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FCC Passes Strict Net Neutrality Regulations on 3-2 Vote

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Re: FCC Passes Strict Net Neutrality Regulations on 3-2 Vote

#561

Unfortunately the Net Neutrality 'debate' was another lose-lose situation for the United States. What we wanted wasn't for the big telecom duopoly to be forced to either run their business as a tiered service or as a regulated utility. What we wanted was for the US Government to exercise its Anti-Trust capabilities and bust the universally hated Comcast and Time Warner into a bunch of small companies, and set "Goldil…

How does busting them into smaller companies help anything? You'd still have regional monopolies or duopolies.

Re: FCC Passes Strict Net Neutrality Regulations on 3-2 Vote

#562

Unfortunately the Net Neutrality 'debate' was another lose-lose situation for the United States. What we wanted wasn't for the big telecom duopoly to be forced to either run their business as a tiered service or as a regulated utility. What we wanted was for the US Government to exercise its Anti-Trust capabilities and bust the universally hated Comcast and Time Warner into a bunch of small companies, and set "Goldil…

Go away please.

Re: FCC Passes Strict Net Neutrality Regulations on 3-2 Vote

#563

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The headline could say that world hunger was cured but the top comment on HN would still be something like "yes, but X people are still dying in car crashes every year"

There does seem to be a bias towards overly worded critical comments.

I think at least part of it is because the people on HN enjoy solving problems so much. When there's a post that says "we solved this problem", a lot of people here (me included) think "great, what's the next problem to solve". The focus is on "the next problem to solve" more than the "great", sometimes to the degree that the "great" is completely ignored. I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing, but it can get grating. It reminds me a lot of a part of the essay "How to ask questions the smart way"[0] by Eric Raymond:

> Much of what looks like rudeness in hacker circles is not intended to give offence. Rather, it's the product of the direct, cut-through-the-bullshit communications style that is natural to people who are more concerned about solving problems than making others feel warm and fuzzy

It's not quite the same, but it comes from the same cut-through-the-bullshit attitude.

[0]: http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

Re: FCC Passes Strict Net Neutrality Regulations on 3-2 Vote

#564

Unfortunately the Net Neutrality 'debate' was another lose-lose situation for the United States. What we wanted wasn't for the big telecom duopoly to be forced to either run their business as a tiered service or as a regulated utility. What we wanted was for the US Government to exercise its Anti-Trust capabilities and bust the universally hated Comcast and Time Warner into a bunch of small companies, and set "Goldil…

But breaking up Comcast or TW wouldn't lead to increased competition and more options for consumers. Breaking them up would not change the fact that most people will only have one serious option for wired internet service... it would simply change the name of the one option that a given consumer would have. The reason being that, for a given location, the permission to actually lay down the lines is going to be given typically to one company (or a select few). This means that wired internet service is not capable of being a healthy competitive market. Which leads to the conclusion that treating those lines as a utility is the right choice.

Re: FCC Passes Strict Net Neutrality Regulations on 3-2 Vote

#565

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I find all of your arguments to be talking points. Please define "talking points"... I find it often means an often repeated argument that my side doesn't agree with.

The same arguments being repeated again and again, usually by multiple different people (almost as if the arguments have been disseminated from the same source), with any rebuttals or addressing of those points by people opposing the central point being ignored or not addressed in good faith. See upthread for an example of this.

Repeated argument I don't agree with...talking point.

Repeated argument I do agree with...consensus.

Re: FCC Passes Strict Net Neutrality Regulations on 3-2 Vote

#566

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's turn the tables- I'm going to apply a hypothetical: I find all of your arguments to be talking points. How can we possibly have a reasonable dialog? I have just insulted you by explicitly stating that you are insincere in your position. This is how you're treating everyone who disagrees with you. It is utterly unproductive. You are executing a Denial of Service attack on any reasonable dialog.

No. Not everybody . Go see my comment history over a long period of time. On this particular topic, with a couple of particular accounts, I have strong reason to believe that cogent arguments are futile. I'm openly assuming such accounts to be at best ideologically driven, rationally blind or at worst astro-turfers. And I'm openly refusing to engage in rational argument with these accounts. paulhauggis is one such ac…

What is the point of this then?

Part of the value of hackernews is that you get informed people presenting ideas that you might not otherwise have considered. Attacking someone because they violate orthodoxy is something that is lampooned in this comic. YOU'RE THE GUY IN THE COMIC! http://xkcd.com/386/

Re: FCC Passes Strict Net Neutrality Regulations on 3-2 Vote

#567

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did problem 1 really need 700 distinct new regulations to be solved?

I have yet to see any basis for the "700 distinct new regulations" claim, and given the parallel claim, often from the same posters, that the Order is only on the order of 300 pages, find "700 distinct new regulations" to be highly suspicious, and suspect that if it is even loosely tied to fact, its tied to a count of the number of numbered sections, not the number of things that are in any sense distinct regulations…

As far as I can tell, the 700 regulations is complete nonsense from people who did not read the release thoroughly. I have the news release sitting right in front of me, and on the 3rd page under the heading "Legal Authority:..." it says:

"the Order refrains - or forbears - from enforcing 27 provisions of Title II and over 700 associated regulations that are not relevant to modern broadband service."

That's your over 700 right there. This is the only place that I can find that number anywhere. The people who are talking abuot "over 700 new regulations" are party to a misunderstanding of hilarious proportion, making it clear that they have not RTF(news release).

Re: FCC Passes Strict Net Neutrality Regulations on 3-2 Vote

#568

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing I have hated the most about the last 20 years of the internet is how often I have been blocked access to a website due to caps. This has happened exactly 0 times.

We've already seen companies with Netflix competitors wielding caps against Netflix. It's hardly a crazy concept that Comcast could wield them against speech they don't like too.

The caps were already there. That is what peering is about.

If you can offer the service internally on your network, then by all means you should be able to allocate as much bandwidth as can. The peering points are the choke points. This is where things get nutty.

Netflix has developed boxes that can be deployed in operator networks to avoid the peering choke points. They didn't want to pay Comcast to operate these boxes (They have to be operated). It's not like netflix didn't have a choice in this situation.

Re: FCC Passes Strict Net Neutrality Regulations on 3-2 Vote

#569

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a probematic comment in any forum, but I'd think it'd be especially unwelcome in a forum filled with programmers. Because even assuming it's true that there are 700 new distinct regulations, programmers should know better than to use regulations as a pejorative or high numbers of them as a proxy bugaboo. We're people whose job includes filling text editors with regulations specifying the inputs, tranformation…

Yes but by drawing that parallel, you have to realize that programmers represent totalitarian dictators. Software isn't a democracy. America is.

Even democracies run better with unambiguous rules.

Re: FCC Passes Strict Net Neutrality Regulations on 3-2 Vote

#570
post #481
post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When was the last time you heard a Republican politician on the national stage raise an issue that was not obviously directed at their base, or donors? A comment that plainly stated a fact in a noninflammatory way? Or proposed a course of action that was not designed to be punitive to some group, or alternately, designed to disproportionately benefit the powerful? Republicans inhabit a carefully-crafted parallel real…

> When was the last time you heard a Republican politician on the national stage raise an issue that was not obviously directed at their base, or donors? Do you seriously believe that it's only Republicans that pander to their base?

It's certainly not only Republicans. But neither are they pandering to their "base" in any traditional sense; rather, they are pandering to a few dozen specific people, the extreme concentration of whose wealth generates gravitational fields that that propagate through today's medium more freely than in any time in recent memory.
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