Hacker News Reader

Comment by c7DJTLrn | Hacker News Reader

What I find scarier than AI or nukes is that the people running our countries have no understanding of either of these topics. They're way too old. Just go back and watch Zuckerberg in Congress if you need an idea of how technically incompetent they are. They're "informed" mostly by what they hear on the news.

View on HN

Age is less a concern than you think. I have many young people around me that are completely in the dark too. It’s just that this job attracts certain types which are not predisposed to operational knowledge of any kind.

What are you talking about? Lawmakers have aides and consult with third party think thanks and firms about a variety of topics. Of course they don't know tech or medicine or warfare or environmental science and they do sound silly when they question knowledgable people because of this but a lawmaker's job is not to be an expert on topics but to consult with experts who will explain to them what is happening and then they legislate based on that.

Or the Congress TikTok hearing. It's painfully obvious that many sitting on the committee were already old enough to retire by the time Wi-Fi became available to the consumer market. If they have younger & more competent advisors then it's clear these geriatric politicians are not listening to advice.

Or by lobbyists, willing to provide a steak dinner and whisky with their education.

I agree they are too old. Unfortunately the boomer generation has and will likely hold onto their political power until their dying gasp as old age takes them. Normally you would have a generational transition of power about every 20 years. The boomers took over in 1990, in 2010 they held that, and in 2020 they still hold over 50% of the political power.

Historically, they as a cohort have done things that enrich themselves at everyone elses expense, and written laws where dead men rule. Their legacy is historic in that its happened before, and will happen again. Now I"m not saying they did this with malice, its a cohort (it has a specific meaning), there are good people, disinterested people, and selfish people. The people who were voted into these positions largely fall into the latter two, though there are exceptions.

Look at social security, and how the Fed works these days. Outlays for paying social security and medicare starting in ~2030 exceed all income for the interest alone and they all know this, because they have constructive knowledge of what's happening and choose to ignore it.

Here is a great CSPAN video btw that demonstrates this (I strongly encourage you to watch it in its entirety if you think what I'm saying isn't accurate):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ut1yQg2qA4&ab_channel=Forbe...

We are coming up to an inflection point very similar to what Thomas Paine discusses in his writings. Its not going to be good times given the huge asymmetry between our rights and what's actually being protected, I heard just the other day that this US citizen in Georgia has been held in jail for 10 years without being provided a defender or given a trial. Something, that strictly violates the US Constitution.

There are major problems, and you don't get anywhere by ignoring them. In fact you make it worse by ignoring them.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com