
Bruce Schneier: It's time for technologists to become lawmakers - kiyanwang
https://venturebeat.com/2019/03/06/bruce-schneier-its-time-for-technologists-to-become-lawmakers/
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ddebernardy
> Back in the 1950s, tech and policy didn’t really interact, unless it had to
> do with something like nuclear weapons or the space program. Today, tech and
> policy are intertwined, Schneier said.

> “Today, technology makes de facto policy that’s far more influential than
> any law,” he said. “Law is forever trying to catch up with technology. And
> it’s no longer sustainable for technology and policy to be in different
> worlds.”

Isn't that something of a misreading of late 19th and 20th history?

Just about every decade in the late 19th and the 20th century was part of an
ongoing telecoms, media, and IT boom. There were the telegraph, telephony and
the fax, satellite communications, the internet, usenet, mobile telephony and
SMS, internet forums and chat; radio, TV, streaming and social networks;
typewriters, mechanical counting machines, transistors, microchips,
mainframes, PCs, smartphones; etc. It's just wave after wave after wave after
wave, with every decade or two adding some major development in one form or
another.

Sometimes what was happening required lawmaker attention. Laws and regulation
followed every single time -- if only eventually.

It's not entirely clear to me, apart from scale, how the problems we face
today are that much different than, say, those that were on a would-be
legislator's mind when radio became mainstream or when TV news became a thing.

Bruce's points are most welcome and valid, but I wouldn't be surprised if a
historian were able to dig up people making similar points (at least) since
radio has been around. (Edit: And possibly since Gutenberg's printing press
became mainstream.)

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UncleMeat
Yeah that sentence is egregiously incorrect. Technology and policy have been
intertwined for as long as we have had states. This is a clear example of
somebody not trained in history just winging it when making historical claims.

Heck, the _specific_ technologies that Schneier cares about (related to
communication and privacy) have been tightly coupled with policy for like 600
years. Way back when postal routes where just becoming a thing you already
have state leaders and bureaucrats writing about how technologies like ciphers
cause problems and enacting policies to ensure that states had the power they
wanted over private communications.

~~~
unnouinceput
He is referring to how tech is driving our social life outside of our comfort
and privacy zones. Today you can't function properly, as a member of western
civilization, without carrying a smartphone, and for that you get penetrated
into your privacy by the provider of the phone OS, be it apple or google, the
2 big ones. Before you had cars, tv, planes etc, but none of them followed you
inside in your bedroom. Now you are. So yeah, he is right actually, we need
technologists to become lawmakers, not just specialists that congress only
summons when need it.

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cwingrav
I love the idea, but many of the intrinsic rewards for technologists in tech,
don’t exist in politics. Many issues can be solved fairly easily if we calm
down, take a look at experiences and data, and apply solutions that have been
shown effective. Technologists like solving problems; problem solved. Politics
however have so many other, non-solution/problem based variables, that are
very, very hard to overcome. While I agree with Bruce, we first need to
recapture our politics for the people in the country, not politicians.

~~~
ddebernardy
> Politics however have so many other, non-solution/problem based variables,
> that are very, very hard to overcome. While I agree with Bruce, we first
> need to recapture our politics for the people in the country, not
> politicians.

The main way to do that is for you to get involved. If you do not, someone
else who might not see that as a problem will, and the problem you despise
will continue.

Edit: It's not even hard to do, if you're dreading to meet people. There's an
app out there that (exclusively) helps conservatives organize grassroots
movements and increase their voter turnout. Last I checked there still wasn't
any liberal or libertarian equivalent. If you're into either of the latter,
you can get involved and help your favorite political flavor build an
equivalent app.

~~~
cwingrav
Evidence shows getting involved has little impact. Only money. This quip we
always talk about is not true when you analyze the data. You’re going to hear
more and more about this in the coming years:
[https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/fi...](https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/files/gilens_and_page_2014_-testing_theories_of_american_politics.doc.pdf)

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dogma1138
I think the first thing to do in the US is to bring back the CRS to what it
was supposed and more important needs to be, it’s current budget is only 100
million which is laughable considering how much lobbiest can spend in DC.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Research_Servi...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Research_Service)

Having an independent and impartial think tank that can brief law makers on
the issues they are facing is more important that having people with STEM
degrees in the lagislstive branch.

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gist
Umm, you first Bruce...

Add: Sorry don't mean to add so little. Just feel it's a case of someone
standing on the sidelines who makes a living writing (and that is what Bruce
does, right) pushing others to do what they don't want to do. And to those who
say 'well it's good that he brings the issue out in the open' sure that is the
case. But it might be better if he is actually willing to carry through on his
suggestions or at least talk about someone who he convinced to follow his
idea.

~~~
fergbrain
If the goal was to pick _one_ person to run for office, then Bruce would be a
good candidate.

But that’s not the goal. He’s advocating for lots of candidates, many of whom
will likely need to start running at local levels first.

If Bruce were to run for candidacy it could signal to other technologists that
they don’t need to do anything — which is the opposite of what’s needed.

Instead, I’d like to see Bruce offer to act in an advisory/mentoring role for
the technologists/engineers who do run.

~~~
gist
I think there is also this misconception that politics is about being smart or
being right. That is far from the case. Politics is the art of compromise and
selling others on what you believe in. As such the wrong type of personality
and approach can fail miserably. And the right approach and personality can
win big time even if they have no clue or the wrong or bad ideas. You also
have to be willing to go along and made deals that on the surface seem like
bad ideas to do. If just so that others politicians will pay you back when you
want to get something done. Know how to play the game.

~~~
jacobush
Or win miserably, which is worse. (A play on words, but you know what I mean.)

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wjnc
My opinion in short (nofi): Anyone with decent skills, a love for getting
things done and some need for privacy needs to stay as far away from politics
as possible. I've tried it when young and naive. The 'thinking for others'
part is addictive, plus it's quite the thrill that people actually vote for
you. But it comes with quite the cost. No privacy, death threats, the constant
bending over backwards stretching your true beliefs for the party line. So
many politicians are abusers of substances, prone to corruption and generally
mentally unstable that I don't buy the line 'we need different politicians'
anymore. We need different politics. I have no clue how to get there though
and advocate a quite life for anyone. Not necessarily 9-5, but something with
clear boundaries and where one is not the focal point for any lunatic. I'd
make the same point of not becoming CEO though.

~~~
avmich
Technologists, unlike politicians, have a luxury of creating a system and
offering it to others, without asking for trust (in form of election or other)
or promising doing some specific work (to support the system, to use it etc.)
If the system is good, others will use it; otherwise they won't.

As I understand it, Schneier's idea is to ask technologists to work on systems
solving - even partially - problems which we see today in the society. Even
partial solution can help those whose job is to, in general, govern, i.e.
politicians - as well as hired bureaucrats.

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bane
I absolutely understand the sentiment, but if you've ever seen explosive
arguments over trivial technological decisions, you'd never want technologists
working in an environment where sacrificial compromises are the rule du jour.

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externalreality
Perhaps our voting system should change such that technologists votes/opinions
count more on technological issues rather than just making them lawmakers.
What good is a computer technologist's opinion regarding anything other than
computer tech? That is why I think many lawmaking bodies are broken to begin
with. The people who have the votes on most matters are mostly not the ones
whose opinion should be counting?

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sleepysysadmin
1 thing is for sure. The tech revolution is underway and it will be the
technical people who will own the world.

The caveat of this is that your average non-tech worker will hate tech. This
will be 'robots stealing our jerbs' x10.

Tech workers wont be able to get into office.

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tomc1985
He's a little late isn't he?

As little of five years ago tech had a lot more goodwill than it does now. In
democratic societies we techies probably have more of an uphill battle than
others, because the few of us in charge of companies cannot behave properly

~~~
avmich
Satoshi Nakamoto isn't known as a CEO of a powerful corporation, but his work
had quite an influence over last ~10 years.

We can do something similar. Remember, say, how Skype was created? Or
WhatsApp? Or Paxos? BitTorrent?

~~~
elcomet
Bitcoin had marginal influence among a group of believers. It didn't have a
real world impact (yet ?).

~~~
avmich
Depends on what impact to consider real world. Bunch of people managed to
transfer money from their countries abroad using bitcoin. Lots of papers were
written studying blockchains. Some financial and other organizations
considered and, I believe, at some point deployed systems modeled on Bitcoin
technology. Maybe that's not enough to consider it "real world impact", but I
suspect more than one person's life was noticeably affected by using Bitcoins.

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linkmotif
Lawmakers are elected so yeah good luck.

~~~
unnouinceput
Exactly's Bruce idea as well, as a technologist go run for office...start
locally then go up the ladder. And create laws that you know will stem the
tide of apple/google/facebook to trample your privacy as they see fit.

~~~
linkmotif
Tech people don’t resonate with the electorate. WWE resonates with the
electorate.

