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.
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.
> 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 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.
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...
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.
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):
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.
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?
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.
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.
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].
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.
Readit News
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.
I further suspect that by applying this to the people in charge of creating regulations, the artist is trying to drive new regulations.
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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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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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.
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.
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.
Parliamentarians from all around the world gasp in shock and revulsion
Edit: perhaps the work of the politicians can be thought of in the same way; a lot of the job is performance art.
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..
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?).
Which meshes well with art, so maybe the OP, in fact, is an artist.
Personal branding / marketing? Pretty common on HN if you look out for it.
> 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)
[1] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2016/679/oj/eng#art_85
Doubtful.
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