The Internet Should Be a Public Good • Hacker News Board

Re: The Internet Should Be a Public Good

#101

Post by dtornabene » Wed, Aug 31, 2016, 8:39 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #99

dtornabene wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

fwiw I do know that it happens all the time here. And, as someone whose politics runs very far to the left contra this forum (I'm a regular Jacobin reader), I can appreciate the annoyance. I did strike me as a bit dissonant, coming from you. Edit: also, not having to constantly battle either a) trolls or b) what I feel to be right wing libertarian myopia is one of the reasons I've commented so little here, so, I Get…

Some years ago, during a phase in which every other comment on this site seemed to be accusing me of being an NSA shill, I made a decision never to spell out my particular (boring, especially if you know where I live) political beliefs in response to people accusing me of having a particular political inclination. Doing so might simplify (dumb, lazy) arguments. But we shouldn't have to do that.

I remember that. Not one of the brighter HN moments. I've done a small amount of activism, come from a family who have had run ins with the security state (had my own as well). It can be jarring to then turn around and have to defend a position that automatically grants you "shill" status to online nutjobs.

Re: The Internet Should Be a Public Good

#102

Post by borkborkbork » Wed, Aug 31, 2016, 8:50 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #99

dtornabene wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

fwiw I do know that it happens all the time here. And, as someone whose politics runs very far to the left contra this forum (I'm a regular Jacobin reader), I can appreciate the annoyance. I did strike me as a bit dissonant, coming from you. Edit: also, not having to constantly battle either a) trolls or b) what I feel to be right wing libertarian myopia is one of the reasons I've commented so little here, so, I Get…

Some years ago, during a phase in which every other comment on this site seemed to be accusing me of being an NSA shill, I made a decision never to spell out my particular (boring, especially if you know where I live) political beliefs in response to people accusing me of having a particular political inclination. Doing so might simplify (dumb, lazy) arguments. But we shouldn't have to do that.

I was wrong to have brought up your personal political beliefs. I apologize for that.

The arguments you are making, however, are dependent on the idea that markets are a necessary mechanism for the existence of the modern internet.

You have the right to withhold your political beliefs from anyone in any context.

You've gone astray by demanding that others de-politicize their language in a similar way.

Re: The Internet Should Be a Public Good

#103

Post by wyager » Wed, Aug 31, 2016, 8:58 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #79

wyager wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically, government regulation tends to work more like your second example. You are also objectively wrong; the FCC, the primary Internet regulator, is not voted in and is in no way transparent. It's also good for profits to be less proscriptive than one's competitors. There is no discernible reason that competing ISPs would choose to limit free speech of their own accord.

> > Internet is a public good -> regulatory powers are voted on and enacted by public bodies who are transparent and can be voted out. > You are also objectively wrong; the FCC, the primary Internet regulator, is not voted in and is in no way transparent. The FCC has only the regulatory powers it is granted by statute, hence, "regulatory powers are voted on" is correct. Those powers are enacted by Congress , which is…

>Those powers are enacted by Congress, which is an elected body which can be voted out.

You mean the congress with an 11% approval rating? Yeah, that's going great.

Re: The Internet Should Be a Public Good

#104

Post by wyager » Wed, Aug 31, 2016, 9:00 PM UTC

falcolas wrote: post #89

wyager wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why in the world do you think DNS is the issue? If you're worried about that, look at Namecoin. This is a solved problem. The issue is that the government, given sufficient regulatory power, will start doing things like banning porn or "extreme" political views. This is not hypothetical; it has already happened in the UK.

Let me paraphrase your own comment in response. The issue is that the corporations, given no regulation, will start doing things like banning porn or "extreme" political views. This is not hypothetical; it has already happened on Facebook. Censorship is not purely the domain of the government. At least there are checks and balances on a government's power (as ineffectual and slow as they may be); save for the morals…

ISPs could have already tried to ban porn, but they haven't.

Facebook isn't an ISP. Just because a single company has content restrictions doesn't mean every company in the world will do the same.

Namecoin doesn't need DNS to bootstrap. Why would you need to download something? Do you need to download a DNS client for your grandmother? If such a system becomes adopted, OSs include it in the background, like DNS. If you can't be bothered to read the namecoin paper, look at the great success of products like Google DNS. Nothing fancy, but an excellent privately run DNS.

Re: The Internet Should Be a Public Good

#105

Post by tptacek » Wed, Aug 31, 2016, 9:04 PM UTC

borkborkbork wrote: post #102

tptacek wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some years ago, during a phase in which every other comment on this site seemed to be accusing me of being an NSA shill, I made a decision never to spell out my particular (boring, especially if you know where I live) political beliefs in response to people accusing me of having a particular political inclination. Doing so might simplify (dumb, lazy) arguments. But we shouldn't have to do that.

I was wrong to have brought up your personal political beliefs. I apologize for that. The arguments you are making, however, are dependent on the idea that markets are a necessary mechanism for the existence of the modern internet. You have the right to withhold your political beliefs from anyone in any context. You've gone astray by demanding that others de-politicize their language in a similar way.

I believe that about the Internet. I don't necessarily believe it about anything else.

I am fine with politics, as long as the political discussion doesn't take the form of "here is what I have inferred about your personal political beliefs".

Re: The Internet Should Be a Public Good

#106

Post by wyager » Wed, Aug 31, 2016, 9:05 PM UTC

orthecreedence wrote: post #81

wyager wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically, government regulation tends to work more like your second example. You are also objectively wrong; the FCC, the primary Internet regulator, is not voted in and is in no way transparent. It's also good for profits to be less proscriptive than one's competitors. There is no discernible reason that competing ISPs would choose to limit free speech of their own accord.

> and is in no way transparent They are pretty fucking transparent. And they are still a public regulatory body, appointed by people appointed by the public. > There is no discernible reason that competing ISPs would choose to limit free speech of their own accord. Unless that ISP wants to create a streaming video service. So they block access to Netflix so you can "enjoy" their video service as well. If you want the…

>appointed by people appointed by the public.

So they're not elected; they're hired by the someone who is hired by the people in congress with an 11% approval rating. Great.

>most ISPs are a monopoly

When this occurs, it is a result of shitty municipal government line leasing policies.

Re: The Internet Should Be a Public Good

#107

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Aug 31, 2016, 9:05 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #99

dtornabene wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

fwiw I do know that it happens all the time here. And, as someone whose politics runs very far to the left contra this forum (I'm a regular Jacobin reader), I can appreciate the annoyance. I did strike me as a bit dissonant, coming from you. Edit: also, not having to constantly battle either a) trolls or b) what I feel to be right wing libertarian myopia is one of the reasons I've commented so little here, so, I Get…

Some years ago, during a phase in which every other comment on this site seemed to be accusing me of being an NSA shill, I made a decision never to spell out my particular (boring, especially if you know where I live) political beliefs in response to people accusing me of having a particular political inclination. Doing so might simplify (dumb, lazy) arguments. But we shouldn't have to do that.

[deleted]

Re: The Internet Should Be a Public Good

#108

Post by dllthomas » Wed, Aug 31, 2016, 9:06 PM UTC

wyager wrote: post #103

dragonwriter wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > Internet is a public good -> regulatory powers are voted on and enacted by public bodies who are transparent and can be voted out. > You are also objectively wrong; the FCC, the primary Internet regulator, is not voted in and is in no way transparent. The FCC has only the regulatory powers it is granted by statute, hence, "regulatory powers are voted on" is correct. Those powers are enacted by Congress , which is…

>Those powers are enacted by Congress, which is an elected body which can be voted out. You mean the congress with an 11% approval rating? Yeah, that's going great.

That's a misleading statistic. No one votes on "congress as a whole", they vote for their individual representatives. And individual representatives typically have a high approval rating (and are frequently voted out when it falls).

Re: The Internet Should Be a Public Good

#109

Post by tptacek » Wed, Aug 31, 2016, 9:14 PM UTC

dtornabene wrote: post #100

tptacek wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would that be the case? Has it generally been the case that innovations on the Internet have been generated from countries where the Internet is (more like) a public utility, and only then imported here? That's not my impression.

My own feelings on this would take a long time to sketch out, and are pretty diffuse tbh. They would also depend not so much on the internet per se but on high technology in general. I would point to early Israel, which was highly, almost exclusively socialistic (and in ways not reproduced anywhere else, i.e. the kibbutzim) as being capable of high tech innovation with a highly dynamic state sector. Also, I feel it w…

So, just to be clear: this isn't a blanket belief I have about technology. The modern Internet, however, appears to me to have developed largely in response to consumer demand, first for email, then for web pages with pretty pictures, then for secure web pages, then person-to-person audio, then small-scale video, then large-scale video. At each interval, some random company introduced software demonstrating one of those features, and it caught on, and the Internet was built up in response to it.

An ISDN BRI was zippy fast in 1997. I liked my ISDN! And if it weren't for Youtube, I might still like my ISDN.

If the Internet were a regulated utility, we'd have to petition for the local Internet authority to roll out something faster than 128kb/s. But of course, I didn't petition to get my DSL line: I just switched ISPs to one who'd provide it.

Lord only knows what Google would have had to do to get Youtube connected to the counterfactual regulated Internet.

Like I said elsewhere, I think regulated utilities work reasonably well when there's just one figure of merit (usually: price). I think the approach falls apart when the number of variables increases.

Re: The Internet Should Be a Public Good

#110

Post by dtornabene » Wed, Aug 31, 2016, 9:33 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #109

dtornabene wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My own feelings on this would take a long time to sketch out, and are pretty diffuse tbh. They would also depend not so much on the internet per se but on high technology in general. I would point to early Israel, which was highly, almost exclusively socialistic (and in ways not reproduced anywhere else, i.e. the kibbutzim) as being capable of high tech innovation with a highly dynamic state sector. Also, I feel it w…

So, just to be clear: this isn't a blanket belief I have about technology. The modern Internet, however, appears to me to have developed largely in response to consumer demand, first for email, then for web pages with pretty pictures, then for secure web pages, then person-to-person audio, then small-scale video, then large-scale video. At each interval, some random company introduced software demonstrating one of th…

Interesting. Thanks for taking the time to respond. Something for me to think about, seriously. Seeing the argument sketched out like this is illuminating as to its extent, I appreciate it.