I guess I missed the part where the evidence of the CIA and the NSA allowing 9/11 was posted. Maybe it's in your super special edition of Slashdot that I don't get?
The poster asserted that the information to prevent it was in fact there. This was confirmed even by the official report on 9/11, so there is very little reason to doubt it.
Going from there to 'the CIA and NSA allowed it to happen' isn't such a stretch either but it does not in itself explain why they 'allowed this to happen'.
What was asserted is that this was allowed to happen in order to control the population. Well, simply not having found the relevant information in time due to the huge amount that is there and insufficient communications and coordinmation sounds like a much simpler explanation indeed.
That said, allowing such an incident in order to control the population is far from unheard of, rather, it is a very well documented 'trick' that has seen a lot of use throughout history. With that in mind, suspecting a government of doing the same might be wrong in this case, but isn't exactly a matter of paranoia.
If you read back the conversation as well as my original reply to this supposed 'paranoid poster', you'd see that I first of all pointed out a problem with his reasoning, and second, asked others to do the same. Hence I don't see where you are comming from with your comments about critical thought.
This is all nice except for the fact that the original post that this is all about did make an argument based on reasoning. It is not too difficult to point out the flaw in that reasoning (as I did in another post btw). It is indeed more difficult then attacking something on facts that you can dismiss as flawed or sources that can be called biassed...
...and, in circular fashion, bases the dismissal of the person making the argument on that argument alone, again without any critical thought applied to the argument itself.
Except for the fact that despite repeatedly asking for an argument, I did not get any, so it is not possible to judge it on its merrits.
I think maybe he means that some of the directions that libertarians take are good, but judgement needs to be exercised in how far the roads are traveled.
I believe that is a good idea regardless of what direction you think is best...
Being taken seriously by the/. crowd isn't really high on my list anyway.
If you don't come up with anything usefull, then indeed you won't be taken seriously, not just by the slashdot crowd, but by anyone who has some capacity of independent thought.
That said, I am not the slashdot crowd, I am an individual slashdot reader putting up a question to you. Why the fuck are you posting here if you don't want to debate anything to begin with?
Besides, I suspect that I'm not in the minority with my viewpoint. I'm just not afraid to post non-AC.
I suspect you are indeed part of the majority which dismisses arguments based on who is making the argument and not based on the merrits of that argument. At least, your posts are strongly suggesting this.
So, are you capable of independent thought and making an argument or are you just one of the mindless sheep.
Government is always inefficient when doing things private companies have been doing better for years
Government is always inefficient in a working republic or representative democracy, it is that way by design and for good reasons. I could explain it here, but it would be a bit lengthy. Instead of doing that, I challange you to think about why this is and why this is in fact a very good thing.
Which is why I consider myself a "conservative libertarian". Wait, does that make sense?
It would make quite some sense if you were living in a libertarian society. As it is however, any libertarian ideas are progressive because they will cause substantial change to the current system if implemented.
Note that conservative is not the opposite of liberal by definition, it just happens to be that way in a not so liberal society. It is a relative concept that has to do with trying to preserve the current situation (or at least those things that are considered desirable in the current situation).
The US has the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act which criminally punishes those parties who engage in corrupt practices such as bribery abroad. Having passed this law that is heartbreakingly idealistic, the US Government has decided to use its intelligence forces to turn in foreign companies which have bribed foreign officials so US Companies will have a fair shot at the deal.
Ok, that caused some 5 minutes of uncontrollable laughter here., the Having passed this law that is heartbreakingly idealistic part is really priceless.
Now, just to se things straight a little bit..
1. US companies not involved in corruption? this is merely a matter of your definition of corruption, but in quite a few cases corruption in an easy to recognize form is not needed. Why buy an official when you can as easily threaten to throw him out of his own country. Don't believe it? You really should take a closer look at the USA involvement in the central and southern Americas.
2. Have you ever considered that legal payments to officials are not considered bribary in the USA and that they happen a lot? Just take a look at lobbying and campeign finance to see some beautifull examples.
3. Have you ever considered that corruption schandals in Europe are news exactly because what happens is illegal in Europe?
Of course, this entire thing looks disgusting,
If you cannot defend a measure on its own merrits, it is m,ost likely a bad measure.
but upon inspection, it's a much closer call. Airbus obtained the bid by BRIBING officials. Do we turn a blind eye to Boeing bribing or do we turn in the lawbreaking foreign company?
Now, show us how Airbus obtained the bid by bribing officials. When you are at it however, also take a look at how Boeing and a few related companies manage to absorb a large chunk from both the NASA and military budgets.
There is a good reason why both the USA and the EU decided to not push the issue, they realized both have been about as wrong.
I don't dismiss it as a troll, but rather as the ravings of a paranoid wingnut.
I'm not going to say that the gp is right, nor that he is wrong. Rather, I'd like to ask you to dismiss his arguments as impossible or at least extremely improbable and provide some reasoning for it, just like the gp made some arguments as to why he might be right and why it is not that unlikely at all that what he says happened.
In short, come with an argument instead of name calling, or live with not being taken seriously.
First of all, I do agree about the danger you are warning against, but I also think you are not entirely appreciating that you fell into the trap yourself as well.
For those who don't believe this just test a few facts. These people know full well that Al Qaeda doesn't use the modern banking system. These people know full well that their efforts have little or no effect on Al Qaeda. At the same time these people refuse to do border enforcement or any of the requested security measures already law in the USA which would protect the people from real terrorism. Where for example is the phone number where a US Citizen may call and have an illegal or undesirable alien (One who is acting badly for those who don't understand) promptly and properly dealt with under law. Where I live, if I call the Sheriff I may see an officer in 1 hour or so depending on the time of day. If I called about a real live Al Qaeda member to the US Border Patrol or ICE the call would never be responded to. There are only 65 ICE agents actually empowered to make arrests in the USA as a whole. Surely this tells the truth about the real intent here. It is pretty undeniable.
If you actually look at the 9/11 attacks as well as to other similar situations, you'll find that the only terrorists you are going to catch at the border are those trying to flee the country afterward, and even that is extremely unlikely. You'd also see that those who planned and executed the attacks were not illegal foreigners. Hence, similar to the situation you pointed out yourself, such actions would have virtually zero effect on terrorism.
All the screaming and arguing about illegal immigrants is really yet another way to divert attention away from what is really happening.
I as a content provider (abeit a small one) have to rent a fast connection, pay for it, and on top of that pay for traffic. My provider has peering agreements with some tier 1 networks which cover for the transit cost over those networks, including any peering fees those providers pay eachother. I as an end-user rent a DSL line from some ISP. Again, I pay for connection and traffic, but here overbooking comes into play. My ISP has peering contracts and so on.
As you can see, all the bandwidth use is being payed for, especially on the content provider side. Only on the side of the ISP providing the end-user there is a potential problem, which is caused by them selling a lot more bandwidth then they turn out having. Now they are arguing that content providers need to pay them directly? Maybe they should 1. get the bandwidth they are selling, and 2. charge those whom they are selling to.
Witness how well campaign finance "reform" has worked, the same general concept as applied to the political process rather than the net. Another fine concept translated poorly into law. Or CAN-SPAM, for that matter.
Interestingly, the EU has regulations for both examples that do seem to work, so it seems it is possible somehow.
The problem with CAN-SPAM is that it is wrong in concept because opt-out is the wrong concept. The problem with campeign finance reform seems to be that those who have the biggest say in this also need the campeign finance as it is (this imho also hints at problems with the seperation of powers in the current system)
Hmm, what you are saying is that you don't trust US politicians to come up with a decent law based on a concept. I'm afraid I have to agree.
Sadly, though, recent evidence suggests that many people believe falsehoods said with sufficient conviction, particularly if there's enough repetition.
Recent eh?
It works even better when you can call on emotions, it simply makes them stop thinking alltogether.
But without any malice from anyone this already happens simply because most people tend to not think about things that don't affect their basic needs and daily dose of entertainment directly.
More and more AOL subscribers are leaving AOL and getting their internet access from another ISP.
True for all I can tell, but I wonder how much this has to do with AOL prefering its own content over that from others. They are far less 'evil' about this now then they were 10 years ago, so if anything, informed customers should have less of a problem with it now then in the past. On the other hand, having internet access is way more common nowadays, and people are probably better informed as a result.
I believe AOL's declining market share is mostly a result of them having ignored things like broadband access for too long.
In other words, in many people's minds, defining an axis equates to defining a border between "us" (implicitly the good guys) and "them" (implicitly not the good guys) - which is very far from the original meaning for 'axis' and not at all the message i wanted to convey.
I figured that that wasn't what you were trying to say, hence my comment. Thanks for the clarification, I hadn't looked at it in that way. I must say I end up with a few more axis then the 2 you mention tho:)
Um, in America, it's called 'unbundling', I think.
I believe you are right:)
Whatever, for most telco voice providers, the FCC ruled on this quite a while ago under Congressional mandate.
If I'm not mistaken, this was more or less reversed quite recently.
You can indeed choose another voice provider over your wires, and indeed can choose another DSL provider for network access if anyone offers such service. The telcos have mostly lost the local loop monopoly, which may be part of the motivation to pull fiber to the home, along with video services.
I hope this is going to work out as well as it did overhere. Having choice in those things is quite nice.
None of which has anything to do with Net Neutrality. IMHO.
Not directly at least but it does change how the market works in a way that makes net neutrality less of an issue. That said, I think this is a matter of principe, and should be guaranteed regardless of how the market develops. To me this seems similar to how you shouldn't let the market determine what freedoms we have. Net neutrality is directly related to how well people can inform themselves, and that serves a much more important goal then the little bit of extra proffit that companies could make.
The US govt. has a long history of un-leveling playing fields with regulation as the tool. Considering the process (clueless politicians writing laws with input from paid lobbiests with axes to grind), this is not suprising.
In other words, the actions of government are driven by big bad corporations who have the money to pay for lobbiests. Somehow you didn't come to the obvious conclusion however that putting limits on this lobbying (normal people call such a thing regulation) is the solution here?
In the cases where the process somehow manages to get it right, the technology has eventually changed out from under the regulation and broken whatever used to mostly work. Does anyone really think that this particular technology is going to change less rapidly than previous communication technologies?
Network neutrality regulation can quite be worded in a technology independent way. The principes it is based on do not depend on specific technology, and aren't exactly new either. Last but not least, network neutrality is about forbidding specific behavior from telcos (or anyone in a similar position). The biggest danger here is that it will prevent that same behavior in slightly different circumstances, but since this is in fact about preventing the creation of barriers to entry, that is actually a good thing if you favor a free market.
I guess I trust the market to be able to adapt faster than the Feds, and have a pretty high threshold before being convinced that any given random new law/regulation is worth the copious paper it will get printed on.
Network neutrality is a concept, not a technology. This concept doesn't change at the same rate as technology at all, and this concept directly deals with how the market works. In other words, your 'guess' is definitely wrong in this specific case (it is right in quite some other cases however)
So, convince me - how will net.neutrality survive the test of time and special interests?
Network neutrality is a concept that is fundamental to an open and fair market, and not having it brings the exact dangers you are trying to avoid. The concept does not depend on special interests, rather, it specifically deals with special interests by preventing preference based on how much those who have those special interests can pay. The test of time? This is not technology, and it doesn't get outdated in the same way.
Just as a reminder, for a 'free market' it is important to have as few barriers to entering that market as possible. Unrelated companies being able to charge anyone who wants to enter a market (content provision) are definitely a barrier to entry, so from a 'free market' point of view arguing against network neutrality seems pretty silly.
Ah, I see, and you quite have a point there. Keeping a MS product uptodate causes bandwidth costs for the end-user also. This is a 'hidden' cost of running Windows.
Even if it were practical to have MS pay for this bandwidth use, it will be their customers (and users) paying for it because that is where their money seems to come from..
On the other hand, last time I ordered a CD with a service pack from them, it was free, and got delivered to my home address for free.
Of course your post was intended to make a point in a somewhat funny way..
Saying that telco subscribers "pay" for anything is a mistake.
THe simple problem I see there is that at least when I was living in the USA, the contract I had with the telco was clearly stating I was buying a service from them. They may have to look into such pesky details...
At any rate, you are right about their attitude, and it isn't unique for telcos in the USA either. As I mentioned in another post, any telco anywhere in the world that sees a chance to become 'big and bad' will grab the chance. Ant telco market that is competitive anywhere in the world is so only after government interference and regulation. Sad but a simple consequence of the fact that certain parts in the telco business can be considered natural monopolies (local loop and radio spectrum are both limited 'resources').
I disagree with two points. Local loop competition has everything to do with network neutrality, because if we had real competition for every house's internet, then no one would have the ability to make ridiculous business decisions like a "tiered internet" or whatever bullshit they're trying to market this week because they would HAVE NO CUSTOMERS. If people had real options for getting internet, this wouldn't even be talked about because people would just switch to a service that didn't degrade their favorite content in favor of some proprietary bullshit.
I think I mentioned this aspect. I also believe AOL for example is still quite among us, just to name one company who always tries to favor its own content over that of others (less so now then in the beginning, but regardless, they still do, and they aren't exactly small). What I am trying to say here is that a substantial number of people will never know what they are missing, hence won't complain or switch.
This doesn't mean it doesn't matter for those people, it merely means they don't know that it matters.
A 'free market' only works when customers are informed and knowledgable enough to make choices, and in this particular case I think it is easy to see why most people are likely not (yet) knowledgable enough.
is net neutrality going to give the gov't license to unlevel it how they see fit
This argument is often used when arguing against net neutrality, however, those who make the argument fail to actually provide any kind of logical reasoning as to why this would happen. I would not take this argument at face value, rather, I dismiss it is rubbish untill the day someone provides an actual reasoning as to why this would happen when network neutrality is enforced, not the least because while it takes a little bit of understanding about how bandwidth is being payed for, it is very easy to provide a logical reasoning as to why this would in fact not happen at all.
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Huh? What argument? He said I might think he's a troll. I said that I thought that he was something else.
You judged him on the argument he made, but refuse to debate that argument even when asked to repeatedly.
I wasn't debating the issue - if I was debating, you'd know it.
Rather, you seem to be refusing to debate it, also with people who are actively trying to hear your argument.
But thanks for trying to psychoanalyze me. Alas, you've missed the mark.
Yes, your behavior really suggests that.
I think you misunderstood me
:)
I'm sure I misunderstood you, sorry
I guess I missed the part where the evidence of the CIA and the NSA allowing 9/11 was posted. Maybe it's in your super special edition of Slashdot that I don't get?
The poster asserted that the information to prevent it was in fact there. This was confirmed even by the official report on 9/11, so there is very little reason to doubt it.
Going from there to 'the CIA and NSA allowed it to happen' isn't such a stretch either but it does not in itself explain why they 'allowed this to happen'.
What was asserted is that this was allowed to happen in order to control the population. Well, simply not having found the relevant information in time due to the huge amount that is there and insufficient communications and coordinmation sounds like a much simpler explanation indeed.
That said, allowing such an incident in order to control the population is far from unheard of, rather, it is a very well documented 'trick' that has seen a lot of use throughout history. With that in mind, suspecting a government of doing the same might be wrong in this case, but isn't exactly a matter of paranoia.
If you read back the conversation as well as my original reply to this supposed 'paranoid poster', you'd see that I first of all pointed out a problem with his reasoning, and second, asked others to do the same. Hence I don't see where you are comming from with your comments about critical thought.
This is all nice except for the fact that the original post that this is all about did make an argument based on reasoning. It is not too difficult to point out the flaw in that reasoning (as I did in another post btw). It is indeed more difficult then attacking something on facts that you can dismiss as flawed or sources that can be called biassed...
...and, in circular fashion, bases the dismissal of the person making the argument on that argument alone, again without any critical thought applied to the argument itself.
Except for the fact that despite repeatedly asking for an argument, I did not get any, so it is not possible to judge it on its merrits.
I think maybe he means that some of the directions that libertarians take are good, but judgement needs to be exercised in how far the roads are traveled.
I believe that is a good idea regardless of what direction you think is best...
Being taken seriously by the /. crowd isn't really high on my list anyway.
If you don't come up with anything usefull, then indeed you won't be taken seriously, not just by the slashdot crowd, but by anyone who has some capacity of independent thought.
That said, I am not the slashdot crowd, I am an individual slashdot reader putting up a question to you. Why the fuck are you posting here if you don't want to debate anything to begin with?
Besides, I suspect that I'm not in the minority with my viewpoint. I'm just not afraid to post non-AC.
I suspect you are indeed part of the majority which dismisses arguments based on who is making the argument and not based on the merrits of that argument. At least, your posts are strongly suggesting this.
So, are you capable of independent thought and making an argument or are you just one of the mindless sheep.
Government is always inefficient when doing things private companies have been doing better for years
Government is always inefficient in a working republic or representative democracy, it is that way by design and for good reasons. I could explain it here, but it would be a bit lengthy. Instead of doing that, I challange you to think about why this is and why this is in fact a very good thing.
Which is why I consider myself a "conservative libertarian". Wait, does that make sense?
It would make quite some sense if you were living in a libertarian society. As it is however, any libertarian ideas are progressive because they will cause substantial change to the current system if implemented.
Note that conservative is not the opposite of liberal by definition, it just happens to be that way in a not so liberal society. It is a relative concept that has to do with trying to preserve the current situation (or at least those things that are considered desirable in the current situation).
in total contrast to what exactly? sound like every political party out there.
For all I can tell you are right, but that is also a very good reason why they aren't a real alternative.
The US has the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act which criminally punishes those parties who engage in corrupt practices such as bribery abroad. Having passed this law that is heartbreakingly idealistic, the US Government has decided to use its intelligence forces to turn in foreign companies which have bribed foreign officials so US Companies will have a fair shot at the deal.
Ok, that caused some 5 minutes of uncontrollable laughter here., the Having passed this law that is heartbreakingly idealistic part is really priceless.
Now, just to se things straight a little bit..
1. US companies not involved in corruption? this is merely a matter of your definition of corruption, but in quite a few cases corruption in an easy to recognize form is not needed. Why buy an official when you can as easily threaten to throw him out of his own country. Don't believe it? You really should take a closer look at the USA involvement in the central and southern Americas.
2. Have you ever considered that legal payments to officials are not considered bribary in the USA and that they happen a lot? Just take a look at lobbying and campeign finance to see some beautifull examples.
3. Have you ever considered that corruption schandals in Europe are news exactly because what happens is illegal in Europe?
Of course, this entire thing looks disgusting,
If you cannot defend a measure on its own merrits, it is m,ost likely a bad measure.
but upon inspection, it's a much closer call. Airbus obtained the bid by BRIBING officials. Do we turn a blind eye to Boeing bribing or do we turn in the lawbreaking foreign company?
Now, show us how Airbus obtained the bid by bribing officials. When you are at it however, also take a look at how Boeing and a few related companies manage to absorb a large chunk from both the NASA and military budgets.
There is a good reason why both the USA and the EU decided to not push the issue, they realized both have been about as wrong.
I don't dismiss it as a troll, but rather as the ravings of a paranoid wingnut.
I'm not going to say that the gp is right, nor that he is wrong. Rather, I'd like to ask you to dismiss his arguments as impossible or at least extremely improbable and provide some reasoning for it, just like the gp made some arguments as to why he might be right and why it is not that unlikely at all that what he says happened.
In short, come with an argument instead of name calling, or live with not being taken seriously.
First of all, I do agree about the danger you are warning against, but I also think you are not entirely appreciating that you fell into the trap yourself as well.
For those who don't believe this just test a few facts. These people know full well that Al Qaeda doesn't use the modern banking system. These people know full well that their efforts have little or no effect on Al Qaeda. At the same time these people refuse to do border enforcement or any of the requested security measures already law in the USA which would protect the people from real terrorism. Where for example is the phone number where a US Citizen may call and have an illegal or undesirable alien (One who is acting badly for those who don't understand) promptly and properly dealt with under law. Where I live, if I call the Sheriff I may see an officer in 1 hour or so depending on the time of day. If I called about a real live Al Qaeda member to the US Border Patrol or ICE the call would never be responded to. There are only 65 ICE agents actually empowered to make arrests in the USA as a whole. Surely this tells the truth about the real intent here. It is pretty undeniable.
If you actually look at the 9/11 attacks as well as to other similar situations, you'll find that the only terrorists you are going to catch at the border are those trying to flee the country afterward, and even that is extremely unlikely. You'd also see that those who planned and executed the attacks were not illegal foreigners. Hence, similar to the situation you pointed out yourself, such actions would have virtually zero effect on terrorism.
All the screaming and arguing about illegal immigrants is really yet another way to divert attention away from what is really happening.
It is really simple.
I as a content provider (abeit a small one) have to rent a fast connection, pay for it, and on top of that pay for traffic.
My provider has peering agreements with some tier 1 networks which cover for the transit cost over those networks, including any peering fees those providers pay eachother.
I as an end-user rent a DSL line from some ISP. Again, I pay for connection and traffic, but here overbooking comes into play. My ISP has peering contracts and so on.
As you can see, all the bandwidth use is being payed for, especially on the content provider side. Only on the side of the ISP providing the end-user there is a potential problem, which is caused by them selling a lot more bandwidth then they turn out having. Now they are arguing that content providers need to pay them directly? Maybe they should 1. get the bandwidth they are selling, and 2. charge those whom they are selling to.
Witness how well campaign finance "reform" has worked, the same general concept as applied to the political process rather than the net. Another fine concept translated poorly into law. Or CAN-SPAM, for that matter.
Interestingly, the EU has regulations for both examples that do seem to work, so it seems it is possible somehow.
The problem with CAN-SPAM is that it is wrong in concept because opt-out is the wrong concept. The problem with campeign finance reform seems to be that those who have the biggest say in this also need the campeign finance as it is (this imho also hints at problems with the seperation of powers in the current system)
Hmm, what you are saying is that you don't trust US politicians to come up with a decent law based on a concept. I'm afraid I have to agree.
'
Sadly, though, recent evidence suggests that many people believe falsehoods said with sufficient conviction, particularly if there's enough repetition.
Recent eh?
It works even better when you can call on emotions, it simply makes them stop thinking alltogether.
But without any malice from anyone this already happens simply because most people tend to not think about things that don't affect their basic needs and daily dose of entertainment directly.
More and more AOL subscribers are leaving AOL and getting their internet access from another ISP.
True for all I can tell, but I wonder how much this has to do with AOL prefering its own content over that from others. They are far less 'evil' about this now then they were 10 years ago, so if anything, informed customers should have less of a problem with it now then in the past. On the other hand, having internet access is way more common nowadays, and people are probably better informed as a result.
I believe AOL's declining market share is mostly a result of them having ignored things like broadband access for too long.
In other words, in many people's minds, defining an axis equates to defining a border between "us" (implicitly the good guys) and "them" (implicitly not the good guys) - which is very far from the original meaning for 'axis' and not at all the message i wanted to convey.
:)
I figured that that wasn't what you were trying to say, hence my comment. Thanks for the clarification, I hadn't looked at it in that way. I must say I end up with a few more axis then the 2 you mention tho
Um, in America, it's called 'unbundling', I think.
:)
I believe you are right
Whatever, for most telco voice providers, the FCC ruled on this quite a while ago under Congressional mandate.
If I'm not mistaken, this was more or less reversed quite recently.
You can indeed choose another voice provider over your wires, and indeed can choose another DSL provider for network access if anyone offers such service. The telcos have mostly lost the local loop monopoly, which may be part of the motivation to pull fiber to the home, along with video services.
I hope this is going to work out as well as it did overhere. Having choice in those things is quite nice.
None of which has anything to do with Net Neutrality. IMHO.
Not directly at least but it does change how the market works in a way that makes net neutrality less of an issue. That said, I think this is a matter of principe, and should be guaranteed regardless of how the market develops. To me this seems similar to how you shouldn't let the market determine what freedoms we have. Net neutrality is directly related to how well people can inform themselves, and that serves a much more important goal then the little bit of extra proffit that companies could make.
The US govt. has a long history of un-leveling playing fields with regulation as the tool. Considering the process (clueless politicians writing laws with input from paid lobbiests with axes to grind), this is not suprising.
In other words, the actions of government are driven by big bad corporations who have the money to pay for lobbiests. Somehow you didn't come to the obvious conclusion however that putting limits on this lobbying (normal people call such a thing regulation) is the solution here?
In the cases where the process somehow manages to get it right, the technology has eventually changed out from under the regulation and broken whatever used to mostly work. Does anyone really think that this particular technology is going to change less rapidly than previous communication technologies?
Network neutrality regulation can quite be worded in a technology independent way. The principes it is based on do not depend on specific technology, and aren't exactly new either. Last but not least, network neutrality is about forbidding specific behavior from telcos (or anyone in a similar position). The biggest danger here is that it will prevent that same behavior in slightly different circumstances, but since this is in fact about preventing the creation of barriers to entry, that is actually a good thing if you favor a free market.
I guess I trust the market to be able to adapt faster than the Feds, and have a pretty high threshold before being convinced that any given random new law/regulation is worth the copious paper it will get printed on.
Network neutrality is a concept, not a technology. This concept doesn't change at the same rate as technology at all, and this concept directly deals with how the market works. In other words, your 'guess' is definitely wrong in this specific case (it is right in quite some other cases however)
So, convince me - how will net.neutrality survive the test of time and special interests?
Network neutrality is a concept that is fundamental to an open and fair market, and not having it brings the exact dangers you are trying to avoid. The concept does not depend on special interests, rather, it specifically deals with special interests by preventing preference based on how much those who have those special interests can pay. The test of time? This is not technology, and it doesn't get outdated in the same way.
Just as a reminder, for a 'free market' it is important to have as few barriers to entering that market as possible. Unrelated companies being able to charge anyone who wants to enter a market (content provision) are definitely a barrier to entry, so from a 'free market' point of view arguing against network neutrality seems pretty silly.
Ah, I see, and you quite have a point there. Keeping a MS product uptodate causes bandwidth costs for the end-user also. This is a 'hidden' cost of running Windows.
Even if it were practical to have MS pay for this bandwidth use, it will be their customers (and users) paying for it because that is where their money seems to come from..
On the other hand, last time I ordered a CD with a service pack from them, it was free, and got delivered to my home address for free.
Of course your post was intended to make a point in a somewhat funny way..
Saying that telco subscribers "pay" for anything is a mistake.
THe simple problem I see there is that at least when I was living in the USA, the contract I had with the telco was clearly stating I was buying a service from them. They may have to look into such pesky details...
At any rate, you are right about their attitude, and it isn't unique for telcos in the USA either. As I mentioned in another post, any telco anywhere in the world that sees a chance to become 'big and bad' will grab the chance. Ant telco market that is competitive anywhere in the world is so only after government interference and regulation. Sad but a simple consequence of the fact that certain parts in the telco business can be considered natural monopolies (local loop and radio spectrum are both limited 'resources').
I disagree with two points. Local loop competition has everything to do with network neutrality, because if we had real competition for every house's internet, then no one would have the ability to make ridiculous business decisions like a "tiered internet" or whatever bullshit they're trying to market this week because they would HAVE NO CUSTOMERS. If people had real options for getting internet, this wouldn't even be talked about because people would just switch to a service that didn't degrade their favorite content in favor of some proprietary bullshit.
I think I mentioned this aspect. I also believe AOL for example is still quite among us, just to name one company who always tries to favor its own content over that of others (less so now then in the beginning, but regardless, they still do, and they aren't exactly small). What I am trying to say here is that a substantial number of people will never know what they are missing, hence won't complain or switch.
This doesn't mean it doesn't matter for those people, it merely means they don't know that it matters.
A 'free market' only works when customers are informed and knowledgable enough to make choices, and in this particular case I think it is easy to see why most people are likely not (yet) knowledgable enough.
is net neutrality going to give the gov't license to unlevel it how they see fit
This argument is often used when arguing against net neutrality, however, those who make the argument fail to actually provide any kind of logical reasoning as to why this would happen. I would not take this argument at face value, rather, I dismiss it is rubbish untill the day someone provides an actual reasoning as to why this would happen when network neutrality is enforced, not the least because while it takes a little bit of understanding about how bandwidth is being payed for, it is very easy to provide a logical reasoning as to why this would in fact not happen at all.