So what if innovation slows? Who decided that unrestrained innovation was ever the goal? Why is innovation pace more important than everything else? Rather, shouldn’t we pursue innovation at the pace at which it generates the most societal benefit? If that happens to be a tad slower, so be it. We have speed bumps for a reason.
great one... IMO this is another form of the capitalism vs socialism, big government vs small government, societal responsibility vs individual responsibility and even nurture vs nature...
To me it ends up coming down to "degrees" ...; How big do we want government to be, how capitalistic vs socialistic, how much of your behavior is nurtured vs in your nature, how much should we leave it up to you as an indvidual vs society.
That said i'd argue there isn't much debate that regulation as we have experienced it historically slows innovation, maybe in some future brilliant vision we can avoid that but to me its sort of like stop lights. they will always slow down the car. I align with your thought that if "programmed" right the stop lights protect us and so its fine.
My issue is that people defining and enacting regulation often tend to either have limited knowledge and understanding or are intentionally biased (due to special interests). I'm fine with getting slowed down for safety reasons but IMO the people doing the slow down need to be Exceptional at their jobs (as good or better than the innovators). I want the smartest and most efficient people about the innovation doing the regulation not bureaucrats and pseudo politicians. Bitcoin is a perfect example of this... for the current head of treasury to say that BTC is haven for illicit activity 5+ years after this has been demonstrated to be nonsensical relative to fiat money is either terribly ignorant or intentionally biased.
Great point on speed to regulation... given how quickly adoption happens in current day and age.
yeah I see your point, there's definitely a broader point about how society itself should be configured.
You bring up a great point about the quality of regulators. In my tech ethics class, my professor often says "who among you here is willing to be a regulator given the salary and benefits"? It drives home the point that talent recruitment can be difficult in that space. Many people end up taking pay cuts to work for the government and while that may be commendable, many capable people won't or can't afford to do that.
So the question becomes how do you entice the smartest, most capable people to become regulators? Why would they choose that instead of working in the private sector?
1. I think what determines how well a given industry is regulated by the government is how interested the government really is in regulating said industry. I think this interest has consequences for the kinds of regulations that are put in place [whether/not there will be loopholes, whether said regulations will adequately rein in industry etc] as well as the quality of experts that are hired. For example in 2009, when the Obama administration was interested in reining in the big banks, they hired experts like Elizabeth Warren and Gene Sperling — and set up the CFPB. Recently, the House of Representatives hired Lina Khan to lead their investigation into Amazon's alleged anti-competitive practices. So, I definitely think that where there is an interest, the government can and actually does hire top experts, who are pioneers in their respective fields.
2. Totally agree with you that the salary and benefits the government offers top talent does not make public service a particularly compelling prospect. I don't think civil servants are compensated enough, across the board. Sadly, this is as a result of the fact that government has been demonized as "inefficient" for the past 40 years and even the most modest increases to civil servants' pay/benefits remain politically unpopular. The fact that government generally and government workers are starved of the vital resources they need — makes govt. inefficient, which thus feeds into the existing and false[IMO] narrative that government is "inefficient".
great one... IMO this is another form of the capitalism vs socialism, big government vs small government, societal responsibility vs individual responsibility and even nurture vs nature...
To me it ends up coming down to "degrees" ...; How big do we want government to be, how capitalistic vs socialistic, how much of your behavior is nurtured vs in your nature, how much should we leave it up to you as an indvidual vs society.
That said i'd argue there isn't much debate that regulation as we have experienced it historically slows innovation, maybe in some future brilliant vision we can avoid that but to me its sort of like stop lights. they will always slow down the car. I align with your thought that if "programmed" right the stop lights protect us and so its fine.
My issue is that people defining and enacting regulation often tend to either have limited knowledge and understanding or are intentionally biased (due to special interests). I'm fine with getting slowed down for safety reasons but IMO the people doing the slow down need to be Exceptional at their jobs (as good or better than the innovators). I want the smartest and most efficient people about the innovation doing the regulation not bureaucrats and pseudo politicians. Bitcoin is a perfect example of this... for the current head of treasury to say that BTC is haven for illicit activity 5+ years after this has been demonstrated to be nonsensical relative to fiat money is either terribly ignorant or intentionally biased.
Great point on speed to regulation... given how quickly adoption happens in current day and age.
yeah I see your point, there's definitely a broader point about how society itself should be configured.
You bring up a great point about the quality of regulators. In my tech ethics class, my professor often says "who among you here is willing to be a regulator given the salary and benefits"? It drives home the point that talent recruitment can be difficult in that space. Many people end up taking pay cuts to work for the government and while that may be commendable, many capable people won't or can't afford to do that.
So the question becomes how do you entice the smartest, most capable people to become regulators? Why would they choose that instead of working in the private sector?
This was a good read Tobi, well done!
Two points here.
1. I think what determines how well a given industry is regulated by the government is how interested the government really is in regulating said industry. I think this interest has consequences for the kinds of regulations that are put in place [whether/not there will be loopholes, whether said regulations will adequately rein in industry etc] as well as the quality of experts that are hired. For example in 2009, when the Obama administration was interested in reining in the big banks, they hired experts like Elizabeth Warren and Gene Sperling — and set up the CFPB. Recently, the House of Representatives hired Lina Khan to lead their investigation into Amazon's alleged anti-competitive practices. So, I definitely think that where there is an interest, the government can and actually does hire top experts, who are pioneers in their respective fields.
2. Totally agree with you that the salary and benefits the government offers top talent does not make public service a particularly compelling prospect. I don't think civil servants are compensated enough, across the board. Sadly, this is as a result of the fact that government has been demonized as "inefficient" for the past 40 years and even the most modest increases to civil servants' pay/benefits remain politically unpopular. The fact that government generally and government workers are starved of the vital resources they need — makes govt. inefficient, which thus feeds into the existing and false[IMO] narrative that government is "inefficient".