No one is talking about the real reason net neutrality actually matters, and the real problem that needs to be solved: ISPs are content owners/creators! The fact that Comcast owns NBC Universal gives it direct and irresistible incentive to throttle (or charge extra to carry) content created by competing creators like Netflix and Amazon, who are not ISPs and therefore in no position to strike back with retaliatory throttling/pricing. AT&T owns Time Warner so Comcast would never dare to throttle it, but again, Netflix and Amazon can't fight back against AT&T either if it chooses to throttle (or charge extra to carry) their competing content. AT&T and Comcast are in a state of detente because AT&T would never dare to throttle NBC's streaming feed while Comcast would never dare to throttle HBO's, but Netflix and Amazon are fair game for any anti-competitive discrimination by both AT&T AND Comcast.
As soon as content ownership is divested from the ISPs then they will no longer be in direct competition with content owners who access their networks, and will no longer have any incentive to throttle/charge them. Suddenly all packets will be created equal regardless of their source, and all customers can be treated equally regardless of their product. Yes, the ISPs will still have to manage their networks to provide the best possible service with traffic shaping and such, but they will be doing so ONLY based on the requirements for maintaining quality of service, without bias based on who the customer is! Once the playing field has been leveled we can feel comfortable that any charges to content creators are being fairly assessed based on actual bandwidth consumption, but until then we must assume they are unfair and retaliatory in nature due to the inherent conflict of interest built into the ISPs today.
The reason this state of affairs persists is that ISPs are not classified as the necessary infrastructure utilities they have become, and therefore are not subject to regulations that could potentially be used to split them up; this is what Wheeler was attempting to address by classifying them under Title II. I'm not saying that he was going to try to force them to divest their content-creation divisions (though I'm sure he would have loved to!), but by defining them as the utilities they are he was at least able to forbid them from discriminating against packets based on origin, and focus only on QoS. Of course that was only a half-measure because discrimination in the network is difficult to prove and hard to enforce, and the "free data" plans Wheeler was investigating are a blatant example of the ISPs trying to cheat by restricting competitors' to promote their own services/content.
There's no way the current administration would have the balls to pass a law saying ISPs can't own content and Pai clearly isn't going to do it through regulation either, so welcome to the end of the free and open Internet as we knew it!
I don't know if what's on their web site has changed since the hoax was revealed, but did these authors actually read what PublishAmerica said on it's site? What it says is (emphasis is mine):
"Now, here's a word of caution.
The vast, vast majority of SciFi and Fantasy writers are serious, honest, great artists. They have spent tons of time working on their books, just as hard as writers on any other genre. They are positive, resolute, hard-working, earnest folks, who are finding it just as hard as anyone else to break through the barrier put up by the publishing dinosaurs.
But, alas, the SciFi and Fantasy genres have also attracted some of the lesser gods, writers who erroneously believe that SciFi, because it is set in a distant future, does not require believable storylines, or that Fantasy, because it is set in conditions that have never existed, does not need believable every-day characters.
Obviously, and fortunately, there are not too many of them, but the ones who are indeed not ashamed to be seen as literary parasites and plagiarists, are usually the loudest, just like the proverbial wheel that needs the most grease."
That sounds a lot like the Catholic church's response to the recent spate of child abuse cases, where they basically said the abuses were committed by a small minority of priests, and these cases do not mean that all Catholic priests are abusive. Sounds to me like the Sci-Fi writers overreacted in a big way to a commentary about a very few authors, which actually starts out being highly complimentary to the "vast, vast majority of SciFi and Fantasy writers"!
I think the distinction might be that if there is a deity actively manipulating your life and the lives of those around you, then you don't have free will. Free will within the context of a religion can only really exist if the deity that religion worships has no interaction with his/her/it's creations, otherwise the actions of those creations have been influenced and aren't really free. By extension, therefore, you might say that only the atheist really believes in free will, and any religion that both espouses believe in an active deity and tries to say you have a choice in your own actions is simply kidding itself.
Let's say for a moment that I'm a Christian, and when I pray to God that the TN Titans will win the Superbowl they do it. If the reeason they won is that my prayers have truly been answered by God then the Titans never really had the free will to win or lose because GOD MADE THEM WIN at my request! The coaches never had a choice in the decisions they made, God made the receiver catch that 75 yard pass, the game-winning field goal had no choice but to go through the posts, etc. I can only assume that those who prayed for the Washington Redskins to win the game must be bad folks, because God took away their team's choice to win play hard and win...
Since most people pray to their various and sundry gods every day, there's really not much room left for free will if all their prayers are being answered, is there?
Dictionaries have lots of different definitions of the word "atheist", but none of them says atheists believe there is nothing spiritual at all. At it's Greek roots, atheism means "without deity", which is to say that the atheist does not believe in a deity or deities. The only debate seems to be whether an atheist is someone who does not believe in a specific God or gods, or positively believes that there is no such thing as gods. Personally, I'm of the latter camp, but I can't rule out the possibility of the existance of some sort of natural energy or force or spirit or something that makes people, plants, and cockroaches different from rocks and computer monitors. I'm just not going to pretend that I (or any human being who has ever lived) have acquired specific of knowledge of what that thing is! A Star Wars fan would call that difference The Force, and for all I know they've got it right...
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No one is talking about the real reason net neutrality actually matters, and the real problem that needs to be solved: ISPs are content owners/creators! The fact that Comcast owns NBC Universal gives it direct and irresistible incentive to throttle (or charge extra to carry) content created by competing creators like Netflix and Amazon, who are not ISPs and therefore in no position to strike back with retaliatory throttling/pricing. AT&T owns Time Warner so Comcast would never dare to throttle it, but again, Netflix and Amazon can't fight back against AT&T either if it chooses to throttle (or charge extra to carry) their competing content. AT&T and Comcast are in a state of detente because AT&T would never dare to throttle NBC's streaming feed while Comcast would never dare to throttle HBO's, but Netflix and Amazon are fair game for any anti-competitive discrimination by both AT&T AND Comcast.
As soon as content ownership is divested from the ISPs then they will no longer be in direct competition with content owners who access their networks, and will no longer have any incentive to throttle/charge them. Suddenly all packets will be created equal regardless of their source, and all customers can be treated equally regardless of their product. Yes, the ISPs will still have to manage their networks to provide the best possible service with traffic shaping and such, but they will be doing so ONLY based on the requirements for maintaining quality of service, without bias based on who the customer is! Once the playing field has been leveled we can feel comfortable that any charges to content creators are being fairly assessed based on actual bandwidth consumption, but until then we must assume they are unfair and retaliatory in nature due to the inherent conflict of interest built into the ISPs today.
The reason this state of affairs persists is that ISPs are not classified as the necessary infrastructure utilities they have become, and therefore are not subject to regulations that could potentially be used to split them up; this is what Wheeler was attempting to address by classifying them under Title II. I'm not saying that he was going to try to force them to divest their content-creation divisions (though I'm sure he would have loved to!), but by defining them as the utilities they are he was at least able to forbid them from discriminating against packets based on origin, and focus only on QoS. Of course that was only a half-measure because discrimination in the network is difficult to prove and hard to enforce, and the "free data" plans Wheeler was investigating are a blatant example of the ISPs trying to cheat by restricting competitors' to promote their own services/content.
There's no way the current administration would have the balls to pass a law saying ISPs can't own content and Pai clearly isn't going to do it through regulation either, so welcome to the end of the free and open Internet as we knew it!
Let's say for a moment that I'm a Christian, and when I pray to God that the TN Titans will win the Superbowl they do it. If the reeason they won is that my prayers have truly been answered by God then the Titans never really had the free will to win or lose because GOD MADE THEM WIN at my request! The coaches never had a choice in the decisions they made, God made the receiver catch that 75 yard pass, the game-winning field goal had no choice but to go through the posts, etc. I can only assume that those who prayed for the Washington Redskins to win the game must be bad folks, because God took away their team's choice to win play hard and win...
Since most people pray to their various and sundry gods every day, there's really not much room left for free will if all their prayers are being answered, is there?Dictionaries have lots of different definitions of the word "atheist", but none of them says atheists believe there is nothing spiritual at all. At it's Greek roots, atheism means "without deity", which is to say that the atheist does not believe in a deity or deities. The only debate seems to be whether an atheist is someone who does not believe in a specific God or gods, or positively believes that there is no such thing as gods. Personally, I'm of the latter camp, but I can't rule out the possibility of the existance of some sort of natural energy or force or spirit or something that makes people, plants, and cockroaches different from rocks and computer monitors. I'm just not going to pretend that I (or any human being who has ever lived) have acquired specific of knowledge of what that thing is! A Star Wars fan would call that difference The Force, and for all I know they've got it right...