| When politicians do focus groups to fine tune their speeches, they are not looking to change their platform, their opinion, or their actions. They are just looking to fine tune for optics. The knowledge they gain from the focus groups just helps them make their message more palatable. I think of fb that way because they are masters of double speak, weasel words, etc. which is the common behaviour of dishonest politicians. Imo many of the questions posted here can be easily deflected, handled with conversation techniques that any politician or lawyer would know well. You want an airtight position, built on a detailed understanding of how they typically deflect in the past. And because you are asking, you are probably the right person to do this. Harari tried, and despite being brilliant and knowledgeable, he was simply talked over: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Boj9eD0Wug8 Though I suspect he is aiming for a softer approach. Instead of a pile of disconnected questions, I would suggest developing a clear list of requirements, statements which must be true as a set, in order for a social system to have an acceptable level of privacy. The list should be iterated upon, and not sent to them prematurely. It should be built on best practices and knowledge of privacy experts from leading institutions. Then it could be broadly endorsed. Then it could not be as easily weaselled-around. |
This can be a mutually-beneficial transaction -- the powerful entity that needs to manage perceptions gets a boost, and the participants get a reputation boost for being seen involved in powerful circles. Witness that the HN poster's business is being promoted, just by being invited. (Which is a potential conflict of interest for the experts, if they're supposed to be representing some truth or public interest, but they probably have to play along for this personal boost.)
One thing that can possibly upset this transaction is if there's a channel for uncontrolled speaking out around it. Say, the format is a televised/streamed roundtable, and an expert with the mic decides to burn bridges with the organization and others like them, while saying things the organization really doesn't want them to say. (The motivation could be altruistic/duty, or calculated career grandstanding.) Or, in a tightly-controlled format, the expert who wants to never be invited to that kind of thing again could attend and then immediately bite the hand that just fed it, by ripping it on Twitter/YouTube/Medium/news/op-eds/etc.
I've seen a lot of experts play-along for their careers (in this kind of thing and analogous transactions elsewhere), and sometimes you see modest amounts of pushback by people who are still playing a political game, but rarely you notice a person who won't get on the slippery slope of game-playing at all yet who manages to have impact there.
(Personally, I'd be a terrible politician even if I wanted to be, and I just want to quietly solve technical and societal problems, while someone else fronts the band.)