Genetic modification is not inherently evil. It's Monsanto that's inherently evil as per their use and abuse of the food market. But blights always wipe out whole fields, nobody plants a mix of plants in a field, you want uniformity so it fits into your combine and whatnot. The fear from a massive monoculture is that a bug/disease could wipe out all the soybeans in the nation/continent, rather then 1/5th or something. Also, I believe that you're referring to "round-up ready"(c)(tm)(MonsantoWillEatYourSoul) strains of GMOs, while there are other GMOs which do not heavily depend on Monsanto's pesticide.
Yeah.... ok. You're a fear-mongering asshole who is using the current crisis-of-the-week to an agenda of eugenics and forced castration of children. You're a good candidate for a modern-day definition of evil.
Things really aren't that bad. We have plenty of food. We have so much food we feed our food food rather then grass so our food tastes a little better. (ok, a LOT better). The biggest risk to farmers to making too much food. (Or foreigners coming in and dumping a lot of food on the market for "relief")
ok, someone needs to do this parody. Weird Al already did it for generic nerds, now we need to do it for narrower and narrower niches. Do it, DO IT NOW!
Hitler was going to have had been assassinated by time travelers, but the powerful grammar Nazis of the future put a stop to that to avoid these sort of grammatical atrocities. It's going to be a close call, as there'll be a powerful faction that wants to send back terminators to kill all buffalo.
Well, the solution to this is to get 14 year olds excited about science, technology, and the future. That way we'll finally get some quality sci-fi movies again. Plus, you know, maybe another golden age of progress and innovation, but we're mainly interested in the movies.
Yeah, I too call bullshit on this one. Also, I'm getting a kick out of this because I'm reading it for the first time, right now, over lunch in a few minutes. I'm up to the part with space traders.
Psychohistory is essentially advanced sociology. The biggest "fiction" part here is that sociology will advance to the point it becomes a hard science with real predictive capabilities. But it only works over societies, not individuals. You can say that after a decade of increased taxes to pay for war remittances given W amount of national shame-of-loss and X amount of remaining national pride, the conquered nation will have Y amount of political shift towards crazy moonbat left-wingers who will elect a Z number of Hitlers. Probably.
It was a fellow slashdotter that gave me this bit of insight:
It doesn't matter that the average member is a swell upstanding nice person, if they elect, support, and empower their leaders to do asshole type things. For example, I'm sure that at least some of the people at KKK rallies are perfectly nice people. The ones that are in it because their boss is in it, or 9/10th of their neighborhood, or they just really like the free pizza they have on Friday's. But that doesn't matter, because the heads of the organization are batshit fucking crazy and need to be tarred and feathered.
This goes for the vast amount of people that vote R or D just because their parents did.
So even though your statement is true, and I too don't agree with everything my government does, this is a democracy and we can't just step to the side and abolish all liability. There's a bit of civil duty to, well, raise a huff when politicians do asshole things.
You mean, like if have a public job?
And... I'm a little confused by this part where bluffing about how much you make helps society. Are you saying that keeping your income secret creates power that you can use to bargain and bluff a salesman out of a buck? Doesn't that also help the salesman bargain and bluff you out of a buck?
I think the free market depends on informed rational actors. Anything that hinders the "informed" section hinders the free market.
Oye, "The Taliban is combing through the leaks looking for names that got through redaction."
That's exactly the vague answer I preemptively called bullshit on. Who ISN'T looking through the leaks? And since you say "names were named", all I ask is that you name them. I mean, if that sort of vague doom-saying counts then I can say that Arabs also read the leaks and that lead to widespread revolution and overthrowing of dictators. That's a hell of a lot cheaper then invading Iraq was.
Yeah yeah, I know that our spies are theoretically helping protect us in the shadows. They did a great job keeping Faisal Shahzad from detonating that car bomb, didn't they? They also had fantastic success with the Mujaheddin freedom fighters in Afghanistan. Oh wait..
As for the character attack on Manning... well, yeah, he's not exactly a shining example of nobility, but I'm still saying that the leak was a good thing.
I'm not seeing the fundamental difference between corporations and governments.
There are plenty of examples of corporate actions that operate at a loss to gain a little power. They can turn that little seed of power into quite the large sum of money. Arguably, abusive monopolies are pretty similar to oppressive governments. It's not exactly the same, but it's similar.
Your initial point centered around the idea that Stallman wasn't sane, so you're a douchebag.
I for one believe in Mr. Stallman, and I'll be right there on my Space-Rex fighting off imperial mind-flayers and working to overthrow Darth Ballmer using the mystical forces of Free.
Okay, so my mom uses a program to help her with her quilting. Who in the hell is going to write that for her if no one is paid to do it?
You.
Geez, don't you love your mother? What did you get her last Christmas? A sweater? Some colored thread? I hear Yet-Another-Bauble is in fashion this year.
Did you think maybe for a moment that you could show some interest in her hobbies? Maybe, oh I dunno, utilize that degree she helped pay for?
I mean, I love my mother, and I wrote her a simple little bookmark program to help with the books she gets off of gutenburg.com last Christmas. But I guess some people just don't care about the person that gave them life.
Oh come on, trying to get everyone to stop using mobile phones is a little bit far fetched. It's also not like you can make the cell phone technology in any other way, location tracking will always be possible.
Well, yes, but only when you explicitly allow them to, as opposed to covertly tracking you even if the phone is set to "airplane mode" or simply off. Right now, they can. And that's a matter of who is making and controlling the mobile market. Mobile devices are here to stay, but our metaphorical Stalin would much rather you use a state-controlled phone as opposed to hardware and software that you control.
And not everyone has to craft their own cell phone and compile their own kernal, the ABILITY to do so means that suits (ideally) won't be able to abuse their users without them jumping ship to the awesome version.
Yeah, we keep seeing this one dragged out into the street and paraded around.
Mind actually showing who was put into what sort of risk? I know of one Iranian fencer from a prominent family that was used as a contact. He can probably be identified by authorities. So far, that's it.
And if you even THINK about throwing back some vague "endangering our troops" comment, you need to re-examine your entire argument. Because I can quite equally and vaguely say that he's a great force for freedom and liberty. The difference is that I can point to specific examples of transgressions that he brought to light. Although you might have to dig around, it appears the powers that be have decided to move a lot of stuff to various subpages.
ok, I had to double-check this: blithe/blTH/Adjective
1. Showing a casual and cheerful indifference considered to be callous or improper.
2. Happy or joyous.
But when Eric Schmidt reminded everyone that he is bound by law to hand over your search history and that googling "how to murder my wife" was a really stupid thing to do before you go and murder your wife, I'd hardly consider his comments to be joyous or cheerfully indifferent.
I know that there is an unreasonable hatred of Google around here, but seriously, stop trying to spin this quote into some sort of distopian doomsaying.
And while I'm at it, I'm going to pre-emptivly rant about how it's not "Do no evil", it's "don't be evil". Just wait, someone will drag that minor grammar mistake out. Well you sir can consider yourself ranted against.
ok ok, I think maybe I need a different approach here. Simply informing you of how it is doesn't appear to work.
I want to make this extremely clear: I'm not lying to you. The things I've mentioned here aren't really debated because it's obviously true. "open and free is inherently better" That one is arguable (but not really on slashdot), and IPv4 could certainly have been slightly better. But what you're arguing for is simply ludicrous. I think you're arguing that had corporations been the entities to kickstart the Internet and that had developed into a number of corporate owned and controlled networks, then that would be better then the Internet we all know and love today. Feel free to correct me if I got that wrong.
Why would you argue such a thing? What are some examples that help back up your argument? What's your line of reasoning here?
"competing firms work hard to offer things the users want."
If that's the sum of your line of thinking, sheer faith in "the market", then you have seriously got to stop huffing the libertarian kool-aid.
So you're saying that without the brilliant government people, no on in the private sector would have seen the potential to make money by connecting their small networks together to form larger networks, and that no one would have seen the potential to make money by offering a service that provides a standard way of connecting those networks and provides cool things like electronic mail?
YES. Certainly not at the time, because that was hot cutting edge stuff and no-one even HAD "small networks". The action of networking didn't exist. It wasn't invented yet. Most probably it wouldn't have happened later either. Remember that the commercialization of the Internet happened well after the Internet ball got rolling. And even that was seen as crazy voodoo magic to businessmen. After it actually managed to make a buck, the businessmen went crazy and threw money at anything and we had the dotcom bubble. Seriously, don't you remember this? Weren't you, you know, THERE?
found ways to make money by doing so in ways that neither you nor I can imagine.
I can imagine quite a bit. And hind-sight is always pretty crisp. IF, and this is a pretty big if, some telcom company had managed to convince the 15 different telcom companies between LA and NY to install some hardware, and carry his packets for no cost (because hey, come on, I'll carry yours, let's collude baby), in some form that would mimic mail but electronically, then I think JUST MAYBE, he would have charged a shit-ton of money for it. This is opposed to the network that started in the universities, who carried the cost of it all on their subsidized backs, who let people do it for zero cost.
Think about which one is a bigger benefit to society at the best efficiency?
it's not "free".
The internet is open and free as in freedom. Heh, that's hilarious coming on the heals of me telling you that universities covered the cost starting out.
Wait. You're saying that EVERYONE has their own internet, each with its own protocols??
EVERYONE has their own NETWORK (or just one computer, close enough) which has a CONNECTION to the Internet. Everyone's network is INTERconnected, to form the INTER-NET. Are you not getting this? Do you need to read the wiki page on computers, networks, and Internet?
And YES, everyone CAN INDEED have their own protocols to communicate over that connection. There are a lot of them. They compete and some strong ones rise out of the fray. DUH. You don't have to use TCP/IP, and there is a plethora of protocols still in direct heated competition.
How money did they get from taxpayers?
Ok, you need to be hit with the grammar stick, what are you? Twelve?
And at first it was paid for by DARPA, then by the universities, and then corporations (charging customers) got in on the deal. Of course, a lot of that work was co-opted by the phone companies to improve their systems on which all this stuff ran, so there was definitely some symbiosis going on.
Just because you can't imagine a system that would be largely free of viruses while allowing user-created content doesn't mean that no one else can.
No, that's actually impossible because it's completely imaginary. This is kind of one of those fundamental security things that you can't innovate your way out of. If users are allowed to run code made by other users, the existence of malware is guaranteed. Call it human nature. But the technical solution to that is Antivirus programs, and we all know how well THAT battle is going. Honestly, if you don't grok this, you should never be in a network security position.
If peole[sic] just use whatever protocols they want, then what is the "IP" or "Internet Protocol" I hear so much about?
Dear god, there are other layers of protocols. All this stuff is built upon the previous layer and often
I have to admit I don't understand the business model that allows the internet to work.
Damn straight you don't. It's good that you know your own limitations, but you charge ahead blindly and make statements that... well... you wouldn't make if you did understand.
Why did the government do that and interfere with the marketplace.
Because there was no marketplace. It did not exist. Where there was just phone lines, the government funded some research to develop it into automated message forwarding sort of thing that grew up into the Internet. They didn't interfere, because there was nothing there to interfere with. Some eggheads had some ideas that something could do something cool, and the government gave them some cash with the expectation that it'd help the military.
I remember at the time that companies like AOL, Compuserve and Prodigy were attempting to start their own networks. If the government hadn't stepped in with the government supported service, mightn't those companies have succeed?
The "government supported service" otherwise known as "the internet", was started well before all those companies tried making their own network. Remember, these companies existed for the purpose of connecting people to the Internet. The reason that they started their own network is because they didn't want to pay THEIR ISP for bandwidth and hosting their own network was cheaper. But this was ultimately doomed because open and free systems are inherently better.
Woiuldn't competition between them have led to a better way of doing the internet?
No. It turns out that competition between EVERYONE is far better then competition between a couple of corporations. Go figure.
competing firms work hard to offer things the users want. They would have met these demands.
Except that EVERYONE IN THE WORLD being connected to the Internet out-competed their little private networks into the ground. They failed to meet the demands. Now, given time and a hell of a lot of money, sure Prodigy probably could have created something comparable to the Internet on the whole. But oh wait, the internet did all that for free or at a fraction of the price. So Prodigy didn't get the chance.
their network was free of viruses and malware?
Then it would have had to have been free of user-created content (which it was). And that's a horrible hollow shell of what the Internet is. Useless, really.
With the internet being "free" and everyone using the same protocol, there is no competition to see who can build the best network.
Think about this one again. If everyone can freely connect to everyone else, (using whatever protocols they want so that part is simply wrong but let's move on) then everyone is competing to have the best content. Every little website, service, bbs, vent server, torrent, and gizmo on the internet is in direct competition with everyone else. There is no "best network" because it's all the same network, interconnected.
But think the internet would be better if the government had not gotten involved.
Then the Internet would never have been made. You're arguing against government intervention in a completely balls to the walls wrong way. No, the government should not be in the business of regulating the Internet. Regulating the companies that provide a connection to the Internet may be a good idea though, since it looks like they're trying to suffocate the Internet.
Golly GEE! You mean Mediacom and Comcast don't have an agreement not to step on each other's turf and will rush RIGHT ON IN to undercut each other to death?
To the local town board people, we can solve all our problems tomarrow. And let's open up the competition to bring in some magical unicorns and flying cars while we're at it!
...as it could belong to a so-far theoretical 'Y' class of brown dwarf, a classification that makes objects like this cool example more planet-like than star-like.
What? Shenanigans! There was a big push for science from the 40's to the 70's. It wasn't until the blowback from the hippies gave rise to the religious right that we've had an assault on science. I mean, there have always been the flat earth types and young earth creationists, but no one cared until politicians started getting elected by them.
Slashdot Mirror
Genetic modification is not inherently evil. It's Monsanto that's inherently evil as per their use and abuse of the food market. But blights always wipe out whole fields, nobody plants a mix of plants in a field, you want uniformity so it fits into your combine and whatnot. The fear from a massive monoculture is that a bug/disease could wipe out all the soybeans in the nation/continent, rather then 1/5th or something. Also, I believe that you're referring to "round-up ready"(c)(tm)(MonsantoWillEatYourSoul) strains of GMOs, while there are other GMOs which do not heavily depend on Monsanto's pesticide.
Yeah.... ok. You're a fear-mongering asshole who is using the current crisis-of-the-week to an agenda of eugenics and forced castration of children. You're a good candidate for a modern-day definition of evil.
Things really aren't that bad. We have plenty of food. We have so much food we feed our food food rather then grass so our food tastes a little better. (ok, a LOT better). The biggest risk to farmers to making too much food. (Or foreigners coming in and dumping a lot of food on the market for "relief")
ok, someone needs to do this parody. Weird Al already did it for generic nerds, now we need to do it for narrower and narrower niches. Do it, DO IT NOW!
Hitler was going to have had been assassinated by time travelers, but the powerful grammar Nazis of the future put a stop to that to avoid these sort of grammatical atrocities. It's going to be a close call, as there'll be a powerful faction that wants to send back terminators to kill all buffalo.
Well, the solution to this is to get 14 year olds excited about science, technology, and the future. That way we'll finally get some quality sci-fi movies again. Plus, you know, maybe another golden age of progress and innovation, but we're mainly interested in the movies.
Yeah, I too call bullshit on this one. Also, I'm getting a kick out of this because I'm reading it for the first time, right now, over lunch in a few minutes. I'm up to the part with space traders.
Psychohistory is essentially advanced sociology. The biggest "fiction" part here is that sociology will advance to the point it becomes a hard science with real predictive capabilities. But it only works over societies, not individuals. You can say that after a decade of increased taxes to pay for war remittances given W amount of national shame-of-loss and X amount of remaining national pride, the conquered nation will have Y amount of political shift towards crazy moonbat left-wingers who will elect a Z number of Hitlers. Probably.
It was a fellow slashdotter that gave me this bit of insight:
It doesn't matter that the average member is a swell upstanding nice person, if they elect, support, and empower their leaders to do asshole type things. For example, I'm sure that at least some of the people at KKK rallies are perfectly nice people. The ones that are in it because their boss is in it, or 9/10th of their neighborhood, or they just really like the free pizza they have on Friday's. But that doesn't matter, because the heads of the organization are batshit fucking crazy and need to be tarred and feathered.
This goes for the vast amount of people that vote R or D just because their parents did.
So even though your statement is true, and I too don't agree with everything my government does, this is a democracy and we can't just step to the side and abolish all liability. There's a bit of civil duty to, well, raise a huff when politicians do asshole things.
And the worst infractions against society are often legal.
You mean, like if have a public job?
And... I'm a little confused by this part where bluffing about how much you make helps society. Are you saying that keeping your income secret creates power that you can use to bargain and bluff a salesman out of a buck? Doesn't that also help the salesman bargain and bluff you out of a buck?
I think the free market depends on informed rational actors. Anything that hinders the "informed" section hinders the free market.
Oye, "The Taliban is combing through the leaks looking for names that got through redaction."
That's exactly the vague answer I preemptively called bullshit on. Who ISN'T looking through the leaks? And since you say "names were named", all I ask is that you name them. I mean, if that sort of vague doom-saying counts then I can say that Arabs also read the leaks and that lead to widespread revolution and overthrowing of dictators. That's a hell of a lot cheaper then invading Iraq was.
Yeah yeah, I know that our spies are theoretically helping protect us in the shadows. They did a great job keeping Faisal Shahzad from detonating that car bomb, didn't they? They also had fantastic success with the Mujaheddin freedom fighters in Afghanistan. Oh wait..
As for the character attack on Manning... well, yeah, he's not exactly a shining example of nobility, but I'm still saying that the leak was a good thing.
I'm not seeing the fundamental difference between corporations and governments.
There are plenty of examples of corporate actions that operate at a loss to gain a little power. They can turn that little seed of power into quite the large sum of money. Arguably, abusive monopolies are pretty similar to oppressive governments. It's not exactly the same, but it's similar.
Your initial point centered around the idea that Stallman wasn't sane, so you're a douchebag.
Except that article has not come true.
Well it's not 2047 yet, he's got a little bit of time left on this one.
I for one believe in Mr. Stallman, and I'll be right there on my Space-Rex fighting off imperial mind-flayers and working to overthrow Darth Ballmer using the mystical forces of Free.
Okay, so my mom uses a program to help her with her quilting. Who in the hell is going to write that for her if no one is paid to do it?
You.
Geez, don't you love your mother? What did you get her last Christmas? A sweater? Some colored thread? I hear Yet-Another-Bauble is in fashion this year.
Did you think maybe for a moment that you could show some interest in her hobbies? Maybe, oh I dunno, utilize that degree she helped pay for?
I mean, I love my mother, and I wrote her a simple little bookmark program to help with the books she gets off of gutenburg.com last Christmas. But I guess some people just don't care about the person that gave them life.
Oh come on, trying to get everyone to stop using mobile phones is a little bit far fetched. It's also not like you can make the cell phone technology in any other way, location tracking will always be possible.
Well, yes, but only when you explicitly allow them to, as opposed to covertly tracking you even if the phone is set to "airplane mode" or simply off. Right now, they can. And that's a matter of who is making and controlling the mobile market. Mobile devices are here to stay, but our metaphorical Stalin would much rather you use a state-controlled phone as opposed to hardware and software that you control.
And not everyone has to craft their own cell phone and compile their own kernal, the ABILITY to do so means that suits (ideally) won't be able to abuse their users without them jumping ship to the awesome version.
was going to put many people at great risk
Yeah, we keep seeing this one dragged out into the street and paraded around.
Mind actually showing who was put into what sort of risk? I know of one Iranian fencer from a prominent family that was used as a contact. He can probably be identified by authorities. So far, that's it.
And if you even THINK about throwing back some vague "endangering our troops" comment, you need to re-examine your entire argument. Because I can quite equally and vaguely say that he's a great force for freedom and liberty. The difference is that I can point to specific examples of transgressions that he brought to light. Although you might have to dig around, it appears the powers that be have decided to move a lot of stuff to various subpages.
You shut your whore mouth when Richard Stallman is talking!
ok, I had to double-check this:
blithe/blTH/Adjective
1. Showing a casual and cheerful indifference considered to be callous or improper.
2. Happy or joyous.
But when Eric Schmidt reminded everyone that he is bound by law to hand over your search history and that googling "how to murder my wife" was a really stupid thing to do before you go and murder your wife, I'd hardly consider his comments to be joyous or cheerfully indifferent.
I know that there is an unreasonable hatred of Google around here, but seriously, stop trying to spin this quote into some sort of distopian doomsaying.
And while I'm at it, I'm going to pre-emptivly rant about how it's not "Do no evil", it's "don't be evil". Just wait, someone will drag that minor grammar mistake out. Well you sir can consider yourself ranted against.
ok ok, I think maybe I need a different approach here. Simply informing you of how it is doesn't appear to work.
I want to make this extremely clear: I'm not lying to you. The things I've mentioned here aren't really debated because it's obviously true. "open and free is inherently better" That one is arguable (but not really on slashdot), and IPv4 could certainly have been slightly better. But what you're arguing for is simply ludicrous.
I think you're arguing that had corporations been the entities to kickstart the Internet and that had developed into a number of corporate owned and controlled networks, then that would be better then the Internet we all know and love today. Feel free to correct me if I got that wrong.
Why would you argue such a thing? What are some examples that help back up your argument? What's your line of reasoning here?
"competing firms work hard to offer things the users want."
If that's the sum of your line of thinking, sheer faith in "the market", then you have seriously got to stop huffing the libertarian kool-aid.
So you're saying that without the brilliant government people, no on in the private sector would have seen the potential to make money by connecting their small networks together to form larger networks, and that no one would have seen the potential to make money by offering a service that provides a standard way of connecting those networks and provides cool things like electronic mail?
YES. Certainly not at the time, because that was hot cutting edge stuff and no-one even HAD "small networks". The action of networking didn't exist. It wasn't invented yet. Most probably it wouldn't have happened later either. Remember that the commercialization of the Internet happened well after the Internet ball got rolling. And even that was seen as crazy voodoo magic to businessmen. After it actually managed to make a buck, the businessmen went crazy and threw money at anything and we had the dotcom bubble. Seriously, don't you remember this? Weren't you, you know, THERE?
found ways to make money by doing so in ways that neither you nor I can imagine.
I can imagine quite a bit. And hind-sight is always pretty crisp. IF, and this is a pretty big if, some telcom company had managed to convince the 15 different telcom companies between LA and NY to install some hardware, and carry his packets for no cost (because hey, come on, I'll carry yours, let's collude baby), in some form that would mimic mail but electronically, then I think JUST MAYBE, he would have charged a shit-ton of money for it. This is opposed to the network that started in the universities, who carried the cost of it all on their subsidized backs, who let people do it for zero cost.
Think about which one is a bigger benefit to society at the best efficiency?
it's not "free".
The internet is open and free as in freedom. Heh, that's hilarious coming on the heals of me telling you that universities covered the cost starting out.
Wait. You're saying that EVERYONE has their own internet, each with its own protocols??
EVERYONE has their own NETWORK (or just one computer, close enough) which has a CONNECTION to the Internet. Everyone's network is INTERconnected, to form the INTER-NET. Are you not getting this? Do you need to read the wiki page on computers, networks, and Internet?
And YES, everyone CAN INDEED have their own protocols to communicate over that connection. There are a lot of them. They compete and some strong ones rise out of the fray. DUH. You don't have to use TCP/IP, and there is a plethora of protocols still in direct heated competition.
How money did they get from taxpayers?
Ok, you need to be hit with the grammar stick, what are you? Twelve?
And at first it was paid for by DARPA, then by the universities, and then corporations (charging customers) got in on the deal. Of course, a lot of that work was co-opted by the phone companies to improve their systems on which all this stuff ran, so there was definitely some symbiosis going on.
Just because you can't imagine a system that would be largely free of viruses while allowing user-created content doesn't mean that no one else can.
No, that's actually impossible because it's completely imaginary. This is kind of one of those fundamental security things that you can't innovate your way out of. If users are allowed to run code made by other users, the existence of malware is guaranteed. Call it human nature. But the technical solution to that is Antivirus programs, and we all know how well THAT battle is going. Honestly, if you don't grok this, you should never be in a network security position.
If peole[sic] just use whatever protocols they want, then what is the "IP" or "Internet Protocol" I hear so much about?
Dear god, there are other layers of protocols. All this stuff is built upon the previous layer and often
I have to admit I don't understand the business model that allows the internet to work.
Damn straight you don't. It's good that you know your own limitations, but you charge ahead blindly and make statements that... well... you wouldn't make if you did understand.
Why did the government do that and interfere with the marketplace.
Because there was no marketplace. It did not exist. Where there was just phone lines, the government funded some research to develop it into automated message forwarding sort of thing that grew up into the Internet. They didn't interfere, because there was nothing there to interfere with. Some eggheads had some ideas that something could do something cool, and the government gave them some cash with the expectation that it'd help the military.
I remember at the time that companies like AOL, Compuserve and Prodigy were attempting to start their own networks. If the government hadn't stepped in with the government supported service, mightn't those companies have succeed?
The "government supported service" otherwise known as "the internet", was started well before all those companies tried making their own network. Remember, these companies existed for the purpose of connecting people to the Internet. The reason that they started their own network is because they didn't want to pay THEIR ISP for bandwidth and hosting their own network was cheaper. But this was ultimately doomed because open and free systems are inherently better.
Woiuldn't competition between them have led to a better way of doing the internet?
No. It turns out that competition between EVERYONE is far better then competition between a couple of corporations. Go figure.
competing firms work hard to offer things the users want. They would have met these demands.
Except that EVERYONE IN THE WORLD being connected to the Internet out-competed their little private networks into the ground. They failed to meet the demands. Now, given time and a hell of a lot of money, sure Prodigy probably could have created something comparable to the Internet on the whole. But oh wait, the internet did all that for free or at a fraction of the price. So Prodigy didn't get the chance.
their network was free of viruses and malware?
Then it would have had to have been free of user-created content (which it was). And that's a horrible hollow shell of what the Internet is. Useless, really.
With the internet being "free" and everyone using the same protocol, there is no competition to see who can build the best network.
Think about this one again. If everyone can freely connect to everyone else, (using whatever protocols they want so that part is simply wrong but let's move on) then everyone is competing to have the best content. Every little website, service, bbs, vent server, torrent, and gizmo on the internet is in direct competition with everyone else. There is no "best network" because it's all the same network, interconnected.
But think the internet would be better if the government had not gotten involved.
Then the Internet would never have been made. You're arguing against government intervention in a completely balls to the walls wrong way. No, the government should not be in the business of regulating the Internet. Regulating the companies that provide a connection to the Internet may be a good idea though, since it looks like they're trying to suffocate the Internet.
Golly GEE! You mean Mediacom and Comcast don't have an agreement not to step on each other's turf and will rush RIGHT ON IN to undercut each other to death?
To the local town board people, we can solve all our problems tomarrow. And let's open up the competition to bring in some magical unicorns and flying cars while we're at it!
...as it could belong to a so-far theoretical 'Y' class of brown dwarf, a classification that makes objects like this cool example more planet-like than star-like.
I see what you did there.
It works better then your editing prowess, that's for sure.
(Come on, that's funny)
What? Shenanigans! There was a big push for science from the 40's to the 70's. It wasn't until the blowback from the hippies gave rise to the religious right that we've had an assault on science. I mean, there have always been the flat earth types and young earth creationists, but no one cared until politicians started getting elected by them.