In the wake of SOPA/PIPA, there’s been some renewed talk about the necessity of getting more technically sophisticated people into office. I’d like to see this happen myself, though I’ve generally assumed it would come about on its own as digitally-illiterate generations of legislators naturally age and are replaced. But a passage in what I’m reading today is, uh, not encouraging on this score.
Keep in mind that much of this book is about exactly when and why it isn’t safe for engineers to assume that any property is infinite.