shockeychap

How about hiding user comments behind a click so that you can’t read multiple comments at once? How about requiring unnecessary PII to solicit feedback? How about presenting a redundant set of vague and unnecessary elements like a “Comment ID” AND a “Tracking Number”?

Leave it to the federal government to utilize three dark patterns on a website soliciting feedback on the very subject.

sigh

Click-baity title that tries to garner some notion of irony by characterizing Texans as “gas loving”. I’m sure there would have been mockery of cowboy hats and boots if the author had tried a little harder.

> Consider, for example, the 5.12 development cycle (a relatively small one), which added over 500,000 lines of code to the kernel over a period of ten weeks. The resources required to carefully review 500,000 lines of code would be immense, so many of those lines, unfortunately, received little more than a cursory looking-over before being merged.

I am more than a little astounded that new functionality is being added to the kernel THAT fast.

> But if we cannot institutionalize a more careful process, we will continue to see a lot of bugs and it will not really matter whether they were inserted intentionally or not.

I've always known this to be the case with many FOSS projects. (Remember the Heartbleed bug?) I'm a little surprised it's an issue for something this critical that's used by all of the world's largest technology companies, including all of FAANG.

Agree. 100%.

So, by that logic, a summary must be so vague as to be meaningless, lest it risk being incorrect by the strictest of standards.

We can do better. It would be very easy to establish a broad “good-faith” standard for a legislative summary while also specifying it’s use for “informational purposes only.”

I appreciate the example, but that's way too broad and abstract compared to what I'm talking about.

"Specifically, the bill expands voter registration (e.g., automatic and same-day registration) and voting access (e.g., vote-by-mail and early voting). It also limits removing voters from voter rolls."

"The bill addresses ethics in all three branches of government, including by requiring a code of conduct for Supreme Court Justices, prohibiting Members of the House from serving on the board of a for-profit entity, and establishing additional conflict-of-interest and ethics provisions for federal employees and the White House."

What does any of that mean specifically? Expands voter registration and access how? Imposes what limits on removing voters from voter rolls? What's in the code of conduct for Supreme Court Justices? And on and on and on.

There has to be middle ground between a useless and abstract summary - that sounds more like a commercial than a true summary - and the bill itself with several pages of preamble just to define well-understood terms.

I get why bills are written in the same long-form as contracts. But it creates the problem that, just like most contracts, people don't really understand the contents. (Did you actually read the pile of papers you signed for your mortgage?)

Would it be unreasonable to require any proposed legislation include a comprehensive summary written at something like a 10th grade reading level?

Something like this could help eliminate the manner in which long-form effectively bars most citizen participation in the legislative process. It would also force a degree of clarity on the implications and meanings within a proposal.

We should never, ever have to hear "We need to pass it so we can see what's in it."

As an aside, I also think there should be hard limits on the size of a single piece of legislation. If a competent reader can't sit down, read, and understand it in a single sitting, it's too long.

I’d love to see a Super Mario Brothers version of this concept.

I don't want legislators who think they're "running the country". That's the first problem. Rulemaking should never be construed with "running".

Secondly, I've never had any illusion about trying to attract "the best" in Congress. It's an elected position, both the House and Senate, and so it will merely attract those with aspirations of power and wealth who are good at campaigning. Oftentimes we also get people who forge a decades-long career by leveraging the access to power and influence they have in such a position. This last part is toxic, and won't be fixed by increasing pay.

The tone of this is a little hard to read, so forgive me if I've misread anything.

I mostly agree with the other changes, except for increasing pay as a means of eliminating the motivation to play games. If there's one thing we've seen play out over and over, it's that excesses and greed just beget more greed. Look at the number of executives, financial managers, and politicians who already had vast wealth yet STILL engage in shenanigans. Furthermore, the job of legislating is an elected one, which means it will always go to those who are best able to convince the most people to vote for them (frequently by promises and pandering), not those who will do the best job. Now, I don't think legislators should get pauper's pay, but I also think we should do what we can to limit it's use as a career path for power and wealth.

I have no problems with capitalism. If the market has healthy competition and the referees (regulations and the courts) are fair and transparent, capitalism is good. Unfortunately, many of those elements have gotten worse in recent decades. We regulate more than ever, but it's the small businesses who suffer the burden and have no real voice in DC.

Capitalism done right means that I'm not upset by Wal-Mart's success, as it's kept in check by other companies like Amazon and Target. If you think anybody is invincible, take a look at what happened to Sears, K-Mart, and Toys-R-Us. Capitalism done wrong means that big companies use regulations and unfair referees to keep out competition. The power wielded by FAANG today dwarfs anything Microsoft ever had.

I’m not sure, but I think we have to start with Congressional reform. I don’t generally subscribe to the notion that legislating should be a lucrative, lifelong profession.

I think term limits, pay reduction, and abolishment of the Congressional pension would be an excellent start. It would eliminate some of the career aspects of legislating while forcing lobbyists to regularly deal with new people, somewhat limiting their influence.

However, getting this would require Congress to vote on something that’s against their own interest.

Agree. Big Brother is just as corrupt and just adds another element to the smoke and mirrors presentation.

Fair point, but there’s less predictability (both in timing and valuations) on the way down. It’s also harder to disguise the insider nature of shorts based on upcoming legislation.

On top of that, these companies spend millions on lobbying and have SO MUCH INFLUENCE among DC insiders that reform doesn’t have a chance. It’s more corrupt than anything Hollywood ever made about Big Oil.

Given the volume and profitably of tech trading by members of Congress (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26821601) I have ZERO confidence that any useful legislation will come of it. It will just be a bunch of earnest and disingenuous theatre by the very people profiting from a bunch of companies who make Microsoft circa 1995 look like a kitten.

For my part, I think the fundamental business model of profiting from user engagement (where screen time is money) is toxic, and we can’t fix anything until we find a way to effectively eliminate it.

This is even worse in the US, where COVID "passports" are being treated as perfectly reasonable and legal for private business to demand. Hardly anybody is asking the question about what precedent this is setting for other invasive checks. If an airline can demand proof of vaccination for COVID-19, can they do the same for flu vaccines? How long before they can demand a wellness letter from a doctor or medical professional, similar to what's required for pets? All of this and more can be easily justified in the name of public health.

I get what you’re saying, but the point still stands. Would you rather take your chances with a stray bullet or the militia? Would it be wise to withdraw the police “out of an abundance of caution” because of a statistically tiny set of stray bullets whose body count isn’t even a rounding error compared to the militia?

"A drinking game recommendation (careful, it may and probably will lead to alcoholism): take a shot every time you find out how someone’s data has been locked and their business was jeopardized because they didn’t own, or at least back up their data."

That one put a smile on my face.

I won't argue that. I'm quite concerned about the power-grab taking place. Elected administrators clearly see themselves as rulers who can issue dictates almost arbitrarily with little regard for their effectiveness or necessity. The emergency powers that most, including myself, supported last year have been turned into open-ended excuses for unchecked power. However, the anti-vaxers and COVID-is-a-hoax folks aren't helping either. I've lost one friend personally and known several people who lost friends or relatives. The virus is real, and the vaccine is a huge tool for stopping the suffering and loss. (And no, I do NOT support mandated vaccine passports either.)

Imagine a firefighter who, in the middle of fighting a house fire, learns that the water being used has mildly elevated levels of arsenic and decides to turn off the hose "out of an abundance of caution."

That's the level of absurdity I'm seeing in the European response to these AZ issues. The frequency of issues, even if 100% correlated to the vaccine, is still SO MUCH BETTER than what's happening every day with COVID-19.

All of the existing seeds of FUD are validated and amplified by this sort of thing, which is about as sensible as telling a starving person to not eat the food in front of them because it isn't organic.

Fair enough, except for the assertion that I think it’s thoughtful because I agree with it. I’ve read plenty of articles that I didn’t agree with that I would call thoughtful. Frankly, that is supposed to be the draw of articles on HN - that they’re culled such that the ones you might not agree with still provoke thought and engage the subject meaningfully. I think it’s a bit presumptuous to make “thoughtful” and “agrees with” synonymous.

"Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon."

It's hard to argue that thoughtful articles like this one don't pertain to an interesting new phenomenon. This concept is, of course, highly subjective. But I've seen countless articles on HN that existed in this space without being flagged. Why should this article, which garnered such high volume of feedback - without flaming - be treated differently?

I don't disagree. But isn't calling anybody who disagrees even slightly with you a racist, or a bigot, or a xenophobe, or a hate monger, or any of a thousand other things, the very height of "unwillingness to even attempt to understand an opposing viewpoint." I don't hear critics of CRT and wokism calling their opponents the most reprehensible and odious names they can imagine. I see plenty of CRT advocates doing just that. Why is this okay?

I'm a bit of an HN neophyte, having recently left FB for a place where thoughtful discussion was still welcome. I'm not being rhetorical when I ask, what is going on? Are some highly-rated users just abusing their power to flag, or is this something else? Is HN on its way to being more concerned with virtue signaling than open discussion?

Why is this "flagged"?

Edit: And please tell me the admins of HN aren't engaging in wrongthink censorship.

Fair observation. But consider that proponents of "wokism" have busily engaged in censorship of thought and speech - showing no interest in a fair and open debate - while simultaneously demanding unquestioning fealty to its principles. For me, that speaks to an intrinsic and inherent moral and intellectual bankruptcy.

“But it wasn’t long before the more ludicrous faction of conservatives found a way to dominate the screens again. It looks like they’ve learned a few lessons from the Trumps — outside of how to commit tax fraud, rape, bribery, or how to get pissed on by Russian call girls.”

The whole article was just clickbait for a mean-spirited mishmash of hyperbole-laden attacks on all non-leftists with none of the introspection or nuance it accuses the other side of lacking. It made no thoughtful or meaningful contribution to the national conversation, and didn’t even get around to addressing the question posed in its title.

Name one piece of modern legislation that isn't regarded as "well intentioned" by those passing it.

It's just another example of feel-good legislation that does more harm than good.

Where was all of this offense concerning violence when we watched countless businesses being burned and looted throughout the summer? I'm not justifying what happened at the Capitol, but the shouts of righteous indignation ring more than a little hollow.