[HN Gopher] California Right to Repair Bill Dies in Senate Commi...
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California Right to Repair Bill Dies in Senate Committee
Author : pabs3
Score : 378 points
Date : 2022-05-30 13:45 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (calpirg.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (calpirg.org)
| tigen wrote:
| This committee is the following seven people:
| Senator Anthony J. Portantino (Chair) Senator Patricia C.
| Bates (Vice Chair) Senator Steven Bradford Senator
| Brian W. Jones Senator Sydney Kamlager Senator John
| Laird Senator Bob Wieckowski
| [deleted]
| abledon wrote:
| Throng of GPT-3 powered complaint emails coming in 3...2...1...
| wyrm wrote:
| _Thank_ you. Exactly the info I was looking for.
|
| Now, where did you find it, so I can look there next time?
| tigen wrote:
| listed on https://sapro.senate.ca.gov
| Drunk_Engineer wrote:
| You would think if anyone understood the problem of eWaste it
| would be Sen Laird. From his Bio:
|
| "Laird served as a member of the State Integrated Waste
| Management Board from 2008 to 2009 and taught state
| environmental policy at University of California Santa Cruz."
| mijoharas wrote:
| As someone that doesn't have a strong understanding of american
| politics, can I check my understanding?
|
| This means that a majority of senators voted to oppose the bill,
| (after it had been approved by the house). Is that correct?
|
| Are there common websites where you can see exactly how
| individual senators vote on specific issues? (in the UK we have
| publicwhip.org.uk where you can search anything that you care
| about and see if your mp voted in a way you agree with).
|
| What method do americans tend to use to check that their
| politicians are voting in their interest?
| [deleted]
| tylermac1 wrote:
| > What method do americans tend to use to check that their
| politicians are voting in their interest?
|
| Sadly it's usually directly correlated with how much money you
| give them.
| Avshalom wrote:
| Before a bill goes before the full Senate it gets
| debated/edited in a relevant committee, if the committee votes
| against the bill it never goes up for the full vote.
| wiz21c wrote:
| Does it mean that whoever selects (controls) the committee
| pretty much selects the fate of the bill ?
| glowingly wrote:
| Not really. In CA, if h/a really wanted something, they
| could gut and amend an existing bill that did make it out
| of committee.
|
| Or use the proposition system (public vote), but that
| system is just as captured, IMO.
| Avshalom wrote:
| The committees are generally permanent, not instantiated
| per bill, and the senators on the committee doesn't change
| often (the majority party does get to have a majority
| membership in all the committees) but yeah, committee
| membership can be really powerful and gets used as a
| reward/threat by party leadership.
| donthellbanme wrote:
| pvg wrote:
| _This means that a majority of senators voted to oppose the
| bill, (after it had been approved by the house). Is that
| correct?_
|
| No, the bill did not get to a vote by the full CA senate.
| Senate committees deal with the bill before that and this one
| did not get through that hurdle on the way to becoming law.
|
| https://www.senate.ca.gov/committees
| ianbutler wrote:
| If they vote against your interests you don't vote for them
| again and try to not get them re-elected. However, through
| writing their own rules, heavy campaigning and the two party
| system making a vote for your favorite team better than letting
| the other guy get in this in effect no longer works on either
| side. It requires a fairly unified effort to get someone out
| but the majority of voting attention is squarely captured on
| both sides leading to the same hackery voted in again and
| again.
|
| It's one of the many reasons why I don't see changes in the
| American political system happening without real rebellion type
| actions but the pain isn't felt enough yet to make thinking
| like that completely palatable.
|
| And not to mention the voting body of the united states is
| completely polarized and divided.
| busterarm wrote:
| > It's one of the many reasons why I don't see changes in the
| American political system happening without real rebellion
| type actions but the pain isn't felt enough yet to make
| thinking like that completely palatable.
|
| Parties have changed in this country's history before without
| rebellion.
|
| It will happen again. I imagine soon (25 years or less),
| even.
| rob74 wrote:
| IIRC the last time that happened was in the 1850s, when the
| Whig party
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whig_Party_(United_States))
| lost its significance and was replaced by the Republican
| party? That's more than 170 years ago, so I'm not holding
| my breath waiting for it to happen again...
| colinmhayes wrote:
| The republican party just in the last 10 years changed
| from Reaganism to populism. Even if the name is the same
| their platform absolutely is not. When a party realizes
| their platform is a loser it'll change its tune.
| ianbutler wrote:
| I think fundamental elements of the system are broken such
| that we even landed on a two party system in the first
| place and it's more of those types of changes I'd like to
| see. In terms of ideology Parties change all the time. Look
| at the transformation the GOP has had over the last 10
| years even. That I'm not worried about, but issues like
| term limits to prevent the effective gerontocracy we have,
| ranked choice voting, stopping arbitrary district
| restructuring, effective representation by population and
| more are things that benefit both existing parties
| regardless of their current ideology and so they don't
| stand to change.
|
| I also go back and forth on the electoral college in the
| case of the president but I'm not quite at the point where
| I want it to disappear without having an alternative.
| guerrilla wrote:
| > leading to the same hackery voted in again and again.
|
| Or being replaced by an isomorphic sock puppet.
| dvtrn wrote:
| _Are there common websites where you can see exactly how
| individual senators vote on specific issues?_
|
| From the article, where it is linked "SB 983", clicking that,
| and clicking the tab that says "Votes" will show who voted yay
| and nay for this bill[1]. There are many sites, yes, but you
| can also just get this directly from state legislatures.
|
| [1]
| https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billVotesClient.xht...
| MafellUser wrote:
| house.gov and senate.gov both have public tallies on bills.
|
| https://clerk.house.gov/Votes
| https://www.senate.gov/legislative/votes_new.htm
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| Not for California bills
| [deleted]
| atty wrote:
| The link is right in the article:
| https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml...
|
| It shows the history of the bill including votes. Each state
| does this differently, as well as the federal government. As
| for what happened to this bill, it never made it to a full
| senate vote, it died in a sub-committee, essentially.
| CodeWriter23 wrote:
| Yes but the recent Senate Committee votes for this bill have
| yet to be published on the site.
| phrz wrote:
| "Dying in committee" means that the bill did not go to the
| entire California Senate for a vote, but that a majority of the
| committee to which the bill was assigned were unable to support
| the bill to move it onto the floor. It looks like the article
| links to the site that tracks bill status, but it appears that
| site does not record how a committee voted.
| CodeWriter23 wrote:
| It just hasn't been updated yet. You'll be able to see it
| when the update happens, here https://leginfo.legislature.ca.
| gov/faces/billVotesClient.xht...
|
| The Rules Committees from both chambers have required Roll
| Call votes, primarily so CADEM can punish its members who go
| off message.
| black_puppydog wrote:
| > it appears that site does not record how a committee voted
|
| Do you know if that information will be public record in any
| way? If not, this seems like an awful lot of power in very
| few, non-accountable hands...
| jfengel wrote:
| They're accountable in the sense that they're all up for
| reelection. You can show up and demand an explanation of
| the bill status and the role they played. If you don't like
| it you can vote for someone else.
|
| In practice I suspect very few people care all that much.
| Some do, of course, but for most it won't be top of their
| priority list.
|
| This is the real challenge of democracy. We think of it in
| terms of yeah no votes, but the real work is done by the
| people choosing from millions of options to put the final
| up-down choice in front of you. Nobody has yet found a good
| way to do collaboration on that scale.
| black_puppydog wrote:
| > demand an explanation of the bill status and the role
| they played
|
| That's just what I meant. Can you know which senator
| voted how _within_ that committee? Otherwise it 'd be
| easy for them to say "well _I_ voted for it of course! "
| jfengel wrote:
| It likely didn't come to a vote. They were probably still
| working on coming up with text to vote on.
| [deleted]
| franczesko wrote:
| What does it mean "it dies in Senate Committee"? What's the
| process here?
|
| Does lack of "right to repair" essentially block someone from
| repairing his/her device or is it simply lack of legislation in
| regard to this matter?
| hoppyhoppy2 wrote:
| It's referring to a bill (a proposed law) in California "which
| would have significantly expanded Californians' access to the
| parts, tools, and service information needed to fix consumer
| electronics and appliances."
|
| So California state law remains the same as it has been. No
| changes (other than less hope for improvement via California
| state law in the near future).
| diebeforei485 wrote:
| Collect signatures and put it on the ballot.
| onphonenow wrote:
| Massachusetts already did a limited form of right to repair.
|
| I know at least Subaru and Kia now don't sell with certain
| features in MA as a result.
| 88j88 wrote:
| So if I am reading this correctly, a majority of votes
| (unanimous) were cast to pass the bill, but this was held in some
| subcommittee instead of moving to senate floor? Who is this
| subcommittee, and why do they have more power than the people,
| plus the senators who voted unanimously?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _why do they have more power than the people_
|
| How did you conclude this?
| knowmad wrote:
| What is the easiest way to find out who voted against this bill
| so I can put them in my "don't vote for these people" list?
| goldstone43 wrote:
| It's required by California state law to post all bills online
| along with associated vote tallies in committee and floor
| votes. The vote types are as follows:
|
| - Ayes (in favor), - Noes (against), - and No Vote Recorded
| (NVR; the equivalent of abstaining).
|
| Looks like the [most recent committee vote referred in the
| article for SB 8](https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/bill
| VotesClient.xht...) is not online but will likely be by mid
| week.
| hungrigekatze wrote:
| I found this site which is for nation-wide tallies of how
| (state) representatives voted:
| https://openstates.org/about/subscriptions/
|
| It's free to subscribe. But - IMO - it is likely that the
| OpenStates.org site monetizes the subscriber data somehow.
|
| As far as CA-specific 'follow what a piece of legislation is
| doing' there's this site from the California state government:
| https://www.assembly.ca.gov/informationtohelpyoufollowthepro...
| squarefoot wrote:
| What if FOSS an Open Hardware related pages would show links to
| the pages of those opposing the law, whether politicians or
| companies, along with "don't vote" or "don't buy" alerts?
| Sometimes, just sometimes, they fear bad advertising.
| gcoguiec wrote:
| It's sad, but not only because it means people are forced to buy
| new too often or because of the atrocious increasing e-waste
| associated with it.
|
| It's sad because folks will be less and less interested in fixing
| their things or simply opening their devices to understand how
| they work. It'll be general knowledge that it's "dangerous" to
| attempt a repair, and they're impossible to fix anyway.
|
| Attempting a repair is one of those sparks that nurture
| curiosity. It's the same spark that ultimately gave us Apple and
| many other great businesses. Why are we indirectly undermining
| ingenuity and inventiveness? Is it a false perception? Or maybe
| Hanlon's razor?
|
| On the other side, China has relatively affordable access to
| parts (low-level components included), schematics, extensive
| tooling and a growing hacker/maker culture.
|
| Sometimes, I feel we (occidentals) are going into reverse.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| Don't worry. Defeated this time, but it will keep coming back
| again, and again, and again until it's made law, no doubt about
| it. We're in a different era now, and e-waste is very topical
| [1]. A vote against "right to repair" is a clear vote against
| ecological common sense. California is unfortunately in a
| vulnerable position with respect to climate impact. Another
| season of wildfires and droughts will help the naysayers see
| some sense.
|
| [1] Here's an interview I did recently:
|
| https://www.thisishcd.com/episode/andy-farnell-perils-of-e-w...
| twblalock wrote:
| The average person has spent about zero seconds in their life
| thinking about e-waste.
|
| If you want to sell this bill, show voters how it will impact
| their wallets.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| > On the other side, China has relatively affordable access to
| parts (low-level components included), schematics, extensive
| tooling and a growing hacker/maker culture.
|
| Having had repairs made in Beijing in hole in the wall E shops,
| no thank you. You have to watch the repairs being done like a
| hawk, or they will "fix" what wasn't broken with some flaky
| parts they want to get rid of in addition to making your
| repair. The Apple Store is much more reliable in comparison,
| while being price competitive.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| It's not the American Way (tm) to have congress force this. Let
| The Markets Decide (c)
|
| Yet, now, we have Farmework laptop and OEM parts for Apple
| products. We're better in those ways, but worse in others, for
| sure.
|
| I only hope soon these concepts catch on. The image of small
| car repair shops working on teslas both scares and inspires me.
| Or the future of a handyman with a laptop to debug a washing
| machine both infurates me and gives me hope.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| It's possible, however sad, that there are societal stages
| where China is in a stage we saw in early Americana when
| farmers were often the "techies" that kept engines and
| equipment functioning. They had tools and learned from doing,
| repairing, making.
|
| But as we went from farm to factory and our wages got us a
| higher standard of living, we preferred to buy new things
| rather than keep old things working.
|
| If China follows the path of the U.S., Japan, Korea, they too
| will grow a middle class that no longer want to work for low
| wages in factories and will look for cheaper labor elsewhere in
| the world to meet the needs of their growing consumption.
|
| Just my armchair observations.
| dehrmann wrote:
| > Attempting a repair is one of those sparks that nurture
| curiosity
|
| I appreciate the sentiment, but repairing an iPhone only gives
| you a very superficial understanding of how it works. It's
| about as technical as setting up a computer with a discrete
| monitor, webcam, UPS, case, speakers, etc.
| actually_a_dog wrote:
| Indeed, it requires more physical dexterity than technical
| skill to repair an iPhone. The technical skill is really
| limited to being able to follow instructions, and basic
| things like ESD control.
| FastMonkey wrote:
| I don't think he's saying that the repair will teach you the
| first principles of phone design. It's that by taking the
| step of actually opening the device, you significantly lower
| the hurdle to any next steps.
| gruez wrote:
| >It's sad because folks will be less and less interested in
| fixing their things or simply opening their devices to
| understand how they work
|
| those days are long gone. you might be able to disassemble a
| turntable to figure out how it works, but disassembling a phone
| isn't going to tell you much when all the magic is in the
| silicon. all you get from disassembling it is a circuit board
| with random bumps.
| okr wrote:
| Hm, these markets in Shenzhen seem to offer different
| stories. Youtube is full of those, you can replace/upgrade
| displays, memory, storage of your phone or even assemble your
| own.
|
| And in my country you have these little shops as well, where
| you pay a premium, but you dont have to buy a new phone.
|
| So, unless you really want to fix something very integrated,
| i am rather positive about the situation.
|
| And from my own history, mainboard was never really a
| problem, it was always something attached or plugged or
| solded onto it.
| otagekki wrote:
| From what I can see, the right to repair suffers when "buying
| brand new" becomes significantly less expensive than "buying
| only the parts you need and spend some time fixing it". The
| former is always cheaper in developed economies, and the latter
| is often cheaper in third-world countries. Economic tradition
| like planned obsolescence is the single biggest culprit
| II2II wrote:
| > The former is always cheaper in developed economies
|
| Is it?
|
| It seems cheaper in developed countries because the cost of
| labour is high, the cost of goods is low, and serviceability
| is rarely a consideration. Yet those factors have more to do
| with this point in time than the distinction of being a
| developed economy. If you went back in time 20 years: a cell
| phone with a dead battery would be user serviceable,
| regardless of that user's skill level; a computer with a dead
| hard drive would be user serviceable, to anyone who could
| handle a screwdriver. Fixing the socket on most devices would
| require a learned skill, soldering, but would be accessible
| to most people. The reason why I selected those examples is
| because they are easily diagnosed by the end user and don't
| require much technical sophistication to fix, so the cost of
| labour is cut out.
|
| These days, something as trivial as replacing a battery or
| hard drive requires a great deal more skill. Heck, in many
| cases it takes a great deal more skill to non-destructively
| open the enclosure simply to peek inside. None of that has
| anything to do with developed or developing economies. It has
| to do with how products are designed.
|
| (And if you were to go back yet another 20 years, the
| contrast is even more stark.)
| makeitdouble wrote:
| I completely agree with your point on skill level, and also
| think parent's point is true at the same time.
|
| We had a washing machine die on us after 5 yers. After
| searching for repair manuals, we got the probable cause,
| and the part number of the controller board to replace (or
| test the chips and replace and resolder the parts that
| died, which goes to your point on skills). Except the price
| of the controller board was 90% of a new washing machine.
| And we'd still be taking the risk to either botch the
| repair, or have something else fail after we fix the
| controller.
|
| Same way, looking at the pixel 4a replacement screens, they
| retail around 170$, shipment not included, and you can buy
| a decent second hand pixel 4a at a bit less than 200$. The
| price difference doesn't make it worth it to try to repair
| the screen, except to spare reinstall time perhaps.
|
| I expect most of our appliances to have that core part that
| just costs almost as much as the whole device to repair,
| though from a material mass/role perspective it doesn't
| make any sense.
| mjevans wrote:
| If the software were supported closer to decades rather
| than years, I suspect it'd be worthwhile to have a
| refurbishment center that carefully scraps the major bits
| apart, re-tests them, and re-assembles a working device
| out of the non-failed parts. (Ideally with a fresh
| battery and replaced storage chip.)
| squarefoot wrote:
| Your point is valid, however we shouldn't forget that right
| to repair doesn't mean being forbidden from buying new
| products. That is, people wanting to buy their new device
| wouldn't see any difference, until the day they're forced to
| buy a new product because either repairing it from only
| authorized shops is too costly, or because there are no
| documentation and spares available at all. A right to repair
| law would be a win-win scenario for everyone, except greedy
| beancounters of course.
| jotm wrote:
| That would be the case if for some reason, the third world
| countries would be getting repairable stuff. But no, they get
| the same shit that's popular in developed countries, even
| worse - because the main reason for soldering and gluing
| everything shut is cost reduction. And there are no parts.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| I just don't see "planned obsolescence" as a top-down
| directive.
|
| Has any engineer come forward to say management told them to
| make specific changes to cause a thing to become obsolete in
| some period of time? I am not aware of any.
|
| Rather what looks like planned obsolescence can generally be
| explained by other factors -- not the least of which might
| just be the fickleness of consumers.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| I think you're right. Planned obsolescence has perfectly
| sensible bottom-up explanations that revolve around the
| linear algebra and optimisation of MTBF in mixed source
| components. Indeed, planned obsolescence is no problem
| whatsoever if you have a "Right To Repair". Even better if
| you _Design for Repair_
| otagekki wrote:
| Looks like a top-down directive to me. Just look at the
| lightbulb cartel.
|
| From an engineering perspective, some designs simply don't
| make any sense if not for planned obsolescence: on a quite
| famous printer brand, the printer stops working after X
| pages printed [1]. You can fix that with soldering and chip
| reprogramming, but it may or may not be trivial. In the
| end, warranty is really short and is void the minute you
| open the product to see its guts, so it's not exactly for
| safety reasons.
|
| Some people blame planned obsolescence on the consumer, but
| in fact that's just blame shifting. The truth is rent-
| seeking, at the expense of the environment.
|
| [1]: https://www.ft.com/content/4a965dc0-f27c-11db-a454-000
| b5df10...
| eurleif wrote:
| >void the minute you open the product
|
| That's not legal (in the US).
| https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-
| way/2018/04/11/601582169...
| otagekki wrote:
| Legality indeed varies, but even if it's illegal hardware
| vendors easily away with it, and will still bill you the
| repairs if they want to repair it at all.
| convolvatron wrote:
| as someone who repairs things for myself and others its
| really hard to explain some of these failures as anything
| other than planned obsolescence. board-mounted fuses.
| sacrificial plastic gears in the drivetrain. chillers with
| the filler tube folded over and brazed.
|
| the most charitable explanation is cost reduction. but
| $0.05 savings on a $500 retail item isn't helping anyone if
| it means my mixer lasts 1 year instead of 20 like the ones
| they used to make.
| jotm wrote:
| That explanation, as dumb as it seems, can be the actual
| and only reason for many designs. Barely functional
| heatsinks in laptops, using 0.1mm metal backsides in
| keyboards instead of 0.25 or something (the fucking thing
| _bends_ and keys stop working!), plastic clips instead of
| screws, etc.
|
| Yeah, we say "it's just $0.05, I'll gladly pay that for
| higher quality!". But somewhere, a new CxO is saying "we
| have saved $10,000,000 on production this year". And it's
| a big number, indeed.
|
| But what about the users? Well, fuck the users. They will
| buy overpriced parts from the company or a new device
| from the company or the few competitors who do the same
| thing. They could be in cahoots, but it's more than
| likely they all decided saving tens/hundreds of millions
| a year is worth far more than a small number of
| disappointed buyers.
| lasc4r wrote:
| I don't think it's a stretch to assume malice, billionaires are
| running the show and they aren't nice people that want to build
| a better world. If they want a population of poor, ignorant and
| unengaged worker drones they're doing great though.
| ospzfmbbzr wrote:
| Its the trillionaires that are the problem -- why don't you
| know their names? Because they don't want a better world for
| you just for them and their 'better' world keeps their
| insanely high living standard at the expense of us the little
| people getting to exist at all. The only people that believe
| the very rich want a better world are still watching
| television.
| boringg wrote:
| mdavis6890 wrote:
| If Billionaires are running the show, why to they have to
| keep showing up to congressional subpoenas and kowtowing to
| government bureaucrats of various types and stripes?
|
| Power and money are frequent bedfellows, but power trumps
| money every single time.
| deltaonefour wrote:
| It's more complex then them running the show. But for sure,
| billionaires run more of the show then non-billionaires.
|
| >Power and money are frequent bedfellows, but power trumps
| money every single time.
|
| Power and money are bedfellows? They are synonyms. Power
| trumps money only because money was involved with the
| power.
|
| Are you a billionaire?
| femiagbabiaka wrote:
| Congressional subpoenas are pure kayfabe. To win their
| districts, congress members need money. And the more of it
| they get the happier they are. So money is power.
| typon wrote:
| https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-
| poli...
|
| Conclusion:
|
| "Despite the seemingly strong empirical support in previous
| studies for theories of majoritarian democracy, our
| analyses suggest that majorities of the American public
| actually have little influence over the policies our
| government adopts. Americans do enjoy many features central
| to democratic governance, such as regular elections,
| freedom of speech and association, and a widespread (if
| still contested) franchise. But we believe that if
| policymaking is dominated by powerful business
| organizations and a small number of affluent Americans,
| then America's claims to being a democratic society are
| seriously threatened."
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Is this just cherrypicking results?
|
| > strong empirical support in previous studies for
| theories of majoritarian democracy
|
| What do those other studies say? Why not quote them?
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Money _is_ power.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| It is a stretch to assume it. Billionaires generally do well
| in countries of hard-working, educated people. And they
| aren't running the show, although they might run a little bit
| of it.
| scottLobster wrote:
| Benign malice is still malice. Billionaires do well in
| countries of hard-working, educated people the same way
| parasites do well in a healthier host. They often aren't
| contributing to said health, merely profiting from it by
| chance.
|
| Don't get me wrong some Billionaires are legitimately
| moving the ball forward, or at least trying to, but for
| every Elon Musk (despite the man's many flaws he's at least
| snapped the space launch and EV markets out of decades of
| stagnation) there's a few Sacklers who seemingly exist
| solely to abuse the populace for their own benefit, and are
| only shaped by how much effective resistance they are met
| with, resistance they will obsessively attempt to
| overcome/circumvent until they die.
|
| People at that level tend to care about themselves and only
| about themselves, or at least that's what many of their
| actions would suggest. They're predators, and even if the
| wolf can't control what it is you generally want to keep it
| away from the flock.
|
| That said I have nothing actionable to offer. Short of mass
| collective action it's hard to see how we deal with them,
| and mass collective action requires lots of mass collective
| pain for enough people to be motivated in a single
| direction. I'd imagine most of the billionaires are well
| aware of this and are betting that the breaking point will
| occur after their death, or they arrogantly think that they
| can be insulated from it somehow. Seems they get away with
| blatant malfeasance time and again.
|
| Frankly I'm surprised the Sacklers haven't been shot at
| yet. If I was a broke West Virginian who's family had been
| torn apart by opioids and I had nothing to lose, I'd be
| saving my pennies for a bus ticket and take my hunting
| rifle to their next public appearance.
| lasc4r wrote:
| Betsy Devos isn't interested in quality public schools, she
| wants to privatize schools and degrade public education.
| Who knows what a radical Supreme Court will do next?
| Republicans have had public education in their crosshairs
| for decades.
|
| Elon Musk wants worker drones that come from the remnants
| of a functional public education system.
|
| There will always be enough highly educated workers and if
| they can't get them in the US they'll get them from
| somewhere else.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| Believing that these agendas exist simply because they
| are evil people is reductionist. For example, my parents
| wholly support private schools because they believe that
| public education will strip students of their cultural
| identity and religious beliefs. They aren't evil. Devos
| and R's respond to those fears to get elected.
|
| The belief itself is probably based on the fact that
| college grads are extremely likely to have the "other
| party's" politics. And, that is true because (partly) the
| higher education system has become quite uniform and
| (apparently) seeks to squash dissenting opinions among
| the teaching ranks. How many professors are conservative
| or openly religious? I suspect those positions are viewed
| as defacto disqualifications by most on the left.
|
| I recommend everyone read Righteous Mind by Jonathan
| Haidt. He discusses with nuance and much persuasiveness
| the importance of returning political representation to
| higher education. I see it all very differently now.
| idontpost wrote:
| cywick wrote:
| > How many professors are conservative or openly
| religious?
|
| At German universities the answer is actually "quite a
| number of professors", and being conservative or
| religious is just as normal and accepted as being on the
| progressive side.
|
| The major difference, however, is that Conservatism there
| (fortunately) is still very pro-science and you won't
| find many climate change deniers, creationists, anti-
| vaxxers, etc. among conservatives, especially not among
| educated conservatives. Overall, society is also much
| less scarred by years and years of relentless culture
| wars, and the majority of the population clusters in the
| middle of the political spectrum (i.e., in the range
| "moderate conservative" to "moderate progressive").
|
| In the US, there seems to have been a vicious circle
| going on for a long time now with conservatives becoming
| more and more anti-science, because they perceive
| universities and most scientists as leftists; and
| scientists becoming more and more hostile to
| conservatives, because they perceive them to be waging a
| war on science. I don't know what started this arms race
| (i.e., whether universities in the US first became
| hostile to conservatives, or whether conservatives first
| turned anti-science), but I find this development
| incredibly depressing and heartbreaking.
| lasc4r wrote:
| They aren't doing it because they are evil - that's
| totally silly. They're doing it because they hold what I
| consider to be bad ideas around supporting the public
| good and it's simply in their best interest to pay less
| taxes and have a less educated and more compliant
| workforce in the process.
|
| Betsy Devos is a billionaire private school activist that
| Trump appointed. The less they need to worry about public
| opinion the better, it's the same reason they've
| succeeded so wildly in controlling the Supreme Court.
| Their strategy with the Federalist Society has been to
| work around what is popular, no majority would vote to
| overturn Roe. Public education is definitely on their
| minds now.
| cassepipe wrote:
| Here is an argument about why academia is relatively more
| left leaning. Would love to hear rebuttals but that's how
| I think about it for now. https://youtu.be/LwI25UhTtGo
| pessimizer wrote:
| > Betsy Devos isn't interested in quality public schools,
| she wants to privatize schools and degrade public
| education. Who knows what a radical Supreme Court will do
| next? Republicans have had public education in their
| crosshairs for decades.
|
| Amway Princess gets a lot of flack for pushing all of the
| same policies that Arne Duncan and his boss pushed before
| her. Democratic politicians have been positively
| energetic in undermining and privatizing public
| education.
| spicyusername wrote:
| > The policy had broad, bipartisan support, with 75% of
| Californians and majorities of both parties supporting Right to
| Repair.
|
| > "Sadly, the powerful tech manufacturers won out over the
| everyday Californians and small businesses that would benefit
| from Right to Repair..."
|
| Can someone elaborate specifically on how something like this
| failed with, apparently, so much support?
| rtkwe wrote:
| The lobbies only have to focus on swaying the committee members
| because all bills have to make it through the relevant
| committees before being voted on widely. There are ways for
| bills in some legislatures to skip the committee process but
| usually by unanimous votes or large percentages.
| guerrilla wrote:
| Oops, I meant to answer you but someone asked the same question
| [1].
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31559612
| [deleted]
| nness wrote:
| I don't know how relevant this point is specifically for this
| bill -- but I've always wondered if politicans simply
| "supported" a bill or otherwise did not speak out in
| favour/against because they know it'll be a quiter death if
| they say one thing/vote another. Rather then begin a drawn-out
| and public campaign in support/against.
|
| Easier to be disingenious than "make it my issue."
| sjburt wrote:
| pm90 wrote:
| I would like to see them actually follow through on this
| absurd threat.
| black_puppydog wrote:
| Lol yes, after years of actual water shortage and housing
| shortage being "not great, but you know, we manage" this
| would certainly push the state over the edge into full-on
| Mad Max thunderdome mood. :D
| lokar wrote:
| There is only a water shortage if you insist on
| irrigation by flooding fields in vast inland desert
| [deleted]
| busterarm wrote:
| Then you're trading a water shortage for a food shortage.
|
| Rock. Hard place.
|
| There's a long list of fruits and vegetables where
| California growing is the source of nearly 100% of the
| nation's consumption.
|
| Celery, Garlic, Walnuts...Spinach is up near 80%...Lemons
| 50%.
| lokar wrote:
| And yet they use vast amount water to grow nut trees in a
| desert, rice as well as alfalfa for export to feed dairy
| herds in China.
|
| There is plenty of water to grow all of the veggies
| needed, if it was done responsibly
| rcpt wrote:
| Beef and dairy use more water than nuts.
|
| We only deflect attention to almonds because the meat
| industry is excellent at influencing public opinion
| kortilla wrote:
| That's a lazy response. Just charge for water, the cost
| will be reflected accurately in the food, and people will
| move to cheaper alternatives. We're nowhere near a food
| shortage, that's propaganda from California farmers that
| don't even want you to consider the possibility of
| touching their draconian water rights.
| lokar wrote:
| And they don't really grow garlic in Gilroy anymore, it's
| mostly imported from China for processing
| idontwantthis wrote:
| There's no way they made that threat. California is the 5th
| largest economy in the world.
| ksec wrote:
| I dont know if they made that threat to California,
| probably not for Apple, since they could get what they want
| without doing so. But they did made similar threat to the
| UK and EU. Possibly hinted in AUS.
|
| So it is not the first time Apple did this.
| TrackerFF wrote:
| With almost 90% of the population in California being over
| age 10, that would be quite that market to ignore. It's more
| people than almost all of Scandinavia combined.
| KerrAvon wrote:
| You know, sometimes bills intended to do something good are
| actually really bad. I don't know if that's the case here, but
| two things strike me as red flags on a quick read:
|
| - There are references to specific dollar amounts in the bill
| with no provision for automatic adjustment due to inflation.
|
| - There is the following passage.
|
| "(2) For products with a wholesale price to the retailer of not
| less than fifty dollars ($50) and not more than ninety-nine
| dollars and ninety-nine cents ($99.99), that contains an
| electronic security lock or other security-related function,
| the manufacturer shall also make available to owners of the
| product, service and repair facilities, and service dealers, on
| fair and reasonable terms, any documentation, tools, software
| and parts needed to disable the lock or function, and to reset
| the lock or function when disabled, during the course of the
| inspection, diagnosis, maintenance, or repair of a product for
| at least three years after the date a product model or type was
| manufactured, regardless of whether the three-year period
| exceeds the warranty period for the product."
|
| That sure seems like a requirement for a secure enclave
| backdoor.
| Zhenya wrote:
| So they will sell the dumb lock for $75 and the security
| insert for $25.
|
| See ya later, legislator!!
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| > That sure seems like a requirement for a secure enclave
| backdoor.
|
| Apple uses hardware pairing. Without such a tool you couldn't
| even swap two genuine parts with eachother.
| bluescrn wrote:
| throwingrocks wrote:
| > Can someone elaborate specifically on how
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| spicyusername wrote:
| I'm trying to understand the specifics of what happened in
| this particular case. Was it corporate influence? Was it bad
| policy design? Was it a failure of process? None of the
| above? All of the above? Something else?
|
| It's all too easy to cynically handwave and parrot platitudes
| like "politicians are corrupt", "capitalism is bad", etc.
| Reality is far more complicated than those overly simplistic
| platitudes let-on and parroting them doesn't meaningfully
| contribute to the discussion of what to do better next time.
|
| If we want to understand how to implement lasting change
| through government policy, the context and details matter
| when seemingly good policies fail.
| baskethead wrote:
| Anytime anyone says that Democrats are on the right side of
| morality, please point to things like this. California has been
| strongly Democrat for decades and this is how things are. They
| are "progressive" on hot button issues like abortion and gun
| laws, but for the most part, they don't give a shit about regular
| people just like Republicans.
|
| We need a third party to disrupt the two party oligopoly that has
| tricked most Americans into thinking we have a choice. We
| currently have no choice because both parties don't give a shit
| about citizens, just how can they perpetuate the ruling class to
| continue to feed off us.
| kepler1 wrote:
| Sometimes legislation being worked out dies because the details
| really can't be squared with reality or practicality.
|
| I have not seen an example proposal of language for such a bill
| that didn't invite many, many questions about how it would apply
| to certain manufacturers or products, and raise all sorts of
| issues about how it would be implemented, both now and in the
| future.
|
| Remember that legislation, if it is to be sensible, is
| necessarily a snapshot in time of some set of principles to
| govern the future. If those principles are sound, they can be
| stated in some finite and non-specialist text that an agency can
| go implement (which is their role to do the technical
| implementation of).
|
| If the legislation is 1000+ pages, something is being legislated
| at the wrong level, and something has been designed with too many
| exceptions, special cases, and opportunities for something to
| slip through a loophole. Or if it's just one page, how will
| someone figure out from that ambiguity whether something applies
| to their product?
|
| Some noteworthy fraction of people are in support (although... a
| certain minority if asked say they are in support of it, while
| many others have no idea what the issue is), but when it comes to
| their purchasing behavior it doesn't seem so.
|
| If you were to state the principles by which such legislation
| should be designed, what would they be? And if you then look at
| that language objectively, how many times would you have to ask
| "but what about...<xyz> issue/consideration"? If you, or the
| industry, have to ask that enough of a proposed bill, it will not
| work. You can say, well we'll have an agency responsible for
| working out these details. Ok, well that's how California has
| 200+ agencies, all paid government employees.
|
| Not everything is corruption and "influence of big money".
| Sometimes it is, yes. But sometimes it's that it can't be made a
| sensible law (for the moment).
|
| ---------
|
| I quote some notable passages from the bill that are examples of
| the above (https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClien
| t.xhtm...):
|
| _Every manufacturer of an electronic or appliance product with a
| wholesale price to the retailer of not less than fifty dollars
| ($50) and not more than ninety-nine dollars and ninety-nine cents
| ($99.99), shall make available to owners of the product, service
| and repair facilities, and service dealers, sufficient service
| literature, at no charge, and functional parts and tools,
| inclusive of any updates, on fair and reasonable terms, to effect
| the diagnosis, maintenance, or repair of a product for at least
| three years after the date a product model or type was
| manufactured, regardless of whether the three-year period exceeds
| the warranty period for the product_.
|
| To be made available at no $ charge? Why? What other publication
| or service do we mandate people do for no compensation?
|
| _This section does not require a manufacturer to divulge a trade
| secret, except as may be necessary to provide service literature,
| documentation, tools, software, and parts on fair and reasonable
| terms_.
|
| What constitutes a trade secret? Is it simply up to the
| manufacturer to declare that something is a trade secret and thus
| cannot be revealed?
|
| _This section shall not be construed to require the distribution
| of a product's source code_.
|
| What is that defined as? What if the ability to repair is tied
| very closely to something about the source code which should not
| be revealed for security considerations?
|
| How about if the parts cost such a price as to make repair
| uneconomical? How about if the repair requires specialized
| equipment and training that the general public cannot receive
| feasibly?
|
| The list of questions goes on and on.
| tzs wrote:
| California Civil Code SS 3426.1 defines "trade secret" thus
| way:
|
| > "Trade secret" means information, including a formula,
| pattern, compilation, program, device, method, technique, or
| process, that:
|
| > (1) Derives independent economic value, actual or potential,
| from not being generally known to the public or to other
| persons who can obtain economic value from its disclosure or
| use; and
|
| > (2) Is the subject of efforts that are reasonable under the
| circumstances to maintain its secrecy
|
| Unless this bill contains its own definition, "trade secret" in
| this bill will be the same as that.
| kepler1 wrote:
| So manufacturers are free to declare that the method of
| putting in some part is a technique covered by trade secrets?
| How will the bill deal with that, when manufacturers declare
| that most of the things you want to repair are their
| proprietary process?
| cosmiccatnap wrote:
| There are a lot of non Americans asking how a bill that was
| universally condoned was killed and the answer is sad but not
| particularly complicated.
|
| American politics primarily works based off of what people see on
| TV or read in the news and what a politician says and what they
| do are entirely disconnected. So these politicians publically say
| whatever is the popular openion which in this case is that right
| to repair is good but then they placate to companies who don't
| want right to repair to succeed.
|
| This allows them to have their cake and eat it too. They get to
| say they tried to push for it but there wasn't support even when
| you can search and find that they in fact voted against it and
| are even often on the payroll of many of these companies in a
| round about way.
|
| How is this possible? Well you don't have too fool every American
| just most Americans and the overwhelming majority of Americans
| don't care about any issues that do not effect abortion, gun
| control, taxation, or jobs. This doesn't directly effect those
| things in a significant for Californians so it becomes quick
| forgotten in a month when some other hot topic becomes the news
| of the week.
|
| If a conservative politician is pro abortion and pro gun control
| they can do anything else they want legislatively and get the
| votes they need for reelection so they pass laws on the side in
| which they are sure to get financial kick backs for. It's
| basically a mr.smith goes to Washington but nobody ever has to
| deal with the consequences of corruption they just get upset when
| they are caught.
|
| Rinse and repeat.
| TrackerFF wrote:
| Can anyone familiar with the process, explain exactly how these
| industry lobbyists win these cases? With a 75% of Californians
| being pro-right to repair, and with bipartisan support - you'd
| think this would be an easy case to argue.
|
| Do the lobbyists have some incredibly legitimate insider
| information they share with the senators? Do they just throw
| cash/donations at them?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > With a 75% of Californians being pro-right to repair, and
| with bipartisan support - you'd think this would be an easy
| case to argue
|
| "Bipartisan support" is, since we are well out of the pre-1990s
| realignment period, mostly a sign of low political salience, an
| issue that doesn't have much relevance to voting behavior to
| most of the public. Breadth (%) of support or opposition is far
| less important than depth (impact on voting, volunteering, and
| donating behavior), and this is an issue where the depth of
| support in the general public is near 0, where the depth of
| opposition from entrenched industry interests is high.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| This is a good point for other issues as well. Support for
| legal recreational marijuana nationally has been at a
| decently strong majority level for a while now, but that
| hasn't resulted in any action at the federal level. It hasn't
| even been rescheduled when Democrats hold the presidency, and
| support within the Democratic party in particular is
| extremely high. That, too, is an issue of depth. Yeah, most
| Democrats and even Americans support it at this point, but
| for most it's not a major issue.
|
| That's part of why it's been so common to pass as a state-
| level initiative. If you actually get it to a popular vote,
| it'll pass because people are at least lightly in favor, but
| legislatures are slow to pass it themselves because it has
| little impact on their re-election chances.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Support for legal recreational marijuana nationally has
| been at a decently strong majority level for a while now,
| but that hasn't resulted in any action at the federal
| level.
|
| While it is technically still federally prohibited, and
| there is some danger of reach-back prosecutions if policy
| changes, since 2014 state law has effectively controlled
| because of the enforcement restrictions in the Rohrbacher-
| Farr Amendment, which has been continuously renewed as part
| of funding bills, and is a substantive federal action.
| pj_mukh wrote:
| This. I wish more polls had an importance/salience correction
| factor applied. It would _significantly_ tilt most polls.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Salience is pretty hard to measure by means _other than_
| substantive political behavior.
| function_seven wrote:
| What would be the best way to gauge that?
|
| My naive take on this would be to have poll questions like:
|
| > _Are you in favor of consumers ' right to repair?_ ...
| _How strong is your position? (1-5)_
|
| Of course this is vulnerable to strategic answering, where
| people just slam on '5' for each question. Like how star
| ratings are inflated on Amazon.
|
| My next strategy would be pairwise contests. So:
|
| > _Alice supports right-to-repair (RTR) and raising
| property taxes. Bob is opposed to RTR and wants to lower
| property taxes. Who would you vote for?_
|
| > _Carol supports RTR and applying the death penalty to a
| wider range of felonies. David opposes RTR and wants to
| eliminate capital punishment altogether. Who would you vote
| for?_
|
| But too much of that and you'd start to lose people. How
| many questions can you pose before you're only getting
| answers from serial poll-takers?
| Aunche wrote:
| Part of the problem is that all of our depth in political
| support gets black-holed into advertising for simple
| polarizing issues like abortion, guns, and high vs. low
| taxes. This gets largely negated by the other side
| advertising for the opposite position, so in the end very
| little gets done.
| google234123 wrote:
| The real issue is actually partisan primaries that push
| both sides further to the edge.
|
| See what Alaska did recently for an example of how to fix
| this
| freedomben wrote:
| I agree with you that it is a problem, but I don't think
| it's the primaries as much as it is the two-party system.
| If we are going to have political parties, then they
| should be allowed some semblance of self-governance.
| Otherwise, what's the point? There could just be one
| state controlled party that does everything. The more we
| control individual parties, the more pointless it is to
| even have different parties.
|
| Personally, I see political parties as potentially
| important to a well-functioning democracy. The main
| problem I think is lack of competition. I would love to
| see at least a third party, maybe half a dozen or more,
| emerge in the United States. Obviously people have been
| trying to make that happen for decades, without success.
| I wonder what type of solutions there are to increase the
| number of viable parties? The one that seems most
| plausible to me is ranked choice voting, for one of the
| many minor variations of the idea. Are there other
| things?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > The real issue is actually partisan primaries that push
| both sides further to the edge.
|
| No, it's not. California has eliminated primaries in the
| usual sense (what is called a "primary", outside of
| Presidential nominations, in California is the first
| round of a two-round majority-runoff general election
| where you aren't allowed to win outright on the first
| ballot even with a clear majority), and yet here we are
| talking about the effect _in California_ , so partisan
| primaries _can not be the issue_. We've ruled that out by
| not having them.
|
| The issue is FPTP single-member district legislative
| elections, which supports partisan duopoly and narrows
| the meaningful space of political debate toward a single
| high-salience axis and issues where splits align well
| with that axis, marginalizing all other issues. This has
| been somewhat extensively studied in comparative study of
| modern representative democratic systems, see, e.g.,
| Lijphart's _Patterns of Democracy_.
| nsv wrote:
| Yes, and this is by design. Divide and conquer.
| drc500free wrote:
| You explained very well something that I have struggled to
| put into words about all these tech bills. Thank you.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| It's an open secret in politics that government jobs are a
| revolving door to/from industry.
|
| Corporate executives frequently go in to politics, and when
| politicians retire they often get cushy, high paying jobs at
| the very corporations they benefited while in office.
|
| They don't have to be outright bribed while in office (though
| it's not unknown for that to happen), but they know they'll be
| handsomely rewarded once they leave.
|
| That's not to mention them or their family members investing in
| companies they know will benefit from their actions while in
| office.
| strider12 wrote:
| bentlegen wrote:
| Did Obama (and/or the government at the time) advance any
| material pro-Netflix legislation?
| WillPostForFood wrote:
| Obama enacted net neutrality by fiat, which Netflix
| lobbied for, and benefited Netflix.
| shawnz wrote:
| This is a tired argument. Of course people who have industry
| experience will continue to work in that industry. And if the
| chance of being rewarded with a "cushy" job after leaving
| office is so compelling then why are so few people interested
| in becoming politicians?
| antris wrote:
| _> why are so few people interested in becoming
| politicians?_
|
| Uh... what? There's a shortage of politicians nowhere, lol.
| jwagenet wrote:
| There might technically be enough politicians to fill all
| available positions, but there clearly aren't enough for
| a competitive and diverse ideological landscape.
| antris wrote:
| When it comes to US, adding more candidates doesn't
| change the politics. Genuine grassroots campaigns have an
| almost impossible climb against establishment endorsed
| candidates in both major parties, and creating your own
| party does nothing either. Without a large battle chest,
| you ain't gonna win against a candidate with a huge
| corporate campaign budget. If anything, adding more
| candidates creates a "spoiler" effect, where the
| establishment candidate doesn't need as many votes,
| because the opposition vote is split due to two or more
| opposition candidates. And even if you manage somehow to
| get elected, you'll have a hard time getting anything
| done if you don't tow the party line.
|
| The US system steers naturally towards two parties that
| both advance corporate interests, and that's what's
| happening now.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Don't need to be a politician. You can be a lobbyist,
| staffer....
| guerrilla wrote:
| It's less of an argument and more a list of facts, isn't
| it?
|
| > then why are so few people interested in becoming
| politicians?
|
| Obviously because they can't afford to because they
| actually have to _work_.
| shawnz wrote:
| It's not clear to me that the overlap between corporate
| and political career paths really has any meaningful
| impact on the way politicians vote on individual bills,
| so I wouldn't call that a fact
| jotm wrote:
| I just remembered a guy who became a mayor and then started
| his own party with some decent, western inspired ideas in
| my country. Things which are sane in the UK, Ireland,
| France, Germany, you know, countries which we consider
| developed.
|
| I really should've saved that story because I can't find it
| anywhere now.
|
| Basically, on the streets, most people supported him. In
| reality, people weren't enough. If they even mattered.
| Turned out you had to align yourself with one of the four
| major parties or you had zero chance at gaining traction in
| any county that mattered. Funnily enough, the "easy"
| counties would be even harder - low population, low income,
| lack of education, low voter turnout, always voting for
| populists/authoritarians.
|
| The major parties have the power and the money and there
| was no way they'd ever let a newcomer just barge in without
| being vetted first. The majority of new parties were
| absorbed into the big ones.
|
| This is a joke, I don't know what's to be done about it and
| I'm sure that's the case in other countries, too. Only good
| thing is politicians stay out of private business as
| they're starting to realize the richer the private
| population becomes, the richer they will be.
|
| And even then, they fail at making a better environment for
| small businesses, instead choosing to focus on big
| companies, especially foreign ones. Let them come, buy up
| everything for cheap and use the population as cheap labor
| forever. Why would the government care?
| michaelt wrote:
| _> if the chance of being rewarded with a "cushy" job
| after leaving office is so compelling then why are so few
| people interested in becoming politicians?_
|
| Becoming a politician is a bit like becoming a musician:
| Spend the best years of your life 'putting your time in'
| with a 98% chance you'll never make it big. Only the 2%
| that made it big get offered those $500k/year sinecures.
|
| If you're already in the powerful 2% you've probably
| already compromised on your principles many times to get
| there, so the $500k/year for compromising them a little
| more is practically free money.
|
| If you're entering politics, though? As you've only got a
| 2% chance of making the $500k, the expected value is only
| $10k. Not much of a motivation.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Let's don't be too credulous about the polling performed by the
| bill's supporters. What would be the "pro right to repair"
| fraction if it were posed as a tradeoff between repairability
| and a slightly higher retail price?
|
| In my personal opinion the "security lock" language of this
| bill is dangerously vague, and the benefits it offers in terms
| of third-party repair are worth almost nothing to me, so I
| opposed the bill.
| lolinder wrote:
| 75% of Californians are pro-right to repair when asked, but
| that doesn't mean that 75% really know what it means much less
| _care_ about it. The legislature is probably assuming that the
| campaign money from the lobbyists will more than make up for
| the lost votes from the tiny minority that truly cares.
| whoopdedo wrote:
| It also depends on who is asking the question. A right-to-
| repair advocate would ask "Do you support this law that will
| lower the cost of repairing old phones?" and most people will
| agree. Then an industry group asks the same people "Do you
| support this law that will raise the cost of making new
| phones?" and get a different answer.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| I realize you're making a hypothetical point about the
| importance of question phrasing, but I really don't see how
| this law would raise the cost of making new phones.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| When you can't repair your device you buy more. More
| phones sold = more amortization over fixed costs, so the
| device gets cheaper.
| 41b696ef1113 wrote:
| I think it is reasonable to imagine some manufacturing
| processes that are single shot construction. Gluing
| pieces together rather than screws/fasteners comes to
| mind.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| Yes, but this bill wouldn't have affected any of that.
| Manufacturers could have continued making their devices
| difficult or even impossible to repair, they just would
| have had to make their own parts and repair manuals
| available to third parties.
| hurflmurfl wrote:
| Doesn't making "repairable" things imply having to add
| design constraints, which would translate to increased
| costs of research/development/production?
| indymike wrote:
| No, it just means making it possible to buy parts, repair
| manuals/schematics for products and preventing
| manufacturers for refusing warranty coverage when a
| repair is done correctly by a third party or product
| owner. We have right to repair for cars, and have since
| the 1970s, and without it... the car economy would be
| more frightening than it already is.
| ziml77 wrote:
| Anyone who thinks that's what this is about has not been
| following Right to Repair. While it would be great if
| things were designed with repairability in mind, the ask
| from Right to Repair is that no one be impeded from
| accessing manuals, components, and software needed for
| repair.
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| This specific bill was just about access to repair
| information and the ability to use third-party repair
| facilities. However, the Right to Repair organization
| specifically lists on their policy goals
| (https://www.repair.org/policy):
|
| > Products should be designed to have their lifespan
| extended by regular maintenance and repair.
|
| > Design: Integrate Design for Repair principles into
| eco-design product design practices.
|
| And I have seen Right to Repair efforts that demanded
| repairable devices, even if that meant more bulk or more
| cost, or other tradeoffs.
|
| Framework and similar efforts have demonstrated that it's
| possible to build a repairable device that people
| actually like, without compromising too much on other
| factors. But until those substantial engineering efforts
| had been put in, this seemed like a fundamental tradeoff
| between two sets of somewhat-incompatible properties
| consumers may want, and should be able to choose between.
| (It's still a tradeoff insofar as devices providing
| repairability don't provide all the features available
| from other devices.)
| ziml77 wrote:
| What I've heard from the many people who talk about right
| to repair on YouTube (channels like LTT, EEVBlog, and of
| course Louis Rossmann), is that they aren't asking for
| laws to restrict how products can be designed. A law like
| that is highly unlikely to pass and would seriously anger
| a lot of people if it did.
|
| It looks like the reason for this mismatch in opinions is
| because repair.org is not associated with Rossmann. To
| me, their existence is going to hurt the chances of right
| to repair, because people will point to their goals as a
| reason to not consider the part/version of right to
| repair that should be much less controversial (in a
| relative sense. any regulations are controversial just
| due to being regulations)
| jules wrote:
| Right to repair means that if the company A making the
| product buys a component from another company B, then A
| cannot forbid B from selling the same component to a
| repair shop. It does _not_ mean that Apple is no longer
| allowed to glue their battery into the iPad.
| kortilla wrote:
| So that means if Apple buys their chips from TSMC, then
| TSMC can now sell Apples chips directly to whoever wants
| them?
|
| It's not surprising it's a dead bill. That leaves a nice
| opportunity for TSMC to capture a bunch of Apple's margin
| without having had to do any of the chip R&D.
| jules wrote:
| No. TSMC does own that IP. This is about instances where
| the IP is owned by company B. I don't know how the
| legislation would work in a case like that. Most likely
| Apple would be required to sell replacement parts to
| everyone, rather than only to its licensed repair shops.
|
| In any case this is a theoretical point, it's usually
| some stupid little chip on the motherboard that got wet
| and rusty, not the CPU. Or the screen broke. Or the
| battery is too old.
| avgcorrection wrote:
| Anti-right-to-repair lobby out in full force to stop it--
| and they're winning. And yet you're still blaming the
| average Joe based on hypothetical questionairre framing.
| draw_down wrote:
| Here's a thread about the pitfalls of issue polling.
| https://mobile.twitter.com/davidshor/status/1355186871354200...
| dahdum wrote:
| 75% of people like the idea of "right to repair" but that
| doesn't mean they would support this particular implementation
| if they knew the details and side effects. Committees in the
| ideal allow a more nuanced examination and development of law.
|
| Sponsors have lobbyist support and the bills themselves may be
| written by them, for them, with any public benefit a side
| effect. As long as it "sounds good" other lawmakers feel forced
| to go along with.
| cjsplat wrote:
| It was killed in the Appropriations committee on a 7-0 vote,
| after passing in the Judiciary committee on a 8-1 vote.
|
| The Appropriations committee (AKA Ways and Means in the US
| House) is where lobbyists spend their money. Anything that
| costs money has to go through this, and everything costs money.
|
| The argument that this bill cost money was based on the
| potential impact on the courts as legal actions would be files
| to enforce the new warranty rights.
|
| Rather than trying to influence every potentially concerned
| member of legislature, better to spend 100x on the people who
| control the purse.
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| It is all about money. Always was and always will be.
| Politicians of both colors love the cash, they are addicted to
| the cash.
|
| https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/ftc-report-shows-growing-i...
|
| Politician support corporations, not the people. Wake the F up.
| willcipriano wrote:
| Peoples politics are closer to sports team fandom than anything
| pragmatic. As long as you keep pulling the red or blue lever no
| matter what they don't have much incentive to do much of
| anything.
| squarefoot wrote:
| > Peoples politics are closer to sports team fandom than
| anything pragmatic.
|
| This is the result of the deliberate way in which clever
| malicious spindoctors manipulated political debate over the
| years in such a way so that what once was a pondered opinion
| became later akin to a religious affiliation. The bottom line
| is that an opinion can be changed while a religious belief
| cannot; it's the system's way to ensure that once a voter is
| captured it stays loyal forever.
| tomohawk wrote:
| The Democrat party completely controls the state government.
|
| Thee party controls 31 of the 40 seats in the senate, and 60 of
| the 80 seats in the lower house.
|
| They have had a majority since 1996.
| api wrote:
| They're also tenured. Even if they disappoint, what are
| people going to do vote Republican?
|
| Same one party rule situation exists in some very "red"
| states of course.
| indymike wrote:
| Occasionally a politician does so poorly that the voters
| vote across the aisle. Right to repair can become one of
| the issues that causes people to vote for the other party.
| It really sucks to have to throw expensive products away
| because you simple can't fix them. Not being able to repair
| products is bad for everything but short term profits.
| bsder wrote:
| > They're also tenured. Even if they disappoint, what are
| people going to do vote Republican?
|
| Unlike the _rest_ of the country, California has "jungle
| primaries". So, you can wind up in the election with
| "Democrat vs Democrat". This prevents the "Barely win the
| primary and cruise to a safe general election."
|
| In addition, California can put something like this up as a
| proposition and override the legislature.
|
| However, both of these situations are likely to wind up
| with a _LOT_ of entrenched money being thrown around in
| opposition to "right to repair". So, the supporters need
| to get their ducks in a row and demonstrate real support in
| the electorate for this.
|
| > Same one party rule situation exists in some very "red"
| states of course.
|
| I'm speaking in ignorance right now, but I am unaware of
| any red states that implement either jungle primaries or
| election propositions.
| sofixa wrote:
| I'm reminded of this quote:
|
| > The United States is also a one-party state but, with
| typical American extravagance, they have two of them.
| maratc wrote:
| > There is only one party in the United States, the
| Property Party ... and it has two right wings: Republican
| and Democrat.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| That is a lazy quip. A simply review of legislation
| passed in the few previous decades shows quite a bit of
| difference in goals.
|
| Even more of a stark difference once you look at
| differences in state laws.
| guerrilla wrote:
| I imagine it's very complicated. Sometimes they just need
| cooperation on other things, then they own stock, their friends
| own stock, they run in the same social circles, you can bet
| many are just corrupt and if not their friends are, then
| there's the actual power the companies have (like the ability
| to build or layoff in their district, strategically hike
| prices, minor capital strikes, blackmail (remember who has all
| the data), all kinds of stuff.) Also, there aren't really any
| consequences to ignoring you anyway. On average, they'll either
| get re-elected because nobody notices/understands or they'll
| just be replaced by a new sock puppet.
|
| This is why you'd want liquid democracy, arbitrary right of
| recall or something along those lines.
| avgcorrection wrote:
| > Can anyone familiar with the process, explain exactly how
| these industry lobbyists win these cases? With a 75% of
| Californians being pro-right to repair, and with bipartisan
| support - you'd think this would be an easy case to argue.
|
| Well, what does that tell you? Majority public opinion does not
| matter. Money does.
| indymike wrote:
| > Do the lobbyists have some incredibly legitimate insider
| information they share with the senators? Do they just throw
| cash/donations at them?
|
| I do some grass roots lobbying in Indiana. When we can't get a
| bill to the floor, it usually comes down to this:
|
| 1. The public might support the bill, but voters aren't willing
| to vote across the aisle over the issue behind the bill. So,
| the politician can kill the bill without fear.
|
| 2. There's a technical problem with the bill that would make it
| a bad law. Sometimes, this is sabotage, but most often, it is
| discovered late in the process and the bill dies in committee
| until next session.
|
| 3. The law would change the staus quo in some way that is
| harmful to the close supporters of legislators. This is less
| about money, and more about relationships.
|
| The answer to all of the above is simple: get more public
| support, and even work to unseat legislators that are opposed
| to your issue. State legislators usually don't have a strong
| grip on their seats (some do), so they can be unseated, often
| in primary elections.
| bombcar wrote:
| The devil is often in the details, and working out the details
| can easily be engineered to kill a bill.
| jimmygrapes wrote:
| In my experience, lobbyists are essentially individual people
| hired by an organization to do extensive, cited research on the
| topic, and develop "well written and formatted" proposals
| for/against, as well as dedicate time to delivering the
| proposals and arguments in person. They call the legislators,
| they schedule meetings with them, they go through whatever
| bureaucracy of a given office to get in contact with the
| legislator, and present their information directly in ways that
| make the legislator "understand" the position better. There
| might be financial contributions and vague promises of future
| opportunities, but those tend to come from a different angle
| via the same organization.
|
| On the other hand, the regular people complain about the topic
| in pubs and coffee shops and online and at the dinner table,
| and might fill out a petition or a pre-made letter. They might
| even send a personalized email or physical letter (too often
| poorly worded and badly formatted with no evidentiary backing),
| or leave voice mails with a staffer. They won't do this very
| often, but feel that they have strength in numbers. Spoiler:
| receiving the same misspelled email from 5000 people doesn't
| make the legislator (or their staff) think "oh wow a lot of
| people are really upset by this", it just to spam/trash cans.
|
| Financial contribution ("bribes") and fancy dinners or gifts
| are usually the boogeyman when it comes to blaming lobbyists,
| but those are tangential and not as common as most people
| think. The biggest factor for a successful lobbyist is the
| research, presentation, and persistence.
| indymike wrote:
| > In my experience, lobbyists are essentially individual
| people hired by an organization to do extensive, cited
| research on the topic, and develop "well written and
| formatted" proposals for/against, as well as dedicate time to
| delivering the proposals and arguments in person.
|
| My experience is quite different and comes from doing grass
| roots lobbying at the state and Federal level. Grass-roots
| lobbying is just where regular citizens go do the lobbying
| instead of paid professionals. If you ever get a chance to
| get involved in this kind of lobbying, it will change how you
| think about government, and you'll be pleasantly surprised to
| see you can actually make a difference. You'll also find out
| that being a legislator at any level is an almost impossible
| job.
|
| Lobbyists (yes, they are individuals, but usually have an
| organization and staff behind them) are paid to show up and
| "help" legislators. This ranges from providing information
| all the way up to writing bills. Often bills are initially
| written by lobbyists (the joke is that most laws are written
| by staff interns and lobbyists). The reason lobbyists are
| effective is simple: legislators all the way up to the US
| Senate don't have time to do the work needed to write laws,
| debate them, pass them, campaign, go to parades and
| graduations and communicate with constituents... so they work
| with lobbyists, who are well paid to have time. Yes,
| professional lobbyists always have an ulterior motive, and
| always have time, because their paycheck depends on it.
| jedberg wrote:
| California instituted term limits for its state representatives
| in 1990. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but what you
| end up with is that the most senior politicians in Sacramento
| are the lobbyists.
|
| The outcome of that is that most bills are written by lobbyists
| and most state reps vote how the lobbyists tell them to,
| because they lobbyists are the ones making the deals with the
| other lobbyists, instead of the long time representatives being
| in leadership.
|
| Each system has its pros and cons, but one of the main cons of
| term limits is that lobbyists are in control.
| [deleted]
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