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The $200 Billion Rip-Off: Our broadband future was stolen (2007)

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Re: The $200 Billion Rip-Off: Our broadband future was stolen (2007)

#231

Post by derleth »

vacri wrote: post #229
derleth wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> BULL and SHIT. In Australia, there is no routine pixellation of middle fingers, likewise pixellating the mouth of someone swearing. We don't ban whole works. Australia does. > Hell, even movie ratings are a form of censorship, Nonsense. Self-imposed rating systems are in no way comparable to governmental censorship. > Some US states prevent atheists from holding political office Wrong. Those laws may be on the book…

-- We don't ban whole works. Australia does. Name some that have happened in the past couple of decades, given that this was your initial point of note. Then explain to me how those particular selected works are anything but a narrow gap between the US and Australia, in real terms rather than purity of ideology. And need I remind you again about IP laws? Lifetime of author plus 70 years is a very real ban on associat…

> And need I remind you again about IP laws?

Not relevant. This doesn't ban content, just the reproduction of specific works.

> So, Australia has the principle of being able to ban entire works and yet doesn't ban anything.

You literally just contradicted yourself, when you mentioned a work that Australia did ban.

> partial censorship is okay

It is when you can evade it entirely by releasing an 'unrated' version of your movie, as is common practice in this country and has been for years.

> On the other hand, states in the US have laws stating that you can't take office if you are an atheist.

Outdated laws nobody would dare enforce, given the hugely expensive legal case which would result.

And, no, I never said it was fine and dandy. Stop putting words in my mouth. Every country has a sordid history which it needs to move past. Or do I need to remind you of the Stolen Generation?

> I didn't say anything about principles. I was talking about idealism being tested. These are not the same thing.

You are trying to draw a distinction based on absolutely nothing. The words mean the same damn thing.

> You have a pretty tortured definition of racism, if it requires the banning of face veils before it's a problem.

I never said this. I said that institutional racism is pretty damned bad when people can't even dress the way they want without being punished for it.

Every country has racism problems. At least in the US, we admit it without trying to claim our racism isn't racist.

> in the US, despite your puritanical ideal of free speech, you have a whole selection of two political parties to vote for

Or not vote for. You know, we have the freedom to not vote in this country, which seems to be foreign to the Australian mindset.

And, if having umpty-dozen parties is so great, how come the only ones who get elected are the ones that censor the damned Internet?

Re: The $200 Billion Rip-Off: Our broadband future was stolen (2007)

#232

Post by X4 »

Kell wrote: post #230
X4 wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your argument in all honor, but it doesn't make sense, because I said that "it will be there soon enough for commercial purposes". Again, I didn't say that it's commercially available today for you to sell to your customers. StackOverflow is not a good source, especially that thread, it is full of bad answers. I've read all of them. The first poster said: "Those quantum states may encode classical information." The p…

"If you have a particle (such as a photons, electrons, or molecule) and have it physically interact with another particle, and then separate them, the result is that they can then both be described as being in the same quantum mechanical state. Basically, they are now the same, in factors such as position, momentum, spin, polarization, etc. However, because we are dealing with quantum mechanics, the state of those pa…

You're talking about old things like Bell's theorem to support your straw man fallacy, but neglect your own saying. States are transmitted instantly and you still misunderstand either willingly or not the possibility of information transmission by this method.

Your words >> "Then the other photon will indeed assume the symmetrical state."

Your causality argument is void, because in no way has this to do with a paradox. That's high-school physics you use to draw the straw man here. You have no references that back your claims and have you even looked at the scientific journals I have sent you? Try to formally disprove those. And I'm all ears again, but here you only defend your position no matter what.

Re: The $200 Billion Rip-Off: Our broadband future was stolen (2007)

#233

Post by josu »

hbags wrote: post #198
josu wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somehow I doubt that that would be the most efficient way to do it. But maybe a couple or three companies could lay redundant fiber, while another two used existing infrastructures with new implementations, and maybe a couple more could offer satellite connections. I don't know, this is just pure speculation. What I know for sure is that the reason to protect companies that exploit "natural monopolies" is to protect…

I strongly suggest that if you're going to espouse these opinions, you do some math first. In this case, I suggest you model rural America's density, and the cost to lay down a wire, or fiber, or whatever in a town, along with all the needed infrastructure. Then I suggest you model the financial returns of that investment under conditions where there are multiple players. If you do this well, you'll find that as you…

Assuming that natural monopolies do exist, you just described how they actually work. They don't need the protection of the government because the incumbent has so many advantages over the entrant, that (most of the times) there is no need to offer any incentives to any company for it to be the first one to exploit a natural monopoly.

Re: The $200 Billion Rip-Off: Our broadband future was stolen (2007)

#234

Post by hbags »

josu wrote: post #233
hbags wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I strongly suggest that if you're going to espouse these opinions, you do some math first. In this case, I suggest you model rural America's density, and the cost to lay down a wire, or fiber, or whatever in a town, along with all the needed infrastructure. Then I suggest you model the financial returns of that investment under conditions where there are multiple players. If you do this well, you'll find that as you…

Assuming that natural monopolies do exist, you just described how they actually work. They don't need the protection of the government because the incumbent has so many advantages over the entrant, that (most of the times) there is no need to offer any incentives to any company for it to be the first one to exploit a natural monopoly.

The government regulations aren't there to create or protect monopolies. They're there to control monopolies that were likely to occur anyway, so that the monopolists can't use their position in an overly extractive manner.

Since these regulations occur at a local level, some of the rules are more effective than others, and some of them are straight-up corrupt. But the common case is not government creating monopolies, but rather government restraining them by regulating them.

Re: The $200 Billion Rip-Off: Our broadband future was stolen (2007)

#235

Post by baddox »

hbags wrote: post #13
baddox wrote: post #3

Just remember to resist the urge to think of this as corporations stealing money from the government. This is government stealing money from citizens.

Absolutely. Corporations do nothing but good. They bear no responsibility for their purposeful misuse of the funds. And government does nothing but bad. Swear on your stack of Ayn Rand books that the world would be better if we had more corporations, because they are perfectly ethical and never screw anybody over. Yes, that's right. Never blame the con artists^W^Wcorporations who didn't do what they promised. Instead…

I made no generalizations. My claim was about this specific case, and I stand by it.

I have never read or owned an Ayn Rand book.

Re: The $200 Billion Rip-Off: Our broadband future was stolen (2007)

#236

Post by Kell »

X4 wrote: post #232
Kell wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If you have a particle (such as a photons, electrons, or molecule) and have it physically interact with another particle, and then separate them, the result is that they can then both be described as being in the same quantum mechanical state. Basically, they are now the same, in factors such as position, momentum, spin, polarization, etc. However, because we are dealing with quantum mechanics, the state of those pa…

You're talking about old things like Bell's theorem to support your straw man fallacy, but neglect your own saying. States are transmitted instantly and you still misunderstand either willingly or not the possibility of information transmission by this method. Your words >> "Then the other photon will indeed assume the symmetrical state." Your causality argument is void, because in no way has this to do with a parado…

Hahahaha. You're funny.

Ok. So I'm doing a strawman... But you're not doing an argument from authority ?

So let's be clear. Bell's theorem is not an "old thing". I mean, what serious scientist argue something like that... (Yep, that's a No true Scotsman ;-) ) I've never encountered any argument in that direction. Of course some people argue against some of the derivations of Bell's theorem, and his test, but against the soundness of the theorem in itself ? For the record : "No physical theory of local hidden variables can ever reproduce all of the predictions of quantum mechanics."

Then people who challenge the consequences of Bell's Theorem, argue for Non Local Hidden Variables (http://arxiv.org/pdf/quant-ph/9906036v1.pdf). But frankly, non locality is not at all in the actual consensus of quantum physicists. It would have huge consequences on special relativity.

So, again, if you want to argue that Non locality is true, welcome to a completely new world of physics. As of today, no one have any proof that non-locality is real. The scientific consensus is that No communication theorem is a much more credible solution to the EPR paradox. I mean of course some people say that proof of NCT are circular. But most only do because they think we can find a better proof of it.

How many serious scientists work on disproving the Non Communication Theorem ? John Cramer ? Some people in his lab ? That's mostly it. And as of today... they found nothing I am aware of.

And then what are your references ? A nature article, published in the vulgarization part of the review and non peer reviewed ? That short blog post that show very limited understanding of the problems with Quantum Entanglement ?

Anyway, if No Com Theorem is false, boy what a world, time traveling become possible, teleportation, several other sci-fi things. That would be great. But probably will never happen.

Re: The $200 Billion Rip-Off: Our broadband future was stolen (2007)

#237

Post by josu »

hbags wrote: post #234
josu wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming that natural monopolies do exist, you just described how they actually work. They don't need the protection of the government because the incumbent has so many advantages over the entrant, that (most of the times) there is no need to offer any incentives to any company for it to be the first one to exploit a natural monopoly.

The government regulations aren't there to create or protect monopolies. They're there to control monopolies that were likely to occur anyway, so that the monopolists can't use their position in an overly extractive manner. Since these regulations occur at a local level, some of the rules are more effective than others, and some of them are straight-up corrupt. But the common case is not government creating monopolie…

Ok, I guess I was looking at it wrong.I was thinking about government-granted monopolies where the government willingly prevents competition. It is my understanding that this was how of most of the telecommunication companies around the world started.

Re: The $200 Billion Rip-Off: Our broadband future was stolen (2007)

#238

Post by hbags »

josu wrote: post #237
hbags wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government regulations aren't there to create or protect monopolies. They're there to control monopolies that were likely to occur anyway, so that the monopolists can't use their position in an overly extractive manner. Since these regulations occur at a local level, some of the rules are more effective than others, and some of them are straight-up corrupt. But the common case is not government creating monopolie…

Ok, I guess I was looking at it wrong.I was thinking about government-granted monopolies where the government willingly prevents competition. It is my understanding that this was how of most of the telecommunication companies around the world started.

I've heard of other scenarios where the government prevented competition, but they nearly all boil down to the same core: the constituents want X, but some sort of market failure is occurring (or likely to occur) and a temporary market intervention was able to resolve it.

Re: The $200 Billion Rip-Off: Our broadband future was stolen (2007)

#239

Post by projct »

mikeash wrote: post #202
projct wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are they not really correct? I have (in the past) looked into all three of the things you rebutted and I'm not so sure the evidence agrees with you. It seems to me that the murder rate really is high for being a first-world country that isn't on the brink of collapse or recovering from it. Lowest number is for places with less than 10,000 inhabitants (roughly, read the details that go with the source to know what thi…

You seem to have completely missed my point about crime not being evenly distributed. Yes, the US murder rate is unusually high for a first world country. That does not, however, imply that most of the US experiences extreme amounts of violent crime. Most of the US is reasonably safe, with certain parts being unreasonably dangerous. To merely look at the average is like saying that the Dundee neighborhood of Omaha, N…

I'm not looking at the average for the whole country, I am looking at a specific piece of the FBI crime data, and comparing that to what should be by your own logic numbers that are already on the high side for other countries. In fact, the group I picked is of only areas with a population of less than 10,000, including areas where there is no population at all, as well as universities and colleges, excluding suburbs. It's about as biased toward the point you are trying to make as you can get from this data source and it still doesn't line up with what you are claiming.

Feel free to provide evidence for your claim as you still have not done so.

Here is one nonpartisan resource about healthcare I have offhand and a summary video by john green for those who don't feel like reading so much: http://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpress/what-makes-the-u... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSjGouBmo0M

Relevant points from it: no, obesity does not account for a significant portion; yes, it affects even those who pay; yes you need to look at a lot of data; and no the data does not agree with you.

The John Green video has 2 other links of interest in the description, too.

Your claims are still entirely unsubstantiated, and you keep throwing in more of them instead of backing your existing claims up with data.

Re: The $200 Billion Rip-Off: Our broadband future was stolen (2007)

#240

Post by mikeash »

projct wrote: post #239
mikeash wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to have completely missed my point about crime not being evenly distributed. Yes, the US murder rate is unusually high for a first world country. That does not, however, imply that most of the US experiences extreme amounts of violent crime. Most of the US is reasonably safe, with certain parts being unreasonably dangerous. To merely look at the average is like saying that the Dundee neighborhood of Omaha, N…

I'm not looking at the average for the whole country, I am looking at a specific piece of the FBI crime data, and comparing that to what should be by your own logic numbers that are already on the high side for other countries. In fact, the group I picked is of only areas with a population of less than 10,000, including areas where there is no population at all, as well as universities and colleges, excluding suburbs…

Taking the average of every place in the country with a population under 10,000 does not strike me as being even close to "as biased... as you can get" toward my point. You're still discussing the mean, while the original claim was about the median. If crime is indeed highly clumpy, as I've proposed, then it's probably highly clumpy in communities of under 10,000 people too. The mean could therefore easily be high while the median remains low.

For more on my reasoning, see my reply elsewhere:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7024053

And yes, a lot of it is handwaving and speculation. The data I'd need just doesn't appear to exist, since you'd have to take it down to the neighborhood level. That said, I think it's superior to discuss without data, while admitting that the data isn't there, than tho discuss with data that doesn't actually say what it's claimed to say.

Regarding healthcare, your first link does not mention inferior outcomes at all. It does not state, but heavily implies, that our outcomes are not significantly better or worse. I briefly searched around that site for other articles but couldn't find anything that discusses the health care system in isolation from the confounding factors. And there is no way I'm going to believe that obesity is not a significant factor here without something to back it up, given that obesity in the US is a factor in about 1/5th of all deaths.

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