The good Senator can begin by introducing legislation, that bans from public roads any and all electronic payment systems, that do not offer the anonymous option.
One can buy a prepaid cell-phone anonymously, but not a prepaid "EZ-Pass", for some reason. One can add money to a payment card (such as phone- or tranist- one), but can not simply add value (cash) to an "EZ-Pass" account. Heck, you can't even take your EZ-Pass with you from one car to another — it is registered to a particular license-plate (the concept, that itself is a gross violation of privacy, but that's another story).
And, unlike car-makers, EZ-Pass and the like systems have government-backed monopoly — because our overlords haven't though about allowing multiple companies to compete in toll-collection.
We are not "ruled" by the british crown you fucking clown.
Yeah? Who is the Canada's Head of State?
Any actual power the queen has was pretty much relinquished ages ago.
"Actual" and "pretty much" are the evasive loopholes, through which a truck can be driven.
Yes, the British have been nice enough of late, they let colonies run their own affairs. But you are still the Crown's subjects, which is what I said. Calling me names will not change it.
Of course, it does not — they (along with Australia and a few others) are ruled by the British Crown. They have something, that's called "Constitution of Canada" — except it is the other way around. Whereas American Constitution was the supreme law first, and other laws were written to cover areas not covered by the document and tested not to violate it, Canada's imitation is "an amalgamation of codified acts and uncodified traditions [emphasis mine -mi] and conventions".
The worst difference, in my opinion, is that Canadian "Constitution" is easier to amend, than American, and is thus more prone to temporary opinion-swings.
What the OP was pointing out is that basic science doesn't always have an immediately obvious application
False. What William Baric claimed was, I quote: "Without government funded scientists, you'd still live like an Amish." And then he suspected me of actually wanting that.
My list of scientists, engineers and inventors reminded the audience about their decidedly non-Amish inventions. Inventions, which happened without government funding. William Baric got planed and no amount of creative reinterpreting of his earlier words will help that.
Edison and Telsa wouldn't have been able to do any of the things they did if it weren't for basic research in electricity and materials done by people before them.
Irrelevant — because none of that earlier research was paid for by taxpayers either.
Torvalds was taking advantage of a truly amazing amount of research into things as obscure as the quantum nature of matter
Yes, sure, I always suspected Linux kernel had something to do with quantum mechanics — certain things about it just could not be explained by anything else. Right...
It's rarely from somewhere other than government grants.
Are we to believe, government officials without any skin in the game are better at choosing, which research and researcher to fund, than a corporation striving to produce a new medicine, or building material, or electrical battery, or video-screen for — dare I say it — profit, would be?
Get rid of publicly funded science and privately funded research will quickly grind to a halt.
Why? That (some of) the government-financed research is useful does not mean, disappearance of government-spending in this area would kill such research. The not spending money on "climate science" and other bogus subjects (like "womyn studies") would leave people — currently forced at gunpoint to part with it — to spend it as they see fit instead.
Or are you going to claim, the government's coercion of taxpayers into paying for something, for which they would not have paid given a choice, is somehow good?
But let's not get too far offtopic — in this thread I did not say (until now), that government-paid research is necessarily a bad thing. My point was, anyone with a conflict of interest shall not be trusted when they advocate for an option, that benefits them. Not necessarily so — a tank-maker advocating more heavy-armored brigades could also be sincere and correct — but the risk is too high.
The government's pockets are so deep and grant money comes in such a torrent that when I left my job as a scientist funded by government grant money to work a similar job in private enterprise my salary only doubled.
Presumably, this single anecdote you are offering as evidence involves a scientist working on something useful. Something, other people are willing to pay their own money for...
The denialists do not understand science, but they damn well do understand money and lawyers.
You betcha we understand. Being a "climate scientist" is also a great sort of job. One gets paid by the government, which has deep pockets, and does — unlike real scientists — does not need to come up with anything useful.
What "climate scientist" could possibly challenge the doctrine, that pays for his bread and butter? The conflict of interest these people are facing is stupendous. You would not accept a tank-manufacturer's argument, we need more tanks without a giant dollop of the proverbial salt — why do you take a climate-scientist's argument, the humanity is danger unless we continue paying him for more "research", at face value?
it's time to see you in court, denialists, not to prove or disprove the science
Is it because the scientific debate has been lost already? Whatever this particular paper may have said, you have no proof, alarmists. Your best argument is Pascal's Wager, for crying out loud — as was predicted by your laughing opponents a years earlier.
How nice to see the sudden appreciation of finer points and variety of shades of gray by the Slashdot commenters and moderators! Certainly quite an improvement over mere 2 years ago...
Free services are tax supported, paid subscriptions pay for themselves.
Nothing collectively-owned "pays for itself" in practice — this is why USSR collapsed, why Israel (mostly) abolished the idea of kibbutzes, and why Venezuela is falling apart.
And in theory it was and remains "unfair competition" — because competing with city hall is just as impossible as winning against a team, that has the referee officially playing for it.
Wifi can be installed on an ad-hok basis where a fixed line is available to get coverage. Broadband requires massive amounts of infrastructure to be put in the ground or up poles.
Yep. So WiFi is (or should be) a lot easier to roll out and maintain — and yet, it did not survive.
There is a reason why electricity, gas and water supplies are heavily regulated.
There is, but it is not, what you have in mind. The utilities have become monopolies because of the myth of natural monopoly. A myth very convenient to the government types, but a myth nonetheless.
You have no choice, there is one one line/pipe going into your home, only one company available to serve you.
Yes, and it sucks. And that little town has just ensured (or tried to), their Internet-service provision will be just as sucky for years to come.
Because free wifi across an entire city is exactly the same as paid high speed internet in small towns.
Yes, it is very similar. The exact same things were said on this very/. 10-15 years ago about the "great promise" of municipal WiFi, that the new generation of wide-eyed socialists are saying now: praising the Glorious Collective and denouncing the Greedy Corporations.
Paid or not, it is run by the government for The Greater Good[TM]. So it will become mismanaged very quickly — like all collectively-owned things.
Meanwhile, no competing service could possibly appear — because you can not "fight city hall".
But it makes the town a better place to live, so more people (and businesses) move there, increasing the number of subscribers and lowering the cost for everyone. Hey, it could happen.
Sure. And a pink elephant could materialize out of thin air. Fortunately, we don't need to guess — the City of Brotherly Love tried municipal WiFi (much cheaper than running actual cables) years ago. By 2008 the system was shut down. Earthlink actually wanted to hand it off to the city's government, but found no interest...
The decision was made by majority of representatives on the council, so it's the _will_ _of_ _the_ _people_
So, what else will you meekly accept as the majority's will? 100% taxation for anybody, whose Slashdot username begins with "Cyber"? People of certain skin color not allowed to own a computer?
See, certain things aren't — nor should be — up to the majority...
But, hey, why look for "extreme" and artificial examples — how about the decision to ban town governments from competing with businesses — just made by the State's government, itself a democratically elected body? If you don't like then feel free to relocate or lobby your State's Assembly.
So if I decline to pay now and then wait 5 years until the infrastructure is built and paid for by the first subscribers then should I pay the whole share or just the connection fee?
I don't see, how this question — and the possible answers — depend on who built the network in the first place.
Define "their"... The decision to spend was made by the town's government — which collects money at gunpoint from the residents. The money, of course, was the residents'.
Yes, residents elect the government to do things, which nobody else can do: policing and justice. Maybe, maintaining roads. Expanding that mandate into Internet-service provision ought to be illegal.
The decision to employ public funds to this end was made by the people [...] ISPs should be dismantled as they're a threat to democracy.
If the majority can decide to force me at gunpoint to pay for something I did not want, then the "democracy" must be dismantled as not a mere threat, but actual impediment to freedom.
That's... let's see here... roughly $50 per month for 20 years.
So, you have no problem with the town you live in forcing you at gunpoint (which is how taxes are collected) to pay extra $50 for 20 years, because some busybodies think, you must have a faster Internet connection? They know better than you do, what's good for you, right?
All the evidence I can find suggests that the municipal systems are better for the community than the commercial operators.
For somebody making such a claim, you offer surprisingly few citations. Zero to be precise.
I cant find any suggestions that people living in areas where the electricity is provided by a municipal monopoly are unhappy
I certainly am unhappy with our electricity-provider — our wires hang on the poles, which makes them vulnerable to even light snow and wind. We routinely lose power for a few minutes here, which is just insane — back in USSR (for all its other faults) I don't remember such nonsense like ever. Cables must be buried underground, but, facing no competition the local utility is not in any hurry to do that.
And there is nothing to suggest that municipal broadband is going to be anywhere near as crap as the current offerings.
You really want to go into particulars, huh? Ok, first question is, how long after the first mommy makes a complaint, will the municipal network allow access to porno-sites and bomb-making material — and just who will be maintaining the black list of disallowed sites? Second question: how much will the maintenance cost? Third question: will the technical support be any better than those professionals working for Comcasts et al. — what do the good folks in that know, that Comcast does not about troubleshooting Internet connectivity? Fourth question: how will the network deal with hijacked computers connected to it? Should I go on?
No one's freedom is impeded by the prohibition for governments to compete with private interests. What we are talking about is not a bunch of people getting together to run cables. No — the talk is of coercing — at gun point (as all taxes are collected) — all of the town's residents (whether they want it or not) to pay for some Common Good[TM]. And that shall not be allowed to stand — not in a country, that calls itself free.
Slashdot Mirror
You are not required to buy a (new) car either.
The good Senator can begin by introducing legislation, that bans from public roads any and all electronic payment systems, that do not offer the anonymous option.
One can buy a prepaid cell-phone anonymously, but not a prepaid "EZ-Pass", for some reason. One can add money to a payment card (such as phone- or tranist- one), but can not simply add value (cash) to an "EZ-Pass" account. Heck, you can't even take your EZ-Pass with you from one car to another — it is registered to a particular license-plate (the concept, that itself is a gross violation of privacy, but that's another story).
And, unlike car-makers, EZ-Pass and the like systems have government-backed monopoly — because our overlords haven't though about allowing multiple companies to compete in toll-collection.
Yeah? Who is the Canada's Head of State?
"Actual" and "pretty much" are the evasive loopholes, through which a truck can be driven.
Yes, the British have been nice enough of late, they let colonies run their own affairs. But you are still the Crown's subjects, which is what I said. Calling me names will not change it.
Of course, it does not — they (along with Australia and a few others) are ruled by the British Crown. They have something, that's called "Constitution of Canada" — except it is the other way around. Whereas American Constitution was the supreme law first, and other laws were written to cover areas not covered by the document and tested not to violate it, Canada's imitation is "an amalgamation of codified acts and uncodified traditions [emphasis mine -mi] and conventions".
The worst difference, in my opinion, is that Canadian "Constitution" is easier to amend, than American, and is thus more prone to temporary opinion-swings.
False. What William Baric claimed was, I quote: "Without government funded scientists, you'd still live like an Amish." And then he suspected me of actually wanting that.
My list of scientists, engineers and inventors reminded the audience about their decidedly non-Amish inventions. Inventions, which happened without government funding. William Baric got planed and no amount of creative reinterpreting of his earlier words will help that.
Irrelevant — because none of that earlier research was paid for by taxpayers either.
Yes, sure, I always suspected Linux kernel had something to do with quantum mechanics — certain things about it just could not be explained by anything else. Right...
Yes, whatever the current government may like to hear, the people paid to do foo can be relied upon to determine, more foo is needed.
Are we to believe, government officials without any skin in the game are better at choosing, which research and researcher to fund, than a corporation striving to produce a new medicine, or building material, or electrical battery, or video-screen for — dare I say it — profit, would be?
Why? That (some of) the government-financed research is useful does not mean, disappearance of government-spending in this area would kill such research. The not spending money on "climate science" and other bogus subjects (like "womyn studies") would leave people — currently forced at gunpoint to part with it — to spend it as they see fit instead.
Or are you going to claim, the government's coercion of taxpayers into paying for something, for which they would not have paid given a choice, is somehow good?
But let's not get too far offtopic — in this thread I did not say (until now), that government-paid research is necessarily a bad thing. My point was, anyone with a conflict of interest shall not be trusted when they advocate for an option, that benefits them. Not necessarily so — a tank-maker advocating more heavy-armored brigades could also be sincere and correct — but the risk is too high.
Boy, is not that a music to the Big Government's ears — including those inside your cellphone!
So, Edison and Tesla were funded by the government? Was Henry Ford? Wright brothers? Linus Torvalds?
People paying their own money for what they want are the arbiters.
Darling, this is not about me. Ad hominem arguments are those of a loser. But whatever floats your boat.
The government's pockets are so deep and grant money comes in such a torrent that when I left my job as a scientist funded by government grant money to work a similar job in private enterprise my salary only doubled.
Presumably, this single anecdote you are offering as evidence involves a scientist working on something useful. Something, other people are willing to pay their own money for...
Congratulations.
You betcha we understand. Being a "climate scientist" is also a great sort of job. One gets paid by the government, which has deep pockets, and does — unlike real scientists — does not need to come up with anything useful.
What "climate scientist" could possibly challenge the doctrine, that pays for his bread and butter? The conflict of interest these people are facing is stupendous. You would not accept a tank-manufacturer's argument, we need more tanks without a giant dollop of the proverbial salt — why do you take a climate-scientist's argument, the humanity is danger unless we continue paying him for more "research", at face value?
Is it because the scientific debate has been lost already? Whatever this particular paper may have said, you have no proof, alarmists. Your best argument is Pascal's Wager, for crying out loud — as was predicted by your laughing opponents a years earlier.
This can be said about every convict with a long sentence, can it not?
Because, What's good for Google is good for the country! .
How nice to see the sudden appreciation of finer points and variety of shades of gray by the Slashdot commenters and moderators! Certainly quite an improvement over mere 2 years ago...
So, UEFI is no longer a trick by the evil monopoly to lock computer-owners in and forever prevent them from running free software, but a good thing helping ensure safety of the boot process?
Nothing collectively-owned "pays for itself" in practice — this is why USSR collapsed, why Israel (mostly) abolished the idea of kibbutzes, and why Venezuela is falling apart.
And in theory it was and remains "unfair competition" — because competing with city hall is just as impossible as winning against a team, that has the referee officially playing for it.
Yep. So WiFi is (or should be) a lot easier to roll out and maintain — and yet, it did not survive.
There is, but it is not, what you have in mind. The utilities have become monopolies because of the myth of natural monopoly. A myth very convenient to the government types, but a myth nonetheless.
Yes, and it sucks. And that little town has just ensured (or tried to), their Internet-service provision will be just as sucky for years to come.
Yes, it is very similar. The exact same things were said on this very /. 10-15 years ago about the "great promise" of municipal WiFi, that the new generation of wide-eyed socialists are saying now: praising the Glorious Collective and denouncing the Greedy Corporations.
Paid or not, it is run by the government for The Greater Good[TM]. So it will become mismanaged very quickly — like all collectively-owned things.
Meanwhile, no competing service could possibly appear — because you can not "fight city hall".
Sure. And a pink elephant could materialize out of thin air. Fortunately, we don't need to guess — the City of Brotherly Love tried municipal WiFi (much cheaper than running actual cables) years ago. By 2008 the system was shut down. Earthlink actually wanted to hand it off to the city's government, but found no interest...
Seattle's municipal WiFi went dark in 2012. Other examples abound.
Yes, not only is government competing with private sector illegal — it is also a bad idea.
So, what else will you meekly accept as the majority's will? 100% taxation for anybody, whose Slashdot username begins with "Cyber"? People of certain skin color not allowed to own a computer? See, certain things aren't — nor should be — up to the majority...
But, hey, why look for "extreme" and artificial examples — how about the decision to ban town governments from competing with businesses — just made by the State's government, itself a democratically elected body? If you don't like then feel free to relocate or lobby your State's Assembly.
I don't see, how this question — and the possible answers — depend on who built the network in the first place.
Define "their"... The decision to spend was made by the town's government — which collects money at gunpoint from the residents. The money, of course, was the residents'.
Yes, residents elect the government to do things, which nobody else can do: policing and justice. Maybe, maintaining roads. Expanding that mandate into Internet-service provision ought to be illegal.
If the majority can decide to force me at gunpoint to pay for something I did not want, then the "democracy" must be dismantled as not a mere threat, but actual impediment to freedom.
So, you have no problem with the town you live in forcing you at gunpoint (which is how taxes are collected) to pay extra $50 for 20 years, because some busybodies think, you must have a faster Internet connection? They know better than you do, what's good for you, right?
For somebody making such a claim, you offer surprisingly few citations. Zero to be precise.
I certainly am unhappy with our electricity-provider — our wires hang on the poles, which makes them vulnerable to even light snow and wind. We routinely lose power for a few minutes here, which is just insane — back in USSR (for all its other faults) I don't remember such nonsense like ever. Cables must be buried underground, but, facing no competition the local utility is not in any hurry to do that.
You really want to go into particulars, huh? Ok, first question is, how long after the first mommy makes a complaint, will the municipal network allow access to porno-sites and bomb-making material — and just who will be maintaining the black list of disallowed sites? Second question: how much will the maintenance cost? Third question: will the technical support be any better than those professionals working for Comcasts et al. — what do the good folks in that know, that Comcast does not about troubleshooting Internet connectivity? Fourth question: how will the network deal with hijacked computers connected to it? Should I go on?
Yes, just like the rest of us.
No one's freedom is impeded by the prohibition for governments to compete with private interests. What we are talking about is not a bunch of people getting together to run cables. No — the talk is of coercing — at gun point (as all taxes are collected) — all of the town's residents (whether they want it or not) to pay for some Common Good[TM]. And that shall not be allowed to stand — not in a country, that calls itself free.