While pg talks about HN as a community of (historically) "apolitical nerds" as a positive thing[1], but being apolitical will catch up with you eventually if you have anything worth losing. If members of congress don't have programmers in their mind as future frothing voters, or people who would ever support them, that's probably a bad thing.
[1]I do agree a lot of the political 'discussions' on HN aren't worth having here, and create a lot of noise, but I know way too many apolitical tech savvy individuals. At least make it known to whoever is in office that they do not want you against them, and be willing to pick a side.
The dying industries are the middle-men. They are fighting back.
Computers and Electronics: 1.1M people employed http://www.bls.gov/iag/tgs/iag334.htm
Motion Pictures and Music: 365k people employed http://www.bls.gov/iag/tgs/iag512.htm
Computer and tech sector workers get paid more on average per hour as well. That said, the entertainment industry is probably a bigger exporter relative to its size (how many foreign movies do we watch?) and is also REALLY good at creative accounting. Maybe it's actually making a lot more money than the figures say.
I think you can lump a whole pile of extra industry sectors in with entertainment and still not get close to the tech sector.
So it's definitely a case of disproportionate lobbying.
The traditional entertainment industry (movies, tv, and music) is very small. But put 'broadcasting', which is part of the 'information' industry, and it is comparable to the tech industry. Add in the fact that media companies are vital to politicians, and the result is an industry that punches orders of magnitude above its weight.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_United_States#Se... http://www.bea.gov/scb/pdf/2008/05%20May/0508_indy_acct.pdf