Senate votes to reinstate net neutrality • Hacker News Board

Re: Senate votes to reinstate net neutrality

#171

Post by Khoth » Thu, May 17, 2018, 11:00 AM UTC

zaphirplane wrote: post #162

tedunangst wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your voter registration record says which party you're in. The election official would likely make some inquiries if yours said "all of them" on it.

Shouldn’t who you vote for be confidential and you can change your mind till the day? And why can’t a person vote one way for local and another for state ? I don’t get the system

The party registration isn't counted as a vote for that party - when you show up on election day you can vote for whoever you want.

What it affects is which parties' primaries you can vote in.

Re: Senate votes to reinstate net neutrality

#172

Post by croon » Thu, May 17, 2018, 11:07 AM UTC

dcow wrote: post #102

alarge wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I follow your logic. First off, he didn't say that Republicans are reprehensible. He said that voting for a Republican implies that you are voting for a lot of reprehensible stuff (by proxy through your Republican representative). Reprehensible doesn't mean "I don't agree with". Over the years I've had disagreements with both parties (and have voted for members of both parties). However, with the increas…

I understand exactly what the parent's point is. I'm just continuing the discussion. The implication (and the sibling comments agree) is that you shouldn't vote for a party if you don't agree with everything about the platform. I'm defending the GP in this case arguing that I wish collectively we would focus more on single issues and less on broad sweeping platform stereotypes (e.g. reprehensible republican). I initi…

> I understand exactly what the parent's point is. I'm just continuing the discussion. The implication (and the sibling comments agree) is that you shouldn't vote for a party if you don't agree with everything about the platform.

No, the implication was that you should maximize your agreement with one of the platforms available (two here). One issue voting most likely doesn't do that.

Re: Senate votes to reinstate net neutrality

#173

Post by cies » Thu, May 17, 2018, 11:12 AM UTC

swebs wrote: post #169

whamlastxmas wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My response from a Texas senator was that he "supports net neutrality" and then went on define net neutrality as the exact opposite of the commonly accepted meaning.

And that's probably what he honestly believes because that's how some lobbyist explained it to him. I think a huge chunk of America's problems would be solved just by getting rid of lobbyists.

> America's problems

Every democracies problems. The problem with lobbies is that they allow "deeper pockets" to have "more influence", which is exactly what democracies should prevent. Thus big lobbies (especially the corporate funded ones, which ar by far teh larger part) are undermining the democratic process.

We see the results of this all over the world.

Re: Senate votes to reinstate net neutrality

#174

Post by smsm42 » Thu, May 17, 2018, 11:30 AM UTC

baq wrote: post #152

smsm42 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you do if none of the candidates qualifies after applying white and black lists? Or, if the candidate both promises something on the while list and on the black list? Not a theoretical question, I don't have the right to vote in US, but if I did, I'd be in this situation for the most elections in the most places where I cared reading about candidates.

You tell others to make a list. Enough people make such a list, change happens.

Provided their lists are similar. Otherwise you just get Brownian motion.

Re: Senate votes to reinstate net neutrality

#175

Post by smsm42 » Thu, May 17, 2018, 11:33 AM UTC

croon wrote: post #155

smsm42 wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have hard time to believe response said "we know better". Could you quote one? I am seeing that legitimate "we have different priorities" (which is always the case - it is not humanly possible to accommodate all preferences of all voters in a way that satisfies everybody) interpreted as "bond villain" so I am suspecting there's a bunch of distortion going on here.

Having other priorities isn't a problem, meaning it's fine if they spend their time working on other issues. But at some point they'll spend an hour or so voting, and at that point your "priorities" doesn't factor in anymore, as you should just represent your constituents. Unless you have an incredibly good reason not to. "Different priorities" isn't one, it's straight up misdirection.

> your "priorities" doesn't factor in anymore, as you should just represent your constituents

Who said they don't? We just heard from one person so far, which disagreed with the elected representative's priorities. Since they are still elected, clearly many people do agree with their priorities. Presenting this - completely routine and normal - policy disagreement as "straight up bond villain" implies that there is only one constituent that matters and only one order of priorities that is legitimate, and any disagreement is not just difference in opinion, but supreme villainy. By a weird coincidence it turns out the only legitimate priorities are exactly the ones of the author of the comment, what are the chances!

Re: Senate votes to reinstate net neutrality

#176

Post by smsm42 » Thu, May 17, 2018, 11:36 AM UTC

swebs wrote: post #169

whamlastxmas wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My response from a Texas senator was that he "supports net neutrality" and then went on define net neutrality as the exact opposite of the commonly accepted meaning.

And that's probably what he honestly believes because that's how some lobbyist explained it to him. I think a huge chunk of America's problems would be solved just by getting rid of lobbyists.

You mean not explain complicated technical matters to congressmen at all, so they will be making decisions in complete ignorance? Or explain them, but people who do it would be called not "lobbyists" but "educators" and would be only allowed to say what agrees with some opinions, but not the others? Or allowing anybody explaining things to congressmen and just not calling it "lobbying" because it's a dirty word?

Re: Senate votes to reinstate net neutrality

#177

Post by smsm42 » Thu, May 17, 2018, 11:51 AM UTC

alistproducer2 wrote: post #89

I am on the one hand happy to hear about this, but I couldn't help but laugh at the way it was reported on NPR. They said Democrats see this as an issue that can bring voters to the polls. I immediately thought of how few people even know what the heck net neutrality is (about 1 in 4 [0]). Either NPR is making stuff up or the Democrats are seriously in need of some new advice. [0]: https://americanactionnetwork.org/w…

1 in 4? That is insanely high. I would be surprised in 1 in 10 can explain what NN is properly (not "evil ISPs are gonna to make us pay for pr0n!") and about 1 in a 100 to explain what actually happened in 2015 and what happened in 2018 and what is the state of current legislation around ISP-content provider relationships. These things are complex patchwork of years of legislation and require non-trivial knowledge to understand. I rate the chance of 1 in 4 of Americans having this knowledge as the chance 1 in 4 Americans can fluently speak ancient Sumerian.

Re: Senate votes to reinstate net neutrality

#178

Post by Dylan16807 » Thu, May 17, 2018, 11:58 AM UTC

dcow wrote: post #157

Dylan16807 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are again conflating disagreements with "reprehensible". I disagree with lots of politicians on lots of issues. I find very few of those positions to be actually reprehensible.

I think we actually agree. Or at least that's what I'm saying too. I didn't use reprehensible, the comment I was responding too did. My point is your point, just worded differently.

The original comment said that there are some reprehensible policies.

You then treated "reprehensible" as meaning the same thing as "not perfectly aligned".

Your followup treated "reprehensible" as meaning the same thing as "don't agree with everything".

We might agree on some things, but we clearly do not agree about what jacquesm was saying, because I think the original comment was fine.

Re: Senate votes to reinstate net neutrality

#179

Post by swebs » Thu, May 17, 2018, 12:14 PM UTC

smsm42 wrote: post #176

swebs wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that's probably what he honestly believes because that's how some lobbyist explained it to him. I think a huge chunk of America's problems would be solved just by getting rid of lobbyists.

You mean not explain complicated technical matters to congressmen at all, so they will be making decisions in complete ignorance? Or explain them, but people who do it would be called not "lobbyists" but "educators" and would be only allowed to say what agrees with some opinions, but not the others? Or allowing anybody explaining things to congressmen and just not calling it "lobbying" because it's a dirty word?

>You mean not explain complicated technical matters to congressmen at all, so they will be making decisions in complete ignorance?

So the options are either

1. Get a biased source of information (along with donations $$$) from Comcast

2. Just throw your hands up in the air and declare that the problem is unknowable. Nope, Wikipedia doesn't exist. Neither does the library, your staff, or the actual bill itself. Comcast's lobbyist only. A person elected into one of the highest positions in the US is too incompetent to do their own research.

Re: Senate votes to reinstate net neutrality

#180

Post by moduspol » Thu, May 17, 2018, 12:47 PM UTC

crowbahr wrote: post #109

alistproducer2 wrote: post #89

I am on the one hand happy to hear about this, but I couldn't help but laugh at the way it was reported on NPR. They said Democrats see this as an issue that can bring voters to the polls. I immediately thought of how few people even know what the heck net neutrality is (about 1 in 4 [0]). Either NPR is making stuff up or the Democrats are seriously in need of some new advice. [0]: https://americanactionnetwork.org/w…

Young people are less likely to vote but far, far more likely to know about Net Neutrality. I think it's a shrewd strategy: it will get more young people out, who tend to vote Democrat.

I think actual concern is vastly overstated. The number of people truly willing to vote over net neutrality despite virtually none of the post-apocalyptic claims made last time around coming true has got to be borderline non-existent.

If someone's ISP starts blocking / heavily throttling Netflix or YouTube for them, I could see it becoming a voting issue. But otherwise? Meh.