Who gets to determine how much a law imposes on you? You? Workplace safety laws certainly impose a lot on owners, should we not have workplace safety laws?
We are the owners of our government. If we are not exercising proper control, and letting thugs run our government, that is our fault.
You DO get to vote with your wallet on governance, in exactly the same way you do with any business! Do you think you can walk into that burger shack, order a burger, EAT IT, and then not pay because you didn't like it? No. The choice the free market offers you is, go to a different burger shack. The free market rarely offers a "pay only if you like it" deal, and those deals always come with significant limits.
You have already admitted that there is no monopoly in governance, so quit bringing that up. By the definition of monopoly that you are using for government, every business is a monopoly because no other businesses occupy the exact same location. Why, that burger shack has a monopoly on selling burgers at 213 Burger Shack Road! Unfair!
If we start talking opportunity costs, we have to figure them in for both sides, which I did not do. What is the opportunity cost on that half a million? Do you know the percentage of restaurants that fail within a year? Honestly, if you have half a million to invest, unless cooking is your absolute passion, invest it in anything else but a restaurant. But this is all just a tangent anyway, not the main point.
I'm not sad. My logic is not loosey goosy, you just don't like losing.:P
Oh man, I thought "That can't be right, no one who actually owns a multimeter would be that dumb." But then I went and looked at the pictures, and sure enough, dude is touching the metal probes.
So, they use proprietary protocols. They can't discriminate based on end-points. Everyone starts using their protocols, and they can't do anything about it. In the meanwhile, it won't help them slow down the web. Customers want the web. If they deliver "the web" at all, they can't discriminate based on who is sending and receiving from port 80. Their websites will be just as fast or slow as their competitors, all other things being equal.
Of course they would, but let me just try to analyze where I think you are going with this, because I think you missed something. If regulations permitted discrimination based on a competitors' protocols, as the original poster asked, then all someone would have to do is use non-proprietary protocols, and they wouldn't get discriminated against. So, the law would kill two birds with one stone, preventing discrimination based on who is sending something, and encouraging open standards.
While there are matters of scale, why should that matter? Does your convenience in choosing a government from the world wide free market in governance override other people's right to self determination? You don't get to dictate to the owners how they will run their business, sorry. Yes, you are a part owner of this business, and that gets you some say here, but you don't get to override the other owners wishes, we have a whole process to make the decision making as fair as possible.
I challenge the idea that it would be easier to open a burger stand than to move to another country. To open a burger stand, you would need to secure funding on the order of half a million dollars, by my estimate. (And I was in the chef business before getting into computers, I know a bit about it) You would need to comply with a number of local, state, and federal regulations. You would need a business plan, a marketing plan, and employees. You would need to find a location, and perform market research showing there is excess demand for burgers in that location. Most countries, you show up with some in-demand skills and a hundred thou, you get right in the short line to citizenship.
(Now, if you'd been clever enough to use "cook your own burger" as your counter example, I wouldn't have such an easy time refuting it, but you didn't use that example, now did you?;)
The market does not allow an infinite number of burger stands, that is just silly and you know it. As soon as you mention the word "infinite" you need to drop the word "market." Markets don't deal in infinities, the whole point of markets is distributing finite resources! The market allows a large number of burger stands in geographically separate areas. Even putting too many burger stands in the same area will cause some burger stands to disappear. There are great barriers to forming an automobile manufacturing plant, as well, not just anyone can do it. Is that unfair?
The world is a marketplace of competing governments. As a person with saleable skills and some assets, I could move to nearly any country on earth. It sounds like you want to walk into a Burger King and order a Big Mac. Uh, no, this is Burger King, we don't make that here. You want the place down the street, ta-ta! A free market will not necessarily give you the option you want at location and price you want. A free market of governance will not necessarily give you the option you want at location and price you want.
I apologize if I got your position wrong. Seriously. Did not mean to pigeon hole you. I honestly fail to see the difference between your point of view and that of a market fundamentalist, but that's all right. You still believe that no regulation is a good regulation, right?
I believe in the right of individuals to band together into groups to protect their interests. I believe in the right of a group to determine who will and won't be a member of that group. I believe in the right to self defense. If someone says, "I will come and live amongst you, but not follow your rules" then I believe that people have the right to say, "No, you won't and if you try, we'll shoot you." I believe that it is the right of all individuals to place restrictions on who they will trade with and how they will trade. If you want to be a part of "the free market" then you must follow the rules that other buyers and sellers in the market agree on. They have the right to exclude you from trading with them if you do not follow their rules. For instance, I do not want to trade with murderers, or anyone who trades with murderers. I believe that we, as a group of individuals, have the right to say, "If you want to be in our group, you must give up your right to trade with murderers."
Market forces do not always work. There are specific cases where the market fails in its stated goal, which is the efficient distribution of goods and services. Monopoly, imbalance of information, and externalities are all forms of market failure.
So let me ask you, how do you feel about a group of people who do not say "Do as I say, or we kill you" but instead say, "Do as we say, or we shun you. You are, in effect, dead to us. No trade. No help. No living near us. You go away now." Is that an acceptable form of government?
It's not a corner case. Many localities have differing regulations concerning photography. You think all laws are sensible? FFS, there are places where there are still laws on the books prohibiting you from putting squirrels in your pants for the purposes of betting. If you think the law is about "common sense" you may be in for a rude shock when you travel.
I wasn't attempting to refute anything you were saying, just adding to it. So I certainly hope it supports your point.:) I find it astounding that the statement you made, "market failures necessitate corrective action by the government in order to foster efficient competitive markets," is at all controversial, but it is very controversial these days. Everyone, left and right, seems to have bought into market fundamentalism. Perhaps because market fundamentalism provides the elite with two things: more money, and a mythology that enhances their sense of self esteem.
From my conversations with him, I would have to say that BobMcD is one of those market fundamentalists. He was using my words to reply to you, so I thought I'd chime in. When you say something like, "What I oppose is when these companies use their size and resources to distort, what would otherwise be, efficient market outcomes through our legal and political process. In the case of net neutrality, it's companies manipulating regulators so that they benefit from government mandated limitations on competition," a market fundamentalist like BobMcD will take that as a pure indictment of government regulation, and a call to deregulate everything. Which I know is not what you mean, so I felt it necessary to clarify your point. Glad I actually understood what your point was.
I'm not saying we regulate their profits, I am asking, how come it is always the little guy who has to pay? They are making huge profits, yet they claim that any costs that impact their bottom line will be passed right on to the consumer. Isn't the free market supposed to provide competition that drives down prices? Why, if that is the case, do the socialist first world countries have FAR better, and CHEAPER Internet service than we do, on average? Isn't that fact an indictment of the free market? Or would you just claim the market isn't free enough, and if we just do away with MORE regulations, we'd finally have that cheap Internet the socialists have?
I would like to point out that very large, very powerful companies have another tool at their disposal to distort the market, besides laws and politics. It's an old tool, probably even older even than the other tools. It's called "the market."
I will give some examples. Undercutting a competitor until they go out of business, then raising your prices. Buying out your competitor's suppliers and refusing to supply them anymore. Buying enough PR to convince your customers that black is white, and you are their bestest friend in the world. Paying a bunch of poor people to go hang out at your competition, eat beans, and fart a lot. The list of market manipulations of the market is endless.
I'm not suggesting anything, I'm asking, why do all the socialist countries get better Internet service than the land of the free market, home of the bailout?
They can discriminate against streaming video if they discriminate against ALL streaming video, including their own. Businesses that might want to buy a plan like that.
We could at least have low priced, fast, and fair service like most of the rest of the first world has. How about, oh I don't know, instead of charging us more, they reduce their profits to a fair and reasonable level? Why is it always the little guy who has to tighten his belt?
It would be illegal under your scheme to give real time or streaming applications priority. Try again. How about, "No Internet provider shall discriminate based on end-points." Discriminate by type of traffic, sure. Discriminate based on where it came from or where it is going, no.
Slashdot Mirror
Who gets to determine how much a law imposes on you? You? Workplace safety laws certainly impose a lot on owners, should we not have workplace safety laws?
We are the owners of our government. If we are not exercising proper control, and letting thugs run our government, that is our fault.
You DO get to vote with your wallet on governance, in exactly the same way you do with any business! Do you think you can walk into that burger shack, order a burger, EAT IT, and then not pay because you didn't like it? No. The choice the free market offers you is, go to a different burger shack. The free market rarely offers a "pay only if you like it" deal, and those deals always come with significant limits.
You have already admitted that there is no monopoly in governance, so quit bringing that up. By the definition of monopoly that you are using for government, every business is a monopoly because no other businesses occupy the exact same location. Why, that burger shack has a monopoly on selling burgers at 213 Burger Shack Road! Unfair!
If we start talking opportunity costs, we have to figure them in for both sides, which I did not do. What is the opportunity cost on that half a million? Do you know the percentage of restaurants that fail within a year? Honestly, if you have half a million to invest, unless cooking is your absolute passion, invest it in anything else but a restaurant. But this is all just a tangent anyway, not the main point.
I'm not sad. My logic is not loosey goosy, you just don't like losing. :P
I'm still missing it. "Oh wait" could mean anything.
Oh man, I thought "That can't be right, no one who actually owns a multimeter would be that dumb." But then I went and looked at the pictures, and sure enough, dude is touching the metal probes.
Skype doesn't use IP? Wait, I see what's going on. We're talking different levels of the stack here.
So, they use proprietary protocols. They can't discriminate based on end-points. Everyone starts using their protocols, and they can't do anything about it. In the meanwhile, it won't help them slow down the web. Customers want the web. If they deliver "the web" at all, they can't discriminate based on who is sending and receiving from port 80. Their websites will be just as fast or slow as their competitors, all other things being equal.
Seeing as how the lines need to be taut to work, you would need to pull on your end, letting the other two parties know there was an eavesdropper.
Of course they would, but let me just try to analyze where I think you are going with this, because I think you missed something. If regulations permitted discrimination based on a competitors' protocols, as the original poster asked, then all someone would have to do is use non-proprietary protocols, and they wouldn't get discriminated against. So, the law would kill two birds with one stone, preventing discrimination based on who is sending something, and encouraging open standards.
While there are matters of scale, why should that matter? Does your convenience in choosing a government from the world wide free market in governance override other people's right to self determination? You don't get to dictate to the owners how they will run their business, sorry. Yes, you are a part owner of this business, and that gets you some say here, but you don't get to override the other owners wishes, we have a whole process to make the decision making as fair as possible.
I challenge the idea that it would be easier to open a burger stand than to move to another country. To open a burger stand, you would need to secure funding on the order of half a million dollars, by my estimate. (And I was in the chef business before getting into computers, I know a bit about it) You would need to comply with a number of local, state, and federal regulations. You would need a business plan, a marketing plan, and employees. You would need to find a location, and perform market research showing there is excess demand for burgers in that location. Most countries, you show up with some in-demand skills and a hundred thou, you get right in the short line to citizenship.
(Now, if you'd been clever enough to use "cook your own burger" as your counter example, I wouldn't have such an easy time refuting it, but you didn't use that example, now did you? ;)
The market does not allow an infinite number of burger stands, that is just silly and you know it. As soon as you mention the word "infinite" you need to drop the word "market." Markets don't deal in infinities, the whole point of markets is distributing finite resources! The market allows a large number of burger stands in geographically separate areas. Even putting too many burger stands in the same area will cause some burger stands to disappear. There are great barriers to forming an automobile manufacturing plant, as well, not just anyone can do it. Is that unfair?
The world is a marketplace of competing governments. As a person with saleable skills and some assets, I could move to nearly any country on earth. It sounds like you want to walk into a Burger King and order a Big Mac. Uh, no, this is Burger King, we don't make that here. You want the place down the street, ta-ta! A free market will not necessarily give you the option you want at location and price you want. A free market of governance will not necessarily give you the option you want at location and price you want.
That really was "magic" compared to this, though. This is just a plain old short circuit.
I apologize if I got your position wrong. Seriously. Did not mean to pigeon hole you. I honestly fail to see the difference between your point of view and that of a market fundamentalist, but that's all right. You still believe that no regulation is a good regulation, right?
I believe in the right of individuals to band together into groups to protect their interests. I believe in the right of a group to determine who will and won't be a member of that group. I believe in the right to self defense. If someone says, "I will come and live amongst you, but not follow your rules" then I believe that people have the right to say, "No, you won't and if you try, we'll shoot you." I believe that it is the right of all individuals to place restrictions on who they will trade with and how they will trade. If you want to be a part of "the free market" then you must follow the rules that other buyers and sellers in the market agree on. They have the right to exclude you from trading with them if you do not follow their rules. For instance, I do not want to trade with murderers, or anyone who trades with murderers. I believe that we, as a group of individuals, have the right to say, "If you want to be in our group, you must give up your right to trade with murderers."
Market forces do not always work. There are specific cases where the market fails in its stated goal, which is the efficient distribution of goods and services. Monopoly, imbalance of information, and externalities are all forms of market failure.
So let me ask you, how do you feel about a group of people who do not say "Do as I say, or we kill you" but instead say, "Do as we say, or we shun you. You are, in effect, dead to us. No trade. No help. No living near us. You go away now." Is that an acceptable form of government?
I hate it when people try to talk to me while I'm fucking my girlfriend. If you can see that I'm busy STFU and wait until I'm finished asshole!
Seriously people, what's an extra ten seconds to you anyway?
It's not a corner case. Many localities have differing regulations concerning photography. You think all laws are sensible? FFS, there are places where there are still laws on the books prohibiting you from putting squirrels in your pants for the purposes of betting. If you think the law is about "common sense" you may be in for a rude shock when you travel.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photography_and_the_law
You claim that everyone has reasons, times or places they don't want to be located.
I claim that is not true, as an example, people who read slashdot do not have illicit sex.
Probably not.
The people who talk to you like privacy, too, so there are pretty serious laws about recording conversations.
Those laws vary from state to state. Some states, for instance, only require the consent of one of the parties, not both.
someone will put out a phone with built in privacy?
Yes, it's called two tin cans and a piece of string.
I wasn't attempting to refute anything you were saying, just adding to it. So I certainly hope it supports your point. :) I find it astounding that the statement you made, "market failures necessitate corrective action by the government in order to foster efficient competitive markets," is at all controversial, but it is very controversial these days. Everyone, left and right, seems to have bought into market fundamentalism. Perhaps because market fundamentalism provides the elite with two things: more money, and a mythology that enhances their sense of self esteem.
From my conversations with him, I would have to say that BobMcD is one of those market fundamentalists. He was using my words to reply to you, so I thought I'd chime in. When you say something like, "What I oppose is when these companies use their size and resources to distort, what would otherwise be, efficient market outcomes through our legal and political process. In the case of net neutrality, it's companies manipulating regulators so that they benefit from government mandated limitations on competition," a market fundamentalist like BobMcD will take that as a pure indictment of government regulation, and a call to deregulate everything. Which I know is not what you mean, so I felt it necessary to clarify your point. Glad I actually understood what your point was.
I'm not saying we regulate their profits, I am asking, how come it is always the little guy who has to pay? They are making huge profits, yet they claim that any costs that impact their bottom line will be passed right on to the consumer. Isn't the free market supposed to provide competition that drives down prices? Why, if that is the case, do the socialist first world countries have FAR better, and CHEAPER Internet service than we do, on average? Isn't that fact an indictment of the free market? Or would you just claim the market isn't free enough, and if we just do away with MORE regulations, we'd finally have that cheap Internet the socialists have?
It fucking well is, innit? God damn it. Why do I even bother to hope anymore?
I would like to point out that very large, very powerful companies have another tool at their disposal to distort the market, besides laws and politics. It's an old tool, probably even older even than the other tools. It's called "the market."
I will give some examples. Undercutting a competitor until they go out of business, then raising your prices. Buying out your competitor's suppliers and refusing to supply them anymore. Buying enough PR to convince your customers that black is white, and you are their bestest friend in the world. Paying a bunch of poor people to go hang out at your competition, eat beans, and fart a lot. The list of market manipulations of the market is endless.
I'm not suggesting anything, I'm asking, why do all the socialist countries get better Internet service than the land of the free market, home of the bailout?
Competitors' protocols, wtf? Who uses proprietary protocols?
They can discriminate against streaming video if they discriminate against ALL streaming video, including their own. Businesses that might want to buy a plan like that.
We could at least have low priced, fast, and fair service like most of the rest of the first world has. How about, oh I don't know, instead of charging us more, they reduce their profits to a fair and reasonable level? Why is it always the little guy who has to tighten his belt?
It would be illegal under your scheme to give real time or streaming applications priority. Try again. How about, "No Internet provider shall discriminate based on end-points." Discriminate by type of traffic, sure. Discriminate based on where it came from or where it is going, no.