What I don't get is that the US was founded upon the principles of everyone being equal and entitled to some kind of due process... Except when it comes to private business
Due process only applies to the government, because the government has special powers. The relationship between you and a business is voluntary on both sides.
I've never been able to figure out how they reconcile such a disconnect where oppression from governments is the single greatest evil, but the same kind of oppression from private business is not only perfectly acceptable, it's a desirable outcome.
Your distinction between you and a business is arbitrary. It's simply two private parties engaging in voluntary transactions. You have no more right to demand continued employment than a barber or restaurant has a right to demand you come back as a customer.
Yes, people choose not to join private sector unions. They haven't been "destroyed", they have become irrelevant.
other than police and sometimes fire unions
Public sector "unions" aren't unions at all, they are a big special interest group corrupting our political system. They should be destroyed, but unfortunately no politician dares.
Why would an employer want to fire you for "race, age, gender" if you're otherwise doing a good job? Do you seriously think an employer will first hire you and then a few months later decide "oh, he's a good employee, but his skin is too dark, so I'm going to fire him"?
In practice it usually works the other way around: employers are reluctant to fire people even if they have good reason to because they are afraid that they will be sued for discrimination. Usually, they just try to negotiate a severance package.
Nevertheless, the problem Lederman wrote about is very real and very painful to those of us who find that our time, attention and energy are now consumed by raising funds rather than teaching and doing research
As opposed to what? The 18th century, where you simply had to be independently wealthy? WWII, where biology professors would first do experiments on chicken and then eat them? The late 20th century, where it was all faculty politics? There were brief periods where things may have been easy, but they never lasted.
Doing science is probably easier today than at any time in human history: you can take a part time job and do science the rest of the time. The part time job could be part time teaching. If you need money for equipment, there is tons more money from foundations and the private sector than at any time in history. Be happy about it.
It's really easy to type on the internet on your transistor-based computational thing with the flashing blue LEDs and pass judgement on lazy academics who are of no use to society, isn't it?
Well, the transistor was developed by employees at Bell Labs, and the IC at Texas Instruments (and improved at Fairchild). So I'm not sure what "academics" you are referring to.
If there was a geniune shortage, you'd see sharp increases in salary levels.
That's not how economics works. Companies only hire someone if they get a bigger return than they pay. If companies can't get engineers at a price that makes sense, they don't pay more, they simply go out of (that) business altogether and invest in something more profitable.
Form an evil syndicate and take over the world, of course.
That's what they are doing. It's a particularly popular pastime for frustrated graduates of social science, psychology, women's studies, and political science departments. Where do you think all that political b.s. is coming from?
Well, if you don't care about money, then you can already pay for a business line with QoS guarantees to all providers. Anybody who wants a "neutral" connection can get it today
Net neutrality is, in fact, only about money: it's about giving everybody high end QoS guarantees whether they want it or not. And the costs of those guarantees will be distributed over all users, whether they want those guarantees or not.
And it's easy to see who likes it and who hates it and why. Cable companies hate it because they end up having to raise prices, which will probably decrease demand and hurt profit. Companies like Netflix love it because it means everybody has already sunk the cost for high QoS Internet service, so the extra they need to pay for a Netflix subscription gets smaller.
Look, I grant that you need regulation of these airwaves. I however put to you that they do not need to be managed federally and really they might not even need to be managed at the state level but rather given to the counties to manage
Oh, I'm all for it. In fact, I think we should free up 1000+ channels for WiFi and WiMax and increase power so that people can get 10x the range on WiFi and WiMax. A lot of neat applications would become possible. But it wouldn't change anything about competition in the mobile sector.
Even in competitive sectors, firm size distribution follows roughly a power law. For mobile, that means that if you have 4-5 carriers, the smallest ones are going to have around 5% market share or less. In other sectors, small companies can specialize, but in mobile, all they can do is offer worse service with worse coverage, which is why they simply get acquired.
If I tried to start a cell phone company in the middle of Alaska 500 miles away from anyone in some remote village with no cellphone service what so ever... the FCC would stop me because I don't own the bandwidth
You need to license the spectrum from someone, just like everybody else. After all, other people might want to compete with you.
Now tell me why cell spectrum should be sold at the federal level when the range of a cell tower is so very short?
Oh, it probably shouldn't. In fact, the federal government should get out of a lot of businesses. But stupid as federal involvement in a lot of areas is, in most cases, the federal government doesn't do a lot different from what state and local governments do.
Are you with me or are you determined to salvage an argument you've lost so ludicrously that it has started to become funny?
What I argued for originally was roughly the same as you: less federal regulation of spectrum, forcing local and state communities not to interfere with competition, and less regulatory uncertainty. Those are good things.
Where you are wrong is in believing that it will make a significant difference. No matter how easy you make competition, you simply won't get a lot more cell phone companies, cable companies, or Internet providers because those are mature industries that simply aren't worth investing in. The current anti-competitive practices, annoying as they may be, raise prices only by such a small amount that it isn't worth anybody's time to fix it, either politically or through competition. The major problem with MNO's, poor customer service and bad plans, is being addressed by MVNO's. And even highly competitive industries often only have one or two major players because that's all you need for a competitive market.
This twins study shows that general intelligence and academic achievement are affected by many different "aptitudes", not just "smart." Taken together with the Nature commentary, suggests that intelligence is just a part, maybe even a small part, of achievement.
When people talk about "intelligence" in a scientific context, they generally talk about the "g factor", the correlation between many different aptitudes. That correlation is a real, measurable phenomenon; it is strong, heritable, and a strong determinant of achievement. (The study you refer to is, incidentally, not a twin study.)
If only this could seep into the general consciousness of the masses, then we might not have so many students think they cannot do something because they are not "smart enough."
Few scientists believe that IQ genes are like adding transistors to a CPU. Much of the genetic basis of IQ is probably like the genetic basis of obesity: rooted in the brain's reward system. You get a high BMI if you enjoy eating, and you get a high IQ if you enjoy thinking. And the reward system is a b*tch to deal with because it's nearly impossible to override. For students to realize that their brains are in theory capable of high achievement doesn't make them smart, anymore than realizing that you could be thin by eating less makes you thin.
Having said that, environment can and does limit intelligence, and there is a lot of untapped potential there. But saying that we can raise everybody's IQ by ten points isn't the same as saying that we can make everybody an Einstein.
It has certainly proved difficult to construct a practical test that doesn't depend on things like cultural context etc.
Early IQ tests involved knowledge about a specific culture, but those questions have been eliminated in most tests and they are easy to spot.
Let's take something less contentious. Let's say we want to test whether people are good lugers, so you put them on a sled and measure their times. Now, I may have a kick ass genetic potential for luging, but if I've never done it before because I grew up in a culture where people don't value luging, I'm not going to be very good at it. Objectively, my luge performance is low. It's the same with IQ.
IQ tests test actual IQ, not potential IQ. Actual IQ depends on your culture and how you were raised. And those interact in non-linear ways. Primarily, your genetic potential limits how high your actual IQ can go: environment can turn an Einstein into a moron, but it can't turn every moron into an Einstein.
There are plenty of low-cost unlocked smartphones. For about $50, you can get a new Android phone with similar specs and GPS, and you get a heck of a lot more software for it.
This is a pointless discussion. You are using circular logic and don't realize it.
You said it yourself:
I don't understand why a person couldn't start a small cell phone company that only provides service in a small area and then offers out of network service that they contract through either a larger association or some big company.
I.e., you see no obstacles for starting a cell phone company. It's entirely possible. But people choose not to because it's not worth their while. The fact that they consistently choose not to across dozens of jurisdictions in the world shows you that this isn't some weird limitation of the US. There is nothing "circular" about observing this.
No, you are simply a spoiled privileged techie who thinks that the world owes him whatever he desires if he only snaps his fingers. And if you don't get it, you talk of "market failures" and "corruption" and introduce all sorts of legislation to make the rest of the country (mostly people less well off than you) pay for it.
So if you do propose why something cannot be done please specify why it actually cannot be done.
I don't "propose" anything. Lots of things "can" be done. But apparently, among 300 million Americans, everybody has decided that there are better things to do with their time and their money. I certainly wouldn't waste my time and money on such a boring business.
If you so strongly believe that society needs another mobile operator and that it can be profitable, why don't you found one?
As to why we only have 3 wireless carriers... that has more to do with FCC regulations on spectrum then anything else.
Most countries have 1-3 wireless carriers; more simply doesn't make sense, no matter how much spectrum is available.
People want this to stop. They just don't know why it is happening.
Most people just don't care. This whole discussion is a tempest in a teapot, it's privileged, wealthy geeks whining and complaining that they don't get subsidies for HD content delivery. And that's also why our elected representatives can safely ignore all the comments to the FCC.
What we need is ISPs who aren't related with content owners, and who sell connectivity as their main business.
"Need" in what sense? What problem are you actually trying to fix? Internet access in the US is widespread and pretty cheap.
Wireless is not a panacea.
No, but it is more than good enough for basic Internet access and that's where the job of government ends.
Even if there were a problem with lack of competitiveness (there isn't), It would not be the job of government to ensure non-monopolistic practices in luxury goods, and that's what most of what we are talking about here, high resolution online video delivery, is.
I stated this was part of the problem. Please get it right.
Yet, your solution is more of the same. You simply don't realize that you are advocating exactly what you claim to be against.
As opposed to the current horribly inefficient monopoly that also controls who or what I can connect to to promote their own profits?
I'm sorry, but you obviously don't understand what a "monopoly" is.
Municipal owned cables can have many pros, not the least that they're not being milked for every last red cent of profit.
Municipal utilities are subject to lobbying by public sector unions, local businesses, and all sorts of other special interests. They end up being far more expensive than the modest profit margin cable companies have.
What I said was that there is a lot of regulation that causes the problem and that the republicans AND democrats could come together to get a mutually desirable result by focusing on increasing competition in the ISP market rather then simply forbidding ISPs from doing what is in their interest.
Well, they could open up spectrum, prohibit towns and cities from creating monopolies, and give companies more freedom to use public right-of-ways. For example, cities should not be allowed to discriminate against companies wanting to put in new cables, but right now they are doing exactly that; for example, Google can't just go in and put in fiber, they need to effectively bribe the cities and comply with arbitrary demands to get permission. But Congress isn't going to pass such regulations because existing companies and cities/towns are going to lobby against it.
Net neutrality legislation and preventing mergers, on the other hand, are not going to increase competition.
If every neighborhood had an option of six or so IPs with independent cable
And why would companies be investing in creating that infrastructure? People only spend money on something they can expect a reasonable return on.
then it would be almost impossible for any of them to price gauge.
If cable and Internet companies were "price gouging", they'd be making huge profits. If that were true, where are those profits going? They are publicly traded companies, they report their financials. Either they'd be paying huge dividends or their stocks would be rising quickly. But they do neither. They are a decent investment, nothing more. Furthermore, if they were such wonderful companies, the money would flow back to stock holders anyway and you could benefit from it like everybody else by buying their stock.
Normally, you get 1-3 wired and 1-3 wireless companies in any given market; people aren't going to invest in more because there is no point. And markets like that are fairly efficient to begin with.
They can deliver you 10 MB/s even while they throttle the connection between you and Netflix to 2 MB/s or less.
Companies don't provide bandwidth guarantees to residential customers at all. And both users and content providers have very different requirements. If I want to use my connection mainly for web browsing and the occasional Ubuntu download, I may want fast burst speed, but I don't want to pay for the infrastructure necessary for HD Netflix streaming, which is much more expensive.
This also makes it essentially impossible to determine fraud (aside from the fact that your contract with your ISP does not - can not - guarantee you a bandwidth to any particular service.
There are many contracts that do make bandwidth guarantees of various sorts. But they are more expensive. "Net neutrality" is generally saying that everybody should be forced to buy such contracts. That's great if you're a high volume video user or provider because you get subsidized. It's not so good for people like me who simply want a low quality connection that isn't good enough for Netflix but is really cheap.
Right.... cause deregulation worked soooo well for the banking and mortgage industries and the economy... oh, wait...
Well, regulation certainly didn't work: Obama added tons of regulation and engaged in massive crony capitalism as part of that. And the economy has been in the toilet ever since.
Deregulation of the telecoms industry, however, worked very well, both in Europe and the US. It's why we have a flourishing Internet at all.
Industries need a certain amount of regulation to keep them somewhat honest.
So? I didn't say we should abolish every single regulation. Maybe you're confused about the meaning of the term "deregulation"? It doesn't mean abolish all regulations, it means reducing regulation.
agree that regulations and laws have been passed that benefit specific companies but the the way to fix it is to roll back regulations to the basic stuff and get ride of all of the rules that add barriers to entry.
I.e. deregulation.
However, the biggest barrier to entry in the ISP/cable space is fair access to the infrastructure.
And stopping the Comcast merger is going to accomplish that... how? Net neutrality is related to that... how?
It means you can't prioritize Company A's traffic over Company B's traffic because Company B didn't pay the ransom. It especially means you can't prioritize your own content over everyone elses to stifle competition.
And why not? Companies A and B already pay peering costs bases on volume. If Company A needs QoS guarantees and company B does not, why is it good to force company B to pay for QoS guarantees it doesn't need?
so where is the systematic, reliable evidence that not being neutral in the way you treat traffic is somehow better for the future of the Internet?
You present this as if net neutrality was a simple policy choice. But what does that even mean? Does net neutrality mean that every connection has the same latency and bandwidth guarantees as every other? Why is that a good thing? What do you even mean by net neutrality?
money grubbing corporations looking to maximize profit by double dipping
Actually, those "money grubbing corporations" are likely just going to use "net neutrality" regulation to enrich themselves, because what feeds the flames of regulatory capture is new regulations.
Besides, most of those "money grubbing corporations" are publicly traded anyway, so if you think they are such a good deal, you can just buy your own shares.
Slashdot Mirror
Your comment mostly shows that you're an arrogant prick, thinking that a perfectly good and well-paid profession amounts to "servitude".
Due process only applies to the government, because the government has special powers. The relationship between you and a business is voluntary on both sides.
Your distinction between you and a business is arbitrary. It's simply two private parties engaging in voluntary transactions. You have no more right to demand continued employment than a barber or restaurant has a right to demand you come back as a customer.
Yes, people choose not to join private sector unions. They haven't been "destroyed", they have become irrelevant.
Public sector "unions" aren't unions at all, they are a big special interest group corrupting our political system. They should be destroyed, but unfortunately no politician dares.
Why would an employer want to fire you for "race, age, gender" if you're otherwise doing a good job? Do you seriously think an employer will first hire you and then a few months later decide "oh, he's a good employee, but his skin is too dark, so I'm going to fire him"?
In practice it usually works the other way around: employers are reluctant to fire people even if they have good reason to because they are afraid that they will be sued for discrimination. Usually, they just try to negotiate a severance package.
As opposed to what? The 18th century, where you simply had to be independently wealthy? WWII, where biology professors would first do experiments on chicken and then eat them? The late 20th century, where it was all faculty politics? There were brief periods where things may have been easy, but they never lasted.
Doing science is probably easier today than at any time in human history: you can take a part time job and do science the rest of the time. The part time job could be part time teaching. If you need money for equipment, there is tons more money from foundations and the private sector than at any time in history. Be happy about it.
But they can't force you to become a doctoral student; that's ultimately a decision everybody makes for themselves and has to live with.
Presumably, intelligent adults ought to be capable of making that decision, and they ought to live with the consequences.
Well, the transistor was developed by employees at Bell Labs, and the IC at Texas Instruments (and improved at Fairchild). So I'm not sure what "academics" you are referring to.
That's not how economics works. Companies only hire someone if they get a bigger return than they pay. If companies can't get engineers at a price that makes sense, they don't pay more, they simply go out of (that) business altogether and invest in something more profitable.
That's what they are doing. It's a particularly popular pastime for frustrated graduates of social science, psychology, women's studies, and political science departments. Where do you think all that political b.s. is coming from?
Well, if you don't care about money, then you can already pay for a business line with QoS guarantees to all providers. Anybody who wants a "neutral" connection can get it today
Net neutrality is, in fact, only about money: it's about giving everybody high end QoS guarantees whether they want it or not. And the costs of those guarantees will be distributed over all users, whether they want those guarantees or not.
And it's easy to see who likes it and who hates it and why. Cable companies hate it because they end up having to raise prices, which will probably decrease demand and hurt profit. Companies like Netflix love it because it means everybody has already sunk the cost for high QoS Internet service, so the extra they need to pay for a Netflix subscription gets smaller.
Oh, I'm all for it. In fact, I think we should free up 1000+ channels for WiFi and WiMax and increase power so that people can get 10x the range on WiFi and WiMax. A lot of neat applications would become possible. But it wouldn't change anything about competition in the mobile sector.
Even in competitive sectors, firm size distribution follows roughly a power law. For mobile, that means that if you have 4-5 carriers, the smallest ones are going to have around 5% market share or less. In other sectors, small companies can specialize, but in mobile, all they can do is offer worse service with worse coverage, which is why they simply get acquired.
You need to license the spectrum from someone, just like everybody else. After all, other people might want to compete with you.
Oh, it probably shouldn't. In fact, the federal government should get out of a lot of businesses. But stupid as federal involvement in a lot of areas is, in most cases, the federal government doesn't do a lot different from what state and local governments do.
What I argued for originally was roughly the same as you: less federal regulation of spectrum, forcing local and state communities not to interfere with competition, and less regulatory uncertainty. Those are good things.
Where you are wrong is in believing that it will make a significant difference. No matter how easy you make competition, you simply won't get a lot more cell phone companies, cable companies, or Internet providers because those are mature industries that simply aren't worth investing in. The current anti-competitive practices, annoying as they may be, raise prices only by such a small amount that it isn't worth anybody's time to fix it, either politically or through competition. The major problem with MNO's, poor customer service and bad plans, is being addressed by MVNO's. And even highly competitive industries often only have one or two major players because that's all you need for a competitive market.
When people talk about "intelligence" in a scientific context, they generally talk about the "g factor", the correlation between many different aptitudes. That correlation is a real, measurable phenomenon; it is strong, heritable, and a strong determinant of achievement. (The study you refer to is, incidentally, not a twin study.)
Few scientists believe that IQ genes are like adding transistors to a CPU. Much of the genetic basis of IQ is probably like the genetic basis of obesity: rooted in the brain's reward system. You get a high BMI if you enjoy eating, and you get a high IQ if you enjoy thinking. And the reward system is a b*tch to deal with because it's nearly impossible to override. For students to realize that their brains are in theory capable of high achievement doesn't make them smart, anymore than realizing that you could be thin by eating less makes you thin.
Having said that, environment can and does limit intelligence, and there is a lot of untapped potential there. But saying that we can raise everybody's IQ by ten points isn't the same as saying that we can make everybody an Einstein.
Early IQ tests involved knowledge about a specific culture, but those questions have been eliminated in most tests and they are easy to spot.
Let's take something less contentious. Let's say we want to test whether people are good lugers, so you put them on a sled and measure their times. Now, I may have a kick ass genetic potential for luging, but if I've never done it before because I grew up in a culture where people don't value luging, I'm not going to be very good at it. Objectively, my luge performance is low. It's the same with IQ.
IQ tests test actual IQ, not potential IQ. Actual IQ depends on your culture and how you were raised. And those interact in non-linear ways. Primarily, your genetic potential limits how high your actual IQ can go: environment can turn an Einstein into a moron, but it can't turn every moron into an Einstein.
There are plenty of low-cost unlocked smartphones. For about $50, you can get a new Android phone with similar specs and GPS, and you get a heck of a lot more software for it.
You said it yourself:
I.e., you see no obstacles for starting a cell phone company. It's entirely possible. But people choose not to because it's not worth their while. The fact that they consistently choose not to across dozens of jurisdictions in the world shows you that this isn't some weird limitation of the US. There is nothing "circular" about observing this.
No, you are simply a spoiled privileged techie who thinks that the world owes him whatever he desires if he only snaps his fingers. And if you don't get it, you talk of "market failures" and "corruption" and introduce all sorts of legislation to make the rest of the country (mostly people less well off than you) pay for it.
It's not a postulate, it's an observation. And I didn't say it was "the max", I said it was common.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...
I don't "propose" anything. Lots of things "can" be done. But apparently, among 300 million Americans, everybody has decided that there are better things to do with their time and their money. I certainly wouldn't waste my time and money on such a boring business.
If you so strongly believe that society needs another mobile operator and that it can be profitable, why don't you found one?
Most countries have 1-3 wireless carriers; more simply doesn't make sense, no matter how much spectrum is available.
Most people just don't care. This whole discussion is a tempest in a teapot, it's privileged, wealthy geeks whining and complaining that they don't get subsidies for HD content delivery. And that's also why our elected representatives can safely ignore all the comments to the FCC.
"Need" in what sense? What problem are you actually trying to fix? Internet access in the US is widespread and pretty cheap.
No, but it is more than good enough for basic Internet access and that's where the job of government ends.
Even if there were a problem with lack of competitiveness (there isn't), It would not be the job of government to ensure non-monopolistic practices in luxury goods, and that's what most of what we are talking about here, high resolution online video delivery, is.
Yet, your solution is more of the same. You simply don't realize that you are advocating exactly what you claim to be against.
I'm sorry, but you obviously don't understand what a "monopoly" is.
Municipal utilities are subject to lobbying by public sector unions, local businesses, and all sorts of other special interests. They end up being far more expensive than the modest profit margin cable companies have.
Well, they could open up spectrum, prohibit towns and cities from creating monopolies, and give companies more freedom to use public right-of-ways. For example, cities should not be allowed to discriminate against companies wanting to put in new cables, but right now they are doing exactly that; for example, Google can't just go in and put in fiber, they need to effectively bribe the cities and comply with arbitrary demands to get permission. But Congress isn't going to pass such regulations because existing companies and cities/towns are going to lobby against it.
Net neutrality legislation and preventing mergers, on the other hand, are not going to increase competition.
And why would companies be investing in creating that infrastructure? People only spend money on something they can expect a reasonable return on.
If cable and Internet companies were "price gouging", they'd be making huge profits. If that were true, where are those profits going? They are publicly traded companies, they report their financials. Either they'd be paying huge dividends or their stocks would be rising quickly. But they do neither. They are a decent investment, nothing more. Furthermore, if they were such wonderful companies, the money would flow back to stock holders anyway and you could benefit from it like everybody else by buying their stock.
Normally, you get 1-3 wired and 1-3 wireless companies in any given market; people aren't going to invest in more because there is no point. And markets like that are fairly efficient to begin with.
Companies don't provide bandwidth guarantees to residential customers at all. And both users and content providers have very different requirements. If I want to use my connection mainly for web browsing and the occasional Ubuntu download, I may want fast burst speed, but I don't want to pay for the infrastructure necessary for HD Netflix streaming, which is much more expensive.
There are many contracts that do make bandwidth guarantees of various sorts. But they are more expensive. "Net neutrality" is generally saying that everybody should be forced to buy such contracts. That's great if you're a high volume video user or provider because you get subsidized. It's not so good for people like me who simply want a low quality connection that isn't good enough for Netflix but is really cheap.
Well, regulation certainly didn't work: Obama added tons of regulation and engaged in massive crony capitalism as part of that. And the economy has been in the toilet ever since.
Deregulation of the telecoms industry, however, worked very well, both in Europe and the US. It's why we have a flourishing Internet at all.
So? I didn't say we should abolish every single regulation. Maybe you're confused about the meaning of the term "deregulation"? It doesn't mean abolish all regulations, it means reducing regulation.
I.e. deregulation.
And stopping the Comcast merger is going to accomplish that... how? Net neutrality is related to that... how?
And why not? Companies A and B already pay peering costs bases on volume. If Company A needs QoS guarantees and company B does not, why is it good to force company B to pay for QoS guarantees it doesn't need?
You present this as if net neutrality was a simple policy choice. But what does that even mean? Does net neutrality mean that every connection has the same latency and bandwidth guarantees as every other? Why is that a good thing? What do you even mean by net neutrality?
Actually, those "money grubbing corporations" are likely just going to use "net neutrality" regulation to enrich themselves, because what feeds the flames of regulatory capture is new regulations.
Besides, most of those "money grubbing corporations" are publicly traded anyway, so if you think they are such a good deal, you can just buy your own shares.