"This immediately leads to questions about why a president might trust a foreign power over his own agencies."
It's surprising that people still take Trump's words at face value. Trump is doing it for show -- he will say anything, no matter how nonsensical it may seem to us, to remove or weaken an obstacle. I don't think he *trusts* Putin or that he even has a strong opinion on it and in a month Trump can say exactly the opposite if he thinks that will move him forward. For me none of this comes even close to Trump saying during primaries that Ted Cruz's father was involved in Kennedy assassination. That pushed Cruz over the edge and made him quit the race before time. Mission accomplished and after that Cruz was "a great guy".
Now we as tech people may loathe that way of approaching reality but you can't deny the evidence that it's working for him.
Gold has thousands of years of history and a consensus for being used as currency. Billions of people in human history have been using it or appreciating it in one way or another. If gold didn't exist and you introduced it today as currency, it wouldn't work.
A big part of why gold can be used as a currency is that its exchange value has historically been stable. Bitcoin has been too volatile to be used as a currency. And as commodity bitcoin has no intrinsic value -- there's nothing you can do with a bitcoin on its own. (Even gold has some small use value as commodity, such as in jewelry.)
"When I was in college I knew someone who intended to go into politics. He was 19 and systematically avoided anything that might prove “a problem” to his future career. What he avoided was everything that a normal 19-year-old might do. I couldn’t articulate then what I can now: I do not want to be led by someone who has led a life free of trial, error, remorse and forgiveness. I do not want to be led by anyone who hasn’t moved to the edge of the abyss because I want my leader to know what the abyss looks like and how to back away slowly. I do not want what we think of as a flawless leader, because being flawless is itself a vice. I want to be led by someone who has grappled long and hard with life. I will not list the venal sins humans are prone to, but I want the person who walks into a room with Vladimir Putin to know the demons that can drive a person. I want someone who has learned prudence, not someone whose soul was always so timid or ambitious that he never had to learn. It is a dangerous world and I want a president who knows how to be dangerous if he has to be – and knows when not to be."
It's the "Real Name" policy that is destructive, resulting in all the virtue signaling, mob mentality and compulsive use, in a way which is not possible in the "natural" world. Facebook exploits our so-called "herding instinct", the social instinct all animals have, like the sugar/sweets industry exploits our survival instinct. Just look at any of the crap going on on a random FB feed and imagine what it would look like if everyone were anonymous like here. Almost none of it would make sense. I think we need some clever blend of real name for when it matters, which is rarely, and anonymous.
Well if you are saying that from time to time the area of low-lying, uncultivated ground where water collects should be emptied out of said water, I agree.
I can imagine not being able to renew my car registration because the DMV didn't send you the sticker due to massive personnel changes but the police still stopping me for not having the sticker -- that's not fun. (Not a great example since it's state but still.) Civil service doing its work to implement current laws is acting in the interest of the nation.
I think by replacing the leadership of the civil service organizations with quality people who are at least not against the current administration the things would go back to normal.
Problem is that's impossible. The whole structure relies on a lot of people who have been doing the same thing for years. Here's a good writeup on the topic:
"But there was another reason. During and after the Civil War, government laws and policies had become far more complex with more long-lasting effects on society. A presidential term lasted four years; policies could last for generations. If administrators were replaced every time a president left office, as previously had been the case, there would be no continuity in government. New administrators would constantly have to learn the complexities of their jobs, and by the time they mastered it, they would have to leave. Government operations had outgrown a president’s term."
This is good information. I am coming to the conclusion that an ISPs regulation that would be best for the consumers would be one that would somehow guarantee fairness for the small players. In general the laws should protect the weak. I still am convinced that NN as it is protects the strong, by virtue of Google, Facebook and Amazon being for it. That said, I don't know what that ideal regulation would be. Perhaps a regulation that just forces ISPs to publicly report about their traffic speeds, who/what gets throttled and who/what gets higher speeds, would be a good start.
Is that realistic though? Comcast may start their streaming service but there's little chance they'll entice me even if it's a $1 less a month than Netflix and even with the same selection if I'm used to Netflix. As for the upstart streaming service, Comcast likely wouldn't be slowing them down, they just wouldn't let them in the premium channel unless they pay.
What I find off is that almost all scenarios without NN are hypothetical, where NN in the present situation allows for Google et al to keep maximum profits. I'm not saying ISPs shouldn't be regulated, just that this regulation seems wrong. Perhaps there should be a regulation to prevent ISPs from throttling the upstarts but historically they haven't been doing that anyway. Maybe the ISPs should be merely required to disclose completely how they are treating different traffic.
That does sound sensible. I don't know what I'm missing then but we are back to the claim that the primary effect of Net Neutrality is that it prevents ISPs from asking the big guys for ransom. And also that in principle it should not treat small guys unfairly but historically that has not been the issue. If that is correct then NN solves the wrong problem. We should have laws to prevent ISPs from acting as monopolies towards consumers, not to prevent them from acting unfairly to obscenely profitable companies.
I wonder if the solution might be that the ISP must be "net neutral" if there are no competing ISPs (properly defined to avoid abuse) within 50 miles or something like that.
Hm maybe my attn. span is too short and if so I apologize but it says what Portugal is doing and then "the potential for abuse is obvious" but not actually listing what is wrong. Unless it's the splitting into packages? I'm not sure that's so bad. My Cox bill went up from $50 to $80/mo over the years and I'm not watching Netflix and only rarely Amazon Prime videos. If had a package where I could pay less I wouldn't mind. And if Cox charges Netflix or Amazon Prime more instead of charging me more for bandwidth I may or may not use that sounds better.
Thanks for the thoughtful reply. As a consumer I don't like the idea of bittorrent throttling at all, even if I haven't used it myself but I want to be able to. Regarding the ransom though, it seems that only very successful provides would have to pay it. If I start a new youtube I can't imagine ISPs would bother to throttle it, until such time that my new youtube it huge but then it seems like a fair game. Netflix, Google and FB are monopolies, it seems to me if they are slowed down by the greedy ISPs that can't necessarily be that bad.
Thanks, that is what I was looking for. I wanted to compare that against some other claims that Facebook and Google have cemented their position since Net Neutrality, with an argument being made that NN helps them. (The reasoning is that without NN, if the ISP offers a preferred channel, and anyone buys it, then say Google is forced to buy it as well, leading to lower profits to Google.) My goal was to deciding, for myself, which option I think is less harmful.
... when it was introduced in 2015? When the regulators sat down in that meeting they must have acted in response to a specific trouble caused by lack of net neutrality prior to that. What was that trouble? I am genuinely interested.
A little background checking shows that SaveTheInternet is a coalition of organizations lead by the Free Press advocacy group whose chair is Tim Wu who invented the phrase "net neutrality." His Wiki page says "Wu ran for the Democratic nomination for Lieutenant Governor of New York against a conservative Democrat." So the top name in this effort is a person very much on the left who is also fighting for his legacy. Now that doesn't mean he isn't necessarily correct, but NN was voted in only 3-2 along party lines in 2015 so we'd need someone more neutral to make the case.
But let's look at some of their claims:
"The consequences would be particularly devastating for [...] people of color, the LGBTQ community, indigenous peoples and religious minorities"
"The mainstream media have long misrepresented, ignored and harmed people of color. And thanks to systemic racism, economic inequality and runaway media consolidation, people of color own just a handful of broadcast stations. The lack of diverse ownership is a primary reason why the media have gotten away with criminalizing and otherwise stereotyping communities of color."
"The internet without Net Neutrality isn’t really the internet."
"This would destroy the open internet."
"Without Net Neutrality, the next Google or Facebook would never get off the ground." Well they did get off the ground without Net Neutrality, and have fortified themselves more than ever since NN.
Essentially we must support NN to prevent racism. If they need to bring up that argument, do they really have an argument?
Wait wait. You say all the evidence points out to existence of objective reality, but when I asked you for it, you admitted it's a paradox and can't be proven.
I have then said that your claim is a metaphysical belief no more -- and no less, please read again -- based in reasoning that faith in God. Therefore I have nothing to prove because I never claimed there is evidence that God "exists" (nor that such claim has meaning but that's a different story).
So of the two of us, you are the only one who claims there is evidence for one view in particular, that of objective reality existing independently of the observer. Care to try to show the proof again?
So essentially you are saying that your conviction that objective reality exists is beyond possible proof, therefore it is completely metaphysical, just like say people of faith believe in God, but you are somehow the one who is correct in his view because...?
Yes I don't see it necessarily as profit driven either, more that's just what we do. There is perhaps not enough thinking about it and considering that each case is unique, but always going by the principle of prolonging life as much as possible, at any cost.
What Crichton described happened in the 60s, the rules may have changed since. I did not know about the current legality of it, thank you for clarifying.
You know, I've been thinking what you just said is for so many people at the core of the Trump division, not sex tapes, not Islam and transgender and what not, but the belief that objective reality actually exists on its own, independently of the observer. If you had said that even before the Republicans comment I would have thought you probably think Trump's presidency is a nightmare for you. All our disagreements stem from that core, metaphysical belief.
So if you'd indulge me, you make a claim that such objective reality exists. In science, the onus is on the one making the claim to prove that it's true. How would you go about presenting that proof?
I think of CNN as fake news as much as the every other next guy and don't buy into the global warming crusade but I like this video. It's just cool to watch.
Slashdot Mirror
"This immediately leads to questions about why a president might trust a foreign power over his own agencies."
It's surprising that people still take Trump's words at face value. Trump is doing it for show -- he will say anything, no matter how nonsensical it may seem to us, to remove or weaken an obstacle. I don't think he *trusts* Putin or that he even has a strong opinion on it and in a month Trump can say exactly the opposite if he thinks that will move him forward. For me none of this comes even close to Trump saying during primaries that Ted Cruz's father was involved in Kennedy assassination. That pushed Cruz over the edge and made him quit the race before time. Mission accomplished and after that Cruz was "a great guy".
Now we as tech people may loathe that way of approaching reality but you can't deny the evidence that it's working for him.
Maybe it helped that the new administration didn't introduce the "no fly zone" over Syria that Clinton had wanted to put in place.
Gold has thousands of years of history and a consensus for being used as currency. Billions of people in human history have been using it or appreciating it in one way or another. If gold didn't exist and you introduced it today as currency, it wouldn't work.
A big part of why gold can be used as a currency is that its exchange value has historically been stable. Bitcoin has been too volatile to be used as a currency. And as commodity bitcoin has no intrinsic value -- there's nothing you can do with a bitcoin on its own. (Even gold has some small use value as commodity, such as in jewelry.)
"When I was in college I knew someone who intended to go into politics. He was 19 and systematically avoided anything that might prove “a problem” to his future career. What he avoided was everything that a normal 19-year-old might do. I couldn’t articulate then what I can now: I do not want to be led by someone who has led a life free of trial, error, remorse and forgiveness. I do not want to be led by anyone who hasn’t moved to the edge of the abyss because I want my leader to know what the abyss looks like and how to back away slowly. I do not want what we think of as a flawless leader, because being flawless is itself a vice. I want to be led by someone who has grappled long and hard with life. I will not list the venal sins humans are prone to, but I want the person who walks into a room with Vladimir Putin to know the demons that can drive a person. I want someone who has learned prudence, not someone whose soul was always so timid or ambitious that he never had to learn. It is a dangerous world and I want a president who knows how to be dangerous if he has to be – and knows when not to be."
https://geopoliticalfutures.co...
It's the "Real Name" policy that is destructive, resulting in all the virtue signaling, mob mentality and compulsive use, in a way which is not possible in the "natural" world. Facebook exploits our so-called "herding instinct", the social instinct all animals have, like the sugar/sweets industry exploits our survival instinct. Just look at any of the crap going on on a random FB feed and imagine what it would look like if everyone were anonymous like here. Almost none of it would make sense. I think we need some clever blend of real name for when it matters, which is rarely, and anonymous.
Well if you are saying that from time to time the area of low-lying, uncultivated ground where water collects should be emptied out of said water, I agree.
I can imagine not being able to renew my car registration because the DMV didn't send you the sticker due to massive personnel changes but the police still stopping me for not having the sticker -- that's not fun. (Not a great example since it's state but still.) Civil service doing its work to implement current laws is acting in the interest of the nation.
I think by replacing the leadership of the civil service organizations with quality people who are at least not against the current administration the things would go back to normal.
> Don't trust the CIA? Fine - fire everyone
Problem is that's impossible. The whole structure relies on a lot of people who have been doing the same thing for years. Here's a good writeup on the topic:
"But there was another reason. During and after the Civil War, government laws and policies had become far more complex with more long-lasting effects on society. A presidential term lasted four years; policies could last for generations. If administrators were replaced every time a president left office, as previously had been the case, there would be no continuity in government. New administrators would constantly have to learn the complexities of their jobs, and by the time they mastered it, they would have to leave. Government operations had outgrown a president’s term."
https://geopoliticalfutures.co...
This is good information. I am coming to the conclusion that an ISPs regulation that would be best for the consumers would be one that would somehow guarantee fairness for the small players. In general the laws should protect the weak. I still am convinced that NN as it is protects the strong, by virtue of Google, Facebook and Amazon being for it. That said, I don't know what that ideal regulation would be. Perhaps a regulation that just forces ISPs to publicly report about their traffic speeds, who/what gets throttled and who/what gets higher speeds, would be a good start.
Is that realistic though? Comcast may start their streaming service but there's little chance they'll entice me even if it's a $1 less a month than Netflix and even with the same selection if I'm used to Netflix. As for the upstart streaming service, Comcast likely wouldn't be slowing them down, they just wouldn't let them in the premium channel unless they pay.
What I find off is that almost all scenarios without NN are hypothetical, where NN in the present situation allows for Google et al to keep maximum profits. I'm not saying ISPs shouldn't be regulated, just that this regulation seems wrong. Perhaps there should be a regulation to prevent ISPs from throttling the upstarts but historically they haven't been doing that anyway. Maybe the ISPs should be merely required to disclose completely how they are treating different traffic.
That does sound sensible. I don't know what I'm missing then but we are back to the claim that the primary effect of Net Neutrality is that it prevents ISPs from asking the big guys for ransom. And also that in principle it should not treat small guys unfairly but historically that has not been the issue. If that is correct then NN solves the wrong problem. We should have laws to prevent ISPs from acting as monopolies towards consumers, not to prevent them from acting unfairly to obscenely profitable companies.
I wonder if the solution might be that the ISP must be "net neutral" if there are no competing ISPs (properly defined to avoid abuse) within 50 miles or something like that.
Hm maybe my attn. span is too short and if so I apologize but it says what Portugal is doing and then "the potential for abuse is obvious" but not actually listing what is wrong. Unless it's the splitting into packages? I'm not sure that's so bad. My Cox bill went up from $50 to $80/mo over the years and I'm not watching Netflix and only rarely Amazon Prime videos. If had a package where I could pay less I wouldn't mind. And if Cox charges Netflix or Amazon Prime more instead of charging me more for bandwidth I may or may not use that sounds better.
Thanks for the thoughtful reply. As a consumer I don't like the idea of bittorrent throttling at all, even if I haven't used it myself but I want to be able to. Regarding the ransom though, it seems that only very successful provides would have to pay it. If I start a new youtube I can't imagine ISPs would bother to throttle it, until such time that my new youtube it huge but then it seems like a fair game. Netflix, Google and FB are monopolies, it seems to me if they are slowed down by the greedy ISPs that can't necessarily be that bad.
Thanks, that is what I was looking for. I wanted to compare that against some other claims that Facebook and Google have cemented their position since Net Neutrality, with an argument being made that NN helps them. (The reasoning is that without NN, if the ISP offers a preferred channel, and anyone buys it, then say Google is forced to buy it as well, leading to lower profits to Google.) My goal was to deciding, for myself, which option I think is less harmful.
I read the front page but there is no mention of specific problems it tried to solve. Would you care to link to the specific page that has that info?
... when it was introduced in 2015? When the regulators sat down in that meeting they must have acted in response to a specific trouble caused by lack of net neutrality prior to that. What was that trouble? I am genuinely interested.
Read their Manifesto: https://www.savetheinternet.co...
A little background checking shows that SaveTheInternet is a coalition of organizations lead by the Free Press advocacy group whose chair is Tim Wu who invented the phrase "net neutrality." His Wiki page says "Wu ran for the Democratic nomination for Lieutenant Governor of New York against a conservative Democrat." So the top name in this effort is a person very much on the left who is also fighting for his legacy. Now that doesn't mean he isn't necessarily correct, but NN was voted in only 3-2 along party lines in 2015 so we'd need someone more neutral to make the case.
But let's look at some of their claims:
"The consequences would be particularly devastating for [...] people of color, the LGBTQ community, indigenous peoples and religious minorities"
"The mainstream media have long misrepresented, ignored and harmed people of color. And thanks to systemic racism, economic inequality and runaway media consolidation, people of color own just a handful of broadcast stations. The lack of diverse ownership is a primary reason why the media have gotten away with criminalizing and otherwise stereotyping communities of color."
"The internet without Net Neutrality isn’t really the internet."
"This would destroy the open internet."
"Without Net Neutrality, the next Google or Facebook would never get off the ground." Well they did get off the ground without Net Neutrality, and have fortified themselves more than ever since NN.
Essentially we must support NN to prevent racism. If they need to bring up that argument, do they really have an argument?
If they do it to Google I have no problem with it whatsoever. In fact I would welcome it.
Wait wait. You say all the evidence points out to existence of objective reality, but when I asked you for it, you admitted it's a paradox and can't be proven.
I have then said that your claim is a metaphysical belief no more -- and no less, please read again -- based in reasoning that faith in God. Therefore I have nothing to prove because I never claimed there is evidence that God "exists" (nor that such claim has meaning but that's a different story).
So of the two of us, you are the only one who claims there is evidence for one view in particular, that of objective reality existing independently of the observer. Care to try to show the proof again?
So essentially you are saying that your conviction that objective reality exists is beyond possible proof, therefore it is completely metaphysical, just like say people of faith believe in God, but you are somehow the one who is correct in his view because...?
Yes I don't see it necessarily as profit driven either, more that's just what we do. There is perhaps not enough thinking about it and considering that each case is unique, but always going by the principle of prolonging life as much as possible, at any cost.
What Crichton described happened in the 60s, the rules may have changed since. I did not know about the current legality of it, thank you for clarifying.
You know, I've been thinking what you just said is for so many people at the core of the Trump division, not sex tapes, not Islam and transgender and what not, but the belief that objective reality actually exists on its own, independently of the observer. If you had said that even before the Republicans comment I would have thought you probably think Trump's presidency is a nightmare for you. All our disagreements stem from that core, metaphysical belief.
So if you'd indulge me, you make a claim that such objective reality exists. In science, the onus is on the one making the claim to prove that it's true. How would you go about presenting that proof?
I think of CNN as fake news as much as the every other next guy and don't buy into the global warming crusade but I like this video. It's just cool to watch.