not in the top 500 people at benefiting society.

If you want the top 500 people at benefiting you, and only people like you, and making sure that society as a whole doesn't benefit, even by preserving the planet for them ... yeah, sure, pay oodles.

Members of Congress make $174,000 a year.

That might be their official salary (I'm assuming?) but unless senior politicians in the US are different to almost everywhere else, that will likely only represent a proportion of their total income as a result of their political career. Between the perks that come with the job while it's happening and the consultancies and board positions and speaking engagements that come afterwards or even during, a politician who reaches that kind of level is probably going to make far more money from it than just their salary.

People who are at the top of whatever they do also have many other forms of income-- consultancies, speaking engagement, board positions, but also often get paid better.

...and except for media celebs are usually not in the public limelight. Being in the public limelight frequently stinks.

That depends very much on what they do and what "at the top" means.

There are few professions where those in the upper levels can command the kind of auxiliary income that a high profile former politician can. Even in fields like tech, it's not usually the case except for in the US.

Very explictly: everyone should try and become a member of congress - they are exempt from SEC insider trading laws. Your friend at a FAANG who has the quarterly results early? Take their info and short TSLA and face no repercussions from the SEC!

A good life tactic used by and useful for most elite post graduate tech people I know is treating their careers as if they were sports stars.

The big time early years have massive rewards. One in a handful go on to be the team coach / manager. A few more graduate to coaching support staff at a much lower salary. A very lucky few land a job for life at ESPN or BBC Sport. Some don’t need the money. Some do.

The majority move on though and retrain as gym coaches, teachers, parents, therapists, firefighters. They take a pay cut and a role with much lower global impact and a much higher local impact. Often because the latter is genuinely very rewarding.

It’s something to look forward to as you get older but a drop in salary is going to be a fact of life unless you have exceptional transferable skills that put you at the top of the game in your chosen second career, be that in the private or public sector.

I can't imagine how this would ever become the norm, unless your early career is in crazy SV startup world or some similar environment, where VC funding leads to hugely inflated salaries but ageism is rampant. And if you do go into that environment but you haven't then earned enough to retire and/or learned enough to start your own business by the time the gravy train runs out, you're probably doing something wrong.

Under many circumstances, that would be a likely explanation, but who outside government is lobbying for this kind of invasion of privacy and what do they hope to gain from it? It's certainly not the tech firms, nor other established big businesses like retail and finance that rely on encryption to operate with reasonable security. It's obviously not the human rights and civil liberties crowd. Is it clueless "think of the children" types, and the manipulative media that serve them?

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