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The fact that it's the wrong way around was remarked on at the time, newfriend.
But let me clarify since you're confused:
The Motte is "epsilon regulation doesn't instantly kill 100% of innovation", a very defensible claim. The Bailey is "I hear about [extensive compliance] from my friends in literally every other industry ever. They still seem capable of operating.", a controversial statement.
My own consistent position is that this regulation is a small advance that is inconsequential by itself but proceeds in a direction that is ultimately incompatible with innovation and that assenting to it is a slippery slope. I therefore oppose it in principle, much like I oppose other regulation that lead in the direction of encroachment of things that I cherish, no matter how reasonable it is.
You may say there are "reasonable" limits we can impose on free speech as well. I still oppose them no matter how reasonable they are.
You may then argue that slippery slope arguments are fallacious, to which I'll retort that they are only so when the slope isn't slippery, and that we have a veritable orgy of historical evidence that smaller regulation almost always lead to larger regulation.
This is a true statement about the world, not an outrageous claim, newfriend. You may be thinking that those words mean something other than what those words mean. What are you thinking they mean?
Great! We can surely then have a reasoned discussion about the nature of slippery slope arguments, trying to understand when they hold, to what extent they hold, and whether the premises required for them to have force are present here. I have never objected to the concept of a slippery slope arguments, but it does need some something behind it, otherwise it leaves us vulnerable to just any crazy extrapolation of anything in any domain. We probably wouldn't respond to, "Gay marriage is a slippery slope to marrying dogs!" with, "H-yup. All slippery slope arguments are perfectly valid and correct in all conclusions."
It's a true statement about your opinion. I disagree with your assessment of what "being capable of operating" entails, as we have gone over already.
it certainly does!
All it needs formally is demonstration that the slope is slippery. Which we can discuss in this case, but I don't really see the argument against given we have dozens of examples in this very specific field, and in other fields of engineering, of the complexity of regulation increasing to smothering levels from previously small demands. Automobiles, airplanes, even dishwashers, you can take your pick of examples.
Will you then disagree that government regulation is a slippery slope? And on what ground will you do so?
We discussed shale fracking. Now Space X, ozempic, Matt Levine gives tons of examples of financial innovation, we're damn close to self-driving cars, but the hol' up is the tech, not the regulation. The list goes on and on. I do not see any more content in your comment that is anywhere near suitable to claim that we can simply declare this "gone over already". If anything, you just dropped it, because your position didn't go anywhere.
Let's make sure we're on the same page here, so that we are at least confident that we're both actually really ready to engage the slippery slope question honestly, without leaving room for a retreat in this direction. Are other industries capable of operating with some amount of regulation? Not, "Is there a general sense of a regulation-innovation tradeoff?" We agree that there is. The straightforward statement that many other industries are capable of operating with some amount of regulation. Are you going to stick with the position that this is an outlandish Bailey? Or is it simply a true fact about the world, and we can shift the discussion toward slippery slopes?
Let's take a look at those survivors then.
Illegal in Europe at large.
Currently being sued for not respecting the contradictions between ITAR and the CRA.
Took three years to change the label of a drug that would never have been approved if they had to label it from scratch.
Most financial innovation is currently happening outside of regulation.
Technically very hard indeed, but I'm willing to bet they'll also become very hard legally once they start inevitably running people over.
On the whole, it seems hard to argue that these innovations are examples of regulation being compatible with or fostering innovation. They rather seem to exist despite it.
I'm willing to have the charity to shake on "there a general sense of a regulation-innovation tradeoff". This is true. The more regulation, the less innovation as a general rule, with some exceptions.
As for the second part of the argument, you haven't produced any reasoning as to why regulation isn't a slippery slope while I can point to the development of essentially any technology since 1940 to affirm it. From the dishwasher to the machine gun.
You seem ready to argue elsewhere in this thread that the very idea of the slope being slippery is ridiculous and unfounded and here you're dodging. I think that is bad faith and that you've done nothing but project objections to your antagonism onto those that criticize it here. That is isn't just unconvincing rhetoric, it's a waste of our time.
So instead let's actually do something productive and establish your position definitively: what is your positive theory of the interaction of regulation and innovation, does it have any limiting principle and how does it maintain the innovation cycle and competition in the face of the interests that inevitably act on it?
I don't actually see how your argument here is supposed to function. Can you spell it out for me?
Nope; literally never did that. Please don't waste our time strawmanning me.
I think there is often a general sense of a regulation-innovation tradeoff. It happens in different ways in different places, and it's often area specific, many times in ways that you might not expect. It's a really tough problem, so I'm generally in favor of fewer regulations, especially when they're not pretty decently well-tied to a specific, serious problem. I think that a lot of the time, you can maintain the innovation cycle and competition by being careful and hopefully as light-touch as possible with regulation. Some examples would be that if (and this is a big if, because I would actually disagree with the ends) you want to reduce carbon emissions from powerplants or noxious emissions from tailpipes, it's better to do things like set output targets and let the innovation cycle and competition figure out how to solve the problem rather than mandate specific technological solutions that must be adopted for the rest of time, no questions asked. Of course, this is an easy example, and many situations can pose more difficult problems; I'm probably not going to have the answer to them all off the top of my head.
This requirement seems mostly focused on some of the most egregious practices, and it appears that they at least try to leave open the possibility that people can come to the table with innovative solutions to accomplish the "aspirational text" (as gattsuru put it), even if it wasn't a solution that they specifically identified. It may be possible that we have some other big breakthroughs in the field of network security that make some of these line items look ridiculous in hindsight, which is why I would also say that a grossly under-resourced effort across regulation regimes is hunting for precisely any items that may have been deprecated, so they can be promptly chopped. I lament that this is not done well enough, and it's likely one of the major contributors to the general sense of a regulation-innovation tradeoff.
I reject the concept that as soon as epsilon regulation of an industry is put into place, it necessarily and logically follows that there is a slippery slope that results in innovation dying. I think you need at least some argument further. It's easy to just 'declare'
bankruptcya slippery slope, but we know that many end up not.Sure.
Let's look at it from the point of view of Rogers' popular diffusion model.
According to this theory innovation as a social phenomenon is essentially the communication of randomly appearing new ideas of practices and the successful diffusion and adoption of those ideas relies on the availability of communication channels between five increasingly risk averse segments of the population.
So to be a successfully diffused innovation, an idea has to successively be adopted successively by:
And the criteria that people use to select what they do and do not adopt are:
Now having established a model, the question is how does regulation and the establishment of norms affect these factors? What does good and bad regulation look like from our model and how likely are they?
Bad regulation is highly normative and costly. It lowers potential compatibility by adding requirements that potential new practices and ideas may not follow. Good regulation makes the existing landscape accessible for new entrants and interoperable with potentially novel uses.
Bad regulation requires high upfront investments that make adoption a risk. Good regulation provides for trials and experiments.
Bad regulation equalizes outcomes so that relative advantage is marginal. Good regulation lets winners win big.
Bad regulation makes the benefits of novel approaches impossible to demonstrate. Good regulation allows them to be obvious.
Bad regulation prevents people from obtaining the skills and knowledge to implement new approaches. Good regulation provides them those skills and knowledge.
Now that we have a good idea of what a good and a bad policy look like, let's make a detour through another area of sociology to figure out what types of regulation institutions and states tend to develop over time.
In Michels' famous study of the eponymous Political Parties, he develops a general sociological theory of institutions that is nowadays mostly known under the name of the "iron law of oligarchy".
This theory provides that any democratic institution (a fortiori any institution) always tends towards oligarchy because the "tactical and technical necessities" of power condition the playing field so that the people who end up leading any institution are always those most organized and motivated by power because this makes them uniquely fit to this selection environment.
In short, as Leach summarizes the theory: "Bureacracy happens. If bureaucracy happens, power rises. Power corrupts.".
Trivially, the people who write legislation are participants in an organization, therefore participants in a destined oligarchy and ultimately moved, at the asymptote, by the increase of their power and control and the centralization thereof. This was later described as well by Weber, Galbraith and other sociologists.
As I am sure you understand, this is not the crucible for good regulation in the sense that we are disposed to here.
A centralized bureaucracy needs the world to be understandable to it (see Scott's Seeing Like a State), and it needs it to change slowly enough that the control mechanisms can keep up. This therefore leads to ever increasing lists of demands that require high upfront investments, are specifically designed to prevent powerful new entrants, offer rigid frameworks where it is hard to show the benefits of ideas that upset the established order and ultimately where the availability of financially liquid risk takers is deliberately minimized because the "technokings" are a rival castle.
To give more power, in any quantity, to any human institution is therefore, by necessity, to put oneself on the road to prevent innovation. Because power is threatened by innovation. And as Schmitt rightfully observes, power can stand no rivals.
You may notice the paradox present here, in that innovation itself is such an act. And every rebel is always grooming himself into a new master.
Machiavelli and his followers, myself included, understand that freedom, a fortiori innovation, can only really be found in the cracks of this endless struggle. And thus, I cherish any haven that is beyond the control of power and will defend it, not out of the misplaced sense of self important artistry that you seem to identify, but because it is the only respite that we have against the violence of our condition. And I said as much, in not so long winded a fashion, in my original answer.
Those are plenty interesting general characteristics, and I don't object to much. Now, perhaps attention can be turned toward applying these ideas to the regulation at hand. I spoke to some reasons why I think this document leans much more toward the "good regulation" side than the "bad regulation" side. It seems plenty open to all sorts of innovative products in the IoT space and has very little that seems likely to affect the development of new features and products, except perhaps some edge cases. Any thoughts?
Well my thoughts are that yet again you are deliberately refusing to address the slippery slope and thus that this conversation has come to an end.
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