Harris-Walz / Dems

CoffeeHorse

Hanging in there
Staff member
Council of Elders
Citizen
Makes sense. Those are some of the only computers you'll find in D.C. that have screens.
 

Pocket

jumbled pile of person
Citizen
The administrative state needs to go. There are things that would be harder to do without it. There are good things that would go away, and there are some terrible people who want it gone for exactly that reason.

But it needs to go, because jive like this is the inevitable conclusion.
I am unclear what you are calling for. Just complete abolition of government entirely?
 

CoffeeHorse

Hanging in there
Staff member
Council of Elders
Citizen
No. Just this current setup that allows congress to have no idea what their own bills do because it'll be some administrator's job to figure out the implementation. I don't think these people know what an operating system is. They think they're targeting phones and app stores, but they're using words they do not understand, because they don't have to understand. There's no mechanism in the system that requires them to understand.
 

Rhinox

too old for this
Citizen
Doesn't help that so many bills are written by donors and lobbyists. Hell, I genuinely wonder how many congressmen even read the bills they introduce.
 

CoffeeHorse

Hanging in there
Staff member
Council of Elders
Citizen
It would be funny to watch them read their bills in full, and explain line by line what they mean.
 

Pocket

jumbled pile of person
Citizen
No. Just this current setup that allows congress to have no idea what their own bills do because it'll be some administrator's job to figure out the implementation.
And how would you propose making such a sweeping yet vaguely described change? The only "solution" I've heard proposed to this setup is to abolish the bureaucracy entirely, a move championed by the right specifically because it will free corporations from having to follow any laws or regulations whatsoever.
 

MrBlud

Well-known member
Citizen
The EPA (for example) is going to have much more of an idea how to “reduce air pollution” than some random dude Idaho voted in to be a Senator. I have no problem with Congress mandating air pollution be lowered and trust the experts to do it.

We need an administrative framework to make everything go. The problem when one party keeps sending people who *do* want to destroy everything that keeps the rich from doing whatever the hell they want to both people and the environment.
 

CoffeeHorse

Hanging in there
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Council of Elders
Citizen
And how would you propose making such a sweeping yet vaguely described change? The only "solution" I've heard proposed to this setup is to abolish the bureaucracy entirely, a move championed by the right specifically because it will free corporations from having to follow any laws or regulations whatsoever.

I want the implementation details in the actual bill, so they're subject to debate and amendments. So not skipping the regulatory process. Just bringing it in house. We could even have our cake and eat it too here. There could still be some body of concentrated expertise that has input, just as long as the responsibility is still on Congress to debate that input and work it into the text of a bill.

Something like the Congressional Budget Office, but for implementation planning, not just cost estimates.
 

MrBlud

Well-known member
Citizen
Isn’t that just a further layer of bureaucracy?

And again, a large enough body to do *that* on every single bill isn’t going to have the expertise of a dedicated autonomous agency.

What about the current system is broken in your view?
 

CoffeeHorse

Hanging in there
Staff member
Council of Elders
Citizen
The autonomous part is the problem. Congress gets to have a "Not my problem" attitude to the implementation and effects of their own bills because it is in fact someone else's problem. I don't believe they're in all in on a plot to usher in the digital dystopian doom that tech writers are dooming about. They just don't know how clumsily broad the language of their own bills is. All they know is Facebook is willing to pay a lot of money for them to pass this crap, and they get to say they're protecting kids. They don't know the implications of any of this. They don't have to, because it is someone else's job.

We already have the layer of bureaucracy that figures out what these bills do. It's just devoted to making sense of this jive after things are passed into law instead of potentially preventing a stupid mistake from happening. What good is their expertise if they're handed something practically unworkable?
 

The Mighty Mollusk

Scream all you like, 'cause we're all mad here
Citizen
The problem there is that requires Congresspeople who actually know what they're talking about. People who aren't morons seldom get elected in this country.
 

Ungnome

Grand Empress of the Empire of One Square Foot.
Citizen
It would be funny to watch them read their bills in full, and explain line by line what they mean.
Should be a requirement for any law to be passed, really. Read the entirety ON THE FLOOR. Don't just hand people copies they may or may not read.
 

Pocket

jumbled pile of person
Citizen
That combined with the bills needing to be an order of magnitude longer is going to result in a lot fewer bills ever making it to the debate floor, let alone passed.
 

NovaSaber

Well-known member
Citizen
I want the implementation details in the actual bill, so they're subject to debate and amendments. So not skipping the regulatory process. Just bringing it in house. We could even have our cake and eat it too here. There could still be some body of concentrated expertise that has input, just as long as the responsibility is still on Congress to debate that input and work it into the text of a bill.

Something like the Congressional Budget Office, but for implementation planning, not just cost estimates.
I think the opposite would make more sense.

Have the regulatory bodies write the regulations first, and then Congress has to approve or reject them.
 

CoffeeHorse

Hanging in there
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Council of Elders
Citizen
We're getting at the same thing there, having the implementation worked out and then Congress has to approve or reject that. But for accountability's sake I still want it to be Congress' job to introduce the ideas in the first place. They propose the idea, they either work out the implementation or refer to whatever body for input, they debate and vote on a final package that includes the implementation.
 

Dekafox

Fabulously Foxy Dragon
Citizen
Text is out now and yeah.


Oh look, your smart watch counts. So does the self-checkout cash register at your Grocery store. And the Automated Teller Machine at your bank. Your Cable TV set top box. Your Smart TV. Smart Refrigerator. The turnstile at your train station reading your Java Card Smart card. The Java Card smart card itself. Your dental hygiene water pick. Your CPAP machine that helps you breathe.

(4) OPERATING SYSTEM.—The term “operating system” means software that supports the basic functions of a computer, mobile device, or any other general purpose computing device.

General purpose computing device is going to do a lot of work there on what of those examples are covered. And again, what of embedded WIndows and the like on milling machines etc? And air-gapped devices?

ALso from https://social.coop/@cwebber/116408556882122186 :
EDIT: Well the text is now out and it's as bad as you could imagine. It's not even just that you need to verify your age to access a website... operating systems must verify your age to let you *use a computer at all*

EDIT EDIT: Thanks to @Andres4NY for pointing out that it also holds responsible anyone who has any software shipped on the operating system of a computer, meaning FOSS developers eveywhere
 

NovaSaber

Well-known member
Citizen

We don't know who's funding this stuff for sure, there was the vibecoded analysis that came to the conclusion of Meta, but I suspect that could be true but Meta wouldn't be alone.

Who stands to benefit from this? A lot of forces of centralization, and anti-LGBTQ orgs:

- Microsoft, for sure, since they are seeing Windows' dominance threatened?
- Apple, for similar reasons?
- Peter Theil and similar surveillance company owners and operators?
- Anti-queer orgs and think tanks like the Heritage Foundation?
- Cloudflare, who will probably run the age verification paywalls everyone will be forced to deploy?

Who's behind this? Who's getting politicians so excited about it? There's such a swell of bipartisan support seemingly out of nowhere, and my suspicion is a lot of that enthusiasm is coming from check-writing.

So who's behind it?
 

CoffeeHorse

Hanging in there
Staff member
Council of Elders
Citizen
"General purpose" probably excludes embedded stuff. But this still would affect enough businesses that I remain hopeful this will quietly die when it comes time to figure out the implementation. It can't be done.

Microsoft can't possibly want this with all the legacy stuff they still privately support. It's not as simple as stuffing this into Windows 12. They'll have to patch everything.
 

NovaSaber

Well-known member
Citizen
Yeah, I'm thinking the actual intended meaning of "general purpose computing device" is not to be overly inclusive, but to specifically exclude specialized devices.

I also can't imagine anyone who wants this actually gives a jive whether it is actually enforced on devices that don't connect to the internet, whether they have the sense to actually restrict it to internet-capable devices or not.

But even then that still leaves a bunch of things it seems to apply to but would be impossible to implement on.
 


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