<story><title>Y Combinator has filed an official comment with the FCC</title><url>http://blog.ycombinator.com/y-combinator-has-filed-an-official-comment-with-the-fcc</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>alexqgb</author><text>That&amp;#x27;s the essence of contemporary lobbying. Most legislators can be persuaded with campaign contributions (the carrot) but those that can&amp;#x27;t get threatened with the stick, which comes in the form of a previously unheard of but suddenly flush primary opponent.&lt;p&gt;Add gerrymandering to the mix, and this tactic becomes even harder to resist, since the effective sidelining of an opposing party means that no matter what else happens, the seat in question stays with the side that already holds it. This is what people mean by &amp;quot;safe&amp;quot; seats, by the way. They&amp;#x27;re safe for the &lt;i&gt;party&lt;/i&gt;. Particular incumbents, not so much.&lt;p&gt;So yes. If you have a realistic hope of getting what you want it&amp;#x27;s because you&amp;#x27;re known to have the power to end careers. If legislators refuse to cooperate, their prospects dim. If an agency gets uncooperative, the legislators who oversee it turn the budget screws, causing pain and wrecking livelihoods until the backer with the biggest stick wins. These are the mechanics of regulatory capture, and they&amp;#x27;re in operation every day.&lt;p&gt;Obviously, all of this deeply depressing, and provides an excellent argument for getting private finance out of elections altogether, since that really is the mechanism upon which American-style corruption depends. And while we&amp;#x27;re at it, de-rigging the vote with non-partisan redistricting and establishing a nation-wide version of the (pre-gutted) Voting Rights Act would go a long way in fostering a government of, by, and for the people.&lt;p&gt;But in the meantime, when our systems is less like a democracy and more like an oligarchy, getting what you want means playing by the rules that exist. And that means lobbying with both carrot and stick. They hit you, you hit back. And not only do you hit back harder, you hit back so hard that they will never get up again. That&amp;#x27;s what the SOPA&amp;#x2F;PIPA backlash did: threatened a sweeping act of maximum violence to an unprecedented number of careers.&lt;p&gt;It was brutal and it was ugly, but it worked. And it did so when there&amp;#x27;s not much else that does.</text></item><item><author>harrystone</author><text>I appreciate what Alexis is trying to do here but I hope he isn&amp;#x27;t assuming that the FCC just doesn&amp;#x27;t understand the problem.  That&amp;#x27;s how this reads to me.  Maybe the idea is to be diplomatic.  I don&amp;#x27;t think the FCC cares.  The FCC understands what is going on and it wants to do whatever is best for the FCC.&lt;p&gt;The best thing for tech companies to do is to start destroying some political careers.  That&amp;#x27;s the only thing the machine understands and the only thing it&amp;#x27;s really going to respond to.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>juliangamble</author><text>Lawrence Lessig is working on a people-power initiative to fix the problem of getting private finance out of elections:
&lt;a href=&quot;https://mayday.us/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;mayday.us&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayday_PAC&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Mayday_PAC&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Y Combinator has filed an official comment with the FCC</title><url>http://blog.ycombinator.com/y-combinator-has-filed-an-official-comment-with-the-fcc</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>alexqgb</author><text>That&amp;#x27;s the essence of contemporary lobbying. Most legislators can be persuaded with campaign contributions (the carrot) but those that can&amp;#x27;t get threatened with the stick, which comes in the form of a previously unheard of but suddenly flush primary opponent.&lt;p&gt;Add gerrymandering to the mix, and this tactic becomes even harder to resist, since the effective sidelining of an opposing party means that no matter what else happens, the seat in question stays with the side that already holds it. This is what people mean by &amp;quot;safe&amp;quot; seats, by the way. They&amp;#x27;re safe for the &lt;i&gt;party&lt;/i&gt;. Particular incumbents, not so much.&lt;p&gt;So yes. If you have a realistic hope of getting what you want it&amp;#x27;s because you&amp;#x27;re known to have the power to end careers. If legislators refuse to cooperate, their prospects dim. If an agency gets uncooperative, the legislators who oversee it turn the budget screws, causing pain and wrecking livelihoods until the backer with the biggest stick wins. These are the mechanics of regulatory capture, and they&amp;#x27;re in operation every day.&lt;p&gt;Obviously, all of this deeply depressing, and provides an excellent argument for getting private finance out of elections altogether, since that really is the mechanism upon which American-style corruption depends. And while we&amp;#x27;re at it, de-rigging the vote with non-partisan redistricting and establishing a nation-wide version of the (pre-gutted) Voting Rights Act would go a long way in fostering a government of, by, and for the people.&lt;p&gt;But in the meantime, when our systems is less like a democracy and more like an oligarchy, getting what you want means playing by the rules that exist. And that means lobbying with both carrot and stick. They hit you, you hit back. And not only do you hit back harder, you hit back so hard that they will never get up again. That&amp;#x27;s what the SOPA&amp;#x2F;PIPA backlash did: threatened a sweeping act of maximum violence to an unprecedented number of careers.&lt;p&gt;It was brutal and it was ugly, but it worked. And it did so when there&amp;#x27;s not much else that does.</text></item><item><author>harrystone</author><text>I appreciate what Alexis is trying to do here but I hope he isn&amp;#x27;t assuming that the FCC just doesn&amp;#x27;t understand the problem.  That&amp;#x27;s how this reads to me.  Maybe the idea is to be diplomatic.  I don&amp;#x27;t think the FCC cares.  The FCC understands what is going on and it wants to do whatever is best for the FCC.&lt;p&gt;The best thing for tech companies to do is to start destroying some political careers.  That&amp;#x27;s the only thing the machine understands and the only thing it&amp;#x27;s really going to respond to.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>nickff</author><text>&amp;gt;&lt;i&gt;&amp;quot;our systems is less like a democracy and more like an oligarchy&amp;quot;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;What if the problem is simply that very few voters care about the issue, and that even less would be willing to change their vote over this issue?</text></comment>