http://www.npr.org/2015/05/26/409671996/canada-cuts-down-on-...
This is a social science result, not a meme.
It'd be easy enough to show that a future testing regimes increase the market share of domestic self-driving car manufacturers and push the market price up; less easy to show that it wasn't also in the public interest to have that testing regime in place.
Definition: Regulatory capture is a form of government failure that occurs when a regulatory agency, created to act in the public interest, instead advances the commercial or political concerns of special interest groups that dominate the industry or sector it is charged with regulating.
This isn't a political statement as it cuts across both parties, which renders it all the more insidious.
I have worked with engineers that write technical regulations. They are generally focused on doing a good job at the task at hand. To think some mid level person that is hired into a normal job and never meets a politician in their career cares about campaign contributions is asinine.
What do you think the people at NASA and NAVSEA and NIST do all day?
The real byline is in your proposed commitment to trying too improve government process: you don't have any. You think it's hopeless. You're apathetic. Which is what everyone, pushing any agenda, wants from you.
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GOV: We know this law is overreaching, but we promise we'll only use it the "right" way.
... 2 years goes by ...
GOV: If you don't <plead guilty | accept this plea bargain>, we'll tack on a charge of breaking <this law that is overreaching>, even though you didn't violate what it's supposed to be about, and add 20 years to your sentence.
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It's seen over and over. The US citizen's distrust of government getting more power than it absolutely needs isn't paranoid, it's based on the actions of the government.
libertarians != anarchists
I say this as someone who has failed to even get a non-form letter answer from any of my elected officials state level or higher. I'm convinced that money is the only way to affect policy.
