Comment by sillysaurusx
1 day ago
Because we can barely stop new legislation we don't like, let alone pass new ones we do. You're out-monied by lobbyists at all levels.
Maybe a movement could match a lobbyist in terms of money. I hope so.
1 day ago
Because we can barely stop new legislation we don't like, let alone pass new ones we do. You're out-monied by lobbyists at all levels.
Maybe a movement could match a lobbyist in terms of money. I hope so.
> You're out-monied by lobbyists at all levels.
What does industry gain from new laws here?
You can always find something. There's always someone profiteering from anything and everything that politicians could possibly do.
Politicians demanding total surveillance and population control? Of course there's an industry or two for that. Are they lobbying for this stuff? Absolutely.
But what's the causality? That's the ideological question.
In my view, it's a bit too convenient to blame all political evils on capitalism. Power is its own aphrodisiac. Bigotry has no prerequisits. Neither does stupidity.
Better advertisement. Like for example this new bill pushed by Facebook in US about age verification by PC. It will create a universally available API of sorts, which any ad corpo can poll and get more private information about PC user.
Same with this Stazi 2.0 shit by EU. I'm sure the data produced will be either directly processed by some corpo having ad interests, or freely gifted to such corpos.
Less industry, more small coalitions or special interest groups. Any number of things. To name a few factors
- ideaological. They truly believe this is the best choice, or are fixated only on this choice and nothing else. They are putting their money where their mouths are
- financial. Straightforward one. If they need a service to collect ID's and you can get a government contract, that's big, safe, money. Or a politician is bribed and doesn't care either way. Companies find loopholes to sell data and make even more money.
- power. You get a law passed, you get more leverage to being voted into politics, or maintaining your incumbency. You show you can "get things done"
> Maybe a movement could match a lobbyist in terms of money. I hope so.
That's just more lobbying. Politics needs less money involved, not more.
> we can barely stop new legislation we don't like, let alone pass new ones we do
These are literally the same process.
Is it? Stopping is a matter of ground swell support contacting representatives and saying "please don't". Enough people do it to enough receptive reps and they'll vote no.
Passing new ones that "you like" requires lawyers to write laws, get those laws in front of reps, get them to agree to try and pass it, stake some of their reputation on pushing it, get the ground swell to support it -- which might be difficult when the current law is "dont scan messages", you can easily say "hey dont scan anything! support that!" vs "hey scan somethings sometimes", cause many people will call that a slippery slope. I don't see how they are at all the same process.
Stopping legislation means organizing a sufficient number of no votes.
Passing it means organizing a sufficient number of yes votes.
They are the same process and they require exactly the same work. They take place at the exact same moment in time and space, although they are mutually exclusive.
You're free to describe things however you want, but your descriptions won't change the underlying reality.
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