<story><title>From net neutrality to digital privacy, Congress does diddly</title><url>https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/from-net-neutrality-to-digital-privacy-congress-does-diddly/2017/11/28/bd2dd442-d44f-11e7-a986-d0a9770d9a3e_story.html?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-f%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&amp;utm_term=.6040d7c6044f</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>makecheck</author><text>Even if Congress &lt;i&gt;were&lt;/i&gt; paying any attention to what constituents want (and they rarely seem to), it’s laughable that such a small number of people are expected to faithfully understand the wishes of so many people.  Right now it’s on the order of one &lt;i&gt;million&lt;/i&gt; regular people per representative!&lt;p&gt;Moreover, with such a small number of people, buying them becomes “easy”; it just doesn’t take that much money to corrupt a few hundred people.  If most people need to work their entire lives to reach a million dollars, does it really take much for billionaires to steer the ship?&lt;p&gt;Now, if you were to &lt;i&gt;vastly&lt;/i&gt; increase the number of representatives, you’d solve both problems.  Suppose there were &lt;i&gt;5,000&lt;/i&gt; members of Congress; then it would take a lot more money to corrupt enough people to change outcomes, &lt;i&gt;and&lt;/i&gt; each of them would have to represent a much smaller fraction of the population.&lt;p&gt;A huge number of representatives would’ve been impractical before the age of the Internet (as you’d need a stadium just to hold a session) but with secure remote access it’s &lt;i&gt;quite&lt;/i&gt; feasible to have tons of people logged in at once.  And heck, why not designate a Congress-stadium anyway, for rare in-person sessions?  If it works for mega-churches, it can work for politicians.</text></comment>
<story><title>From net neutrality to digital privacy, Congress does diddly</title><url>https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/from-net-neutrality-to-digital-privacy-congress-does-diddly/2017/11/28/bd2dd442-d44f-11e7-a986-d0a9770d9a3e_story.html?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-f%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&amp;utm_term=.6040d7c6044f</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>jswizzy</author><text>Good. To quote Lao Tzu, &amp;quot;The more restrictions and prohibitions there are, the poorer the people will be.&amp;quot;</text></comment>