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Lessig On McCain's Technology Platform
Agthorr writes "Lawrence Lessig has created a video analyzing John McCain's recently released technology platform (available here). Lessig's video touches on broadband penetration, competition, and network neutrality." Note that while Lessig has come out as a supporter of Barack Obama, this video is not from the Obama campaign.
McCain's has the foresight and intents (and motivations like "faith") of GWB. Not that Obama is a saviour, but let's try to minimize the severe damage the internet will suffer under either candidate (in America).
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Obviously Lessig would prefer to see more competition and open networks.
Personally, I think the broadband penetration number ("our rank has fallen to #22") is a bit of a red herring because the US is far less densely populated than most other countries and thus perfect broadband penetration is not feasible. And while I'm all for net neutrality, that issue alone is not going to determine who I vote for.
Despite the current lack of regulation I think I get a fairly fast, unrestricted Internet connection at a fairly low price. I think that as long as there are at least two providers available in any locality the market will force reasonable prices and net neutrality.
Was the USA more densely populated eight years ago?
I'll point out that Arizona is more urban than the Netherlands. Almost all of Arizona's population lives in major urban areas; the Netherlands has a higher net population density but a much higher percentage of their population lives in nonurban villages.
This is by way of saying that population density is a red herring, because broadband penetration is measured by people, not square miles. The USA's ranking isn't being driven down by the lack of broadband on the Yuma Proving Grounds or the Plains of St. Augustin.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Here's the video in mp4 format, for those who won't enable the Flash plugin for a few minutes:
ftp://definethis.org/video.mp4
It's 57.3 MB (60,102,443 bytes), straight from Google's servers.
For those complaining about dial up, here's only the sound:
ftp://definethis.org/sound.mp3 (22050, mono, 3.82 MB (4,016,064 bytes))
Links are ftp to allow for bandwidth limit in case download goes overboard.
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My argument is just as strong as the argument I was responding to, which claims that the quality of the media affects whether or not someone is going to listen to an argument -- ie, judging the book by its cover.
Except that it does, and people do.
Can you honestly tell me that you've never seen anyone get modded up for a well written post that didn't really say anything? Or conversely someone with a valid point get modded down because they write like an idiot?
That video added nothing to the point Lessig was trying to make, and in fact, actively detracted from it. I agree with every word he said and I thought that video was terrible. It was 16 minutes of poor PowerPoint emulation, bad parodies of Apple marketing, the implication that AT&T is *not* a villainous entity in the same vein as Comcast, and blatant political pandering (all of that Iraq war commentary was a distraction from his main point). Did you actually watch the video or do you just like arguing?
If I'm judging a book by it's cover, then you're too busy trying to see the forest to realize that the trees suck.