It's hard for someone engaged in public policy to understand that most people just live their lives and have a basic and vague understanding of most policy issues. If you ask people about marine fishing limits, they'll say there are probably some national and some international rules to prevent overfishing. But they're not going to know the specifics, and aren't going to know the problem of overfishing by fleets from certain countries.

The same thing is going to apply to every other sphere of policy. We on HN believe that tech privacy is important and follow the developments on this website, but it's a stretch to expect regular people to know this stuff. And it's not a knock on regular people! They're experts in their domains, everyone is - from car mechanics to baristas to hobbyist knitters. People are too busy resting from work, taking care of their families, and pursuing their interests.

So where do you go from there? If you're engaged in the policy world, it helps to create institutions regular people can delegate policy expertise to, like the EFF or the Humane Society. Intense lobbying by small groups gets results (in both good and bad ways). And having a large "laity" of people that support the institution and expect it to do the nitty-gritty is ok.