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Republicans: No compromise possible on net neutrality

arstechnica.com

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Re: Republicans: No compromise possible on net neutrality

#91

Post by jshen »

warrenwilkinson wrote: post #38
jshen wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

in a libertarian world who owns the cables to your house? How does someone with a better idea/business model get new cables out to everyones house?

Who needs to own cables? You could rent cable in some areas, rent satallite for others, build short range wireless towers in others, use laser transmission here, build above ground infrastructure there, channel packets through power cables here, and phone lines there, and speed it up with local caching here, here and here. Technology changes, don't expect the ISP killer to look like an ISP. Just as the land-line phon…

Who would you rent them from?

In a libertarian world who should have owned the cables for the past 20 years? How would competition happen when the cost of running new cables all around the country is extremely high?

Re: Republicans: No compromise possible on net neutrality

#92

Post by jshen »

smokeyj wrote: post #90
jshen wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

in a libertarian world who owns the cables to your house? How does someone with a better idea/business model get new cables out to everyones house?

Why not just use a different ISP over the same cables? The cables could be maintained by a "home owner association" type license that connects you to a main tower or something similar. Is the only possible way to connect to the internet by a State granted monopoly? I don't think so, but I feel our creativity has been shot because this is how it's worked for years.

So if I want a faster connection I'd have to gather a quorum of people who live in my area and convince them to force everyone in the area to chip in the money required to upgrade the cables?

When my internet is down and the ISP claims the cables are bad who do I call? Myself?

Re: Republicans: No compromise possible on net neutrality

#93

Post by DanI-S »

ars wrote: post #83
DanI-S wrote: post #28

The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing America that freedom for corporations equates to freedom for individuals.

Corporation are MADE of individuals. A corporation is not a person and does not think. There is an actual human on the other end, and it is that human to whom you are giving that freedom. People have a tendency to anthropomorphize corporations. A corporation did this, wants that, etc.

Collections of individuals don't act with the same motivations and ethics as individuals, so they shouldn't have the same rights.

Re: Republicans: No compromise possible on net neutrality

#94

Post by davidmathers »

gloob wrote: post #76
davidmathers wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is of course some truth to that, but in this case I think it's a bit unfair to conservatives. The words "freedom" and "liberty" do have reasonably consistent and coherent conservative meanings. They're just different than what libertarians, classical liberals, etc. mean when they use those words (negative liberty) and what liberals, social democrats, etc mean (positive liberty). But I do agree that Politics and…

"Negative liberty" and "positive liberty" are at least as much a matter of phrasing as they are anything real. For instance, do I have the positive liberty to compel others not to point loaded firearms at me? Do government officials have the negative liberty to not be compelled to hold elections if they don't want to?

I agree that those concepts don't really hold up to philosophical scrutiny, but they're useful for political categories. Libertarians, social democrats, and conservatives all mean something real when they say "liberty" and they are 3 different meanings.

Re: Republicans: No compromise possible on net neutrality

#95

Post by davidsiems »

gyardley wrote: post #88
davidsiems wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly why we need campaign reform. If you're business X, who's product is something that is provably not in the people's best interest you can ram through its legality with enough money thrown at the policy makers who are supposed to be serving the people who elected them. AT&T did not elect John Boehner. John Boehner should not share _any_ ties with AT&T.

Nothing is provable in politics. You're not going to get consensus on 'the people's best interest'. You're not even going to get consensus on 'the people'. (Apparently the stockholders of AT&T aren't invited.) Given that, 'campaign reform' just sounds like another way to keep participants out that you don't agree with. Businesses shouldn't participate. Unions shouldn't participate. Churches shouldn't participate. Non…

You're absolutely right. It is exclusionary. Participation should be exclusive to those who can vote. This means, no corporations, no organizations, no churches, etc. Individuals _only_.

Not letting Canadians vote in our elections is exclusionary too, that makes sense to me. Just because it's exclusionary doesn't mean it's a bad thing.

Of course we can't get consensus on 'best interest' but at least we can limit participation to those who's interests are on the table.

If you're CEO of X-Corp participate all you want, but do it with _your_ money and _your_ vote and that's _it_. At least there's a chance I'll be able to reason with and engage in political debate with you.

Re: Republicans: No compromise possible on net neutrality

#96

Post by webXL »

spenrose wrote: post #56
jacoblyles wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who oppose net neutrality don't trust the FCC to be a benevolent regulator of the internet. For example, this blog post has links to a number of longer form pieces that make the case against it: http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/the-fcc-should-not-regulate-t... And here's a post refuting the "money" argument: http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/siding-with-the-geeks-on-netw...

Cato supports its corporate masters: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Koch_Industries#C...

And Sourcewatch (AKA Center for Media and Democracy, AKA PRWatch) supports its union masters: http://www.prwatch.org/news/2011/02/10080/koch-denies-intere...

What's your point?

Re: Republicans: No compromise possible on net neutrality

#97

Post by viggity »

isleyaardvark wrote: post #70
leot wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps a good model here is that Boehner's position and ATT's support are dynamically coupled ... each causes and maintains the other. Kinda makes it tricky to assign blame (which is fortunate, for Boehner).

The thing is Boehner's position is so contrary to reality it's hard not to conclude that AT&T is influencing his position. Otherwise we'd have to believe that AT&T was lucky enough to stumble upon a Senator who misunderstands an issue in the exact way that benefits them.

Excuse me, but calling his position so contrary to "reality" is asinine. The internet has thrived and flourished for the past 20 years specifically because of a lack of government regulation - I don't know why it is so hard to believe that some people want to keep it that way.

Re: Republicans: No compromise possible on net neutrality

#98

Post by webXL »

beatpanda wrote: post #11

All of these stories point to one solution- re-decentralize the Internet. Depending on either corporations or the government for a functioning Internet is a recipe for disaster.

Decentralization depends on standards, infrastructure and property rights. That's all. Bureaucrats and corporations not required. If you want to hook up your network to mine, so your users can share data with mine and vice versa, all we need is power, hardware, ethernet and good 'ol TCP/IP.

Net "Neutrality" advocates would make better use of their time starting their own networks, where anything neutral goes, including equal prioritization of XXX porn and 911 VOIP packets. On my network, if you freely agree to the terms, your porn packets would not be neutral. If you don't like that, you don't have to use my network. Don't like it? Tough. It's called freedom.

Re: Republicans: No compromise possible on net neutrality

#99

Post by blueben »

jimmyk wrote: post #41
blueben wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then you aren't familiar with network neutrality, which has nothing to do with the FCC dictating what kind of traffic is and is not allowed or controlling traffic.

No it certainly doesn't have anything to do with that. However it does set the precedent that the FCC can set rules for how businesses operate their networks, and once that precedent is set it will become much easier to extend it to regulation of traffic. Keep in mind that governments rarely give up a power once it's become accepted, but that they are quick to extend any powers they do have. This isn't necessarily th…

Given that the government exists first to protect the interests of the people, and given that many of these carriers operate with government granted monopolies, I find it hard to shed any tears for these corporations.

Please remember, network neutrality isn't springing out of a vacuum. This net neutrality movement comes in response to real world events and corporate mergers.

Re: Republicans: No compromise possible on net neutrality

#100

Post by clistctrl »

jonknee wrote: post #39
clistctrl wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps 4G wireless is the answer?

Ironically that's the mode of access most likely to be affected by not having net neutrality laws passed. Google was even willing to give wireless a pass in their pact with Verizon.

This may be the conspiracy part of me talking, but I don't think its Ironic at all. I'm vagueing familiar with LTE, the more I learn about it, and its future capabilities the greater I imagine its proliferation will become. I imagine my kids will view internet access the same way I view landlines today. It occurs to me that if I know this, the ISP's definitely know this.
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