Frustration and Politics

"There are two aspects to this domino effect of absurd and retrograde internet law voting that I perceive to be at the source of our collective woes:

* there's a generational effect: most of the politicians we have elected are no more than casual users of internet, if they're not proud of saying that they never use it. They keep on viewing it as a weird thing that delivers leisure to teenagers. They're oblivious to the business and societal impacts, and clearly happy to stay oblivious.
* there's a corporate culture cause: our western societies, despite some superficial differences in appreciation, were built on the idea that everything should be done for businesses to thrive. Of course the rhetoric surrounding that was that if businesses thrive, citizens will too. Anyone looking at the news in the last ten years know this not to be true, but politicians are still operating under that paradigm. So when content industry lobbyists explain that this is the only way for them to thrive (don't tell me about survival, that bull- has long been debunked) politicians are only too happy to believe them: they're big business, this can only be in the benefit of the citizens.
* there's a technocatic overflow: politicians were never the best to actually understand what it is they are legislating about, and when it comes to technology, they neither understand what they are talking about, nor do they care to. Unfortunately, when it comes to technology, details matter. This is why they are happy to legislate counter-productively, not to say dangerously."

in reference to:

"The spark for this post is the current Digital Economy Bill debacle in the UK."
- Fiberevolution: Frustration and Politics (view on Google Sidewiki)