When the Senate Tried To Ban Dial Telephones

An anonymous reader writes "With the Senate now looking to have the government block access to websites it deems to be bad (which seems to be called 'censorship' in other countries), it's worth pointing out that the Senate doesn't exactly have a good track record when it comes to deciding what technologies to ban. Back in 1930, some Senators came close to banning the dial telephone, because they felt that it was wrong that they had to do the labor themselves, rather than an operator at the other end."

Comments

Forward thinkers

[plover]

"For a list of all the ways technology has failed to improve the quality of life, please press 3."
  -- Alice Kahn

Maybe the Senate was far more forward thinking than any of us give them credit for.

Re:Forward thinkers

[cj_nologic]

"Thank you sir. Please scan next item or press done to continue." ----- Yes that's right. I stole an item. Not my fault the machine doesn't work right. It's the store's fault.

How does the machine know you're a man? That's scary.

Unless of course you're not - in which case, you're right, the damn machine doesn't work right.

Re:Forward thinkers

[CynicTheHedgehog]

I was using a self-checkout at a grocery store and was somewhat bemused when I was asked to put a helium-filled mylar ballon in the bag. Thankfully there was an employee nearby to override the machine's demands. I wonder what weight was associated with that UPC? Was it negative? :)

Re:Forward thinkers

[Obfuscant]

This 1000 times. I always bring my own bag, not only out of habit, it was common were I started doing it, but it also means I do not have to deal with their crappy bags.

Yeah, but if you don't use their plastic bags, you have to spend money to buy condoms.

Re:Forward thinkers

[CapOblivious2010]

This 1000 times. I always bring my own bag, not only out of habit, it was common were I started doing it, but it also means I do not have to deal with their crappy bags.

Yeah, but if you don't use their plastic bags, you have to spend money to buy condoms.

What? You haven't switched to the new reusable fabric condoms? Shame on you! Polluting the earth with all your throwaway non-organic condoms...

Re:Forward thinkers

[Xveers]

This I can top. My local store has us pay for bags (voluntarily, mind you) by ringing in a PLU code. Only five cents per plastic bag. Pretty common fare around here. Anyhow, so I tell it I grabbed one plastic bag, and then it asks me if I wanted a bag for it. Which would then mean I'd have to plug in another PLU code, and then it would ask me for ANOTHER bag... and so on and so on....

Fix the Constitution

[roman_mir]

Given the fact that US economy is being destroyed because of the huge monthly trade deficit, caused by the US labor force being uncompetitive, which all came around due to government regulations, taxation, wage laws, subsidies, monopoly creation, setting interest rates, printing of money, waging wars, destruction of competition etc., the US Constitution needs to be fixed. Without a basic fix to it, the economy will continue plummet, until the hyper-inflationary depression hits and then a long restructuring process will start probably following a period of very bad civil unrest possibly with lots of intermediary bloodshed.

Here is the fix (and I am not a lawyer, so this needs to be solidified to fit both the letter and the spirit)

Congress shall pass no law, that changes the status of any entity in a way that allows that entity to get any preferential treatment in economy.

What I am trying to say is that government must not be able to affect economy through any law, this way no matter how much money is spent bribing the government, it's of no use and cannot result in a favorable economic outcome for those, who are doing the bribing.

This concerns anything at all that deals with economy, be it minimum wage, social security, income taxes, corporate welfare, bailouts, stimulus packages, setting interest rates, printing money (all this should be privatized), creating federal institutions that insure any type of lending or borrowing or depositing or any other moral hazard.

Gov't shouldn't be able to change the economic outcome by providing any monopolistic powers, providing exclusive trading rights, creating any discrimination in the market place, setting any laws that fix prices or contracts or whatever.

I hope my point is clear and obviously again, I am not a lawyer.

This is the only way to keep economy Free and going and not having it broken by various violent intervention by a government, which clearly ends up badly.

Re:Fix the Constitution

[roman_mir]

There shouldn't be any bills that 'create or destroy jobs'.

Gov't that makes sense is this:

1. Justice system to take care of contract conflicts as well as anything that deals with harming individuals, running Class Action Lawsuits etc.
2. Minimum Military to protect against invasion.
3. Cops/Prisons.

The taxes must be only on things like sales and people who can't afford taxes should be able to file their income statement and get their taxes back.

It's not anarchy, it's minarchy - libertarian system with minimum gov't.

Yes, children and other types of education, etc., are all subject to market forces and should be left out of gov't and done privately.

Re:Fix the Constitution

[roman_mir]

The only thing that is needed from gov't is Justice system that allows people to dispute contracts, the only important idea in business is contract law.

Whatever gov't does for business reasons shouldn't exist. Copyrights, patents, gov't created entities of any sort, etc.

Re:Pro-Ban

[MightyMartian]

Ping Bob.Jones.SanFransisco.USA

"Hello?"

"Sorry Bob, just seeing if this damned handset works."

Re:Butlers at your gasstation?

[Xeno man]

Americans are heavily influenced by movies. In 2001 a movie titled Zoolander was released and there was a dramatic increase in gasoline fight accidents. As a result, several states had to ban people from pumping their own gas.

Re:Luddites

[necro81]

I was in the camp of "those disconnected luddite idiots!" until I considered this quote from the article:

In his experience, the dial phone "could not be more awkward than it is. One has to use both hands to dial; he must be in a position where there is good light, day or night, in order to see the number; and if he happens to turn the dial not quite far enough, then he gets a wrong connection.

Then I thought to myself: isn't Slashdot the same crowd that was always harping on the iPhone for not having voice dialing? The iPhone "could not be more awkward than it is. One has to use both hands to dial; he must be in a position where he can see the screen, only not in daylight, in order to see the number; and because he has no physical keys to press, he gets a wrong connection."

Have we come full circle?