[nurtbo]

Privacy laws actually work! Let’s pass more of them.

> Information gathered about you after the effective date of our updated Privacy Statement, November 27, 2024, will be shared with participating stores where you shop, *unless you live in California, North Dakota, or Vermont.* For PayPal customers in California, North Dakota, or Vermont, we’ll only share your information with those merchants if you tell us to do so

[tmpz22]

In 1999 the show writers of the West Wing accurately predicated this in an episode about the selection of a Supreme Court Judge:

"It's not just about abortion, it's about the next 20 years. In the '20s and '30s it was the role of government. '50s and '60s it was civil rights. The next two decades are going to be privacy. I'm talking about the Internet. I'm talking about cell phones. I'm talking about health records and who's gay and who's not. And moreover, in a country born on the will to be free, what could be more fundamental than this?"

- Sam Seaborn (Rob Lowe) West Wing (ep: The Short List) 1999

- We've seen massive breaches of EMR systems

- We've seen massive breeahes from dating apps (Grindr) outing Gay individuals

- None of these entities faced significant consequences for their actions and continue to operate with large amounts of profit.

- 2 years after this episode the Patriot Act was passed. We've failed on privacy so far.

[m463]

The government has failed the constituents.

Regulatory capture is still the highest ROI investment, and we should work on that.

[potato3732842]

It's a perverse feedback loop. The more power the .gov has to regulate the better the ROI of regulatory capture.'

I'm not sure how we get out of this situation without it getting way worse.

[hobobaggins]

Reduce the power of the govt to regulate things at the federal level and instead move that power to the states. This will return power to the people, and people will naturally move to states that are delivering for them (whatever that is that they're looking for).

Across 50 states, this makes it 50 times harder (literally) to practice regulatory capture, and 50 times as likely that they'll be caught out by it, and because news travels at the speed of light today (unlike in the Constitutional era), 50 times as likely that the other state residents will find out about it.

Everything becomes fifty times better once we just return to the principles of federalism: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." (Tenth Amendment)

Decentralization still works. Push the power back downward to the people who care the most -- you and me. Even though it's one of the rare examples of a federal governing agency that is mostly apolitical and actually functions semi-effectively, the FTC, for example, is a largely pointless, neutered entity that pales in comparison to state powers. For example, the state Attorneys General were able to effectively destroy Big Tobacco. The federal government didn't even come close.

[paulryanrogers]

People cannot move so easily. Some states have more influence than others. It also makes the decision of 'where' to move more complex.

Do I choose a state where my daughters have few rights or one where corporations control everything or where the pollution is so bad my kid's IQ will suffer?

[fragmede]

Also, the one without school shootings please.

[consteval]

This just doesn't work because MOST companies are multi-state. Hell, most are multi-national in the new globalized world. So you have to appeal to the lowest common denominator.

[Hikikomori]

Sounds like a free market approach, we know how that usually goes, and we already see how bad it is for women and abortions.

[tekknik]

It seems like most of the problems with abortions are seeking one when you want one and don’t need one and also live in a state that outlaws them. In fact recently I read an article where the Drs refused a medically necessary abortion and even the judge said they were cleared given the situation.

when will people stop being controlling and learn there’s two sides to this?

[b3ing]

Yeah and only 1 or 2 states will get around to doing anything about that 5-10 years down the road.

[r-w]

Huh? Why can't you just regulate the flow of private funds to public servants and leave it at that? Not sure why you seem to be arguing that passing one bill expands the power of government as a whole.

[bee_rider]

Someone should come up with a form of government where we just, like, ask the people what they want the government to do and then it does that.

[paulryanrogers]

Supreme Court said money is speech and corporations are persons. We'll need to unwind some of the crazy first.

[UncleMeat]

The supreme court has said that partisan gerrymandering is a-okay, making it totally viable for states with 50-50 populations to end up with supermajorities in their state legislatures and house delegations.

The federal senate is not allocated according to the population and does not directly reflect the will of the majority.

Efforts to limit access to the franchise have been upheld by the courts and key protections from federal legislation like the voting rights act have been undone.

Even when the federal government does pass laws or regulations, the courts step in to strike them down through increasingly spurious reasoning.

[Loughla]

I was at breakfast this morning and overheard a conversation at the table next to me.

This conversation was about how a recent thunderstorm had small hail accompanying the rain. And then that this small hail was the leftover seeds from "the jet planes spraying that stuff to control the weather."

Direct voting on issues terrifies me.

[Yeul]

Yes the American system is based on the admirable but false idea of the intelligent citizen. It probably worked a lot better when all the voters were wealthy land owners.

[bitnasty]

Worked better for who?

[throw10920]

...and yet it works better than any other system in existence.

The only people who want to dissolve the US system are those who wish to take advantage of a weaker system for their own benefit.

[jh00ker]

I was at a coffee shop a couple weeks ago and I heard two guys going on about how the moon landing never could have happened because it seems impossible. They didn't have any supporting data. They just kept saying things like "all the footage looked so totally fake." My favorite was "and how did they even get back to Earth? I don't remember ever seeing video of then launching a rocket off the moon, do you?"

SMH

[orbisvicis]

The astronauts drew straws, and Sandy Koufax had the bad fortune to draw the short straw. He would stay behind to roll tape while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were to return home. The two astronauts would remain suited for the ascent. Buzz Aldrin would monitor the instrument consoles while Neil Armstrong was to remain tethered to the open hatchway in what was later termed "a daring attempt" to recover the film canister thrown by Sandy Koufax. Unfortunately Neil Armstrong was unable to recover the canister. He described it whizzing past his gloved fingers merely inches away during the docking maneuvers with the command module. No one knows what became of the footage. To this day it is likely tumbling around the cold dark expanse of space, perhaps as a new lunar satellite.

... and that's why we don't have footage of the lunar ascent.

[bee_rider]

Eh, I guess, although I’ve also heard some pretty wild things by elected officials. What can we do?

[bloomingeek]

I'm a boomer, the best thing is for my generation to die out. We are the most selfish and ignorant generation ever in modern times. And yet we had access to the most information! My kids don't like me to talk like this, my reply is always, "prove me wrong". (I'm referring to the mess we have caused the world, not necessarily the mankind helping accomplishments.)

[awkwardpotato]

There are so many beautiful quote I love from the West Wing... but this one stands out for me because of how (a decade off but) shockingly accurate it is.

[SturgeonsLaw]

Imagine if the real government was as competent and good faith as the West Wing government

[switch007]

Right! The West Wing was political porn, and I loved it (and still re-watch it occasionally)

[darknavi]

This is so open faced and gross. It reminds of someone talking about getting paid minimum wage. If you get paid minimum wage, what your employer is saying is, "I would pay you less if I was legally allowed to do so."

It also reminds me of State Farm's (auto/home insurance in the US) website with this link at the bottom:

> Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information (CA residents only)

[heavensteeth]

> If you get paid minimum wage, what your employer is saying is, "I would pay you less if I was legally allowed to do so."

Doesn't this apply to all pay rates? It's not like high-paying jobs are high-paying for the love in the employer's heart.

When does a wage stop being gross? 1c over minimum wage? $1 over?

[toomuchtodo]

Don’t get mad, get active. Keep cranking on the policy ratchet, progress and success is clearly possible.

[tekknik]

The “progress” is driving a wedge so deep in US society that many think there won’t be a country left after the progressives are done. They have all but destroyed any national identity and made us very easy to invade and continue to try to do so with gun control laws. you’re happy about progress, I’m terrified because the progressives don’t consider whether something they want is good or bad for the country, they just demand it regardless.

[toomuchtodo]

My comment speaks specifically to consumer/citizen data privacy, which shouldn’t be a partisan or contentious issue (imho).

[tekknik]

then reword it.

[mrkramer]

That's what Disqus has at the bottom of every of their comments section[0]. I find it ridiculous.

[0] https://electricdusk.com/img/disqus-gdpr-violation-marketing...

[blackeyeblitzar]

I would like a tax relating to privacy violations to be retroactive in all these other states. It’s actually legal to apply a retroactive tax, so why not?

[seneca]

> If you get paid minimum wage, what your employer is saying is, "I would pay you less if I was legally allowed to do so."

The minimum wage is the government saying "if you produce less value than this arbitrary cut off, you aren't allowed to work".

[kelnos]

Ah, lovely, you're one of those people.

If you produce less value than the cutoff (whatever that means; wages are set based on how little a company can get away with paying, not on some arbitrary "value" you've assigned to the work), companies that employ you still have to pay you a living wage. Or not even, since minimum wage usually lags a living wage.

The funny thing is, I bet you're also the kind of person who is against welfare programs. So if the minimum wage didn't exist, people in these sorts of jobs would get paid so little that they'd end up on welfare. Not sure how that would be an improvement.

[eadmund]

> If you produce less value than the [minimum wage], companies that employ you still have to pay you

True enough, I suppose, but … if one produces less than one costs, a company will not employ one. Why would a company employ someone who produces less than he costs?

[tekknik]

the improvement here is in increasing skills, not paying someone more than the value they produce for the country, nor paying someone not producing any value.

welfare is great if your field is being phased out and you need retraining, or you’re disable or handicap but i loath people taking it when they simply don’t want to work and continue to have more kids that the state then pays for.

to help you understand this better let people move in with you and live off of your resources until you have none left for yourself. then don’t complain.

also insults aren’t allowed on HN

[majormajor]

Wages are more a factor of supply and demand and negotiation resulting from that than of value produced.

Otherwise we can have a long argument about if NFL players today truly produce 2-3x more "value" than 20-30 years ago for playing the same game.

(You might say "value" itself is coming from supply demand and that yes if more people have demand for NFL tickets or advertising spots during NFL games now then yes, the players are producing more value... but at that point when we acknowledge how interconnected and shape-able it all is, we could say that minimum wage is the government redirecting labor and businesses away from roles and behaviors that aren't even enough to cover the cost of living towards ones that are more valuable. Which would be... good?)

[krapp]

No it isn't, because wages aren't set based on some objective measurement of the quality of value produced. If that were the case, increases in productivity would have resulted in a commensurate increase in wages, but the only increase is the gap between wages and productivity.

[tekknik]

So all of the AI engineers getting large bonuses it has nothing to do with the value?

What you’ve described here is the way it’s supposed to work. But after decades of “progress” in removing morality you see the wage gap problem now.

[LegitShady]

you know what works better? delete your paypal account and dont use them as a service. I did this years ago and in fact have never missed not having one of these accounts. and since I'm not using paypal they're not sharing info on my to stores when i shop, whether my local laws allow it or not.

[OJFord]

They refuse to delete the account I never intentionally created (their scammy credit card checkout tactics when I had no other option) unless I provide them a bunch of data I've never previously given them in order to 'verify' my identity.

[tekknik]

Do you live in one of the states with privacy protections? If so, threaten them or turn them into the AG for the state.

[rrix2]

I live in Oregon but they opted me out by default, perhaps because I have an old CA address in my list of old delivery addresses?

[guywithahat]

They also raise the bar of entry for companies, reducing competition. I don't use PayPal and won't use Venmo in stores because of this, however I certainly wouldn't be putting trust in more legislation solving this.

[davidlumley]

Can you explain what bar has been raised unless you were planning to sell PII as part of your business model?