Leaders of the pack
Wired magazine yesterday posted an interview with Rep. Chris Boucher, who apparently has sided with consumers in the intellectual-property judical lottery, saying that "the balance of copyright law has tipped too far toward the entertainment companies' interests, hampering consumers' rights to use digital media."
The content of Boucher's interview and position aren't so much important here (though kudos to him for having them). What I'm interested in is the idea of a politician--one of those mostly old, mostly white dudes who hang out in that big building down the street from my office--is actually ahead of the learning curve when it comes to technology (and hush, I'm not getting all age-ist here).
One of the things that's hampered the development and implementation of new technology on a national political level is that the people in charge tend to want to do things their own way, the way they're comfortable doing things. Maybe the only reason some of them have Web sites at all (even badly designed ones, as Boucher himself aptly demonstrates), is because they had young staff members hounding them every day until they got one. So as far behind the times as your average voter is, maybe your average politican is even farther behind.
Aside from that horrible first crack at regulation with the Communications Decency Act, our government has largely left the Internet alone, either realizing it can't be regulated or out of fear of even trying to keep up with it. Could you imagine the state of political technology right now if our representatives were even half as knowledgable about and interested in the Internet as the folks in our class.
What would Congress be like if it were run by the staff of Wired magazine? Or the CS department of your college?
The content of Boucher's interview and position aren't so much important here (though kudos to him for having them). What I'm interested in is the idea of a politician--one of those mostly old, mostly white dudes who hang out in that big building down the street from my office--is actually ahead of the learning curve when it comes to technology (and hush, I'm not getting all age-ist here).
One of the things that's hampered the development and implementation of new technology on a national political level is that the people in charge tend to want to do things their own way, the way they're comfortable doing things. Maybe the only reason some of them have Web sites at all (even badly designed ones, as Boucher himself aptly demonstrates), is because they had young staff members hounding them every day until they got one. So as far behind the times as your average voter is, maybe your average politican is even farther behind.
Aside from that horrible first crack at regulation with the Communications Decency Act, our government has largely left the Internet alone, either realizing it can't be regulated or out of fear of even trying to keep up with it. Could you imagine the state of political technology right now if our representatives were even half as knowledgable about and interested in the Internet as the folks in our class.
What would Congress be like if it were run by the staff of Wired magazine? Or the CS department of your college?
2 Comments:
It's definitely an interesting question to ponder. Perhaps if the average congressman understood a bit more about the internet we wouldn't have lobbyists writing all the internet-related bills. Perhaps politicians who are more familiar with the medium will have an advantage going forward.
Of course, there's one politician who really understood how important the Internet was for the future, and did more than any other Senator to bolster it for the future. And we all know the reward that Al Gore got for that...
Both the post and the comment are good points. I don't think this state of affairs will last very long, but it's why what we're learning will be (hopefully) marketable.
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