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As a former politician, I really don't love this.

It's already difficult enough to get people of the capacities that most of us want to see (good, smart, could be employed elsewhere, empathetic) involved in politics as it's so negative and divisive.

There are, as other comments highlight, loads of legitimate and reasonable reasons why somebody would be using a phone mid-debate: rebuttal research, communicating with colleagues in chamber, communicating with their own office/staff, the list is fairly long and reasonably legitimate.

Nobody loves this, and I suspect that's the point. I expect this same tech is about to be rolled out en masse to surveil workers everywhere (if it hasn't already been).

I further suspect that by applying this to the people in charge of creating regulations, the artist is trying to drive new regulations.

New regulation: AI-based tagging forbidden for use on politicians.

Is insider trading still legal for politicians? Pretty much, right? They just have to disclose it weeks after the fact?

Certainly I haven't heard of any news of the STOCK act from 2012 actually being enforced, e.g. no insider trading convictions or anything.

The STOCK Act mostly only had the effect of creating some inconveniences for lawmakers (e.g., their families could still trade based on their guidance), and even that was only the case for a year as Senator Reid's House bill S.716 effectively gutted the STOCK Act and restored the status quo, was passed by unanimous consent after 14 seconds of discussion, and was signed into law by President Obama:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STOCK_Act#Amendment

https://www.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/senate-bill/716

As far as I can tell, most of the politicians aren't doing insider trading. They are trading on public knowledge (laws being introduced) but that people don't really pay attention to. Maybe I am wrong?

Insider trading laws are formulated around prosecuting persons that have a contractual duty to the company that act on company-internal information before its published to stockholders. Politicians do have unpublished information about laws and regulations that will affect companies in the future, but they don't have any specific duty to the company, and the information is not exactly company-internal, so it doesn't count as insider trading by technical definition.

I've ever seen a proposed reformulation of these laws that would redraw the lines clearly enough to prevent abuse by politicians but not impede legitimate cases. Maybe the best solution is to ban politicians from trading individual stocks, only broad market indexes / mutual funds.

> Maybe the best solution is to ban politicians from trading individual stocks, only broad market indexes / mutual funds.

I think that still has issues. Requiring blind trusts seems safer.

There is another problem, which is family members. If you ban the politician, but allow their spouse, kids, etc to trade freely then you didn't actual solve any problems.

Like it or not, "eyes glued to phone" has become a pretty clear indicator of distraction, and I'm fine calling this out. If I'm in a meeting giving a presentation, and I notice people glued to their phones during it, I'm not going to call them out on the spot, but I'll probably do something afterwards: Either 1. tighten up my invite list next time so as to only include people who really need to be there, or 2. politely ask the person what I could have done in my presentation to make it more engaging.

I had a manager once who, if she would spot someone on their phone in a meeting, would put them on the spot and ask them a question relevant to what the team was just discussing. Some people would call that a "dick move" but I'm actually supportive of it. If you're supposed to be paying attention, get off your phone.

I really don't like how society has just normalized whipping your phone out in the middle of human interactions.

Some people use bits of time on their phone to ironically help them focus on the person they're talking to.

If I have to listen to someone with zero of what people would call "external distractions" I'm barely going to remember any of it. But if I can poke on my phone while I'm listening, maybe look up some information relevant to the topic, then I'm much more engaged and retain far more of what's being said.

There's a difference between "eyes glued to phone" and "eyes looking at phone occasionally and then returning to the room". Too often, people see the latter, and it's like looking at a second hand on a clock. They take the initial glance, it looks longer than it really is, and so "eyes glued to phone" is their takeaway.

> I had a manager once who, if she would spot someone on their phone in a meeting, would put them on the spot and ask them a question relevant to what the team was just discussing. Some people would call that a "dick move" but I'm actually supportive of it. If you're supposed to be paying attention, get off your phone.

That manager would be flabbergasted when I answer the question. Unfortunately her takeaway would probably be "he could answer that while still not paying full attention? how can I make him pay full attention!" despite the fact that what she would call "full attention" would make my brain more likely to drift.

> If I have to listen to someone with zero of what people would call "external distractions" I'm barely going to remember any of it. But if I can poke on my phone while I'm listening, maybe look up some information relevant to the topic, then I'm much more engaged and retain far more of what's being said.

This really makes no sense to me. It's well known that human cannot multitask beyond system 1 / system 2 in parallel, so you must be much better at micro time-sharing than pretty much everybody.

> It's well known that human

That's your problem there. Most of these soundbites come from studies that would have listed an enormous amount of limitations and had further limitations that weren't explicitly listed. It is common for people with certain conditions to be excluded from studies.

I don't personally identify with the GP, but I certainly remember more if I have a mental picture to hang the facts on - sometimes this might involve looking up a circuit diagram, a map, or an equation. It doesn't mean I'm not paying attention, but it means I'm scrambling to find a peg to hang that information on before it slips out of my mind. I might also be jotting down some notes for asking later - presumably you wouldn't express the same incredulity towards somebody using pen and paper instead?

No, it’s the equivalent of doodling while having a meeting. It engages a different part of the brain.

I do this, and it definitely helps me with recall, much to the detriment of upper management that think I'm just not paying attention and wasting time.

Modern computers do far less actual multitasking than most users realize. Yet we still call it "multitasking". Sufficiently fine-grained task switching is indistinguishable from actual multitasking. Also, is it really even task switching if I'm concurrently reviewing information directly related to the discussion topic?

If you were in a position of managerial power over me, and you saw me doing this very thing to maximize my engagement with the topic and task at hand, what would your response be? Would you "make me put my phone away"? Would you cause a distraction by interrupting the discussion to focus on my focus management tools?

Consider a similar tasks that are practiced by thousands of professionals daily: Live translation, flying a plane while talking to ATC, playing music while talking. Some people find these things nearly impossible, but with enough practice it's definitely possible.

> Like it or not, "eyes glued to phone" has become a pretty clear indicator of distraction, and I'm fine calling this out.

This is not like work meetings: 99% of meaningful policy work is happening behind closed doors. The publicly-televised sessions is where people give speeches for the cameras and then cast votes with (typically) pre-negotiated outcomes. So, I don't think it makes a whole lot of sense to be upset if someone is browsing Reddit while an opposition politician is saying their piece.

> If I'm in a meeting giving a presentation, and I notice people glued to their phones during it, I'm not going to call them out on the spot, but I'll probably do something afterwards

A tip from the book The Charisma Myth: when you notice someone on their phone, just pause what you were saying, the sudden silence usually brings people back. If you also look at them when pausing, it will be very clear what’s going on without you even saying a word

This works both during presentations and conversations

I have a friend who this does not work on. In his worse moments he will continue on his phone like nothing happened and not even bring it back up later / forget that we were even talking about something if I were to bring it up later. Super annoying.

I'm not sure if it's this way in your friend's case, but some people will do this on purpose. Usually it is remembered by people that do this intentionally, but sometimes you're just listening and don't want to become part of the conversation. Being put on the spot for people like that is often very negative, and is more likely to get them to forget what was going on, and instead concentrate on how uncomfortable they were made to feel.

>I had a manager once who, if she would spot someone on their phone in a meeting, would put them on the spot and ask them a question relevant to what the team was just discussing. Some people would call that a "dick move" but I'm actually supportive of it. If you're supposed to be paying attention, get off your phone.

Fully get it, and that manager was quite right to do what they did. I occasionally bring my phone to meetings, but it's because I run a company and sometimes I'll have interesting data that might be relevant at a given point in a discussion. It's more to help move the meeting or conversation along in a helpful manner. I generally bring pre-meeting notes in digital format, and then a pen/paper to actually take physical notes when I'm talking to people. People generally don't find it rude if I look down to write something important down versus looking at a hpone.

I'd like to be able to do this as well, but I might get pushback as most of the people I meet with are significantly younger than me (I'm 35 and do sales to health/wellness establishments, most of the time I'm dealing with 20-somethings).

>I really don't like how society has just normalized whipping your phone out in the middle of human interactions.

Agree 100%, however, in the context of biz meetings, there could be reasons for it. Perhaps I'm hard of hearing and want to record the conversation, for note-taking purposes, or perhaps, there's an interesting data point I might have in my digital notes that might back you up even more in a meeting. I'm just playing devil's advocate in a situation that is quite realistic. I personally hate when people are on their phones in meetings or otherwise important interactions.

I see your point, but many times people use their phone to look up data. It's where I keep many documents.

Would you be happier if they were reading some piece of paper in front of them? That looks very official and serious, but their brain could be drifting away to anywhere else.

How do you think people NOT paid by the population feel about the idea of continuous surveillance, the potential for misinterpretation and huge impact on their lives? I suspect your discomfort and that of others in positions that create these types of environments is a feature, not a bug.

A lot of politicians are against surveillance too, they just get outnumbered. I think it's an unfair assumption to assume the parent comment is for surveillance legislation, especially if they're someone who frequents HN and are therefore more likely to be technically literate.

> A lot of politicians are against surveillance too, they just get outnumbered

Well, politicians do vote and make laws.

if the majority of them are for privacy, there is absolutely no reason for them to vote against it each time they are asked to.

Usually a law is passed when the majority of politicians vote for it...

if the majority of them are for privacy, there is absolutely no reason for them to vote against it

That's not how politics works. Most politicians belong to political parties, and sometimes you have to vote against your personal conviction and with your party, especially if you actually want to get stuff done long term. Compromising by voting with your party and against your convictions on one issue to ensure that you get their support on another issue you consider more important is what politics is all about.

I'm not saying this person is FOR surveillance, I'm saying a visceral example of its impact - especially on those who make decisions around it that impact everyone - is a powerful piece of art. I suspect most surveillance debates are theoretical and making politicians feel potential impacts is a very valuable experience.

Bear in mind that the person you're applying to is also not paid by the population. They said "former politician".

No need to worry, politicians will make it illegal to monitor politicians in this way. Only workers will ever need to deal with always-on surveillance like this.

Honestly, how much such of hearings, etc. are a waste of time, and you could better serve your constituents and country/community by doing some work? Do you have time to pay full attention in all these situations?

Since you're on HN, I'll assume you're pretty cool, but most people take what politicians like as an inverse signal. If they don't like it, it's probably good.

Yeah, I weighed up the possibility that people would perceive it that way. That also speaks to the negative perception of politics/politicians too of course...

Well, when most of your job is perception, this is part of the job.

They said "former politician", though. Also, this is a form of surveillance - I think most people on HN would be against that as well.

This seems to be an art installation, but I see no explanation of what it means. Is there subtext that's obvious to someone from Belgium (e.g., politicians on phones is a known hot issue)? Or is the viewer supposed to interpret?

BTW, if the main complaint that you have about your politicians is that they sometimes look at their phones while in meetings, you're doing really well, count your blessings.

> if the main complaint that you have about your politicians is that they sometimes look at their phones

It's just a cheap shot to rile up people that don't know better. Actively listening and arguing with opposition in the Parliament have very little to do with actual politics.

Swedish newspapers do a similar thing every year when they name and shame the politicians that submitted the fewest bills, making no mention of the fact that they are all useless and will be rejected in the current system. Somewhat related, The Social Democrats abuse the system and use AI to generate hundreds of questions each month that the government have to research and give written responses to. It's all a ton of pointless work that have negative impact on actually getting things done.

I'm confident most people can agree that Belgium have worse problems. Without knowing the details, I believe them going two years without a government had more impact than politicians using their phones while waiting for their time to speak or vote.

The fact that Belgium could function without too much issues for that long points to that it did not have much of an impact. This is because a lot of the things that a normal federal government does, is done by the regions in Belgium.

Obviously the subtext is that they are faffing off on their phones and not using their presence at a parliamentary meeting to represent the interests of their constituents in that meeting, which is what they were elected to do. Though from that perspective we should also focus some more on the empty seats, then.

It's somewhat tricky to measure the effectiveness of your MP, because of course their work output is politics.

We have https://www.theyworkforyou.com/ in the UK, which is a fantastic site, listing everything your MP does in Parliament. But the truth is that most MPs always vote exactly how their party tells them, and rarely speak. The main chamber in Parliament is mostly national debate on how to run the country, and amendments and motions are put forward outwith that chamber, by teams of MPs communicating with the Speaker's office.

Most MPs in the Commons are just waiting their turn to speak, and they wrote their speech the day before. The rest only turn up at voting time, and vote how they were told to by their party, then leave again. They don't listen to speeches, it's not going to make them vote differently.

So perhaps we need all the MP's official emails and texts to truly scrutinize their activity. Their presence and focus in the chamber is of limited importance.

What's more useful, IMHO, are when MPs join the various Parliamentary committees and listen to witnesses, scrutinize legislation line-by-line, and such. Those are meetings where I'd like MPs to be fully focused.

> presence at a parliamentary meeting (...) which is what they were elected to do

Parliamentarians from all around the world gasp in shock and revulsion

Art is like that, you don't always get a prepackaged explanation of how you "should" interpret it.

Edit: perhaps the work of the politicians can be thought of in the same way; a lot of the job is performance art.

He (oh he is you, OP) has got a lot of different projects, including one that was tracking people on EarthCam streams and trying to find their Instagram post (or the other way around):

https://driesdepoorter.be/thefollower/ , which went sort of viral: https://mashable.com/article/instagram-stalking-ai-facial-re...

I wonder why you self-promote and repost your "old" stuff though..

Yea kind of odd when the last post by which the submission about is from 2022 when it appears to be last active.

If there was some update, revelation, or even just being active.

I am seeing this person being referred as an "artist".

Thinking its a ploy for sales... they arent really selling anything i would consider valuable or sellable (eye of the beholder?).

> they arent really selling anything i would consider valuable or sellable (eye of the beholder?).

Which meshes well with art, so maybe the OP, in fact, is an artist.

"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something."

True...

I suspect you may just not value artists or art because your comment is quite dismissive. There are artists putting significantly less effort into their creations than this who sell them for significantly more. This particular exhibit isn't even for sale.

> I wonder why you self-promote and repost your "old" stuff though..

Personal branding / marketing? Pretty common on HN if you look out for it.

Living in a country that doesn't speak my first language, I use the dictionary all the time during meetings and presentations. I hate it when people tell me that’s rude.. Okay I'll just sit here and not understand what was said to keep up appearances?

Presumably that specific reason would not apply to high-level politicians in their own country, and if it did they would have a real-time translator.

Actually, Belgium has two (main) official languages so roughly 50% of the people present are now hearing their native language.

In other wording, if someone is speaking about a subject I'm not entirely familiar with, I'd likely be googling different details to get a more real picture than the one presented by the person proposing changes. Incentives and all that. An issue with political discourse in parliaments is that it's a meeting with a lot of important people so you can't really ask for clarifications again and again as you would in a 5 person meeting at work if you don't understand something you feel might be important. Partially because if everyone started asking for clarifications the topics won't get anywhere and partially because it's politics so you have to appear competent at all times.

If you're constantly looking up things on your phone about what a speaker just said, you'll miss the thing being said right now. Humans cannot multitask. Anyone that says they can are lying or are misguided at best. So instead of missing one thing, you've put yourself in a position to miss even more rather than looking up something afterwards.

> Humans cannot multitask. Anyone that says they can are lying or are misguided at best.

I don't believe this to be axiomatically true. I don't believe it's an intrinsic ability, but I believe it's very possible for humans to task-switch at a level that appears like multitasking (and when you think about it, the only multitasking modern computers do is the threading that multiple CPU cores enable, when it comes to a single core there is only one task running at a time, ever).

In certain situations, I've found my brain able to do almost fractal searches through a target space. Or at least to simultaneously search for the answer to more than one question (take the game Hangman and its variants, when looking at a partial word my brain is certainly not searching for a single letter at a time).

What if you use a physical (paper) dictionary? Perhaps people will respond to it better.

Don't let the special case invalidate a good heuristic.

Woah i like his other sideproject: https://driesdepoorter.be/product/shirt/ .

> A shirt whose price increases by 1 Euro with every purchase. The price is embroidered on the shirt.

Current price is 183EUR ! (EDIT means he made almost 17k EUR on this so far)

If it is anything like the UK parliament, what goes on in the chamber is less important than the WhatsApp groups the UK Gov runs on.

Fun fact: this is quite likely illegal to do in the EU. If it should or should not be legal is a different question, but my understanding of present day law makes this not permissible.

Which law makes this illegal? Presumably the live stream is setup by the flemish government themselves, and they're all public figures acting in a public capacity. Maybe there is something else here, or some detail of Belgian law, but from the outside it doesn't seem there is much of a privacy argument.

There's a brand new AI law too. You'd likely need explicit consent of these people to have their personal data (face) processed by AI.

Facial detection is processing of article 9 GDPR data which requires explicit consent.

Interesting, can you expand a bit on what particular laws you think it violates?

It's not illegal, but unlawful for data controllers to process such personal data without free permission. But in this case there's likely an exception in GDPR article 85, for "For processing carried out for journalistic purposes or the purpose of academic artistic or literary expression" [1].

[1] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2016/679/oj/eng#art_85

Oh I can use your personal private data for artistic expression?!?

Doubtful.

That does not give that right. It just asks states to carve out protections for journalism. Biometric data is very strictly regulated by the GDPR. The exceptions are listed in article 9.

What exactly is illegal?

Would you point out why so?

And also think of the children!!1

GDPR "news reporting" exemption probably applies.

What I found more amusing when in meetings with government officials is their constant use of two phones, one officially issued and one personal. There is a lot more use of the personal phone in official meetings than there should be. They have been trained to do as little as possible on the phone more likely to be subject to a subpoena.

This is useless, if you don't know what they're doing on their phones.

Fact checking the speaker? Playing candy crush? Who knows.

Watching porn!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-61245040

https://news.sky.com/story/neil-parish-mp-accused-of-watchin...

> We are supposed to set an example in this place

I think that went out of the window a long time ago. All the shouting and booing - they're like kids watching a pantomime.

And the loophole is apparently to just use a laptop or tablet, like two of the not-highlighted politicians in the photo.

Nope it's useful.

Those people need to feel some kind of pressure and invasive monitoring. Because they're the ones who vote to allow it or not.

Whoever wrote this must really like taking pictures of electronics.

Please do this for congress!! It would be fascinating to see stats posted for each person, etc. BUT more interesting would be the response of the politicians. Will they use their devices less, or will the cameras be ordered turned off and the live stream halted?

I think there's probably 3 outcomes.

1. Republic lawmakers won't care because their base won't care

2. Democrats will use their phones less because their contituents expect them to take their role seriously

3. Politicians will use this performatively when "the other side" is speaking

Having once sat in one of the chairs in the House Chamber, I'll fault no politician for fidgeting with their phone. If whatever is being discussed is rather irrelevant or droning on, you've got to do something to stay awake with such comfort.

Looks like the last tweet was from 2022? https://x.com/FlemishScroller

This has prompted some interesting points around the value of using a mobile in a chamber which I've enjoyed reading. However, I wonder if the tool could be re-purposed to catch drivers using mobile phones whilst driving? I imagine there are privacy concerns here, but it might be interesting to explore it.

Need a predictive version of this that tags politicians in tweets expressing my stance on whatever is being debated, right before they use their phones on livestreams.

Fun, but also kind of a dick move to apply bossware to more people; the phone is where the real politics happens.

No, if anything, all that stuff regular people are subjected to, must be now be used against people in power just to let them feel the weight of reality they have created. It is not that dissimilar to how Musk flights were tracked by a bot on Twitter not that long ago.

Is it a dick move? Sure, but I am tired of there being two set of rules for those with power and those without it.

> Sure, but I am tired of there being two set of rules for those with power and those without it.

Can you elaborate on how this project is going to impact that? What change do you expect will come about from it?

IIRC a lot of politicians in the US have been very anti-gay, until a family member they cared about came out as gay. Suddenly, and only then did they start to care about human rights.

Ideally, this will result in more politicians being upset about needless ~~user~~ human hostility. And perhaps a few of them will understand the implications of why it's bad.

Go walk around any major city; we'll wait. You were just recorded and analyzed by humans and software countless times. Did you do anything that could be misinterpreted as illegal, antisocial or even just different? Are you prepared to answer for it strangers who wield the might of the state? Share it all publicly? Prove you're not guilty of anything or justify your lifestyle choices? How does that make you feel?

To me this is an example of making those on the other side experience the same thing. The good ones will find some empathy and affect positive change; even the bad ones will make the right decisions in naked self interest.

Can you elaborate on how this is not obvious to you? Sorry but this feels borderline concern-trollish.

It was an honest question, and no, your implication is not obvious to me. Let's assume best intent instead of defaulting to "no, you."

In what way has the Belgian parlament participated in bringing about the surveillance ad-industry or the american tech oligarchy?

If anything European politicians have struggled against the surveillance monopolies and enforced more online privacy protection than any other leaders on the planet. You can argue the effort hasn't been sufficiently successful and you're probably right about that.

five eyes had buy in all around in EU.

European council still forces all government to buy exclusively from Microsoft despite a whole documentary and outcry about it. the IT mamager is now even further promoted.

Agreed, but maybe the goal is to drive awareness that this is a dick move in the people best positioned to enact change?

Tracking their stats is a great idea!

this kind of surveillance is childish and a bit creepy too

These people are elected and paid more than enough to pay attention. If they can’t be bothered doing their job, we’ll elect someone else who can.

You don't know if they're doing their job from a photo. Perhaps they're replying to constituents, reading the details of the law they are being asked to vote on, checking with colleagues on the status of votes, etc. You don't know. It's just harassment without facts.

Well they can do that with paper.

They should have the details of the law printed out in front of them.

Scrolling through on a phone seems very limited.

They can write down notes and they can reply to constituents after they vote.

Yeah! We used to write code on paper too! Software engnieers should only use paper too!

All computer programs should also be printed and reviewed using punch cards!

A literal computer with arguably more features than a modern desktop is too limited!

This is a totally sane take! I know I like writing things twice, or using a format without any ability to search through it.

They are not programming. It's a bill that can be printed off and already is. Just make copies.

They are not editing it, they are reviewing it and making notes.

Laptop use is...fine, but I don't believe for a second they are reviewing the entire bill on their phone.

You don't take tests on your phone, nor should you legislate on your phone.

There is not a soul on this planet that attends meetings or talks regularly, and pays constant attention.

they do 10x worse on the general population.

Politicians, especially the high ranking ones, should have 100% transparent lives and be monitorised by independent organisation at all times, as they work for the benefit of the public

Yup, raise compensation in return, but the price for power should be more transparency. But maybe not 100%. Even politicians should have the right for a private bedroom and maybe their families as well .. though it is of course of some public interest, with whom the politicians sleep at night.

> Politicians, especially the high ranking ones, should have 100% transparent lives

For what purpose? What would you achieve by doing that?

100% surveillance would give you all of the backroom deals. The promises of executive positions in companies later on, if just this bill passes..

But, not practical. (I mean, it would also include bank account numbers, nuclear start codes, ..)

If that's the case maybe you should surveil the business people making the shady deals instead?

But no.. surveiling the dealings of multinational oil companies would be a totally bizarre intrusion into their privacy and the private property right of the owners... but extremely intrusive surveillance of public servants is fine and their just punishment for doing very demanding work for relatively low compensation.

Sounds completely brainwashed if you ask me. You need to recognize who your friends are.

If you think our economic system has this severely corrupting influence maybe we should consider doing something about that. You don't strike me as a stranger to radical reform.

No one sensible would agree to live like this. You’d be left only with politicians who were in it for all the wrong reasons.

Any chance open sourcing it? :)

I mean if it wasn't the 21st century, they would be having a snooze or reading a newspaper or magazine probably.

Having a politican 100% committed and listening all the time would be great, but they would quit in no time I'm sure, at least I would.

"I mean if it wasn't the 21st century, they would be having a snooze or reading a newspaper or magazine probably"

Reading a newspaper in parliament? Have not seen that, it would clearly be seen as a sign of disrespect to the speaker, even more so than a mobile as it has a higher vissibility.

And dazing off was probably more productive and healthy, because I doubt, politicians are immune to addictive engagement feeds. Meaning I don't think most of that smartphone use is actually productive.

If they're not committed and listening they should quit immediately. Their work has an extremely outsized impact on their country. If they can't do their job they should leave and let someone else who can fill that role.

Do you ever “take a quick break” at work?

I never use my phone during a meeting

I really like the minimalistic design of the website, but I was disappointed to see Wordpress used. Does anyone know if something similar exists whether free or paid - as long as it's available as plain CSS/HTML?

Dumb

A tool which simply invites superficial condemnation intending to anger and divide us even more than we already are. SO, congratulations on your negative contribution to society!

"37% legislative efficiency? That's bad! Let me call my supervisor."

"Hey @JanJambon, what's going on, man? You're in red!"

"It's just been a rough day."

"Rough day? More like a rough month."

(the reference: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43180133 )

I agree, this whole system has the vibe of messed up metrics and jerk middle manager going on.

This is beyond silly.

You could be using your phone to factcheck something that relates to the ongoing discussion. Or having a side-chat with another member, privately expressing/requesting an opinion to provide context. Or to take quick notes. Or, nowadays, you might even be using an AI to keep a running summary of what the speaker has been rambling about in the last 50 minutes, translated from 'buzzspeak' to 'humanspeak'. All legit uses of technology, which enhance the politician's attention rather than detract from it.

I'm not saying I'm having a hard time believing people 'could' be checking out 9gag instead during parliament, but unless you give me an AI that can detect people who are on their phone AND verified to be slagging off, then you're just bullying people for having phones and being able to use them.

Also, I like how laptops are somehow exempt from this bullying for some magical reason.

Even if they're not paying attention it's likely a "this issue is not a me issue, I'm gonna re-read my notes or the summary memo for the next me issue" situation.

People don't generally slack of when a legislative body has a hearing. That's basically their "game day".

Angry Birds high scores won't outscore themselves!!

Angela Merkel was known to text during parliamentary sessions, sometimes with multiple phones, with colleagues about the ongoing debate.

Other anecdota: Nowadays it is only part of Green Party folklore from the past, but to knit in political sessions was a common sight. What is not so silly but just stupid is conservative delegates watching football during a sex work debate (2018, https://twitter.com/BoehmeMarco/status/1012001444302598146). In German Bundestag, parliamentary rules forbid to photograph "personal documents" (including phones and tablets) in a way that the content is recognizable.

> Angela Merkel was known to text during parliamentary sessions, sometimes with multiple phones, with colleagues about the ongoing debate.

Legislative / collective council discussion has probably always had some sort of quieter back channel discussion. The low tech solution might be a whispered conversation, or might be conducted via pages/runners when decorum puts moving around the room out of reach.

Mobile devices mean you can use technology instead of runners.

> sometimes with multiple phones

Reminds me of movies where le epic haxxor starts typing on two keyboards at once.

Anyway, if everybody's vote is a foregone conclusion and the debate is only for the sake of the process, I can't find fault with people getting bored and tuning out.

I agree with you, but this doesn't mean this data is useless.

You could could count how many people are using their phones by speaker.

"When Alice speaks 18% of the members use their phones for more than 15 minutes, but when Bob speaks the rate is 27%." could be a proxy to understand how important the parliament thinks the subject/speaker is.

This project doesn't seem to collect data, it posts the photo from the stream to social media and tags the politician. You might be able to derive the data you're talking about from the social media posts and timestamps, but that is obviously not the primary purpose.

The notion that you must have your phone away and be giving all your attention to a speaker is so antiquated and worthless.

I have issues with auditory processing and attention. If you deliver information to me verbally in a format where I cannot rewind/playback, have no subtitles or text to consume alongside it, and demand my full attention, I will have objectively worse reception of whatever information you're communicating. The way neurotypicals demand adherence to these, to be blunt, ceremonies of conveyance is tiresome and interferes with the goals they espouse of communication.

In fact I would go so far as to say a lot of the time, the goal is not communication at all; it is a demonstration of one's power and authority over others. If your goal is actually communication, text is better in every way. Every reader can read at a speed of their choosing, re-read parts they missed, have a speech-to-text program read it to them if they like, stop in the middle and tend to something time sensitive, what have you. A live speech allows none of this.

So yes, I probably use my phone while you're talking. I probably have my AirPods in too, because the settings where they remove background noise and just give me the person speaking are phenomenally useful. I might even be watching or having my phone transcribe what you're saying, too. And if you're going to try and chastise me for it, fine, that's your prerogative, but then I'm probably starting a job search for a place that will appreciate my skills and not demean me for not being able to perform "good worker vibes" to your arbitrary standards.

Being able to focus in a speech it's not arbitrary at all.

Preventing others from using tools that help them focus because you are in a position of power to determine what "focus" looks like is exactly the point the parent comment was making.

"Being able to focus on a speech" looks different for differently-abled people. Just because it doesn't look like focus to you doesn't mean you or anyone else should get to dictate the tools I or anyone else use to enhance our focus control.

Different people have different needs in order to focus fully on something. It reeks of entitlement to look at another person and decide how they get to manage their focus.

I think you stated this a bit better than I did, and certainly more concisely. It's immensely frustrating and exhausting to have to constantly defend myself against accusations of not being attentive enough, not being responsive enough, not "looking like I work hard" enough.

If you want someone who looks and runs about like a good little office bee, then I'm (quite evidently) not your girl. That said if you want your jobs handled on-time, to spec and beyond, and with care and consideration for the end users, that's me.

So you will find that a minority opposition person will have less attention than a leading person on the government side?

This is beyond silly.

You could be using your phone to to find a hooker for tonight. A legit uses of technology. Normally they use their iPads for that though.

And you can use your iPad or computer to check Facebook

I was actually citing a real world example ... but yes there is also prior art of people browsing facebook on a bunch of devices.

> This is beyond silly. You could be using your phone to [...]

I think you think the benefit of such a tool would be to shame politicians for something specific, whereas the real benefit of such a tool would be to make decision-makers aware that unchecked AI video scoring and facial recognition has implications far beyond the obviously controllable.

A nose picking score would be just as useful. But it would be more vulgar.

You call it silly because you could be doing useful stuff on your phone. I'd go one step further and say that even if you're slacking off that's not necessarily a bad thing. Everybody, including politicians, slacks off from time to time. Be it due to stress, awful sleep because the neighbor's dog barked all night, illness, or something else. It's just human and there's little wrong with it as long as you do your job well most of the time.

Which has me wondering if the entire point is to make the politicians critically aware of how absurd AI performance monitoring isn't as innocuous as those selling it to the politicians will make it out to be.

> I'd go one step further and say that even if you're slacking off that's not necessarily a bad thing

While I agree, the legislation that the politicians passed says the opposite it true.

You're being downvoted, but I agree with you.

I obviously don't want politicians to be habitually slacking off, but everyone has good days and bad days. There are days where I spend half my time on HN instead of working (hello today), but I typically make up for it shortly afterwards by having a super productive day. The important fact is that, on average, I'm productive and deliver on my job duties.

Politicians should absolutely be held accountable, it's an important job, but I don't think they should be held to standards that we hold no one else to.

Also, it ignores that perhaps sometimes slacking off (or perhaps better "taking a break") may be a good thing.

If only we could just cut off their access to Twitter/X ...

I’ll never tire of “good people“ complaining that they can’t censor speech enough.

I'd be ok with it if the speech was anonymized in some way.

Remember that many forms of "free speech" are pretty shitty, for example ads. Also, "free speech" does not mean "free amplification of speech".

[flagged]

Care to explain?

It’s a 4chan meme, but he’s not even using it in the right context? Where are the dubs?

No dubs, just based

It feels like a lot of people are interpreting this as a cheap attempt to drum up populist angst for "lazy politicians". That's one obvious take-away, and it's legitimate. I see that it's generating a strong emotional response: discomfort with the idea of being monitored; fear that the data is misinterpreted. I see this as very powerful, because a lot of the "nicer" government orders, such as those in Western Europe, are also the most aggressive surveillance states. I like that the artist has come up with a way to drive home the potential impact of the decisions that may be debated and decided in this very chamber. It has a nice symmetry, and I see that as cool art.