Luckily, in the US there is still at least some small notion that people should deal with one another voluntarily to solve problems creatively. When the government substitutes its will for the will of the individual then you are either on the road to, or have arrived at, serfdom.
I thought the justification to raise taxes was that your money is not really yours and that the government can do whatever it wants (the only behavioral restriction being fear of not being re-elected.)
[...] we continue to blindly provide an input (carbon) into an extremely dangerous system (climate). All of the knowledge we have says that there is an extremely high probability that doing so will result in extreme shifts and war, famine, drought, etc
Your language is the Environmentalist equivalent of the Christian Armageddon. What is obvious about your statement is the irrational fear you convey to try and scare people into agreeing with your point of view.
Actually our senses are perfectly accurate, they do not distort anything. It is our interpretation of our senses that may be inaccurate. The fact that a pencil bends in water is not a failure of our senses - it is our senses working according to the laws of physics. How we interpret "pencil bending" may or may not be correct.
Governments haven't had a "hands off" approach to U.S. banks since before World War I. Where have you been?
Goverments have a monopoly on the use of physical force, therefore the use of that force needs to be tightly controlled (as in the U.S. Constitution) to prevent tyranny.
The kind of "majority" rule you advocate is nothing more than mob rule, in which the individual (you) mean nothing - including whatever opinions/hopes/dreams you splatter over Slashdot.
What, exactly, is stopping YOU from creating a company to provide the better service you desire? Do you really believe that because you simply want something that it should be simply given to you?
There is no reason why taxpayers should subsidize rural mail - if, in fact it is so truly unprofitable as you claim.
People should pay for the services they use, and only the services they use. I shouldn't pay for rural mail, and rural folk shouldn't pay for my city conveniences.
Let me guess - you work for the postal service? on the government dole?
There is no reason to believe that government mail should be cheaper than a free, private company delivering mail.
Moreover, the government has a coercive monopoly on the mail. We are all forced, at the point of a gun, to cooperate. (See what the policeman is wearing when he comes to question your private mail service.)
Government control over business is not "competition", it is coercion - because you are forced to support it at the point of a gun (Try not paying taxes and see what the policeman is wearing when he shows up at your door).
And by the way - A democracy is unlimited majority rule, which is not our system of government. We are a constitutionally limited republic - the power of the government is restricted by the constitution, which upholds the rights of the individual against others.
I'm opposed to the idea of any kind of trust ranking. It promotes intellectual laziness
I consider it a much bigger problem that how you arrive at truth is not universally accepted. If perception->conception->reason were universally accepted, it might work. But when we are surrounded by irrationality such as religion and various post-modern movements this is doomed to intellectual warfare (which maybe would be a good thing after all)
If you paid the same amount for data transfer on your internet connection you would be shitting blood and blowing steam out of your ears
Yeah, and if you paid the same amount for data transfer by tatooing messages to fat people and having them unicycle across the country, you would be doing cartwheels on rose petals and whistling zippity-doo-dah out your pee-hole.
The PSTN is not the same thing as the internet, so you shouldn't be comparing them as if they were.
if Capitalism was working as "designed"...You'd either be passed out from sheer exhaustion
You've got it backwards - life before Capitalism was filled with exhausting, back-breaking labor. And people died young. And you couldn't advance your condition socially.
that's what's wrong with the world today. Look at the sub-prime mortgage crisis for example, how many lenders knew they were handing out bad debt?
Lenders handing out "bad debt" had nothing to due with having "no moral conscience". It had everything to do with the government telling lenders things like "we will buy you junk debt" (Fannie/Freddie) and "if you fail we will bail you out".
That is how the government manipulated the industry to try and make everyone a homeowner (no matter how poor or undeserving an individual was)
do what smart businesses have done all throughout history: increase supply to satisfy demand
There is no end to the demand of the 5%. Instead of reduced-quality video, they'll replace their whole library with full high-def.
It is not the job of companies to satisfy your utopian ideas of bandwidth nirvana. They need to make money, and I don't believe they can ever do that by trying to quench the unquenchable 5%.
Should I be allowed to shoot any dog that poos on my yard
Come on now, you can form a better argument than that. That's just like saying, "if someone bumps my fender, can I kill them?"
If poo in your yard really bothers you, there are a number of perfectly reasonable ways you can try and make it stop, including legal means if necessary.
Comcast has a contract with the customer, which both parties entered to in good faith. If Comcast is violating the contract (I've not heard anybody claim that), then they are in the wrong. Otherwise, it's none of yours or the government's business how two parties decide to do business together.
Two parties have to agree to terms at the beginning, which are put forth in a contract. Nobody is talking about "altering" a contract. In the case of Comcast - I do not know what the contract specifies, so I do not know if they are, in fact, breaking any contract.
Unless someone is claiming a breach of contract (I have not heard this), then the government needs to butt out.
Exactly. If I start an ISP, it is "my bandwidth", which I lease/rent to others according to my terms.
If my terms dictate I can govern your access, then when I govern it, I am acting within my expressed powers.
In the same way if you are renting my house from me, the rental agreement can state that I can come on the property, inspect the property, change the property, and restrict your use of the property.
If you don't like the rental agreement, don't rent from me.
What if the contract of every ISP that was available in a certain house all said that the only website that could be accessed was Disney.com, and no protocols other than HTTP were to be allowed?
Then either: 1)that is what most people want, and the company will be highly successful, or 2) nobody wants that, and the company will fail to the competition. (Yes it's true the government often limits competition, but that is the fault of the government.)
Slashdot Mirror
If government were not allowed to meddle in business affairs, then businessmen would have no need to become symbiotic with politicians
Luckily, in the US there is still at least some small notion that people should deal with one another voluntarily to solve problems creatively. When the government substitutes its will for the will of the individual then you are either on the road to, or have arrived at, serfdom.
I thought the justification to raise taxes was that your money is not really yours and that the government can do whatever it wants (the only behavioral restriction being fear of not being re-elected.)
[...] we continue to blindly provide an input (carbon) into an extremely dangerous system (climate). All of the knowledge we have says that there is an extremely high probability that doing so will result in extreme shifts and war, famine, drought, etc
Your language is the Environmentalist equivalent of the Christian Armageddon. What is obvious about your statement is the irrational fear you convey to try and scare people into agreeing with your point of view.
I'm sure Hulu will die as soon as you finish your superior competitor product. So it will never die. But hopefully people's whining will!
I think science is an application of philosophy. Just as engineering is an application of science.
I think it is more accurate to say that science is an application of philosophy. Just as engineering is an application of science.
Actually our senses are perfectly accurate, they do not distort anything. It is our interpretation of our senses that may be inaccurate. The fact that a pencil bends in water is not a failure of our senses - it is our senses working according to the laws of physics. How we interpret "pencil bending" may or may not be correct.
Nope, not a hologram.
Goverments have a monopoly on the use of physical force, therefore the use of that force needs to be tightly controlled (as in the U.S. Constitution) to prevent tyranny.
The kind of "majority" rule you advocate is nothing more than mob rule, in which the individual (you) mean nothing - including whatever opinions/hopes/dreams you splatter over Slashdot.
What, exactly, is stopping YOU from creating a company to provide the better service you desire? Do you really believe that because you simply want something that it should be simply given to you?
People should pay for the services they use, and only the services they use. I shouldn't pay for rural mail, and rural folk shouldn't pay for my city conveniences.
There is no reason to believe that government mail should be cheaper than a free, private company delivering mail.
Moreover, the government has a coercive monopoly on the mail. We are all forced, at the point of a gun, to cooperate. (See what the policeman is wearing when he comes to question your private mail service.)
And by the way - A democracy is unlimited majority rule, which is not our system of government. We are a constitutionally limited republic - the power of the government is restricted by the constitution, which upholds the rights of the individual against others.
I'm opposed to the idea of any kind of trust ranking. It promotes intellectual laziness
I consider it a much bigger problem that how you arrive at truth is not universally accepted. If perception->conception->reason were universally accepted, it might work. But when we are surrounded by irrationality such as religion and various post-modern movements this is doomed to intellectual warfare (which maybe would be a good thing after all)
If you paid the same amount for data transfer on your internet connection you would be shitting blood and blowing steam out of your ears
Yeah, and if you paid the same amount for data transfer by tatooing messages to fat people and having them unicycle across the country, you would be doing cartwheels on rose petals and whistling zippity-doo-dah out your pee-hole.
The PSTN is not the same thing as the internet, so you shouldn't be comparing them as if they were.
if Capitalism was working as "designed"...You'd either be passed out from sheer exhaustion
You've got it backwards - life before Capitalism was filled with exhausting, back-breaking labor. And people died young. And you couldn't advance your condition socially.
Thank you, Capitalism!
that's what's wrong with the world today. Look at the sub-prime mortgage crisis for example, how many lenders knew they were handing out bad debt?
Lenders handing out "bad debt" had nothing to due with having "no moral conscience". It had everything to do with the government telling lenders things like "we will buy you junk debt" (Fannie/Freddie) and "if you fail we will bail you out".
That is how the government manipulated the industry to try and make everyone a homeowner (no matter how poor or undeserving an individual was)
do what smart businesses have done all throughout history: increase supply to satisfy demand
There is no end to the demand of the 5%. Instead of reduced-quality video, they'll replace their whole library with full high-def.
It is not the job of companies to satisfy your utopian ideas of bandwidth nirvana. They need to make money, and I don't believe they can ever do that by trying to quench the unquenchable 5%.
Should I be allowed to shoot any dog that poos on my yard
Come on now, you can form a better argument than that. That's just like saying, "if someone bumps my fender, can I kill them?"
If poo in your yard really bothers you, there are a number of perfectly reasonable ways you can try and make it stop, including legal means if necessary.
Comcast has a contract with the customer, which both parties entered to in good faith. If Comcast is violating the contract (I've not heard anybody claim that), then they are in the wrong. Otherwise, it's none of yours or the government's business how two parties decide to do business together.
Somehow I have a feeling that T-Mobile's test will result in the same results for the FCC as it did for T-Mobile.
Is there a coherent thought somewhere in that sentence?
Two parties have to agree to terms at the beginning, which are put forth in a contract. Nobody is talking about "altering" a contract. In the case of Comcast - I do not know what the contract specifies, so I do not know if they are, in fact, breaking any contract.
Unless someone is claiming a breach of contract (I have not heard this), then the government needs to butt out.
If my terms dictate I can govern your access, then when I govern it, I am acting within my expressed powers.
In the same way if you are renting my house from me, the rental agreement can state that I can come on the property, inspect the property, change the property, and restrict your use of the property.
If you don't like the rental agreement, don't rent from me.
I am focusing on what Comcast CAN do, what they SHOULD do, and what they are ACTUALLY doing.
The CAN make contracts with users however they wish.
They SHOULD do what it takes to get and keep as many customers as possible.
They are ACTUALLY causing negative press in their actions, unclear what that does to their bottom line.
What if the contract of every ISP that was available in a certain house all said that the only website that could be accessed was Disney.com, and no protocols other than HTTP were to be allowed?
Then either: 1)that is what most people want, and the company will be highly successful, or 2) nobody wants that, and the company will fail to the competition. (Yes it's true the government often limits competition, but that is the fault of the government.)