Signal to Noise Ratio in Politics

[andersonnnunes]

As far as I can tell, every elected politician has completely abandoned his or her responsibility in favor of political points-scoring. Everyone claims he or she can’t get anything done on account of obstructionism from the other side. But in fact, I think we’re seeing optimization of the political system. Here’s an example of the kind of optimization I’m talking about:

Gasp, are you saying politicians are not angels among men? How dare you!

Many years ago, a guy I knew briefly ran a porn site. It was low-tech. A much larger porn company was paying $0.18/click for people to advertise, and they would let anyone sign up. He created a site where you could download Pamela Anderson’s honeymoon video, and all you had to do was click 6 of his advertisements. Over time he recognized that he didn’t need to actually provide the videos, and he didn’t need to have a website. The clicks were the only thing that mattered. So he started spamming Usenet instead. Everyone that clicked his links got burned, his advertiser got burned, but he got paid anyway and eliminated all of his costs in the process.

We’re seeing that same kind of optimization in Congress and the Presidency. They no longer deliver any value, but they make more noise than ever. The noise is what gets them paid and keeps them in office.

Wow, you must be unto something.

But if that is what people are getting, it is because they made their bed, so they can lay on it. It is no ones fault but theirs for choosing like they did.

And the examples of this come in so many forms, and you can explain it in so many ways, but if the people won't take their heads from the sand, then they better get used to getting their asses heated.

Meanwhile I will have mv $noise > /dev/null and be busy with what really matters, to me.

Source of the quote.