German state parliament bans laptops - Pirate party show up with typewriters

An example. I can take a football (soccer ball) full in the face from 3 meters, without a complaint. It wasn't intentional. Shake it off.

I cannot concentrate with such noise in my periphery, particularly when the background is not "busy" with other activity. My nervous system wants, demands that I pay attention to it. Part of the... "heightened alertness" that serves me well, in other contexts. Perhaps also somewhat the result of a childhood in which such noises could proceed very traumatic events.

So... those of you with a "Why can't they just put up with it?" attitude: There are those of us who have tried -- often pushed too hard to view this as entirely our fault -- to do so. For years. Decades. It doesn't work for us.

Why should you then "put up with us"? Well, in my case, I tend to notice 3 or 4 times as much as many of my neighbors, and to relate it ("cross reference", whatever) to things they've long since forgotten, if they ever knew. In my case, at least, what you are "disturbing" is a very deep and full and "well-intentioned" attention. It takes all my concentration to perform this well.

This attention catches and fixes problems before they become "established policy", or "code", or whatever, depending upon context.

I don't care how you lead your life. Just don't presume that it gives you the right to infringe upon mine and my well-being. Don't assume that you understand my experience and motivations.

If you want to reduce a 27 billion Euro deficit, it makes no sense at all to focus on the details of whether it’s a good idea for the state parliament to spend a few thousand additional Euros. Such spending or saving will neither increase nor decrease the debt in any sort of significant way. It’s a cheap talking point that clouds the issue and gives people hours of material to talk about the debt without coming even one millimeter closer to any sort of solution.

What are the biggest sources of income? Is there some way to increase them in such a way that paying off the debt in a realistic time-frame would be possible? What do we spend the most on? Is there some way to reduce what we spend on to reduce the debt in a meaningful time-frame? Those are the central questions.

How much do those tablets cost? Maybe 100,000 Euro every two years or so, so 50,000 Euro per year (and that’s a generous assumption). If the parliament wouldn’t pay for them (and assuming that the debt stays otherwise constant) the state would pay off its debt in half a million years. Even if you can find 100 similar small issues, paying off the debt would still take several thousand years. (Oh, and by the way, the debt isn’t constant, so at best you could hope to impact the growth of the debt some insignificant tiny bit.)

There is nothing wrong with arguing for or against whether the state should pay for tablets for members of parliament – but putting this discussion into the context of the debt is utterly ridiculous and pure cheap polemics. The important questions are: Do they need tablets to work, can they afford them themselves and what constitutes a fair and good payment of parliamentarians that produces the best outcomes (e.g. attracts competent people or allows even otherwise poorer people to participate in the parliamentary process). Again, talking about the debt in this context makes no sense.

They probably spend more money on chairs in a year than they do on computers.

If an iPad allows them to be more effective, then it's probably a good thing to buy. It's false savings when your thriftiness gets in the way of productivity.

It's akin to a software company buying $400 Dells and a single monitor to work on to "save money."