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Ajit Pai Taunts Net Neutrality Critics. Mark Hamill Taunts Ajit Pai (mashable.com)
An anonymous reader writes:
Just days before voting to repeal net neutrality regulations, FCC chairman Ajit Pai introduced a comedy video at the annual gathering of the Federal Communications Bar Association -- and it offered its own self-disparaging version of Pai's tenure as a Verizon attorney in 2003. "We want to brainwash and groom a Verizon puppet to install as FCC chairman," says a real-world Verizon executive appearing in the videotaped skit. "That sounds awesome," Pai responds.
And the day of the vote Pai also appeared in another trying-to-be-funny video on the conservative site The Daily Caller demonstrating "seven things you can still do on the internet after net neutrality." In the first image he's holding a fidget spinner and dressed as Santa Claus, and the unmistakably patronizing video reminds critics that they can still upload photos of their meals to Instagram and "post photos of cute animals, like puppies." He also demonstrated that net neutrality critics can still stay part of their favorite fan communities -- by showing himself holding a light saber. And this unexpectedly drew the wrath of Star Wars actor Mark Hamill, who responded on Twitter by calling him "Ajit 'Aren't I Precious?' Pai."
Hamill also added that "you are profoundly unworthy 2 wield a lightsaber. A Jedi acts selflessly for the common man, NOT lie 2 enrich giant corporations." When U.S. Senator Ted Cruz responded -- likening government overreach to Darth Vader and urging Hamill to "reject the dark side" -- Hamill responded again, complaining that the Senator was "smarm-splaining." Hamill also added, "you'd have more credibility if you spelled my name correctly. I mean IT'S RIGHT THERE IN FRONT OF YOU! Maybe you're just distracted from watching porn at the office again."
The Houston Chronicle reports that the newest meme on Twitter is now Pai's over-sized coffee mug stamped with the logo for Reese's Peanut Butter cups, "which he occasionally sipped from during the widely-criticized reversal." The Dangerous Minds site notes that some angry net neutrality supporters have even taken their complaints to Reese's Facebook page, adding "Perhaps these protester's pleas to the candy company are simply a misguided hope that someone, ANYONE will listen to their frustration."
"Clearly, the FCC wasn't listening to the estimated 83% of Americans who support net neutrality."
And the day of the vote Pai also appeared in another trying-to-be-funny video on the conservative site The Daily Caller demonstrating "seven things you can still do on the internet after net neutrality." In the first image he's holding a fidget spinner and dressed as Santa Claus, and the unmistakably patronizing video reminds critics that they can still upload photos of their meals to Instagram and "post photos of cute animals, like puppies." He also demonstrated that net neutrality critics can still stay part of their favorite fan communities -- by showing himself holding a light saber. And this unexpectedly drew the wrath of Star Wars actor Mark Hamill, who responded on Twitter by calling him "Ajit 'Aren't I Precious?' Pai."
Hamill also added that "you are profoundly unworthy 2 wield a lightsaber. A Jedi acts selflessly for the common man, NOT lie 2 enrich giant corporations." When U.S. Senator Ted Cruz responded -- likening government overreach to Darth Vader and urging Hamill to "reject the dark side" -- Hamill responded again, complaining that the Senator was "smarm-splaining." Hamill also added, "you'd have more credibility if you spelled my name correctly. I mean IT'S RIGHT THERE IN FRONT OF YOU! Maybe you're just distracted from watching porn at the office again."
The Houston Chronicle reports that the newest meme on Twitter is now Pai's over-sized coffee mug stamped with the logo for Reese's Peanut Butter cups, "which he occasionally sipped from during the widely-criticized reversal." The Dangerous Minds site notes that some angry net neutrality supporters have even taken their complaints to Reese's Facebook page, adding "Perhaps these protester's pleas to the candy company are simply a misguided hope that someone, ANYONE will listen to their frustration."
"Clearly, the FCC wasn't listening to the estimated 83% of Americans who support net neutrality."
Let the Intertube Memes begin! This will not be pretty! Well, it will be pretty funny...
I do, however, wonder if there might be legal ramifications in any lawsuits brought on the Net Neutrality issue? An impartial judge might look dimly on this buffoonery...
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
He's a retard.
Mark Hamill seems to forget that, in the Star Wars universe, the light sabre lost to the politicians scheming... Palpatines manoeuvres in the senate got him far further than wielding a light sabre ever did.
It always makes me wonder how it could feel like being an indifferent moron like you and the likes of you. Living under a rock, poking and yelling at everyone, calling them names and feeling good about it. It must feel awesome to have such a self confidence.
I just checked my watch, and the public input was still not a popularity contest. Considering the slander campaign waged across nearly the entire internet for the last few months, I'm surprised that only 83% of those polled were opposed to restoring the open internet. When you are bombarded with messages that some action is going to unleash biblical plagues, knock the moon out of orbit and give birth to the antichrist, it is hard to publicly support it - even if you don't particularly believe the nonsense.
Oh, and the mug memes are (mostly) not making fun of Ajit. Reee!
See that "Preview" button?
Can you imagine believing "I'm against Net Neutrality 'cause it triggers the libs" is a cogent political opinion?
You are welcome on my lawn.
If there was any remaining doubt, it has now been erased: Ajit Pai is not only incompetent, in the pocket of some of the biggest of all big businesses, against the will of the people, and morally corrupt, he's also a complete clown. (And I mean clown in the most disrespectful way possible, not in the fun loving, flower-squirting, balloon-bending sense.) I can't believe something as important as the FCC is in this moron's hands. You can debate the merits/follies of an outsider/village idiot like Trump all day, but Ajit Pai's nonsense is indefensible.
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
Call your representatives and tell them what you want. Congress can pass a law to ensure net neutrality but they have to know it matters to voters. Also, if they won't support it then you need to get involved politically. If your preferred political party does not support net neutrality then you may want to reexamine why you are aligning yourself with them.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
You can use a belt loop as "bump stock" to acquire automatic fire. Should be ban belt loops on pants too?
People don't use belt loops to kill dozens upon dozens of innocent civilians. You could use a screwdriver to kill too, but that doesn't mean people shouldn't carry swords and machetes around in public all day. Playing a semantics game doesn't mean your position or opinion isn't patently wrong.
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
translated: Ajit has a future as a corporate stooge.
And the future is right now.
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
So, internet regulation is now back to what it was from circa 1980 - 2015? The horror .... the horror ....
Yeah, they have been doing some really shady shit.
. . . the major problem with the FCC’s move: It forced ISPs into an 80-year-old framework designed for the telephone monopolies of a much different era. Those regulations were more concerned about things like controlling market power than, say, promoting innovation.
Except this is exactly the issue we are worried about. How is it a much different era? Did companies stop being greedy? Did they stop consolidating to control massive swaths of customers? How is this era any different?
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
... won't someone please go all Darth Vader on his ass?
Congress? Do you mean actually passing a law and not just using a bureaucratic agency to 'write policy' on the matter? I think you'll find a lot of people who oppose the sort of 'Net Neutrality' that Obama implemented with his phone and pen would be alright if it was arrived at via a democratic process, like, uh, having Congress pass a law.
Ajit Pai is not only incompetent... he's also a complete clown.
Exactly. So people are getting their Star Wars analogy wrong when they compare him to Darth Vader. This guy is Jar-jar Binks.
Except this is exactly the issue we are worried about. How is it a much different era? Did companies stop being greedy? Did they stop consolidating to control massive swaths of customers? How is this era any different?
It is different because no internet company is in the position of AT&T and the Bell System, not even close.
Bell System - Nationwide monopoly
. . . As a result of this vertical monopoly, by 1940 the Bell System effectively owned most telephone service in the United States, from local and long-distance service to the telephones themselves. This allowed Bell to prohibit its customers from connecting phones not made or sold by Bell to the system without paying fees. For example, if a customer desired a type of phone not leased by the local Bell monopoly, he or she had to purchase the phone at cost, give it to the phone company, then pay a 're-wiring' charge and a monthly lease fee in order to use it. . . .
In 1949, the United States Department of Justice alleged in an antitrust lawsuit that AT&T and the Bell System operating companies were using their near-monopoly in telecommunications to attempt to establish unfair advantage in related technologies. The outcome was a 1956 consent decree limiting AT&T to 85% of the United States' national telephone network and certain government contracts, and from continuing to hold interests in Canada and the Caribbean.
The internet and the legacy phone system may make use of related technologies, but the business, competitive environment, uses, and innovation are very different.
If you are only worried about "greedy companies" and aren't concerned about the stifling effects of government regulation then you don't worry enough about enough things.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Are you retarded? Removing NN makes it even hard for a competitor to Google to emerge since Alphabet can easily pay for "fast lanes" for it's properties, and negotiate for better terms due to Android than any Youtube competitor could.
Additionally, repealing NN will also result in cures for cancer being discovered, a reduction in fatal road accidents, and pigs being able to fly. I can provide evidence if you can.
Two men claimed to have walked into a bar. Only one had the bruises to prove it.
The internet and the legacy phone system may make use of related technologies, but the business, competitive environment, uses, and innovation are very different.
Let's take this argument back 80 years.
The telephone and the legacy power pole system may make use of related technologies, but the business, competitive environment, uses, and innovation are very different.
What business does a telephone company have caring about how I use my telephone? I paid for it, so but out!
What business does an Internet Service Provider have caring about I my Internet service? I paid for it, so but out!
If you are only worried about "greedy companies" and aren't concerned about the stifling effects of government regulation then you don't worry enough about enough things.
Please, inform me of the stifling effects net neutrality because there literally are none. The people that claim there are list things that are not related to net neutrality which is to say they have no argument or don't understand what net neutrality means.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Until it translates into votes, it doesn't mean squat.
*Sweep the House*
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Search engines that don't derank for US party political reasons.
Actually, now google can pay to ensure that competing search engines always have a slower connection or do not connect at all.
News sites that don't ban and remove news.
Actually, now big news sites can pay to ensure that smaller sites have long loading times or even inject ads.
SJW social media that is not banning accounts and reporting users to their governments.
Actually, now SJW social media can pay to keep a competing site from ever connecting.
NN provided political cover for a lot of net censorship.
Reads like you don't understand the first thing about what NN really means.
With the NN rules removed new networks and services can emerge.
With the NN rules removed, new networks and services will have to be able to spend as much money as the giants they are competing against.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Yeah they are. In fact, nearly every ISP is in exactly the same position as the original AT&T.
The part you're missing is that when it comes to consumer impact, it doesn't matter if there's a better ISP in a city a hundred miles away. You still live in your town, and you're not going to pack up, sell your house, and move to another city just to get better Internet service. You're stuck with what is available in your geographical area.
The reason they broke up the Bell system and, in the process, massively regulated the resulting smaller companies, is that geographical monopolies are fundamentally bad, and it doesn't make a dime's worth of difference how big the geographical area is. The critical part of the AT&T breakup was not splitting up the nationwide monopoly on end-user access, but rather splitting the long-distance provider from the end-user access provider, eliminating any real opportunity for the latter (which were regional monopolies) to limit which long-distance carrier you could use. We have almost the exact same problem now, with ISPs also being cable providers and voice telephone providers that can (and often do) unfairly compete with other streaming video and voice providers that operate over the Internet.
As for the equipment thing... well, Comcast won't provide static IP blocks without renting a Comcast Business Gateway from them. So we've kind of gotten back to that problem, too.
In other words, in every way other than the nationwide aspect, we've been at the exact same point that led to the breakup of AT&T for at least half a decade, if not longer. And as I said earlier, it doesn't matter if an ISP has a monopoly only in your town, in the county, or in an entire region. Unless your house has wheels, you're not going to move it to the next town over, the next county over, or the next state over just to get a better ISP. So anybody claiming that regional wire-line monopolies are somehow different from national wire-line monopolies in any meaningful way is kidding him/herself.
Just saying.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Or maybe it's a wakeup call that you should be heeding.
The removal of NN will allow new brands to emerge.
Boy, do you have that backwards.
Search engines that don't derank for US party political reasons.
Nope. Without NN, your ISP can redirect your search requests to their own search engine without even having to tell users that they're doing it. You might not even know that you're getting a substandard experience. Big search engines can, of course, afford to pay those ISPs to avoid that, but those new brands you're hoping will emerge? They won't have the money to do so, so they'll be stillborn.
And the same problem exists with all of your other ill-informed beliefs about net neutrality. Repealing net neutrality doesn't create opportunities for new Internet companies to emerge. In point of fact, the repeal of net neutrality does the exact opposite, providing new ways for existing large companies to become entrenched in ways that keep new players from being able to enter the field at all.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
So, internet regulation is now back to what it was from circa 1980 - 2015? The horror .... the horror ....
Yeah, they have been doing some really shady shit.
. . . the major problem with the FCC’s move: It forced ISPs into an 80-year-old framework designed for the telephone monopolies of a much different era. Those regulations were more concerned about things like controlling market power than, say, promoting innovation.
Except this is exactly the issue we are worried about. How is it a much different era? Did companies stop being greedy? Did they stop consolidating to control massive swaths of customers? How is this era any different?
I don't think companies stopped being greedy. What is different is that the idea the internet should be a level playing field has breathed it's last breath because Google, Facebook, Twitter, Apple, Hulu, Netflix, Amazon, and the rest of the big players who used to fight for net neutrality realised they can afford to pay the extortionists their pound of flesh, that given the utterly corrupt nature of the Trump administration they have to and finally that the real threat is not the extortionists, it is scrappy startups with a better business model and product than them. These startups will from now on be competing at an even greater disadvantage because people have now accepted that is both normal and desirable for the extortionists to ensure that the bandwidth of smaller players is limited and their customer's connections are regularly interrupted by 'technical problems' unless they pay a ransom. The death of net neutrality will work to the advantage of both the extortionists who will now get their regular infusion of mafia style protection payments and the established big players. So in future expect any upcoming competitor who threatens somebody like Google for example and starts to chew up their dominant market share to die a death of a million connection error messages because Google felt threatened and and crapppified their service by pulling the protection money strings so that Google can eventually buy up the corpse and its patents and technology with it. Just ask Eric Schmidt, he'll be the first to tell you how proud he is to call this: "capitalism working as intended" (... and to hell with Adam Smith).
Without Net Neutrality there is no room for innovation as the corporations will starve ANY competition. We all knew they would do it and they proved again and again that our fears were valid. If you prove not to be trustworthy, any and all freedoms will be revoked. Every toddler learns the rules, yet somehow corporations complain about it.
How people are not able to figure this out is beyond me.
Being a contrarian and disagreeing simply because veryone else thinks something doesn't make you smart.
There are more flat-earthers than there are Einsteins out there and you don't fall into the latter category.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
the might of the whole galaxy was against the Jedi and they got killed off one by one
You say that like it was a bad thing. Look, the Jedi had NOTHING TO OFFER the people of the galaxy. The Empire brought peace and order. Building the Death Star created a Keynesian expansion that provided prosperity for trillions of people. Life was good. Then the Jedi destroyed all of that, killed the emperor, and the galactic economy collapsed. Soon people were reduced to scavenging the wreckage left behind by the golden age of empire. Of course the people turned against the Jedi. Can you blame them?
That doesn't explain the fall of the Republic, which is what I took that comment to be talking about.
Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
Trump - the Emperor
Pence - the Emperor's left hand and a religious fundamentalist => no religious freedom
Scott Pruitt - EPA dismantling agent => no healthy environment and no protection from dangerous and harmful substances in our food and water
Ajit Pai - FCC dismantling agent => no net neutrality => no freedom in communication and information
Steven T. Mnuchin - Give it to the rich => no state, no security
This is not drain the swamp of corruption. This is more like drain all remaining habitats and screw the population so they sit all in a dessert.
... by an exec position at a big ISP (btw, I'm anti-NN). At the same time, you'll serve fries to his kids.
He probably got a few millions for his 5s appearances in the last sequel...
How would NN bring back FM app on your dumbphone ?
But Pai's idiotic and abrasive antics from a position of power are starting to push my "Fuck you motherfucker!" button.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Ajit Pai was actually appointed by Obama...
Kicks ass on twitter!
If anything the bump stocks saved lives. Had the shooter just fired rapid aimed shots the number of casualties would have been much higher. He was shooting into a massed crowd yet we heard of many shots hitting the stage and equipment. This is because bump fire allows you to fire rapidly but gives very poor accuracy and very poor control allowing the muzzle to rise off the target.
Bump stocks are a gimmick, a gimmick that the idiot shooter thought would make him deadlier but in fact did just the opposite (thank God!).
Get a real hobby where you actually understand what you are even talking about.
Right now he's letting donor money do the thinking for him.
One day he'll call up Comcast for internet support. He'll play his "Don't you know who I am?" card and the operator will reply, in an Indian accent, "No, sir. We treat all of our customers equally."
Congress already did when they allowed the FCC to regulate telecommunication services. And who cares about the 14% of people who opposed the Obama administration's FCC using the existing law to regulate another telecommunications service - something it should have been doing from the beginning?
Not sure about how exactly it was done, but that's pretty much what happened in 2011 and the EFF's investigation into the matter found that the ISPs Cavalier, Cogent, Frontier, Fuse, DirecPC, RCN and Wide Open West all took part in it.
"Why should I want to make anything up? Life's bad enough as it is without wanting to invent any more of it."
http://www.weeklystandard.com/...
Lucas wants the Empire to stand for evil, so he tells us that the Emperor and Darth Vader have gone over to the Dark Side and dresses them in black.
But look closer. When Palpatine is still a senator, he says, "The Republic is not what it once was. The Senate is full of greedy, squabbling delegates. There is no interest in the common good." At one point he laments that "the bureaucrats are in charge now."
Palpatine believes that the political order must be manipulated to produce peace and stability. When he mutters, "There is no civility, there is only politics," we see that at heart, he's an esoteric Straussian.
Make no mistake, as emperor, Palpatine is a dictator--but a relatively benign one, like Pinochet. It's a dictatorship people can do business with. They collect taxes and patrol the skies. They try to stop organized crime (in the form of the smuggling rings run by the Hutts). The Empire has virtually no effect on the daily life of the average, law-abiding citizen.
Also, unlike the divine-right Jedi, the Empire is a meritocracy. The Empire runs academies throughout the galaxy (Han Solo begins his career at an Imperial academy), and those who show promise are promoted, often rapidly. In The Empire Strikes Back Captain Piett is quickly promoted to admiral when his predecessor falls down on the job.
And while it's a small point, the Empire's manners and decorum speak well of it. When Darth Vader is forced to employ bounty hunters to track down Han Solo, he refuses to address them by name. Even Boba Fett, the greatest of all trackers, is referred to icily as "bounty hunter." And yet Fett understands the protocol. When he captures Solo, he calls him "Captain Solo." (Whether this is in deference to Han's former rank in the Imperial starfleet, or simply because Han owns and pilots his own ship, we don't know. I suspect it's the former.)
But the most compelling evidence that the Empire isn't evil comes in The Empire Strikes Back when Darth Vader is battling Luke Skywalker. After an exhausting fight, Vader is poised to finish Luke off, but he stays his hand. He tries to convert Luke to the Dark Side with this simple plea: "There is no escape. Don't make me destroy you. . . . Join me, and I will complete your training. With our combined strength, we can end this destructive conflict and bring order to the galaxy." It is here we find the real controlling impulse for the Dark Side and the Empire. The Empire doesn't want slaves or destruction or "evil." It wants order.
None of which is to say that the Empire isn't sometimes brutal. In Episode IV, Imperial stormtroopers kill Luke's aunt and uncle and Grand Moff Tarkin orders the destruction of an entire planet, Alderaan. But viewed in context, these acts are less brutal than they initially appear. Poor Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen reach a grisly end, but only after they aid the rebellion by hiding Luke and harboring two fugitive droids. They aren't given due process, but they are traitors.
The destruction of Alderaan is often cited as ipso facto proof of the Empire's "evilness" because it seems like mass murder--planeticide, even. As Tarkin prepares to fire the Death Star, Princess Leia implores him to spare the planet, saying, "Alderaan is peaceful. We have no weapons." Her plea is important, if true.
But the audience has no reason to believe that Leia is telling the truth. In Episode IV, every bit of information she gives the Empire is willfully untrue. In the opening, she tells Darth Vader that she is on a diplomatic mission of mercy, when in fact she is on a spy mission, trying to deliver schematics of the Death Star to the Rebel Alliance. When asked where the Alliance is headquartered, she lies again.
Leia's lies are perfectly defensible--she thinks she's serving the greater good--but they make her wholly unreliable on the question of whether or not Alderaan really is
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
What fell the republic was infighting, petty bickering and not realizing a looming danger that was pretty good at playing with the fears and using them to take power out of hands more than willing to hand it over.
Reminds me of something, if I could only remember what...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
If I know it's his kids, I'll make sure to add a healthy dose of E621. Or was that E605? I'm really bad with numbers...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Because for a change something that's bad for us is also bad for them. Don't worry, it won't last, this is basically the odd one out, next week we will get to hear again how being screwed over is good for us.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Shill or stupid?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I know how to use the internet without Google, without Facebook, without Twitter.
How do I do it without an ISP?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
He was made commissioner by Obama, but Trump made him chairman. At least according to the FCC.
So no, Obama did not put him into the position where he could make this decision. But clever wording, I have to give you that. It's actually true enough to not make people call you a liar but omits enough to make people think that Obama is to blame for this asshole being where he is.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
it is good the FCC ignored 85% of the citizens because those "citizens" were/are ignorant what NN was really about. Lets boil NN down;
Prior to 2015 the FCC had no control over the Internet. It was "free and unregulated".
There. Can't be any clearer. If anyone disagrees then your a fucking idiot and have ulterior motives to support NN and none of those motives are good for the individual.
"The main difference between semi-auto and a bump stock in a large crowd of people is how fast you run out of ammo. Lethality is about the same overall."
No, no it is not. Unless you assume an unarmed crowd who just stand still. In either case, bump stocks are not the point.
The shooting in Vegas was a tragedy, of that there can be no doubt, but the shooting related death toll in the US is rather insignificant compared to any leading cause of death and certainly is nothing compared to the lives saved because an invading power knows how costly a ground invasion of the heavily armed US would be. The patriots whose blood renews the tree of liberty? Who said they would all be soldiers? Have we really become a nation of cowards who tuck tail and sell out the freedoms so many of our troops have died for just to get a slight gain in our social agendas or at the first indication there is some kind of civilian risk or price for those rights?
Funny thing is when AT&T was a monopoly and regulated under common carrier status I remember everyone complaining they were too slow in deploying DSL. Because it turns out a regulated monopoly has no incentive to deploy new technology.
Meanwhile in the UK BT have a monopoly on lines but local loop unbundling means you have multiple choices of DSL provider. And in the UK you don't local government imposed monopolies on cable and fibre.
Which is the real regulatory problem. Of course Pai won't do anything about those. As Louis Rossmann pointed out, if you're going to get rid of NN regulation you should also do something to make it easier for people to set up competing ISPs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
The cure for that is massive piles of money, cocaine, and smoking hot gold digging coke whores... just ask Charlie. I'm sure in the middle of that Ajit will stop every now and then and feel about having fucked over everyone else for his unhappy life.
Its not funny when people is robbed. He learned from the pro: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... Both sound as ridiculous as infamous.
Yes, you would have us reinvent the wheel over and over again.
Environmental regulations? Fuck that. We'll just pollute and then let the market tell us it's bad to have no clean drinking water. And who cares how many people get sick and die along the way. As long as it evens out in the end and we'll magically discover we should clean our water.
Meanwhile, we'll export this stupid idea to new places and let their market figure out that they shouldn't pollute their water.
Why, we should never learn from our mistakes and get some progress. We should always start from scratch with the same mistakes every time and hope it all works out in the end.
Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
...the shooting related death toll in the US is rather insignificant compared to any leading cause of death and certainly is nothing compared to the lives saved because an invading power knows how costly a ground invasion of the heavily armed US would be.
Are you seriously suggesting that the reason Mexico hasn't invaded is that they're more afraid of civilians with hunting rifles than the Army's tanks and the Air Force's bombers?
Net Neutrality is just the name of a bill that was slipped into the 2016 National Defense Authorization Act - silently nationalizing the internet - reclassifying internet providers from title 1 (private) entities to title 2 (public utility) communications? This does everything but preserve net neutrality. This bill makes it so that ISPs need to get a liscense (which costs a lot of money) and fill out a shit ton of paperwork - this prevents innovation and creates quasi government monopolies which smaller companies have a very hard time competing with (larger companies have an easier time dealing with regulatory burdens). Not to mention the government can threaten to revoke the license arbitrarily if the ISP does something they donâ(TM)t like. Youâ(TM)ll end up praising this guy.
Sadly it must be true that people are completely controlled by fear based hateful propaganda. Otherwise large portions of the population would not believe that exterminating or deporting Wogs / Latinos / BLM / Muslims would actualy improve the lives of anyone. They would have been repelled by Trumps silent support for Nazi's and voted for someone else. The thing is that politics is now completely controlled by emotional propaganda and that there is actually almost no difference between the Democrats and the Republicans except who you hate the most.
Facts are history now plebs have politics for religion on social media.
And when they change enough that we have a dozen or more ISPs for each household, perhaps we won't need Net Neutrality regulations. Until then, though, mobile broadband isn't ready to take on home usage. My household uses about 500GB of data per month (mostly for streaming videos from Netflix/Hulu/YouTube). Verizon's Unlimited plan reduces speeds if you go above 22GB. Their non-unlimited data plans max out at 100GB which, IIRC was around $700 a month. Having an option that would give me 20% of the data I need for over 10 times the cost is not real competition.
My only real ISP option is Charter. If they messed around with my access to various sites, I'd be forced to either keep paying them or go without Internet. I have no real ISP choice.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
The thing you need to be explaining is why the internet even got innovated in the first place when there originally wasn't any net neutrality.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
That's unfair; they listened to the 'people' who *matter*. What's wrong with you people?
Requiem for the American Dream
Nice straw man.
Just because not everyone dies of smoking related health problems, doesn't mean that it's a good idea to start smoking.
By the way Skywalker pulls an Obi Wan and becomes a force ghost, Kylo Ren cuts Snoke in half and puppet Yoda shows up.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Something that people never consider is that "Net Neutrality" is an explicit Federal regulation of the internet.
It places the Internet under Federal control.
Regulation is not the same as control. For instance, saying you may only drive on the right side of the road is not controlling use of roads nor where they go, only that traffic must stay right. Similarly with the Net Neutrality legislation in concept - it isn't regulating where it goes nor what it can carry, but only saying that everything must be treated equally. You can't charge the ACME brick load for driving down your network pipe and let the provider's brick load drive down free.
Found Ajit's slashdot account.
Cheap storage VM.
Well, that's half true. Mobile broadband has the disadvantage of being expensive and not working with computers unless you pay $$$ for a wireless hotspot feature that still doesn't work because there's too much multipath interference in your apartment downtown in a major city, and won't penetrate the walls with a strong enough signal at your parents' house in the country.
Mobile broadband is the most commonly used, but only because people tend to do lots of minor, trivial stuff with it while they're out and about. Serious Internet use is still almost entirely wired (or at best, Wi-Fi to a wired connection) and will be for the foreseeable future, because cellular wireless just can't handle the bandwidth needs of dense urban areas or the building penetration needs of low-density rural areas.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
99% of the "estimated 83% of Americans who support net neutrality" haven't the faintest idea of what it actually means. The extreme reactions I've seen from it's supporters ("The internet is literally dead!") has really turned me off.
Senator Cruz says the Internet did just fine until the previous Net Neutrality rules were adopted. I don't think that's entirely true. It seems to me that the technology to undermine Net Neutrality, something similar to deep packet inspection, was only discovered in 2009 by one of the "fathers of the Internet":
https://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/networks/a-radical-new-router
"In 1999, I founded Caspian Networks to develop large terabit flow routers, which I planned to sell to the carriers that maintain the Internet’s core infrastructure. That market, however, proved hard to crack—the carriers seem satisfied with overprovisioning, as well as techniques like traffic caching and compression, which ameliorate congestion without addressing the roots of the problem.
Flow management can solve this capacity crunch. The concept of data flow might be more easily understood in the case of a voice or video stream, but it applies to all traffic over the Internet"
Network types: Is this accurate?
We have been asked to list why the reasons why Net Neutrality came about. So, since you brought it up, please list all these "stifling effects of government regulation" in regards to Net Neutrality that your side likes to keep mentioning.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
How is this in any way relevant to the conversation?
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
I thought you might know what you were talking about until you called a magazine a clip.
You really think firearms are going to put you on even ground with the US military?
That poor son of a bitch. He's come to believe that the movies he was in were reality.
Yeah, it's almost like the whole thing was written to be tongue in cheek or to troll the "BUSH=PALPATINE" idiot left or something.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
100 million Americans have but one provider to choose from. Google is struggling to compete.
I can assure you that Google's struggles are self-inflicted here. Google is available in my metro area with the biggest ever possible catch - unless you live within the city limits, and as best I can tell 90% of metro area residents do not, you can't get Google. My county has more than double the population of the city center but none of us can get Google because none of the county is within city limits in our metro area. Sadly, those who live in the city limits are basically the poorest of the poor and the richest of the rich. The first group can't afford Google - period. The 2nd group doesn't care what it costs because they can afford to pay for internet and TV with anybody, so they have no compelling reason to move to Google. Google did this to make things simpler for themselves, but maybe if they had studied demographics better they might have done something differently. I'd love to switch to Google if I could, but Google didn't want the business of anybody in my county. Again, we're more than double the population of the city center but Google doesn't want our money.
>> What business does *the government" have caring about how I use my *internet*?
FTFY
The top poster wasn't informed. He was trolling from far FAR right wing fantasy land, starting with his "Obama and the FCC cooked up the idea of getting government control over the Internet in order to apply censorship." What bullshit site did he pick this from?
But look closer. When Palpatine is still a senator, he says, "The Republic is not what it once was. The Senate is full of greedy, squabbling delegates. There is no interest in the common good." At one point he laments that "the bureaucrats are in charge now."
Of course, we're getting all this from a master of manipulation and true evil. He will absolutely twist the truth to convince you of a version of reality that may not be accurate.
A truly benevolent king -can- be the most beneficial type of government, and a truly evil dictator can be the worst. Which would you rather have -- the current Congress, or an evil dictatorship? For God's sake, you'd better not say the latter, even in jest.
In The Empire Strikes Back Captain Piett is quickly promoted to admiral when his predecessor falls down on the job.
Now I'm thinking that you or the grandparent are credibly promoting a parody without getting the joke.
By the way Skywalker pulls an Obi Wan and becomes a force ghost, Kylo Ren cuts Snoke in half and puppet Yoda shows up.
What do you get from being a dickweed? Seriously, I've always wondered why people do this.
It's not a straw man. We whine and fret about people from other countries, while we do absolutely nothing about the mass shootings that actually happen here from our own home-grown terries because... of freedom? Or something? Can't get rid of bump stocks or automatic weapons, that somehow infringes on mah freedoms.
More and more, the most commonly used internet is mobile broadband.
That's not broadband. It's not even close. It's shit. And it's always going to be shit.
Why do you think every piece of online "journalism" thinks the net neutrality repeal is bad? Maybe it's because they're feeding you a line of bullshit?
Maybe it's because the only ones who benefit here are Comcast, Verizon, and other ISPs with a local monopoly who engage in rent-seeking. Literally EVERYONE else is screwed over in that system. That's why there's such outcry, because it's just an abuse of their position as a trust.
Thank you for intentionally shitting on the discussion by bringing up an entirely different subject and pretending it's what everyone else means when we're talking about Net Neutrality.
seems like much of that would be a solid case for anti-competitive behavior. which is still against the law. which i am sure you knew that.
The federal government doesn't have the balls to initiate anti-trust actions anymore. That's a dead end.
So you are saying that the whole problem is the result of the Democrats not being in control.
Hmmm, that's a nice way of reducing a complex problem.
But as you said 'looks like Obama hate' so just replace it with your flavor of dogma. Everything fine now!