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Net Neutrality Supporters Hammered In Elections
Pickens writes "Gigi Sohn writes in the Huffington Post that one of the results of the mid-term elections was the defeat of Representative Rick Boucher, the current Chair of the House Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet, widely recognized as one of the most tech-savvy and intelligent members of Congress, and long an advocate for consumers on a wide variety of communications and intellectual property issues. Boucher has been the best friend of fair use on Capitol Hill writes Sohn. In 2002, 2003 and 2007, Boucher introduced legislation to allow consumers to break digital locks for lawful purposes, a fair use exception to the anti-circumvention provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and while the odds against that legislation passing were always great, Boucher understood the symbolic importance of standing up for consumers' rights to use technology lawfully. 'As important, he served as a moderating force both on the House Energy & Commerce and Judiciary Committees against those many members of Congress willing to give large media companies virtually everything on their copyright wish lists.'"
sad day for supporters of the open internet.
two steps back. You can hear the lobbyists howling at the door.
"We are just a war away from Amerikastan. When god vs god the undoing of man." Dave Mustaine
Under capitalism, the providers get to provide whatever traffic shaping they want. If you don't like it, get a another provider. If you only have one choice, well, that's part of the system, too. The people have spoken: Capitalism rules, this touchy-feely stuff like "net neutrality" is out the window.
If I used a sig over again, would anyone notice?
long an advocate for consumers on a wide variety of communications and intellectual property issues.
The loss of a friend for fair use was sad, but I think a few others may have come in so perhaps that will balance out. On the whole the Democrats were always befriended by Hollywood in ways Republicans were not, so I would hope a lot of new Republicans would be cool to the MPAA and other organizations...
That said, "Net Neutrality" is not about what people think. It's about bringing the internet, and specifically ISP's, under more regulation to solve a problem that doesn't exist. How you you carefully craft regulation to solve a problem that doesn't exist?
The biggest ISP no-no we have seen was Comcast and torrent tomfoolery. But no net neutrality ideas under discussions would have stopped that, because in that case Comcast forged traffic, they didn't limit anything. It was your network's stack response to forged packets that caused a slowdown.
So even if you support regulation of the internet and the foot in the door for greater control over allowable traffic that brings with it, even if you support that - shouldn't we at least wait and see IF issues arise so we can construct regulation that actually solves a problem instead of just being there to make us all feel warm and fuzzy?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Elections have consequences. But what do I know? Both parties are exactly the same, right?
The Dems were already in power. Midterm elections tend to be overwhelmingly biased to the party principles of the second-largest party. Now add all the FUD spread by the Tea Party et al. Nobody should be surprised that the resulting observations are all leaning Right.
"Liberal" stances like Net Neutrality and CA's Prop 19 (though neither of those are completely economically liberal, they are associated that way) suffer in elections like this. This is not a trend that you should expect to see continue in 2012.
I plan on running for Congress in 2012. I'll fill a void.
Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool.
there is nothing neutral about "net neutrality"... it is ignorant hyperbole.
Very few people that I know who don't work directly with computers have a decent understanding of net neutrality. I actually know several people who believed that moron Glen Beck when he said it was an "Marxist takeover of the internet", which is about as far from the truth as you can get. I don't believe that these candidates were voted out because of their net neutrality stances, I think it was more an issue of health care and the economy, but if they ever want this issue to be understood and voted on by the public then they need to run campaign adds explaining it in very basic, honest, terms.
Net Neutrality was not on the radar of these voters. Support for net neutrality didn't hurt or save anyone.
intelligence was rewarded. In fact, if anyone has too much education, they are labeled an elitist.
With "unlimited" data plans, the incentive for the ISP is to find ways to keep you from saturating the network connection. Making the network non-neutral is one way to accomplish this.
With pay-as-you-go data plans, the incentive for the ISP is to eliminate anything that prevents you from saturating your network connection. This means not slowing down traffic based on origin or destination (in other words, making the network completely neutral), and upgrading the infrastructure when it makes economic sense for them.
We can't have our cake and eat it, too.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
I tried to discuss Network Neutrality with my brother in law, but he refused to understand any of it. Instantly kicking out talking points heard by so many lobbysists working for the major telcos. So extreme in his views that he insists Net Neutrality is communism and that the free market will resolve any problem.
This is a guy who doesnt even know how to connect an external USB hard drive to his PC, his wife (IT Manager) has to do it for him. These will be the people lecturing us on what is best for us.
So they pass laws that outlaw breaking locks on things you physically own, and now they're being oh-so-gracious to "allow" us to break them, without putting us in jail for it?
The faster the better. Then we can set about rebuilding..in some far, distant future
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
The right wing goes after the stupid voters. Part of their platform is anti-intellectualism. Its pretty fucked up.
Are we really linking to stories at the left-wing Huffington Post? I can't imagine people being okay with Brietbart editorials being linked here.
It seems as if pro net neutrality just the assumed position at Slashdot or something. Not everyone here thinks alike or agrees such legislation was ever necessary.
Right... rather than simply treat the article on its factual merits, go after the source of the article. Brilliant! Did you invent that strategy yourself?
Not: it's called ad hominem. It's also a debate tactic used to implement tribalism/partisanism/racism/sexism/prejudice: self-hypnotic words to delude yourself into believing your opponent is less-than-human; once you've managed that stunt, why bother to listen to any of his arguments, even the otherwise cogent ones? Even better if you can also delude and convince others at the same time, because there's great strength in delusional numbers.
Congratulations to you for learning another trick to maintain your bias and mislead others.
Boehner seemed pretty hammered when he gave his speech. Three sheets to the wind.
To be fair, on election night for any office, win or lose, I'd have a bottle of Bushmill's down myself.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Constitution supporters won.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
The basic problem with the net neutrality battle is that it is called "net neutrality". The average American hears this when you say net neutrality:
net = COMPLICATED COMPUTER THINGY
neutrality = Switzerland
So it's no surprise at all that people don't care, and the Republicans don't get it. Want to change the game? Make this all about Online Freedom and make the story how greedy carriers want to take away freedom / violate my rights. It's about explaining how carriers want to LIMIT WHERE YOU CAN GO, CHARGE YOU FOR ACCESS TO THINGS YOU HAVE NOW, AND TAKE AWAY YOUR OPPORTUNITY TO DO BUSINESS ONLINE.
People aren't that stupid, but they are not that well educated. If you make your case using language that the average Wal*Mart consumer can understand, you can get anything you want out of Washington because those are the people that change their minds in elections and cause congresspeople to lose their jobs as they did yesterday. Nine out of ten times when you see voters support something that is bad for them, it's because one side used language like "net neutrality" to sell their side of the story.
-- $G
Don't laugh at the summary... Article is correct, this election was about net neutrality. The voters were sending a clear message to washington to stop net neutrality. Everyone is rejecting Obama and his neutral agenda. To quote a famous Tea Partier, "The Neutrality is Ending!"
That the moron sheeple who voted didn't vote for the ideal candidates on some obscure issue.
1) If a news source has marketed itself as a source of with a liberal bias (huffpo) or conservative bias (Fox News) then it is completely rational to double-check anything they say. Ad hominem attacks are perfectly acceptable and warranted if the source has explicit motives for it's speech. Read up a little more on the nuances of what an ad hominem attack really implies.
2) Your response is entirely premised on terrible logical fallacies. You link the OP with "tribalism/partisanism/racism/sexism/prejudice" as a method to disparage his/her opinion. In my opinion, that is about 10x worse than what the OP did.
3) Browsing through your comment history, it's clear this sort of hogwash is your MO and you need to chill out rather than attacking people all the time.
And it is done by both (D) and (R) types. It is nothing new. The question is, do you complain when people say the same thing about links to Fox News?
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
the summary sounds like his friggen' obituary.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Way to write one long ad hominem attack in response to something that wasn't even an ad hominem.
It's not an ad hominem to question a person or a website's credibility. Calling someone a "racist" and "tribalist", is, however.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Network Neutrality was lost the day they/we allowed E911 calls over the internet. The network neutrality folks would argue that P2P traffic has the same priority over 911 VOIP packets. They don't.
I'm using Verizon as a sample because thats what I currently have (Replace Verizon with whatever ISP you have). Should Verizon discriminate packets between a streaming video NetFlix user and an FiOS on-demand video user on their network? No. If I was the NetFlix customer I would file a consumer complaint. Should Verizon discriminate between me watching on-demand and the NetFlix user watching a streaming video while the P2P Verizon user downloads Debbie Does Dallas from Russia at the same time? Yes, if it interferes with the paid for transmissions. Both I and the NetFlix user paid extra (State/local Taxes, Fees, etc.) for the priveledge of watching an un-interrupted streaming video.
In the USA, this isn't a Federal issue its a local issue. Its a grass roots effort that requires you to go down to the local zoning/franchise board in your community. Get the Franchise ISP's to sign a some sort of customer Bill of Rights. If they violate it, then they loose the franchise. The community gets to vote for a new ISP.
We, the USA internet users, need to craft this Bill of Rights for our ISP's. Not, congress, not the president, and especially not the courts. Make the internet Bill of Rights a GPL/ANSI/ISO/FSF etc. standard. How do we do this? I don't know. Maybe usenet, IRC, etc. Maybe each local ISP block needs to send two users to a internet forum to discuss, debate, and ratify. Then those users take it back to the ISP users for a vote. That's how the US constitution was formed. Its how democracy works.
Food for thought,
Enjoy,
It's just the normal noises in here.
Of course, and I'm sure you bring this up everytime someone discredits a story simply because it's from Fox News, right?
Now just think of that happening everyday in front of your eyes. On every front page. In every politics news show. Governors avoiding any direct answer to detailed claims. The lack of any constructive process. And the void filled with an unhealty attention to the celebrities' reality show.
Welcome to Italy.
Lame. Not enforcing net neutrality allows, and encourages service providers and media companies to selectively censor whatever they want; they can without violating any legal requirements simply make it too expensive for anyone else to voice their opinion publicly or provide competing content. Heck, you don't even have to actively censor things... you just make the performance and cost of everything that isn't your content slightly more expensive, and economics will make sure that your message is seen more than the 2nd class citizen content.
There is too much danger of these huge corporations manipulating free speech and culture to allow anyone to do that. It will quite rapidly devolve into the same environment as TV... only the rich and big companies can afford to publish.
The internet is a communications media. You don't let the phone company tell you what you can talk about on your phone. Why should you let your ISP tell you what you can see on the internet? It's the same garbage where the TV corporations want to control your internet the same way they control what shows get made. Hint: the shows that get made aren't the shows the people want to see; they are the shows the corporate executives think will sell to advertisers best.
I "linked the OP" with that behavior because it's precisely how he was behaving. I didn't disparage the person, I criticized his behavior. Get your semantics straight.
Whether a source advertises a particular bias is largely irrelevant to its credibility. A source is in fact being more forthright by advertising it. Knowing the bias of a source in advance, it's easier to weigh the veracity of its statements. It's the ones that don't advertise it that are deserving of scorn. Regardless, ad hominem is NEVER ACCEPTABLE and NEVER WARRANTED.
Some people might perceive use of blanket terms like "hogwash" to describe EVERYTHING a person says as more deserving of the term ad hominem than anything I said in my previous comment.
An ad hominem attack/argument is never salient in a rational discourse, regardless of a stated bent from the source. In rational discourse, ideas are the thing.
What have the Huffington Post and its supposed bias to do with this particular issue? Nothing. The mere question posed by the respondent allows those conditioned clods to skim a few posts, see "left bias" and click "ignore" in their brains ... exhibiting one of the three C's representing the nemesis of any reasonable or rational discussion (confirmation bias - cognitive dissonance and communal bias being the other two).
Also, your wading into the next respondents past comment history is a clear indication of emotional investiture on you part, and an ad hominem attack in and of itself. His/her previous comments have no bearing on this point HERE.
You link the OP with "tribalism/partisanism/racism/sexism/prejudice" as a method to disparage his/her opinion.
Wrong. Ad hominem attacks were linked with those traits, and validly so.
In my opinion, that is about 10x worse than what the OP did.
How surprising.
I do when I happen to actually read them. I'm not in the least bit tribal. I don't play favorites. We should be so lucky to have politicians who behave like that.
He didn't question a website's credibility. He did something else.
Shit , now you've done it.
Now you are going to get Fox News talking about all the ad hominem attacks made by liberals.
Then I'll have to explain to my Dad "ad hominem" in debate isn't always a bad thing.
But I guess my attitude toward 'Fox News' would immediately make me guilty of a negative ad hominem attack. To me though when considering self reflection on my own attitude, I come to the conclusion that it is just common sense, it just saves time.
Ad hominem is always bad... for the actual Common Good, in any case. Certain minorities - tribes - no doubt actually do benefit from it.
An ad hominem attack/argument is never salient in a rational discourse, regardless of a stated bent from the source. In rational discourse, ideas are the thing.
This is simply incorrect. Let me give you some examples:
- If a source portends to be unbiased and is discovered to have motives in their speech, then ad hominem is OK.
- If a source claims to be an expert on a matter, and is not, then ad hominem is OK.
IN essence, if I am relying on my reputation to make the argument, then I am exposing myself to my opponent legitimately making ad hominem attacks.
The US Legal system encourages/permits ad hominem attacks when the person or source IS salient to the issue. So I cannot simply attack a witness' reputation unless their reputation is critical to the point being made (eg an expert witness).
Wrong. Ad hominem attacks were linked with those traits, and validly so.
This bit isn't something I would argue too much over, but it was fairly obvious to me that associating the OP who doubted a source with racism/sexism/etc was clearly a rhetorical strategy meant to link the two and attack the OP (ironic, eh?). If I say to Steven Hawkings "Dammit man, you're using SCIENCE to prove your theory. Did you know the Nazi's used SCIENCE to prove that Germans are superior," everyone would immediately identify that as an inappropriate argument because I'm trying to subconsciously link Hawkings and Nazis. I don't get understand using the identical mechanism and intentionally using a guilt-by-association strategy is OK for you in this case.
...but I am now very, very ashamed.
The idea that you only find it rational to double check a source that has marketed itself as a source of bias is disturbing.
What are you attempting to prove?
#1 isn't an ad hominem, #2 is.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
Why is someone with a name like swanktastic modded up so high. Rearranging the letters in your handle and you get swastika.
Its just like people like you to go through someones comment history just so you can claim that they do nothing but attack people all the time.
That sounds like something Hitler would say.
Democrats believe in the right to steal.
Sure, net neutrality went out the window. But now we have legislators who are going to spend all their time working to repeal a health care overhaul bill that didn't overhaul anything. And they are led by someone who said he will not compromise on his principles.
Basically, the 2010 election only set the stage for a very early (as in this afternoon) start to the 2012 election cycle. On the plus side, the politicians will be so busy campaigning that we might not have to worry about them passing anything we don't like because they may well not pass anything at all (beyond their own gas and hot air of course). On the minus side, the politicians are already so busy campaigning that they might never pass anything at all.
Provided they don't find some way to completely destroy the world, this might indeed be the government we deserve...
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Right... rather than simply treat the article on its factual merits, go after the source of the article. Brilliant! Did you invent that strategy yourself?
No, he likely got the idea from the trolls that scream whenever Fox News is mentioned.
Rearranging the letters in your handle and you get swastika.
ah, sure...bumbum
if you're going to make an idiot of yourself, try not to make yourself a target, too.
Lovely, accuse someone of an ad hominem, than lay the race card. "Social Science" major?
Irongeek's Hacking Videos / Security Videos and Articles
Mis-frame and mis-quote much? Apparently you do.
So how's that autism treating you?
Ummm... better than your cocaine habit?
Bias is an issue of trust; ad hominem is an attack on the listener's trust in a source, rightfully or wrongly. Because most people are going to go to news as a way to check facts in the first place (read: not doing independent research), whether or not you can trust them becomes a pivotal question in who deserves to be read/heard/seen.
Whether or not an article contains The Facts, or conveys The Truth, is in all cases a statistic. The best possible news source (pragmatically speaking) would publicly redact or edit every mistake they find in order to end up as close to 100% Fact as they can. The more any news source diverges from this path, and especially if they diverge from it as a matter of policy, the more lies they may spread, intentionally or not.
If, statistically speaking, a person's only source of facts contains some non-trivial amount of lies, and especially if this is done intentionally, it is no longer a valid source, and the person should look elsewhere. If the listener or viewer is doing their own fact-checking, or uses many different sources of facts with differing biases, their tolerance will rise appropriately. If not, the policies of the news source may do significant damage to the understanding of a population.
TL;DR: Bias is important because there are a lot of people reading, and many of them don't look deeper for the facts of the case. Especially over time, it adds up.
Yes, like most people in any sort of political argument. :) Just reread your original post and think how it comes off.
Irongeek's Hacking Videos / Security Videos and Articles
It is a proper news organization. We need to promote it more. No one has a problem with it.
Smear campaigns and FUD can be effective weapons in any election, as we've seen during this particular midterm election. After seeing this article, I went and checked out youtube to see some of the campaign ads from Rick Boucher, his opponent, and also the Virginia GOP's advertisements since I knew nothing of this particular candidate first-hand.
After viewing a dozen or so campaign ads between those three youtube channels, the same strategic smear pattern emerges from the Republicans, I've seen in my own home district. Boucher's constituents have understandable concerns over his support of the Cap & Trade bill and its potential affect on thousands of jobs in his district. Other easy hot-issue targets include his support of Health Care reform, and corporate bailouts. Nevermind, that none of Boucher's campaign ads highlight his stance on Fair Use, or Net Neutrality. Nor do any of Boucher's ads target the 18-40 demographic who may be concerned about such issues.
As a helpless voter, I can't help but feel disappointed with our incumbent representatives from both the Democratic and Republican parties, in general. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for Fair Use and fair access to information through Net Neutrality. Has anybody else been paying attention, or is Fair Use and Net Neutrality really the most critically important issue on the table? More importantly, are Cap & Trade regulations and big bank bailouts possibly a bigger concern for the thousands of his constituents in Southwest Virginia who work in coal mines, than say Fair Use and Net Neutrality?
/^([Ss]ame [Bb]at (time, |channel.)){2}$/
no where in either linked articles (excluding user comments) does it say anything about net neutrality. how ever it rambles on for a good bit about fair use.
Fair Use: the conditions under which you can use material that is copyrighted by someone else without paying royalties
Net Neutrality: a principle proposed for user access networks participating in the Internet that advocates no restrictions by Internet service providers and governments on content, sites, platforms, the kinds of equipment that may be attached, and the modes of communication allowed.
A better title may of been "Father of Fair Use Hammered in Elections".
You know, Boucher's opponent -- Morgan Griffith -- doesn't even *live* in the District he's going to represent. Virginia's 9th Congressional District is the largest in the Commonwealth: 22 counties (19 full counties, 3 partial). Outside of a few precincts in Roanoke County (one of the partial counties), nobody knew who Griffith was. And it didn't matter, because most of the voters in my precinct were just rabid Obama-haters. Literally, angry white people who were very verbal about their hate. Griffith's campaign played it up, too. They had signs up that said "Obama Loves Boucher" so I figure they were going for a crypto-homo thing. I asked a few people, "Hey, do you use the internet?" Yeah, like who doesn't? "If you like the freedom to surf without your provider slowing down websites, vote for Boucher." Didn't work.
You are not going to have half a dozen companies laying competing fiber networks do your door.
In Denver, back in something like 2001, I had four network companies looking to provide be high speed internet. I had one company bringing in fiber, one cable internet choice, and two (really more, there were two major ones) DSL providers.
Some of the reason we don't see that anymore is money, some of those choices dried up (like sprint DSL, sigh). But some of them cannot be because of regulatory issues. There are in fact companies that would deliver alternative network service if allowed to by law, and across the country they are being stopped. Towns wanting to provide citizens with bandwidth are being sued by cable companies because they state promised them a monopoly!!!
Government regulation IS the reason why we have screwed up, overpriced internet service in the US.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
To a reasonable person, that's like saying "My plastic bag over your head isn't keeping you from breathing. It's your body's response to increasing levels of carbon dioxide that's causing you to black out."
I totally agree, however shouldn't it be noted that the "invisible hand" if you will DID work, and Comcast is not doing that anymore (yes they were chastised by regulators as well). As I stated no network neutrality being talked about would prevent that technique from being applied. That's what happens when, as I stated, you craft regulations when no actual problems exist to be solved.
But there is no permanent injunction on the books to stop a company from doing this, and Comcast is not doing it. So the system is working, from the standpoint of keeping networks neutral and functional.
If you want to talk about giving consumers more choice in ISP's that's a whole different story and not related to network neutrality.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
An ad hominem attack/argument is never salient in a rational discourse, regardless of a stated bent from the source. In rational discourse, ideas are the thing.
What have the Huffington Post and its supposed bias to do with this particular issue?
Quite a bit. Net neutrality is perceived as a common good. Hence, this story is an opportunity to portray the recent election in a negative light. Such things are expected of news sources that would be on the wrong side of the argument. That's why I don't consider the original poster's observation an ad hominem attack.
WiMAX/4G I can get, but the latency makes online gaming impossible
Actually WiMax on sprint is supposed to have extremely low ping times, looks like 60-150 is a range people are seeing, pretty much anything under 200 is OK for gaming and 60 is really good (if you have that strong a signal).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I did that as I was writing it (you know, proofreading), and I still can't interpret it that way.
On your first point, I'd like to make a distinction between an argument and a statement. For example, consider the following:
1. Cows produce methane.
2. Methane causes global warming.
3. Therefore, cows cause global warming.
1 and 2 are statements; saying that (1&2) implies 3 is an argument. The significance of the distinction is this: an ad hominem attack is invalid when directed at an argument (which can be tested and verified/falsified on its own merit), but may be valid when directed at a statement (where you need to trust the source).
Sorry for all that. I fear its the influence of the ultra-ultra-far right Republicans in the US cranking up rhetoric, their tribal zeal, inability to be coherent, dismissive shouting tactics, bad manners, and general inability to listen to anyone but some other ultra-ultra-far right Republican. I see muslims crowding streets, shouting and burning American flags on the news on different occasions, and see their rage and zeal and inability to maintain any rationality, and then see that same rage, zeal and inability to be rational in the GOP and Tea party. No rocket surgeons there. No sober second thought there. Pull the trigger and then see if they are good or bad later. Dick Cheneys hunting buddy found out first hand about their policy. Show us a road to hell, and you will find a Republican leading the march, insisting she is right, and you better not argue and had better just follow. "You will get used to the brimstone smell after a while", you are told. With the recent elections, Americans have voted for Gridlock. They will get it, and by no half measure.
1) If a news source has marketed itself as a source of with a conservative bias (Fox News) then it is completely rational to double-check anything they say
Since when? They still have that idiotic "Fair and Balanced" as their slogan last I checked.
1) If a news source has marketed itself as a source of with a liberal bias (huffpo) or conservative bias (Fox News) then it is completely rational to double-check anything they say. Ad hominem attacks are perfectly acceptable and warranted if the source has explicit motives for it's speech. Read up a little more on the nuances of what an ad hominem attack really implies.
Funny that you accuse the OP of logical fallacies whithout actually saying what the fallacy is. At the same time you're yourself "conduct" a logical fallacy yourself. Just because a news source as some (perceived) bias does not mean they are not correct, even correct in most of the cases. When will people learn that the truth is not always in between two extremes, but might be just as well at one extreme side. Also some source in the middle (moderate if you want to) has just as many motives as any source at the extremes, bottom line always double check.
Also how is double checking sources related to making ad hominem attacks acceptable? Yes double checking sources is good, especially if you are doubtful about their motives. However, even someone with doubtful motives can be correct. An ad hominem attack avoids the argument altogether and instead just attacks the person. So the OP was fully correct, it seems you should be doing some reading.
2) Your response is entirely premised on terrible logical fallacies. You link the OP with "tribalism/partisanism/racism/sexism/prejudice" as a method to disparage his/her opinion. In my opinion, that is about 10x worse than what the OP did.
3) Browsing through your comment history, it's clear this sort of hogwash is your MO and you need to chill out rather than attacking people all the time.
You could have simply verified one of the claims made: that he submitted legislation to let people remove DRM for lawful purposes (It's the Fair Use Act of 2007). Now, it's perfectly reasonable to check up on people. But you need to do that in spite of their biases, not just because of them. If you never check up on the people you agree with, you have no basis for thinking you know what you think you know.
So ad hominem is NOT warranted, despite what you claim. This is the internet. You can look up things as much as you want to. If the one and only thing you can figure out is the political persuasion of the person speaking, if you can't find even one single fact about something--anything!--to call the conclusions into doubt except their political leaning, nobody should take you seriously. Ever. Until you reform your ways.
Why? Because you've proven to be a lazy thinker. You took a mental shortcut and didn't even bother to check if it was warranted or not. You said that it's "completely rational to double-check anything they say" but didn't bother doing that (or even trying to!).
By your own definition, you are not behaving rationally.
If it helps you any, I'm not a Republican, Democrat or Libertarian (though I may have voted for some). I simply hate seeing people promote logical fallacies. Boucher had his flaws, but he really was one of the best in Congress on tech issues (that's a VERY low bar to clear, mind you). I know because I read all the news, figure out the things people agree on (even if they disagree about the implications of those things), and do a bit of fact checking to see who is lying. (Everyone is, sometimes. The trick is knowing when.)
This kind of article would have been useful BEFORE elections. A slashdot article gives some good press and calling a candidate intelligent and tech-saavy is somehow good for him. Why do we prefer to grumble about bad politicians than trying to help good ones being elected ?
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
You seem to be making the implication that because an organisation is biased one way or another, that both organisations equally distort the truth towards their bias.
This is a false premise on which to base your argument, we know for example that organisations like Fox News, and the Daily Mail, are far more guilty of bending the truth, or sometimes outright lying to support their bias, than say the BBC or The Guardian which whilst both having a left wing bias, are for the most part, capable of sticking to the facts most of the time. This means we can have much greater confidence in what they report being factually correct.
You can of course argue that the fact we know they don't stick to the facts 100% of the time means we should check anyway, and I agree, I think that's fine, but in some stories it's pretty clear whether any bias is being applied. I think you should fact check anyway- I'd be more concerned about the organisations that don't advertise their bias or whose bias isn't well known. Certainly I wouldn't assume that because a site doesn't advertise it's bias then it must be neutral and it's facts don't need checking!
And it is done by both (D) and (R) types. It is nothing new. The question is, do you complain when people say the same thing about links to Fox News?
The problem with Fox News isn't that it's Republican. The problem with Fox News is that it has essentially no distinction between editorial and news and its editorialising is full of emotional appeals with no basis in fact. Worse, because its news team is so subservient to the editorialising, it's impossible to get enough information to make your own mind up on the topic.
Fox News makes other news sorces look positively unbiased. There's no real Democratic equivalent, and I'm not sure anyone wants one. It's probably not terribly good for the Republican party in the long term either...
Everyone has explicit motives for all speech. Ad hominem is never rational discourse: a person's motives are not relevant to the merit of their points.
"That which does not kill us makes us stranger." -Trevor Goodchild
Comcast Canada was "full" 3% of the time as they had to show in court. This 3% figure is why they had to forge packets and kick people off and violate their own terms of service to their customers.
3% of the time.
Somehow it seems like this wouldn't be a problem if you could just divide the country regionally between these two philosophies
I think the left-wing half is called "Scandinavia" ;-)
Interesting factoid: in a recent episode of The Young Turks featured on Best of the Left, Cenk (the host of TYT) talks about wealth distributions. Americans think the richest 20% of the people own 59% of the wealth, they want the richest 20% to own 32% (59 and 32 are averages among the asked), and in fact the richest 20% own 84% of the wealth. [32, 59, 84: IIRC]
In Denmark, the richest 20% own 34% of the wealth, see http://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/economies/Europe/Denmark-POVERTY-AND-WEALTH.html
You're welcome over here; we talk english reasonably good, the food's nice, the tax rate is high and the weather is shit during the winter but the people are friendly and trusting. When you've got enough you don't need to squeeze more out of others, and when squeezing isn't the norm people don't have role models to learn it from. [We're like the Canada of Europe :D]
This is why I'm amused when I hear people saying "I dropped cable TV; I just get everything online now". Until that self-same ISP / CableCo starts capping them below what is needed for Netflix, Hulu, et al. The end result being a monthly bill (after upgrading to a higher cap) within pennies of what they were paying before 'dropping cable'. Folks really think they'll be allowed to get roughly the same amount of media at a cheaper rate from the same vendor? Har-dee-har-har.
>>Right... rather than simply treat the article on its factual merits, go after the source of the article. Brilliant! Did you invent that strategy yourself?
Because you've never done that yourself? Just poking through your history, I see you say, "What is this, another article submission by a shill for the SSD manufacturers?"
You also say that "Regardless, ad hominem is NEVER ACCEPTABLE and NEVER WARRANTED."
Hypocrite.
What you mean by 'bias' is "someone that disagrees with me."
Frankly, though, examining the source of the article is ALWAYS relevant, it's one of the basic foundations of textual analysis. If I'm reading an article on the Rally to Restore Sanity in DC, it's damn well relevant if its HuffPo or Glenn Beck writing the article. HuffPo is a liberal rag, and sort of the polar opposite of Glenn Beck's The Blaze.
You will eventually find that in this world there are those who are full of shit. When the person, group or argument that one debates is full of shit then it is more productive to throw stones and feces than to develop a reasoned response. An argument that is truly full of shit is premised deeply and thoroughly on false information and crooked logic. Disproving it would be like cutting all the heads off a hydra: not strictly impossible, but not worth the effort. Partisan political sites (like Huffington Post, which is also full of shit when it isn't being partisan) and the state run news agencies of dictatorships may safely be assumed to be full of shit.
So here's a telephony analogy:
Via the (PS) Telephone Network, you can contact you friends, call for a pizza, vote for Idol Talent Factor (SMS fee + voting fee), call personal ad systems or phone sex lines.
"Phone Neutrality" would be that the telephone operator doesn't get to decide which pizza shops you can and can't call. Phone Neutrality would mean that pizza shop A can't pay your phone company to have calls to pizza shop B be more expensive, or have favorable call-drop rates. It would mean that pizza shop A can't pay your phone company's upstream phone company to give pizza shop B worse call-drop rates (without you or your phone company having a say). It means the phone companies aren't in the business of delivering "Service contact packages", but of delivering end-to-end connectivity on equal terms to anyone willing to pay the non-dicriminatory charges.
(At least, that's my interpretation)
You lost me at "Huffington Post"
There are only two kinds of people who have a problem with net neutrality:
1. People with a vested interest in screwing consumers out of more cash by turning the wide open, free Internet into a system of toll roads - Telco executives, media company executives.
2. Libertarians who would rather personally deal with multinational megacorporations themselves than have the government protect their interests from the telco robber barons, because the regulations involved would somehow reduce their freedom (??? O_o) or would be unfair to those poor telco execs, weeping quietly in their gold-rimmed pools, never to know the luxury of lounging in a platinum-rimmed pool. Later they sulk off to their private airliner to attend a sad violin concerto in Italy. Poor telco and media execs, aww :(
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Please read more deliberately, including the subthread. Your criticism is a non sequitur.
The first thing we need to remember is no-one got voted out this year because of net neutrality. Yes, the Internet is massively important to the world economy, but most people don't have the technical or business expertise to understand the Internet at a deep, personal level.
So, if no-one failed to be reelected because of net neutrality, then why? The core of net neutrality is that 1) the market has failed in providing a "fair" Internet utility, and 2) therefore, government needs to regulate it. Now we're getting much closer to the answer. The same people who will encourage additional government regulation in one area are likely to encourage additional government regulation in other areas.
Government regulation is all about control. If you think the government has a lot to say about how you run your networks now and what data they can pull (even without a warrant), just wait until the government gets to decide if you run your network fairly. They'll have to, at least, look at the packet header level to get correct oversight. And your logs, and your contracts, and your business plan...
A theme in this election cycle was "no, government is not better able to make quick, informed decisions about what I want to do, than I am." Sure, no congressman is looking for work because he won't let you roll out the new linux kernel on your embedded linux router, it's because of all of the other things he's done to restrict your freedom of choice.
Net neutrality: it's the Obamacare of the Internet!
Congratulations to you for learning another trick to maintain your bias and mislead others.
I see your skill at poisoning the well is coming along nicely too.
Is it really beyond your ability to vote for someone that corporation XYZ doesn't support? The Citizens United hyperbole is getting out of hand.
Does that mean if I only have one school available to choose from that there is a government failure?
I've sometimes wondered if a better way to do regulation wouldn't be to have hard-and-fast rules, but rather just guidelines along with a logo program.
If you meet the guidelines, you have can use a "US FCC Approved" icon. If not, you have to display "Violates US FCC Guidelines", or something.
That way, companies can choose what they want to do, but consumers can also make a (somewhat more) informed choice.
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
You criticized a beloved news source of the liberals here. Instant -1 for you!
Advocates of Net Neutrality should get smart and stop portraying it as an aspect of progressive politics. That only makes the other team want to oppose it.
Instead frame it like this: "What if--oh noes--AT&T wanted to block Glenn Beck and theblaze.com ? Liberals already succeeded in getting major corps to drop Beck for advertising. What if they get them to drop access to the website, too?"
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
The thinking behind network non-neutrality is so stupid, it's hard to even fathom. Imagine:
-AT&T says it wants a share of Google's profits.
-Electric company says it wants a share of random factory X's profits.
-Post Office wants a share of NetFlix profits.
Note: in all these cases, the utility providers are already getting a (fair) share of the profits of the utility users by getting paid for the product (or service). It's a basic principle of business that you only get paid for the value of the service *you* provide, not the value that your customer creates with that service.
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
(This is the GP AC)
Don't blame the Tea Party. Blame the idiots who listen and obey. And they'll (or some other offshoot of the moral majority) be around in 2012 to muck things up then also.
What are you smoking? First, "the idiots who listen and obey" the Tea Party are, surprisingly enough, driven by the Tea Party. They are to blame, but their puppeteers are the ones to single out. I thought I was pretty clear in calling that out by highlighting their FUD-based rhetoric.
Second: This is not a "moral majority" but rather a vocal minority. Sure, they'll be around in two years to dirty the waters again, but there is more water and therefore they'll have less overall impact.
Did he say you should only double check those kinds of sources? I don't see that.
I'd say a little additional scrutiny is prudent when dealing with a source that has obvious motives relevant to the topic. As a practical measure, I am always more suspicious of sources like huffpo and fox news than, for instance, an abstract from research in a peer reviewed journal.
Considering the source is often reasonable. Not necessarily to discount content out-of-hand, but as a preliminary estimation of its validity and fairness.
it's called ad hominem. It's also a debate tactic used to implement tribalism/partisanism/racism/sexism/prejudice
I do believe you just made an ad hominem attack on ad hominem arguments!
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
What you're talking about here is common carriers, and that's a good thing. Why? The term "net-neutrality" clouds the issue by making the assumption that ISP can unilaterally prioritize traffic, even for a fee. By using the term "common carrier" with respect to ISPs, then the issue of net-neutrality goes away because there is no assumptions to be made about what the rights of the ISP are.
To put this in perspective, ISPs insist that they have a private network. Sure, as long as they are not conveying data from public networks. They're private if and only if they are supplying their own content in a self-contained network. But as soon as they connect to the public network, they are a common carrier. This, I believe is the most important point missing from the discussion.
The diversity and expression of human opinion is essential to human survival.
If a news source has marketed itself as a source with a...conservative bias (Fox News)
You're joking, right? Fox News is fair and balanced!
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
You make an interesting point here about the subsidies. The ISPs like to talk about how they have a private network, but fail to mention the subsidies and easements that they have been given to them by the government. Unless they're willing to give up their easements, they *don't* have a private network.
So, just on the basis of tangible and intangible assistance provided to the ISPs, we can say that they don't really have a private network, and they don't have the right to prioritize traffic on their own initiative.
That's why I say that unless we start calling the ISPs *common carriers*, they are going to win the net neutrality argument. The term "net neutrality" a straw man, a red herring, designed to distract everyone from the real issue at hand. The ISPs are running a public network and are subject to regulation under the police power. See Munn v. Illinois, 94 US 113 and other similar cases.
The diversity and expression of human opinion is essential to human survival.
Ad hominem attacks are
perhaps worth considering when the issue is reduced to a matter of trust, i.e. when you have no other basis to decide.
For instance, I've seen enough of Glenn Beck to reflexively reject anything he says, not as false but as meaningless. I could investigate, but I no longer do.
It's applied ad hominem in its purest form, but there are distinctions to be made: first, I'm not arguing it to anyone else, and second the ad hominem part isn't based on the source, but on my character assessment of the source: because Glenn Beck frequently makes stunningly stupid arguments that I simply do not believe anyone in his position could actually believe, I regard him as personally dishonest and do not bother investigating anything he says. The thing to remember is that ad hominem isn't conclusive, not in the usual sense. It's a rejection of thought.
Not everyone has made the same assessments of {Glenn Beck, the New York Times, Karl Rove, Jerry Brown} as I have.
GGP skipped every argument, even ad hominem, and advocated rejecting articles purely because of their source. It isn't argument, it isn't even discussion, it's groupthink. It's tribalism.
Fact is, there is a tribe on slashdot that has accepted the need for net neutrality and rejects most arguments from the usual sources advocating against it. I'm in that tribe by choice, I've made the same assessment: I find the corporate arguments not merely wrong but actively dishonest.
But just as there's a distinction between having a monopoly and being a monopolist or being in the military and practicing militarism, there's a distinction between being in a tribe and practicing tribalism.
Here is an argument, not ad hominem but actual argument, for a particular kind of net neutrality, source-neutral routing.
Either my ISP's network has the bandwidth to feed me (and, simultaneously, every household in my neighborhood) a stutter-free video stream or it doesn't. I pay for "up to" enough to receive that. If they have enough to deliver it for hulu, they also have enough to deliver it for any other source, and if my video isn't coming from one of their paid sources and they refuse to deliver it from the source I chose, then they are forcibly idling available bandwidth rather than deliver what they have and I've paid for. Done.
That is a valid basis for an ad hominem argument: these corporations make transparently false arguments in support of paid-source routing, and to make those arguments one must (or so I believe) be dishonest, cretinous or credulous. People don't get to be CEOs of major corporations by being stupid or gullible. I don't pay much attention to their arguments for content-type prioritization either, just a cursory "if they can do stutter-free video at the bandwidth I paid for, they can deliver anything else at the same rate", plus the ad hominem, is enough for me.
But it would be wrong to make that ad hominem argument against this or any other position that matters, because we're discussing national policy and even untrustworthy sources sometimes have subtle and valid points. It would be even more wrong to suggest, without even making the argument, that others should reject what they say simply because it's them saying it, and most wrong of all, fully savage tribalism, to reject anyone's views based solely on whether they have or have not accepted any particular ad hominem. If you refuse to engage with anyone merely because they're "republican", you might as well tear up your decency card.
As always, all IMO. Insert "I think" everywhere grammatically possible.
See my subject-line above, and you're 110% spot-on correct:
Many of the little trolls around here (not all the folks, but a good deal of them) do that, and you have hit on one here... &, it's probably someone who doesn't like what was said @ that site!)
Yes - This site is NOTORIOUS for ad hominem attacks (believe you me, I know 1st hand) - Especially once you get the "/. trolls" on the defensive, and especially with backing technical facts, from reputable & reliable sources!
(That's when the "/. trolls" seriously start up with the name-tossing (and like you stated, even BEFORE THAT, attacking entire sites with malicious slurs (many are "subtle", but there too), rather than attacking an article's technical points)
So, why is that?...
Well, lol, that's because "RTFA" (read-the-f'ing-article acronym around here) is almost "heresy" to do! They rarely do so, & act like "it's ok to do so"... pitiful.
APK
P.S.=> Good job though man, you hit him RIGHT on the skull, hard... with facts (he immediately put down that website but NOT the facts in that article, which he SHOULD HAVE DONE instead of putting that site down)... and no amount of "spin-control" b.s. (the usual from the trolls around here no less) can change it! I am with you man, totally... apk