posted on September 13, 2021 09:34 AM by
u/textlossarcade
78
u/Soyweiser43 pointsat 1631526318.000000
He could have made an easy point here about how making ‘good laws’ is
just as complex to define as making agi which will not kill us, but
instead he went on a weird, we dont give congress people enough money
(do they?) point. But nope what he does is special, cant have
politicians who think about this sort of stuff as well intrude upon his
turf.
Eh, that's not really true. Plenty of societies have had government being basically the absolute best way to get rich.
Those societies have had a bunch of problems for other reasons, but that's really not it.
Take home salary for Congresspeople is $174k, which puts them somewhere above the 90th percentile for income in the US (assuming they're the sole income in the household). That's more than most public servants make -- even those who have to do the much more difficult work of implementing and navigating arcane laws *after* they're passed. It certainly seems like enough to sit down and think through hard policy issues, but all evidence suggests that it's not "enough" to resist the allure of millions of dollars in campaign contributions.
The Yud may have had a really good point had he opted to focus on state legislatures. Many states treat these as part time/hobbyist positions -- e.g. in my state, legislator wage is literally less than half of the poverty line, so the whole legislature is pensioners, bored suburban housewives, and 'farmers' (read: agribusiness moguls who haven't worked a farm a single day in their lives). In those cases, it's quite literally true that we don't pay them enough to do the job, so they tend to just take bills that have been prewritten by lobbyists and industry groups and slap their name on the top.
Wow that is quite a lot of money. Do you perhaps also know about the whole support structure around Congresspeople? Because I know here people in congress (or well our local equivalent) dont just do the job alone, they get staff to help them with things etc (paid for by a sort of communal fund each party gets piece from depending on how many total congress people they have) Or upper house congress type thing doesn't get as much aid however. (E: this seems like a much better solution than 'just pay them more', and it also generates jobs, and they can't just keep the money themselves (at least not without financial hacks (aka fraud)))
No idea how it works locally here.
I don't know exact figures, but each member gets a staffing budget that covers a couple dozen people or so. Basic office shit (e.g. responding to constituent phone calls, etc) has to be covered out of that pie, but most representatives have at least a few policy specialists on staff who cover areas of particular interest to them/their constituents.
And on top of that, I believe all the various committees each have their own budgets/staff/personnel, so if a representative needed an expert on, say, financial regulation and didn't have one on their personal staff they could consult with the folks on the appropriate committees.
There's actually a substantial amount of electoral pressure to have members of congress NOT raise their salary. Something like that always polls poorly. But we should do it because (1) if you want good people for a job, you don't get it by paying people less, plus (2) when congress people aren't paid enough, it means that primarily rich people will become congress people, and (3) congress people have all sorts of unusual expenses, e.g., maintain two residences, as well as having all sorts of other expenses.
Good Yglesias article on it https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/5/3/18311810/congressional-pay-salary-decline-andrew-hall
I sort of love his overconfidence
about his urban planning skills vs. his “pay politicians a lot of
money and if that doesn’t work, I guess we need to redesign the human
brain from scratch” approach here.
How it started 'time to make AGI safe'
A little while later 'time to redesign how people think'
Now 'time to reinvent humans from scratch'
Pretty soon he will have to reinvent the universe from scratch.
I'm not exactly sure why, but I'm reminded of a Ben 10 episode where Ben recreates the universe after it's destroyed and gets everything right, except for the flavor of the milkshakes at a particular store. What sort of oddities would Eliezer's universe have?
the problem isn’t that Congress isn’t paid enough (it’s a lot
actually); the problem is how much more they’ll be paid when they retire
from Congress to work as lobbyists
I’m surprised he didn’t suggest tweaking the parameters of our
simulated universe to create better legislation.
Gotta hand it to Yud, tho: a lot of people with his platform would
feel pressure to be topical or relevant, but there’s something almost
pure about his doubling-down on scifi irrelevancy.
As if there’s some arbitrary limit of income after which congress
people would suddenly be content, stop taking bribes etc.. Greed does
not have a ceiling. You can make every one of them a billionaire and it
wont change anything.
Most of what Yud says here is nonsense, but the first point is dead
on: we should pay members of congress more.
Paying members of congress as little as we do means that primarily
rich people can afford to be members of congress, especially when you
consider all the various expenses that go into working for congress
(maintaining two residencies etc)
[but: see this ](https://www.reddit.com/r/SneerClub/comments/pnc46d/any_problem_can_be_solved_by_throwing_money_at_it/hcokyai/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3)
I think we should pay members of congress more. See this Yglesias article for a good defense
https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/5/3/18311810/congressional-pay-salary-decline-andrew-hall
He could have made an easy point here about how making ‘good laws’ is just as complex to define as making agi which will not kill us, but instead he went on a weird, we dont give congress people enough money (do they?) point. But nope what he does is special, cant have politicians who think about this sort of stuff as well intrude upon his turf.
I sort of love his overconfidence about his urban planning skills vs. his “pay politicians a lot of money and if that doesn’t work, I guess we need to redesign the human brain from scratch” approach here.
the problem isn’t that Congress isn’t paid enough (it’s a lot actually); the problem is how much more they’ll be paid when they retire from Congress to work as lobbyists
I’m surprised he didn’t suggest tweaking the parameters of our simulated universe to create better legislation.
Gotta hand it to Yud, tho: a lot of people with his platform would feel pressure to be topical or relevant, but there’s something almost pure about his doubling-down on scifi irrelevancy.
As if there’s some arbitrary limit of income after which congress people would suddenly be content, stop taking bribes etc.. Greed does not have a ceiling. You can make every one of them a billionaire and it wont change anything.
I work in local government and I hate literally everything about this.
Most of what Yud says here is nonsense, but the first point is dead on: we should pay members of congress more.
Paying members of congress as little as we do means that primarily rich people can afford to be members of congress, especially when you consider all the various expenses that go into working for congress (maintaining two residencies etc)
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