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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.'"
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
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.
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.
If we only have 1 provider then that is an example of a market failure, and in that case it is not a violation of good market economics for the government to intervene. There are externalities imposed by the nature of the business that do require limited government regulation, I don't think that's to extreme a stance.
It's funny you say that, because our ISPs in this country operate in a manner that is hardly conducive to a free market. They get money from the state, they get laws from the state that allow them to lay their cables on your property (even if don't want them), in some cases they get (or have gotten) state sanctioned monopolies (sometimes called franchise agreements), and I'm sure the mucking about in the FCC and Congressional telephony regulation probably insulates them from competitors. I think those are where the battles should really be fought, especially the outright monopolies that have been granted in the past.
SSC
Net Neutrality was not on the radar of these voters. Support for net neutrality didn't hurt or save anyone.
Actually Capitalism is any economic system where the means of production are owned and profited by private individuals and organizations rather then the state. What you're talking about is a strict free market where the government doesn't do anything but enforce contracts. Also it is sometimes called Laissez-faire economics. Which is why you can be a firm capitalist and still believe that the Government has the right to stop the selling of lead laced toys.
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.
Under capitalism, the providers get to provide whatever traffic shaping they want. If you don't like it, get a another provider.
This is not a provider issue, this is about who owns the Internet backbone. The company with the biggest portion of the backbone wins. I recommend reading up on the subject: http://advice.cio.com/who_owns_the_internet_we_have_a_map_that_shows_you
The actual main idea behind capitalism being a 'good thing' was that there would be a constant influx of competitors - and companies would die out, start over et cetera.
The idea wasn't a corporocracy.
Also, 'another provider' won't work if:
1. Its the only provider in your area
2. The large companies agree with each other on what they're blocking
I'm pretty sure the RIAA/MPAA have enough resources to turn the larger ISPs over to their side, then certain sites and technologies magically start disappearing.
I think he was being facetious. That said the reason you only have 1 provider is probably because one company was granted a local monopoly by the government. Although I suppose you could just live in the middle of no where.
What you are speaking of is absolute Free Market Capitalism, which doesn't exit in this country and for good reason. The government, on behalf of the people, set up rules which regulate business that protect the people from irresponsible business practice and promotes a fair trading environment. Certain sectors of our economy require more regulations than others due to their importance to daily life. The internet falls into this category and it should be protected from greedy corporations so that we can all have equal access to it. I for one don't want the rich to have special access to the internet that can't get due to my small pay check.
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.
Stop, there's your problem: the state taking money from people and giving it to companies.
American democracy explained: the people want stuff for free. One side says "you get to have stuff but you have to pay for it." The other side says, "if you don't want to pay for anything, you shouldn't have to get anything." So every couple years, the voters alternate between "Waahh! I want more stuff!" or "Waahh! I don't like spending money!" It doesn't have any more to do with theoretical ideals of capitalism this time around than it did with theoretical ideals about socialism or progress last time around.
Look, I don't get a lot of chances to validate the economics classes they made me take in college, so when I get a chance to use words like "Market Failure" and "Externality", I take it damnit.
Actually, if you live anywhere besides the city, its pretty common (out of the five towns I've lived in the past two years, all except one) to have only two providers - and one is often dial-up. So without net neutrality your choices are "slow for non-corporate websites" and "slow for all websites"
Yeah how's that mobile phone market working for you? Must be nice having paying out the ass for more restricted mobile service / phones.
Or because providing a service that requires laying wires to your house or beaming things to your house over a limited, licensed part of the radio frequency spectrum is a naturally monopolistic market. You can't really have a true free market with Internet access providers much more than you can have a true free market with electricity providers, natural gas providers, water providers, or road providers. Some states have played with pretend free markets in those areas, but there is no getting around the fact that there are not going to be multiple parallel sets of natural gas pipes running through the entire grid.
"If you don't like it, get a another provider"
Like the one that doesn't exist? Access to a stable internet connection has become important to the lives of many (some even having jobs that revolve around it). Competition has failed (no surprise there). I mean, sure, the government having complete control over it isn't good either, but something must be done.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
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?
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.
State sanctioned monopolies are not part of laze fare capitalism. If real competition were allowed I would agree with you.
The faster the better. Then we can set about rebuilding..in some far, distant future
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
Somebody should explain that the companies willingly let free market capitalism die. It was damn expensive having to maintain a navy to protect their trade. Once the companies let the government use their military to protect trade, there was no free market. The military, the government, and the companies were all now working together in a NOT free market. Some people want to believe the free market exists, but it does not. It has not for a long time. Belief in such a free market is a sign that no thought has been put into understanding the world. Like all religions, it requires faith, not intelligence to believe.
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.
It's just that I don't want to have to get the Comcast - sorry - Xfinity Premium Super Latinum package to read Slashdot at more than dial-up speed.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
no one(well almost no one) is discussing having a govt ISP. just having the govt own the wires, like they do the roads, and letting anyone provide services(cars) for them. Anyone that wants to use the wires(roads) can as long as the services(cars) meet certain requirements(safety belts, and a license plate, and tires with tread).
All of the above was encrypted with a Quad ROT-13 method. Unauthorized decryption is in violation of the DMCA.
to build out a network that they were supposed to maintain and let anyone use, or provide services on.
All of the above was encrypted with a Quad ROT-13 method. Unauthorized decryption is in violation of the DMCA.
3. Which areas they are going to serve.
All of the above was encrypted with a Quad ROT-13 method. Unauthorized decryption is in violation of the DMCA.
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.
no govt provider, just govt lines, that they lease at a small amount above cost(tax) to anyone that wants it, at publicly announced rates.
All of the above was encrypted with a Quad ROT-13 method. Unauthorized decryption is in violation of the DMCA.
Fine, let them shape and block, and let them loose their common carrier status. One without the other is not OK, which is what they are wanting to do.
All of the above was encrypted with a Quad ROT-13 method. Unauthorized decryption is in violation of the DMCA.
And with that competition i would have 10 different trenches in my yard with 7 different "standards" none of which work together.
All of the above was encrypted with a Quad ROT-13 method. Unauthorized decryption is in violation of the DMCA.
There is a third option. I refer to it as the "single payer public option" just to get up the ire of the Tea Party folks. It's remarkably simple:
This takes the infrastructure costs out of the equation, making it possible to have substantial competition even in smaller markets. More importantly, however, it means that the government is not in control over the content because the government is not the ISP, and after ten years, the government is not even involved except in hiring somebody to run it. The key part of this is nonprofit. By taking the profit motive out of the equation, this ensures maximum areal coverage for minimum cost, yet does so in a way that minimizes the government's control over the infrastructure.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
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.
And you believed them? See the common thread: everyone's a selfish bastard, so you don't give anyone the keys to the kingdom, because they will be misused. Let a company acquire its own property via voluntary exchange (not money from the government), and then it can do whatever it wants with that property. Stop there. Don't give anyone property without having to make voluntary exchanges for it. Don't make it legal for anyone to take property, period.
Libertarians think everything is the government's fault, even blaming them for monopolies. But the fact is, this is a natural monopoly. You are not going to have half a dozen companies laying competing fiber networks do your door. (And without the government imposing eminent domain, you won't even have ONE). The choice isn't between a government-regulated monopoly vs a thriving marketplace, it's between a government-regulated monopoly vs. an unregulated monopoly. Free markets are great for most things, but the government must be involved with infrastructure at some level. Maybe better wireless technology will help the situation, one day.
It's not about forcing anyone to do anything, it's about forcing corps(which aren't a person) to do nothing based on some rules.
Want to see slashdot*, google, youtube, hulu, farmville, and facebook, those are available on the super ++good platinum package that is an extra $300 a month and requires a special "router" that will require you to lease it at $45 a month, and to use that router you will need the professional internet package, only $70/month but you can watch all the "ondemand" you want from ondemand.comcast.net for the low price of $30 a month with a free modem. XBox live and PSN are only $100 a month if you want those services.
*Includes goatse.cx for the full slashdot experiance
Don't think it will happen? I'm sure it will if we let them.
All of the above was encrypted with a Quad ROT-13 method. Unauthorized decryption is in violation of the DMCA.
The right wing goes after the stupid voters. Part of their platform is anti-intellectualism. Its pretty fucked up.
The left wing goes after poor people's votes by promising them goodies we can no longer afford (if we ever really could.)
So yeah, it's pretty fucked up, but it's a bi-partisan process.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
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
Curious about where you live... You have only cable as an option, no DSL, no 3G, no satellite, no WiMAX? Just - cable?
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
All political/legislative efforts can be summed up as devoted toward one or more of just 3 goals: Rape the world; Rob the people pseudo-legally; and Enslave the people to debt. That's all they did for 8000+ years, and that's what they will continue trying to do. Mark my words, and just wait and see how right I am!
FTFY
One of the critical roles of government in a capitalist system is to prevent the abuse of monopolies (and trusts or similar constructs). This is done by either preventing monopolies or, when that is not practical, preventing the specific abuses of the monopoly.
In the case of net neutrality, both the client (consumer) and the server (web site/service) have already paid for their respective internet connections. When an ISP leverages access to its customers as a way to charge or limit otherwise unrelated sites/services, it is extortion. In other situations it can be said that a company can provide service under whatever terms they want (though especially abusive/one-sided contracts are still not legal) because consumers can go elsewhere. In the case of monopolies and similar markets, that is not an option.
Capitalism (specifically, competitive markets) should be preserved regardless of whether the product/service is a "necessity", though many would argue that internet access is becoming a necessity for many people.
Curious about where you live... You have only cable as an option, no DSL, no 3G, no satellite, no WiMAX? Just - cable?
I'm not sure that even matters. Imagine a future where an ISP can charge you monthly and also charge Google/Facebook/etc. to get on their high-speed list. What other ISP in my area, no matter how they deliver the data to me, is going to pass on maximizing their profits by doing the same?
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
My condo association is largely run by idiots who signed a contract with Comcast to get service. No other provider in my area is willing or able to provide service. And I live in the beating heart of Chicago, in one of the neighborhoods with the highest population densities and median income in the city.
WiMAX/4G I can get, but the latency makes online gaming impossible (no thank you, 2000MS ping times!). Satellite is the same thing, and also has other issues (board rules about dishes, I'm in the midst of a bunch of high-rises and they block most orientations). DSL isn't happening for reasons that the phone company has not made clear.
I'm not the person you were responding to, but I assure you, a lack of choice (or, at least, a lack of any kinds of viable choices if you do anything that benefits from or requires a lowish ping) is not uncommon.
Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
The right wing goes after the stupid voters.
Part of their platform is anti-intellectualism.
Its pretty fucked up.
The left wing goes after poor people's votes by promising them goodies we can no longer afford (if we ever really could.)
So yeah, it's pretty fucked up, but it's a bi-partisan process.
The right-wing goes after well-connected elite's votes by delivering them massive no-bid military contracts that we could never afford in the first place.
nonprofits can still have a profit motive, it's just that instead of reporting their excess earnings as profit they get rolled into executive salaries.
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.
Libertarians think everything is the government's fault, even blaming them for monopolies. But the fact is, this is a natural monopoly. You are not going to have half a dozen companies laying competing fiber networks do your door. (And without the government imposing eminent domain, you won't even have ONE). The choice isn't between a government-regulated monopoly vs a thriving marketplace, it's between a government-regulated monopoly vs. an unregulated monopoly. Free markets are great for most things, but the government must be involved with infrastructure at some level. Maybe better wireless technology will help the situation, one day.
I agree with a lot of what you're saying, but you're also not telling the whole story. In many cases, these are private companies that have invested literally billions of dollars in infrastructure. While governments have granted some concessions along the way in order to facilitate the build out of these networks, to now turn around and take these billion-dollar investments over and tell these companies what they can and cannot do with them...it's tantamount to robbery. And why? Look at all of the posts on this. It all boils down to selfishness.
I want to be able to...
I don't want to pay more...
No one anywhere is proposing charging you more to look at Slashdot. What they are saying is that to provide quality services they're going to have to be able to control the speed at which various services are delivered. Frankly, this whole "net neutrality" debate is a total red herring being thrown up because the government has for years been trying to take over this industry unsuccessfully. Now, they've finally scared enough people into thinking that someone is going to be charging them more to surf their favorite web site and they think they have a winner.
These companies paid money to build this infrastructure. It's theirs. You don't like it? Pony up and build your own damn billion-dollar network.
Social Engineering Expert: Because there is no patch for stupidity.
My condo association is largely run by idiots who signed a contract with Comcast to get service. No other provider in my area is willing or able to provide service.
Mine pulled the same crap, raving about the wonderful deal they signed for us (not that I got asked, I got told, basically "we're a Comcast neighborhood now so don't even think about using anyone else.") The pricing I got was just the same as other folks in the area that aren't in my association, so all I can figure is that somebody on the association got a kickback or two. They're bastards anyway, and we're planning on moving the Hell out of here next year.
Unfortunately for them, when U-Verse came around they couldn't stop it since it comes over the phone wiring. When the doorbell rang and it was a guy from AT&T wanting to know if I was interested in U-Verse, I practically took his arm off yanking him inside so I could sign up. Been pretty happy with it too. I realize that's because I have more than one horse to bet on, and that AT&T is just being nice because they have to compete with Comcast and a couple other outfits. Hopefully it will roll around into your area eventually: competition is damn good for the consumer.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
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.
Competition has failed (no surprise there).
It failed because of a regulatory environment that was specifically crafted to discourage or eliminate it.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
And with that competition i would have 10 different trenches in my yard with 7 different "standards" none of which work together.
Which is why we have standards, and in matters of critical infrastructure those are enforced by government. And there's nothing wrong with that: the reality is that we need the institution of government, we just disagree on precisely what its role should be when it comes to the Internet. But having no regulation at all is a recipe for disaster, as is having regulation whose only function is to protect monopolistic providers.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Right, so make each vote be multiplied by the number of dollars in taxes you paid last year.
Problem solved. No more looting.
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.
I don't know. Crying "racism" to every substantive issue seems to me "going after the stupid voters". You know, the left wing says "The Tea Party are racists" and it works, because stupid people think Marco Rubio and Tim Scott are white??? (both won).
Suffice it to say, there are STUPID people on BOTH sides of the isle. And it is anti intellectualism that denies that both sides are doing the same thing. They do it, because it works. BOTH SIDES.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
no one(well almost no one) is discussing having a govt ISP. just having the govt own the wires, like they do the roads, and letting anyone provide services(cars) for them.
You could do that, but it's entirely unncessary.
The simplest and best solution is to force current ISPs to separate into two companies.
One company owns the wires and leases them to anyone at cost + x% profit.
The other company has to compete like everyone else.
It'd bring actual competition to the internet/tv/VOIP market.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
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.
It failed because of greedy corporations that just can't seem to get enough money.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
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.
"Imminent Domain" is a very bittersweet pill, (though arguably less bitter for government.) indeed.
Without it, there is nothing to stop $Super_rich_Fatcat from buying up huge tracts of property, then waiting for prices to go up from scarcity, then selling dinky over-priced lots at the maximum value the market can bear, if not outright refusing to sell at all, but instead charging rent, A-La the original monopoly game.
With it, (and it being abused like is usually the case) there is nothing to prevent local corrupt government officials from confiscating your property to build their new memorial park^V^V Highway (named after themselves for their generous "donation" of the land.) so they can get more facetime in the media, and get re-elected.
It is one of the consequences of people wanting the benefits of an urban life. Sadly, these people often get carried away with what they consider necessary. That's another sad consequence of that particular situation. It starts to boil down to a situation where those rich enough to divert the imminent domain abusers with protection money get to keep their property, while everyone else gets screwed, and voila-- here we are.
The only way to make this problem go away is to either 1) stop living in cities (Good luck with that one.), or 2) Live in magical fairy land where new property can be conjured into existence to suit every need, negating the requirement for imminent domain. (HAH!)
Since neither of those "solutions" is realistic, the best one can hope for is a compromise; have imminent domain, but have it be such a hassle to go through, and have so many protections against misuse that it becomes more costly to persue than to just offer money to buy the property from private citizens. However, that too is an uphill battle, since no self-respecting politician with any ounce of self-preservation would get behind it willingly.
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.
Agreed. Capitalism as it's practiced today is less about beating your competitor in the open market and more about beating them in the legislature. If you can get the government to allow you to have a monopoly (like the monopoly usually granted for local cable service) that's even better. Getting laws passed or tax incentives that are awarded to you and not your competitors is also a desirable thing.
If I used a sig over again, would anyone notice?
Many people would love to offer WISP type services to compete with landlines, or even to purchase land to construct new landlines to compete with the local telecom infrastructure.
Sadly, this often results in being sued for violation of artificial monopolies granted through franchise agreements. Additionally, there is natural scarity in the EM spectrum which limits the former option in regard to the FCC, and already existant providers who purchase spectrum even if they dont intend to use it, since it prevents others from using it.
Due to these two mitigating factors, some form of artificial control must be exerted over these industries to prevent them from absuing their natural monopolistic positions, (Such as Verizon charging "mystery data fees", like it recently got wrist-slapped for.)
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.
If you think I'm being facetious, just look at what the new House of Representatives tries to do. I don't think they'll be able to roll back a lot that Obama signed into law, but they'll try. The reality is that Republicans are going to try to help big business (including, as one person pointed out, the media companies) at the expense of the individual consumers. There is an inherent clash between telling Comcast that they can run their Internet service any way they want and then saying, "Oh, but we also want net neutrality, although we Representatives have no clue what that means."
If I used a sig over again, would anyone notice?
No
Libertarians think that REGULATING an entire INDUSTRY because of POTENTIAL problems is tyranny. IT is no different than "security theater" in the airports. You don't like it when it applies to you, but you're so willing to apply it to everyone else as long as it doesn't apply to you (never mind that it eventually will).
Cable, Telephone are monopolies because people in government have no clue how to manage natural monopolies (utilities). City should own the INFRASTRUCTURE and auction the lease off to the utility company for 5, 10, 15, or 25 years (depending on type) and define the proper "service level agreement" they want for their citizens.
IF we did ... say TELCO this way, I'd have Fiber to my house already, because it would be installed per city regulations and service would be give to the company that offered me the best service bits for my price range.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Here is a different question, how do you feel about the 1984 breakup of Ma Bell? And forcing the carriers to let people connect privately owned telephones and modems?
Republicans have an answer for this: They will provide more money to the Rural Electrification Administration to provide at least one company a way to make a profit providing rural residents with basic Internet service. (In case you missed it, the REA has electrified everything but the Amish farms but the REA won't go away.) To guarantee everyone two providers in rural areas would be socialism, and we can't have that.
If I used a sig over again, would anyone notice?
In the case of natural gas, which is an interchangeable commodity, you can have one set of pipes and multiple suppliers. The company that I buy my natural gas from is not the one that delivers it to my house. For Internet service, you can separate the delivery service (wires or cable) from the service that connects that "last mile" to the Internet.
If I used a sig over again, would anyone notice?
Actually, I believe he's talking about corporatism not even capitalism. And I might even agree with him about corporatism. However state owned and regulated industry is worse than well managed capitalistic free market.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
In many cases, these are private companies that have invested literally billions of dollars in infrastructure
Frankly, this whole "net neutrality" debate is a total red herring being thrown up because the government has for years been trying to take over this industry unsuccessfully
Where are you basing these wild accusations? Sources, please!
Look at all of the posts on this. It all boils down to selfishness.
Since when has it been selfish for consumers to look out for themselves? Of course I want to pay less for more bandwidth and less latency. Thats called progress, dammit! And besides, telecom companies have been screwing the U.S. government and we the people for over a decade now.
In my opinion, the government should own and operate all of the telecom infrustructure and lease it out to the private sector to sell to the general public. This would bring down the barrier to entry in an industry dominated by a handful of players and lead to a much healthier market in general. On the other hand, <tinfoilhat>the government has complete control of the networks and that would certainly lead to the end of privacy on the internet as we know it </tinfoilhat>.
You're also not telling the whole story: Those weren't just "some concessions" to build the networks that were tiny. AT&T's network was built out over the years with government subsidies at the national, state and local levels. The cable company networks were built out with government concessions... that they would have some say in how fair the network would be by being able to hold them accountable through their franchise contracts.
The government gave the companies this money to build their networks, then the networks went out and got the rules changed (state level franchise contracts, no more public access, no more inexpensive cable for low-income residents, etc), and now the networks are saying "you have zero say in your investments". THAT'S tantamount to robbery... of the taxpayers.
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.
The consumer buys from a local provider which either shapes the traffic or doesn't. The local provider buys connections from one or more backbone providers (at one time, called Tier-1 providers) that either shape the traffic or don't. Net neutrality discussions can apply to either level of service.
If I used a sig over again, would anyone notice?
I never said where the lines would come from, and we(the tax payers) have already paid for a good chunk of those lines via the government money paid to the telcos to install them in the first place.
All of the above was encrypted with a Quad ROT-13 method. Unauthorized decryption is in violation of the DMCA.
I think they should own the wires, and lease them at cost plus tax, at publicly disclosed rates adjusted yearly or 2x a year, to whom ever wants them.
All of the above was encrypted with a Quad ROT-13 method. Unauthorized decryption is in violation of the DMCA.
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.
You're speaking like a Democrat. But the Republicans are in charge of the House now, and they disagree with you. I'm just pointing out the obvious.
If I used a sig over again, would anyone notice?
Correction: It's now the Rural Utilities Service and it has morphed to where it provides "public utilities (electricity, telephone, water, sewer) to rural areas." (quoted from Wikipedia)
If I used a sig over again, would anyone notice?
The idea that you only find it rational to double check a source that has marketed itself as a source of bias is disturbing.
It most certainly isn't a "natural monopoly".
Here in Wellington, New Zealand, I've got 2 physical broadband cables (DSL and cable) to my house (one at 20mbps, one at 15mbps), 3 separate mobile networks (2 with "broadband" 2mbps+), and plans for a third, fiber connection (100mbps+). I've even got power companies pulling fiber down the street to build a parallel FTTN network so that they can compete on the backhaul business. That's in a middle class suburb. Downtown, there's already a fiber provider in addition to all of the other groups - including the bidding for a second fiber network.
There is most certainly not a natural monopoly. We're not at the point where all bits are the same, and there is competitive advantage to be had by stringing your own wire.
What are you attempting to prove?
#1 isn't an ad hominem, #2 is.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
It failed because of greedy corporations that just can't seem to get enough money.
Yes, and why were they allowed to do that? Because of the regulatory environment that was specifically crafted to permit it.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
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.
The right wing goes after the stupid voters. Part of their platform is anti-intellectualism.
Its pretty fucked up.
The left wing goes after poor people's votes by promising them goodies we can no longer afford (if we ever really could.)
So yeah, it's pretty fucked up, but it's a bi-partisan process.
The right-wing goes after well-connected elite's votes by delivering them massive no-bid military contracts that we could never afford in the first place.
I was making a joke, but if you want to get serious, fine.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
That said the reason you only have 1 provider is probably because one company was granted a local monopoly by the government
That said, in most places the reason you have ANY provider is because the government promised they wouldn't have to compete.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Lovely, accuse someone of an ad hominem, than lay the race card. "Social Science" major?
Irongeek's Hacking Videos / Security Videos and Articles
Even if that wasn't the case, there is no doubt in my mind that if one ISP restricted access to certain things (like bittorrent), the others would follow through with it as well to maximize profits. It's been known to happen many, many times in the past. The free market isn't magic.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Mis-frame and mis-quote much? Apparently you do.
> Libertarians think that REGULATING an entire INDUSTRY because of POTENTIAL problems is tyranny.
Can you show me an industry that's completely new and is being pre-emptively regulated even though they're never done anything wrong before?
Of course you can't. You seem to think that screaming about tyranny will get you votes though. Sorry, that only works for Republicans.
Relevant to this specific /. article, the telecoms are regulated because of how they acted before (and the way they constantly continue trying to push the boundaries does NOT help your, or their, argument).
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
American democracy explained: the people want stuff for free. One side says "you get to have stuff but you have to pay for it." The other side says, "if you don't want to pay for anything, you shouldn't have to get anything." So every couple years, the voters alternate between "Waahh! I want more stuff!" or "Waahh! I don't like spending money!" It doesn't have any more to do with theoretical ideals of capitalism this time around than it did with theoretical ideals about socialism or progress last time around.
Somehow it seems like this wouldn't be a problem if you could just divide the country regionally between these two philosophies, and then let people choose which to live in. It'd be an interesting experiment.
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}$/
The US doesn't have government owning much infrastructure at all. Nobody seems to want that level of involvement by the government, probably for good reasons.
Some, but not all, dams are owned by the government. The Interstate highway system is apparently owned by the states but has a lot of federal laws imposed on it. Most bridges appear to be owned by either states or the federal government. I guess you could say the national laboratories are owned by the federal government and leased out to various operating companies. Aside from this, I don't know of much that is owned by the government that isn't military.
I don't think the government has done a good job with the highway system, bridges or dams. The national laboratories are mostly a financial disaster either currently or around the corner. So far, government ownership seems to be pretty much a receipe for failure.
Why would you want local, state or federal government to own anything else and screw it up? Unless you know of something else the government owns that works. NASA maybe?
Excuse me, but this isn't 1995. Once you have the connectivity to the homes, what the heck do you need an ISP for? Providing email services? I don't think so. Hosting web content? Not any more.
The problem with the idea of leasing the infrastructure back is there is no defining purpose for which an ISP would be created to do the leasing. Nobody needs that function anymore. So the builder can't lease it to anyone because there is no profit to be made. Just costs.
This puts the infrastructure maintenance fully on the shoulders of the municipality and they don't want it. I live in Arizona and both Tempe and Chandler had "municipal WiFi" projects. Both failed because the company that was going to manage the system decided (correctly) there was no profit to be made there. The infrastructure sits and blasts out an SSID 24x7 but it isn't connected to anything because there is nobody to pay for it.
The problem is that infrastructure is expensive to maintain and there is no profit to be had in just maintaining the infrastructure.
So there's only one party in USA, it seems...
As of next January that will be true, but at the moment we have two parties: The Republicrats and Russ Feingold.
Threw the baby out with the bathwater, we did.
Duct tape, XML, democracy: Not doing the job? Use more.
We did a pretty damned good job paying for our entitlements and elevating those "poor people" into the middle class before we became a corporatocracy.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Yeah, but which side spent the last year calling the President a Muslim, Kenyan Manchurian candidate who was trying to socialize their Medicare?
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
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.
Oh, I see, it is wrong for us to regulate their billion dollar network, but it is okay for the the government to secure them trillions of dollars worth of property from people like me.
Want a list?
There are probably a few other things I'm not thinking of, but that's enough.
This isn't at all like municipal Wi-Fi. Municipal Wi-Fi doesn't work (except if it is free) for three reasons:
Thus, except for people who regularly use a laptop for a significant amount of time in a place that provides no free Wi-Fi, municipal Wi-Fi doesn't make sense as a paid service, and certainly not as an alternative to existing ISPs. Fiber, by contrast, does not have any of these fundamental problems. Its only real downside is the cost of infrastructure construction and maintenance. This sort of scheme has been tried for fiber in several communities around the U.S., and last I was aware, it was working remarkably well everywhere it has been tried.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
No one anywhere is proposing charging you more to look at Slashdot.
Wrong. They've said exactly that: we want to be able to charge profitable internet services more simply because they provide a more valued service than those that do not. It does not have to do with traffic shaping; that's the red herring. Cable execs have been quoted as saying: we think we should have a piece of Google, because we're enabling a profitable service and they can't live without us. Regardless of traffic usage, they want to see the website's books and charge accordingly.
--
$tar -xvf
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.
And with that competition i would have 10 different trenches in my yard with 7 different "standards" none of which work together.
Funny how cities that have more than one cable and dsl company tend to make it work.
If you have only one provider, more than likely you can thank government for that. Not the market.
Cities and states find ways to give billions upon billions to private corporations all the time. Why can't they build out their own infrastructure instead and then lease access to providers?
As long as it's managed locally and not federally, I see no problem with that. Operating a system like that would be a nightmare, fraught with waste, misallocated resources, and probably far more expensive than what we have now. But I'd be very happy to let my city provide my internet service and would happily pay the increased taxes to do so.
Running a complete ISP with peerings/transit and BGP routers and billing and lawful interception is rather complicated. In contrast, running a switched network which can tunnel traffic from a particular port to a particular ISP is relatively cheap and easy. It makes a lot of sense to separate the digging and getting permissions and stringing cable part from the routing and billing part, especially when providers can provide TV and VoIP services on the same network.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
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.
Are you really trying to equate the Huffington Post to Andrew Breitbart? That's a bit like me saying George Will is about as respectable as Michael Moore, or me saying Rush Limbaugh is as high as Lindsay Lohan.
Nah. It's just that whenever the government does something well at great expense researching, planning, developing, and executing, some business gits swing by to get in on the action.
In the state of Washington, liquor sales are through state owned or licensed stores. Not only does it work, it works pretty damn good to the tune of a couple hundred million dollars in profit that goes to the state and local governments. The stores themselves were rated among the highest in the nation in not selling alcohol to minors.
People were getting their booze. State was turning a profit. Ah, businesses feel left out. Costco was behind one initiative (favoring big retailers) and there's another as well (favoring big distributers).
Sigh... but that still won't stop people from screeching to the heavens about the gubmint stealin' thar medicare.
If you let a commercial entity own the wires, they're going to be a natural monopoly and therefore need regulation. As you say: cost + x% profit. Cost will include the 7 figure salary + bonus for the CEO. If you try to reduce cost, the 7 figure salary of the CEO will stay intact, but corners are cut on maintenance. After a few years, the government (= you) will have to spend millions of dollars to fix and upgrade the wires, as all the money for that has been spent on something else.
This story has played out so many times already the past 30 years, that it's sad that people still believe in it. There's only one thing worse than a government monopoly, and that's a commercial one!
We do that in the UK - but it's only possible because our telecommunications sector is very tightly regulated. Try the same thing in the US, and you'd probably just be attacked as a socialist.
They'll probably roll back as much as they can on a matter of princible, just because democrats supported it.
"A free market is a game where everyone must play, but no-one may be allowed to win." Can't remember who said it though.
We actually have an infrastructure system like this in the UK (ish). BT used to be a government owned utility company - the telephone company. It was sold off in the 90s. It's still required to provide universal service, i.e. a phone line for everyone.
BT Openreach owns, operates and maintains the physical cabling and telephone exchanges. Access to the customers exchange connection are leased out to ISPs at the same rate as BTs ISP arm, BT Internet, pay. Customers also pay for voice service and line rental to BT. We have a number of ISPs, small and large, who compete to provide internet access over BTs network - BT connect the customers to the ISPs own network, and the ISP handles the traffic from there. It's either ADSL1 in the older, small exchanges, or ADSL2+ over a new switched network that BT have been building out (slowly). There has been a lot of ISP consolidation of late, but there's still dozens and dozens of them, ranging from huge and cheap (and low quota) to tiny isp specialists that offer tailored packages for bandwidth.
ISPs also have the option called LLU, local loop unbundling. Here, the ISP puts their own equipment directly into the exchange, and hooks into their own back network, or lease it from BT. Either way, you're hooked in directly to a single ISPs equipment and network, but they all share the most expensive bit, the copper cable between your house and the exchange - the 'last mile', and pay BT openreach for access to it. In the bigger exchanges, you can have a half dozen different options to choose from. Given the rates to operate LLU kit are much lower for the ISP, they offer much better deals for customers to connect to it, though since there's the cost to put it in in the first place, they only do so in the larger exchanges.
There is similar competition to provide voice services over the BT or LLU network.
Remember kids, it's all fun and games until someone commits wholesale galactic genocide.
It's funny how many are afraid to real name for the system that puts corporations in charge.
Reminder: it's called FASCISM. Not "corporatism". Fascism is a proper term to call the political system where corporations are the leading party in politics.
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.)
Verizon? T-Mobile? Sprint? No 3G on those networks? I'm about 5 miles from my telco office, and I have a RADSL system that provides around 1 Mbps symmetric for $30/month. Alternatively, I use my Verizon phone for 3G (with WMWiFiRouter) and get a bit better speeds when out and about (but lower pings). I'm positive there is another option...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
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!
You mean like this?
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
Actually Capitalism is any economic system where the means of production are owned and profited by private individuals and organizations rather then the state. What you're talking about is a strict free market where the government doesn't do anything but enforce contracts. Also it is sometimes called Laissez-faire economics.
In fact, what Relayman is proposing isn't even a free market, though proponents of laissez-faire economics try and pretend it is. An actual free market requires huge amounts of regulation. You need rules on false advertising and astroturfing and possibly even media ownership to ensure consumers have enough information to make rational economic decisions. They also require regulation of anti-competitive behaviour in order to ensure there is actually competition in the market (otherwise competition tends to die out, especially where there's a high barrier to entry) and Net Neutrality is a perfectly sensible example of such regulation.
you don't seem to understand.
If the *only* sites you use are the big ones which can pay to get on the high-bandwidth list then it barely effects you.
if you like the less well known sites, the ones which don't have a big budget well you can suck it up cause their packets will be getting pushed to the end of the queue behind those from youtube, facebook and any other sites which can pay the extra fee and you'll be stuck with shitty shitty latency and bandwidth.
it's very very bad.
educate yourself.
Because it won't work like that.
You'll have the same 2-ish options you have now, except Google will need to have a higher revenue somehow because you won't be able to connect to Google at a reasonable speed unless Google pays your ISP as well for the honor of letting you connect to them without having their connection degraded.
It'll all but kill ad-supported web services entirely.
Personally, I'd offer the ISPs the option to be a common carrier -- if you're a common carrier by definition you can't tinker with the connection based upon it's contents, source, or destination but you also aren't responsible for those contents. If you aren't, then you, as the ISP, are now legally liable for everything your customers do on your connection -- in altering the connection in a content/source/destination sensitive way you are claiming responsibility for that content.
That'd be the fastest way to ensure net neutrality while still giving the ISPs the option to ignore the concept entirely.
City should own the INFRASTRUCTURE and auction the lease off to the utility company for 5, 10, 15, or 25 years (depending on type) and define the proper "service level agreement" they want for their citizens.
There's no reason for the city (or any other level of government) to actually own the infrastructure provided the regulation of how that infrastructure is operated is reasonable. The biggest requirement is for neutrality of infrastructure provision, so that many different services (with competition between them) may be offered, but other regulations may also be necessary. The only real regulation of neutrality of services is to prevent a service provider from stopping alternative services from being provided by others; exclusive and exclusionary contracts between infrastructure providers and service providers are the problem.
(And if two companies decide they want to compete to provide infrastructure, why not? It's on their dime, not yours. No sense in stopping people wanting to do it...)
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
Really, the solution there is to have government ownership of the lines, with each participator in the market paying a percentage of the upkeep of the lines relative to marketshare. Infrastructure is one of those things that really *should* be in the hands of government, not because government is necessarily better at handling them, but because infrastructure is one of those things that needs to exist for the common good. Specifically because it *is* unreasonable to run a half dozen sets of pipes for each utility, and if the lines themselves are privately owned, guess who has a massive market advantage sufficient to squelch all competition?
"Sigh... but that still won't stop people from screeching to the heavens about the gubmint stealin' thar medicare." -- while at the same time screaming about the evils of socialized medicine and how the very concept needs to be fought and/or destroyed at every turn, while filling out the medicare forms, no less.
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.
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)
Also, the 'another provider' doesn't work if:
3. The bad guy is not someone you do business with directly.
Let's say that I can choose to buy Internet access from ISPs A and B, and I'm trying to get good connections to server S. However, both A and B connect to S via another ISP C. If C imposes traffic shaping rules that make connections to S difficult or impossible, switching my service from A to B makes no difference. That's why the libertarian solution of "just switch ISPs" doesn't actually work.
I am officially gone from
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!
It's worth pointing out that while highly competitive markets (say, broccoli at a busy farmer's market) do result in all sorts of wonderful efficiencies, oligopolies (where there are only a few sellers) do not. Most ISPs that aren't monopolies are oligopolies, with competition limited to the cable company with a granted monopoly, the telephone company with a granted monopoly, or satellite.
I am officially gone from
This was attempted in the UK with Network Rail, and what a fiasco that has been. It's far cheaper to fly overseas than travel by rail within England unless you book more than 3 months in advance... And even the trains you do take are half empty.
That is true, but unfortunately doesn't go very far. Gas and electricity are the pretend free markets that I was thinking of. One thing to notice about it is that one aspect of it (delivery) is still a complete monopoly, and this tends to get hidden in all the talk of how we by introducing this practice, are allowing competition, and therefore can deregulate. There is a reason naturally monopolistic markets are regulated, and delivery is still unavoidably monopolistic.
Another issue is that there are a lot of important decisions in provider choice other than price. Access, and what sorts of uses are allowed, all the net neutrality questions are at the level of the delivery provider, not the bulk seller. That is, the (first) guy who decides whether to drop your file-sharing or video streaming packets, to make room for other network traffic or to satisfy political concerns, works for the company who actually has wires going to your house, the company still in a monopolistic position. That's why net neutrality can't easily be achieved through competition-- there is no room for true competition in the primary space where the net neutrality concerns arise.
Finally, in the case of Internet access, the distinction between delivery and provision is a dubious one altogether. Arguably, it doesn't even make sense at all. At least with gas there is a real product that someone has to inject into the pipes somewhere, and presumably there is some means by which all the providers sort out the rate at which they have to pump gas into the pipes. An ISP, more or less by definition, is one of those "wires-based" delivery agents.
I tend to agree, that Internet access nowadays has grown into a true form of infrastructure, like roads, which are clearly a government responsibility. The main thing I worry about here, however, is that unlike roads, networking technologies are changing rapidly, and given the way government planning, standards, and contracts work, it is highly likely that we'd always have Internet access that was a fraction of the speed and reliability we could have. We'd constantly be rolling out public access networks that were about 10 years behind the current, latest technology.
You're sounding as though any regulations are the epitome of evil.
Most if not all businesses are regulated in some way, and it's a damn good thing they are. Otherwise, you'd get gas stations selling gallons of gas that were less than the standard gallon as a way of making prices appear low, you'd buy groceries and get human meat marketed as beef, or you'd go to the bank and find that the contents of your bank account had disappeared because the bank was going under. And these aren't theoretical, but exactly what was going on when there weren't regulations to the contrary.
In industries where these techniques for cheating customers become commonplace, it became difficult-to-impossible for sellers who weren't cheating their customers to compete, because they could always have their price undercut by the cheaters and an average customer couldn't easily tell the difference between the sellers who cheated and the sellers who didn't.
I am officially gone from
In other words, in case you don't use Youtube or Facebook, you get to pay less for your Internet access. How is this bad?
It won't be less. The basic tier will be the same as what I pay now. The good stuff will be extra.
You know how I know you didn't go to business school?
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
No. They're not.
A libertarian shat on my carpet once. Claimed the free market would sort it out. -Ford Prefect(8777)
I think he was being facetious.
It's hard to tell. So many libertarians are on the cusp of self-parody.
The libertarian solution to the failures of capitalism is to apply more capitalism til the failures are fixed.
Curious about where you live.
My only broadband option is Time Warner. I've used various satellite providers over the years and refuse to call them a "broadband option". Most people around here can't even get that due to the hills and valleys and are stuck with 26kbps dial-up! Unless you're right in the middle of the closest town, DLS isn't a viable option either.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
Are we really linking to stories at the left-wing Huffington Post?
Why not? There have been plenty of stories linking Fox, they're so far to the right it's pathetic.
Free Martian Whores!
I think that sounds good. It's not what I would have called libertarian, but if it is, I guess I'm more "libertarian" than I thought.
Actually I work for a government-owned lab that is operated by a for-profit company. And the company with the current management contract has had no compunction about slashing the pension, vacation, health care, and severance benefits, plus delaying raises, to stay competitive with industry, so I guess it's fairly efficient.
This is a common criticism of the left, and it is designed to protect members of the right from real charges of racism. Let me be clear, your comment contains no element of racism. The statement "the Tea Party are racists" is inaccurate, but "some Tea Party members, including leaders in the movement, espouse racist views" is accurate.
I could point to Mike Williams, Glenn Beck's "deap-seated hatred of white people" comment (among many other comments), or a host of others for examples of the movement in general (liberal Joan Walsh seems to have a nice summary).
What these all have in common is they are specific examples of racism, not general "they're all racists!" kind of fear-mongering. I commend the Tea Party for dealing with its racist fringe the way it has. I think that is the proper way to handle these issues, not putting your head in the sand and shouting "both sides" (a la Rand Paul when a MoveOn protestor got stomped on by his volunteer).
Liberals weren't clamoring for McCain's birth certificate. We aren't accusing John Boehner of anti-colonial sentiment driving his decisions. Sure, there are boneheaded liberals. You're welcome to bring it up. I'll take a look and decide that Olbermann's off his rocker, or that Media Matters is too whiny (which sometimes I do find).
You have to allow for the possibility that, sometimes (or often), liberals are crying racism not because it's a political gambit to appeal to "stupid voters", but because someone on your side is being a racist.
"Now gluttony and exploitation serves eight!" - TV's Frank
Does that mean if I only have one school available to choose from that there is a government failure?
...as opposed to access that is a fraction of the speed it could be because the only competition is between one DSL and one cable provider who have no desire to upgrade in any form because the other guy hasn't already?
Because his first thought wasn't "I can take away features they already have at the current price and charge them extra to get them back?" That's business logic for you. =)
Point taken.
Sorta, except without the crimes against humanity (slavery), and without the war.
And also, the mere fact of secession wouldn't divide the country based on its ideals, most likely. I have no reason to think that it wouldn't return to business as usual (or thereabouts) on both sides of the border.
Here in Springfield, IL the power company is owned by the city. We have the cheapest, most reliable elctricity in the state. And it turns a profit, keeping local taxes down.
People just outside the city are stuck with Amerin, with high prices, low reliability, and abysmal customer service. There is nothing the Amerin customers can do to affect Amerin, but if our rates rise too high, or customer service or reliability suffers, the Mayor loses his job come election time.
That's the difference.
Free Martian Whores!
Reminder: it's called FASCISM. Not "corporatism". Fascism is a proper term to call the political system where corporations are the leading party in politics.
"Corporatism" in fascist parlance has absolutely nothing to do with modern corporations. To quote WP:
"In contemporary usage, "corporatism" is often used as a pejorative term against the domination of politics by the interests of business corporations (Corporatocracy) based on the inaccurate interpretation of "corporat" in corporatism as referring to business corporations."
Yet the poor people tend to vote Republican and the rich people tend to vote Democrat.
Fucked up.
Is 1563649 a prime number?
Depends on the author. If you're talking about a report by Sam Stein, you can probably depend on it as much as Time, Newsweek, WaPo, or WaTimes.
But if you're talking about a blog post by any of their innumerable bloggers, that has no more credibility than a random Blogspot blog.
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
Sorry, I forgot to mention Sam Stein is a paid Washington beat reporter for the Huffington Post. They also just hired Howard Fineman, formerly of Newsweek.
So they do have (some) serious news people.
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
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
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
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.
The "moral majority" was also a very vocal minority that drove the zombies into the corral. The method used by both are identical. In fact the methods used by all parties are identical. As human beings we are free to choose to turn our backs. No one person or group should manipulate them into doing so. That would be impossible. Each individual has to do it on their own. That's how change can happen instantaneously. There are no puppeteers whose string we can't cut. And that's all we have to do.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
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
Cable, Telephone are monopolies because people in government have no clue how to manage natural monopolies (utilities).
Then explain why CWLP, owned and operated by the city of Springfield, has lower rates and more reliable service than any other electric company in Illinois, yet still turns a profit? Methinks your "no clue ho to manage utilities" is just plain incorrect.
If Amerin customers get charged too much (which they do), have frequent outages (which they do) and terrible customer service (which they do) their customers have no recourse whatever. If CWLP's uptime drops or prices rise, the Mayor loses his job.
Free Martian Whores!
It's even worse when an entire city signs a contract like that. That seems to be the prevailing problem in single-ISP cities. I can only assume the city gets some kind of kickback for signing it, because I can't think of any other logical reasons.
If you aren't suspicious of your government's actions, you aren't doing your job as a responsible citizen.
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.
My condo association is largely run by idiots who signed a contract with Comcast to get service.
HOAs should be illegal, but unless/until they are, they should at least be using their power to negotiate lower rates/higher performance in exchange for exclusivity, along with a requirement for availability and prompt resolution of service-related issues, the violation of which would be grounds to void the contract.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Oh damn, did you just say "government ownership" of the lines "for the common good?" Shit, son, that won't fly, not today. Apparently a majority of America now feels like the government is overreaching for the little it already does.
I do agree though, I think infrastructure ownership is one of the -few- areas that the government should be involved in -- lack of government ownership has actually stifled the free market.
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.
You should update your links! You link to an older "this cost $200 billion" story, but the same group has a new article raising that price to $320 billion. I'd link to it, but buggy Chrome seems to have broken cut'n'paste for me, and I'd rather not type out the whole URL by hand. But it's the top story on newnetworks.com
We tried this with telephone lines already with regards to DSL. While I saw no reason to abolish it by redefining an ISP as the FCC did under the previous administration, I'm pretty sure it wasn't really solving the problem to begin with. All we had were bankrupt DSL providers who couldn't compete with the "separate" ISP side taking a loss in return for the gains on the line owner side. The result was massive consolidation which essentially returned us to square one, even before the FCC recatagorization.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
No,it isn't. "No true scotsman" is when you keep changing your definitions to exclude stated counter-examples that invalidate your previous definition. GP provided a very clear example of why the commonly accepted definition of free market doesn't apply and has not applied to any existing markets for a very long time (if ever). He did not change the prevailing definition of free market to fit his theories. You may disagree with his assertion that government protection of trade via the military does not constitute government interference in trade (and thus a non-free market); however, you now have to explain YOUR definition of free market that incorporates this protection and support why your definition should be preferred. Or, I guess, you could deny that governments protect trade via the military.
...sometimes, in order to hurt someone very badly, you have to tell that person terrible lies. - PA
I think that sounds good. It's not what I would have called libertarian, but if it is, I guess I'm more "libertarian" than I thought.
It's not very libertarian. Libertarians (or at least the Libertarian Party) do not want government ownership of infrastructure. For instance they're all about private ownership of roads and having all roads be toll roads.
So you think that now that the private sector has spent billions paying to have these lines installed, the government should just take them over?
In most cases, it was the government that gave the private sector the money to put those lines in in the first place.
I don't have a problem coming up with a price for those lines and then reimbursing the companies.
Thank you for explaining why Wi-Fi is generally so shitty, even in urban areas. "Wi-Fi will fix all our network needs" is a mantra often heard on Slashdot, but I've yet to hear of a single large-scale wi-fi network that provides fast, uninterrupted, reliable service whatever time of day it is.
Why do you think the Tea Party would object to government control over infrastructure?
The Interstate Commerce Clause is a specifically enumerated power of Constitution granting the federal government the ability to regulate interstate commerce.
There is no such clause granting the federal government the power to regulate healthcare, which is specifically why they object.
I mean, you don't see them complaining about interstate roads, do you?
Even if that wasn't the case, there is no doubt in my mind that if one ISP restricted access to certain things (like bittorrent), the others would follow through with it as well to maximize profits. It's been known to happen many, many times in the past. The free market isn't magic.
I agree, which is why I refer to the necessity of good regulation. The problem we're having now is a lack of that, due primarily to so-called "regulatory capture." Those self-same greedy corporations have influenced government at all levels to get what they what, which is unquestioned control of that last mile.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Ironically (in the case of health care at least), countries that have single payer systems pay LESS than we do per capita, on the order of 50% less, and have longer life spans and better quality of life. The idea that single payer health care is some kind of financial sink hole, and leads to "death panels" are fallacies promoted by people who refuse to allow mere "facts" and "evidence" sway them from what their beloved ideology says is impossible.
Do you really want to know what the difference is? Well, I'll tell you. People like to hold up nations like Germany or Canada as examples of how well a so-called "single payer" health care system can work. And there's no question that the average Canadian is as healthy as the average American, probably healthier. But that's not the issue. The issue is whether or not we can trust our lawmakers and, more importantly, our bureaucrats to administer such a system fairly and cost-effectively. Germany, which by all accounts has one of the most trustworthy and efficient bureaucracies on the planet, is able to run their healthcare quite well.
We, on the other hand, have layers of corruption in the medical system that run so deep they are thoroughly institutionalized, and probably will never be rooted out. Hell, we have not even been able to take care of our elderly without massive malfeasance and fraud, hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars disappearing into the gaping maw of criminal pharmaceutical companies, healthcare providers and medical suppliers of all kinds. It is truly remarkable how many people are living in some kind of wish-fulfillment fantasy, believing that the United States Federal Government can be trusted with their health. Medicare has been a financial disaster of Biblical proportions, and expecting that matters will somehow improve by extending Federal authority over all our care is ridiculous.
1. I won't come in your mouth.
2. The check is in the mail.
3. I'm from the government, and I'm here to help you.
Never forget Number 3. It's important.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
I forgot a couple more things that ISPs provide in schemes like this:
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
It's not just a matter of maximizing profits. If the competitor's product is subsidized by Google/Facebook/etc, then that gives them an unfair advantage in the price war. Once the competitor is unable to compete on price, their days are numbered.
Using your example ....
Gas stations selling gas that isn't what it claims, is fraud. PERIOD. If you go by gas that is NOT what is advertised then you've committed a crime.
In the case of gas, we had a REGULATION (here in CA) that required MTBE added to the fuel. MTBE is now in all sorts of ground water, permanently.
Regulation isn't the panacea that people want it to be. And for every regulation that tries to fix a problem, there's at one unanticipated consequence that more regulation is required to fix.
And all the regulation in the world didn't stop the subprime lending and derivative investment crap that caused the housing and mortgage fiasco that has lead to this slump. IMHO it was regulation that caused it.
Creating regulations to get people who are unqualified for houses into houses was a bad idea based on good intentions.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
and the NAACP is not racist when the audience cheers a "white farmer" comment by Shirley Sherrod. It wasn't the comment that was racist, it was the response of the audience to her statement that was.
I feel sorry for Shirley Sherrod because she was caught in the middle. She had a "coming to Jesus" moment that was lost among those wanting to bedevil the other side (both sides are guilty).
Racism is a nasty nasty thing. There are racists on both sides of the isle. But then again, some people claim that all whites are racist, and no person of color can be, which makes the whole point impossible to discus. Might as well cry "child molester", it is about the same thing.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Can you provide a time in this video that you perceive a "cheer"? Regardless, this was what the rationale was changed to once it became obvious that Sherrod was telling an uplifting (if meandering) story about her overcoming her prejudice. Is what Andrew Breitbart did to Sherrod more or less egregious than what you perceived from the NAACP (not sure what, exactly, I'll wait for a time in the video I linked to).
Racism is nasty, and we should be able to discuss it without throwing our hands up in the air and labeling it "impossible to discuss" just because conservatives pretend that all liberals think that "all whites are racist, and no person of color can be". I don't think that, and none of my liberal friends think that.
"Now gluttony and exploitation serves eight!" - TV's Frank
ummm
THAT link, was not the "full video" as it (and you) claims. At 20:59 the video is edited to remove the "cheers" that are at the very heart of my statement.
Here's the missing piece:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GNArUTCo0Q&feature=related
Take a look at THAT video ... at about 50-60secs into it, you can hear the statement and the crowd cheering. The audio sucks but it is there.
Any sufficient level of incompetence is indistinguishable from malice. Don't know which one you are, I'll let you decide.
There is nothing worse than blind followers, except evil leaders of blind followers.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Sherrod's speech starts at 0:29 of your video, and ends at 2:11. This corresponds to 17:02 of my video to 18:44. It is not a "missing piece".
The audio is better in the video I linked, and you might describe it more as "amused murmuring" than "cheering". Perhaps that's splitting hairs, though. I took it as the crowd giving a friendly chuckle to Sherrod's comic tone about how much help she was going to give this white farmer in the context of her 1986 views. You took it as the crowd's approval of such behavior in 2010, that they were encouraging discrimination against white folk at any opportunity.
I thought we could have this discussion without calling each other names, though. By now there's nobody in this thread but you and me. There's nobody to keep score of how many times you can call me incompetent, malicious or blind.
"Now gluttony and exploitation serves eight!" - TV's Frank
You're also not telling the whole story: Those weren't just "some concessions" to build the networks that were tiny. AT&T's network was built out over the years with government subsidies at the national, state and local levels
I would really, really, like a citation for this.
The Bell System began building infrastructure and acquiring rights of way in the nineteenth century. Bell had continental long distance service in 1915. It was serving 30,000,000 phones by 1848.
He will rub his face on them, popping unnumbered infected zits and probably causing a nasty skin infection.