Talks at Google
10 HN recommenders · recommended in 12 months, 2011–2017
57:19 · 96K views · Nov 16, 2011
Lawrence Lessig's Talks at Google presentation based on his book Republic, Lost, arguing that money in politics corrupts Congress and eroded public trust, and outlining what could be done about it. It supports the argument with data on political donations.
A perennial HN recommendation whenever lobbying, SOPA, taxes or political corruption come up, with several commenters saying it changed their views.
17 comments from Hacker News
> This idea that the root cause of all bad legislation is political donations: it's wrong, and not supported by the data. The vast majority of political donations are made by people who are not lobbyists. You make a very bold statement without backing it with any line of reasoning or pointing to any supporting material. I am no expert in this matter so I can not know if you are wrong. But in an older thread someone posted this excellent talk by Lawrence Lessig: this video . It's well worth watching and counters your statement. His arguments are very well presented and reasoned. He also shows some supporting data. Given that, I cannot attribute much weight to your statement.
I haven't read his previous book, "Republic, Lost", but I saw the 1 hour speech at Google from last year, that was based on it, and it was great. He explains how the Government ended up having a relationship with corporations instead of "the people", and what is needed to solve this (almost unsolvable) problem. this video
If your really interested in doing something about it, I would suggest taking a look at [LINK] And without a second lost, watch this: this video That video has changed my point of view on the entire subject and has allowed me to start striking at the root.
Actually, They are right. I really think you should take the time to watch this video, understand it, let it sink in and totally mold your brain around it. this video
It would be far better if congress is representative of the people of the country and be composed of doctors, engineers, teachers, taxi drivers, farmers, candlestick makers etc. The legislators do not actually write the laws. They have staff as well as there being a process to help improve the text before legislating (eg publishing drafts). For some legislation (eg covering the financial industry) often the law that is passed just requires a government agency (eg SEC) to come up with the rules. One of Michael Moore's films had a clip of a congressman explaining that they don't even read the legislation they vote on. It is a common claim that much of the legislation is written by lobbyists. And if you actually read any of it, it would obviously not really be what you would expect (short, legible). Here is an example of trying to solve the problem: [LINK] The representatives use legislation as a fund raising mechanism (contributions are well documented). For example there were several taxes added temporarily to see if they worked well. They did, but congress doesn't make them permanent. Instead they wait to be paid each time to renew them temporarily again. (This started in the Reagan administration.) See this excellent talk by Lessig: this video The whole tax provisions as fund raising is covered at 7m30s. And the corruption is obvious at 25m20s.