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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

#731

Post by hugofirth »

vidarh wrote: post #686
hugofirth wrote: post #682

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True - but in defence of OP's point, the UK has a competitive market for broadband service providers and there (for the most part) net neutrality is not an issue. So, anecdotally, solving problem 2 could minimize the effect of problem 1. On the other hand I think this is a great win on its own :)

In particular it's worth noting that some providers wanted to make net neutrality an issue in the UK: In particularly once iPlayer launched, they were wildly unhappy with the traffic the BBC "caused". But they were in the unhappy position (for the ISPs, not users) that if they started negatively affecting iPlayer, their customers would have plenty of choice. The comical part of that whole affair was that they should…

Huh - I was vaguely aware of the uproar about iPlayer in the early days, but I had no idea the BBC did peering agreements. This was fascinating, thank you :)

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

#732

Post by O____________O »

daughart wrote: post #693
O____________O wrote: post #652

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Affordable Healthcare Act was ... created by morons Really? I thought it was drafted by very clever, largely self-interested people. I treat down-votes in the absence of a counter-argument as up-votes. Good luck with that. Sounds like a great way to eventually find yourself banned.

The morons part was just me being facetious. Since I edited my comment I went from -3 to 0, so apparently people agree. I don't know why asking for a counter-argument would get me banned, or how you know anything about being banned from HN when you've been a member for 86 days and I've been a member for over 600 days. I've never actually heard of banning here.

I don't know why asking for a counter-argument would get me banned

You didn't do that. You wrote snark about downvotes.

or how you know anything about being banned from HN when you've been a member for 86 days

What, you think they charge for accounts around here, or something? Why in the world would you think I haven't used other accounts before? If you made it to 600 days and haven't heard of the slow-down (whatever it's called) or hell-banning, then you haven't been paying much attention.

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

#733

Post by cbd1984 »

brink wrote: post #552
oceanstone wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I like reading the counter argument so that I can feel like I looked at both sides of the matter. What can I say?

In some things the other side is just idiocy. Vaccines work and are generally safe. There is no legitimate other side to that.

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

#734

Post by walshemj »

amikula wrote: post #644
grecy wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are two problems, and the FCC has solved one of them perfectly. Problem 1: ISPs trying to charge to (de)prioritize packets. Problem 2: The two biggest ISPs suck, and should be broken up, and/or it should be mandated that competition is much easier. Would you be happy if they solved problem 2 without solving problem 1? Leave problem 2 for another day, and celebrate that problem 1 has been dealt with.

Personally, I think that solving problem 2 is the most important, and problem 1, if it is truly a problem, could be solved by a competitive free market. If it's truly possible for new competitors to enter the market, then if problem 1 really matters, market forces will handle it.

local loop unbundling is what you need

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

#735

Post by djur »

innguest wrote: post #702
djur wrote: post #601

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't think "godonearth, I mean, government" and calling half the population "collectivist", "communist", "fascist", and "brainless" might be a little bit emotional? I downvoted it because it was a content-free screed full of political shibboleths and mantras.

Given two or more sides of an issue, there will be those that use more emotional arguments in their rhetoric, and there will be those that won't care about the pathos side of rhetoric and focus on the logic. According to my experience, a good heuristic to know which side is right is to pick the one that is more grounded on logic and relies less on arguing from pathos. Unfortunately, this simple heuristics is out of r…

Your definitions of "collectivist", "fascist", "individualist", and for that matter "heuristics" are novel and vacuous. I see in your comment a great deal of ten-dollar words and not a single citation or even a verifiable claim of any sort.

The existence of a democratic government does not begin to mean that "more than half the population wants it to be like this", whatever "this" is. The failings of formal democracy in representing the desires and interests of the population are well-known, and most democratic systems are openly designed to prevent a bare majority from getting everything they want (including ours -- see the Federalist Papers).

Your definition of "fascist" would apply to any sufficiently powerful central government, from Hammurabi to the tsars to the UK parliament. There are numerous working definitions of fascism but all of them recognize that fascism is a reaction to liberal democracy and thus inherently modern. There is also no fascism without militancy, or without nationalism. You also don't seem to see the contradiction to your "heuristic... to pick the one that is more grounded on logic" inherent in your proposed strategy of "accusing ['collectivists'] of fascism".

And your flight of fancy about a "numinous person... pure and incorruptible" wielding "the exalibur of power" (which looks a lot like an argument from pathos to me) has nothing to do with any standard definition of "collectivist". Nor does it have anything to do with "making goods and services cheaper". You yourself admit it's just a slur ("used disdainfully by those that reject the idea"). Mises, Hayek, Marx, none of them used the term this way. Collectivism is a sociological concept, not a political position.

A rationalist should start with observations of reality and proceed from there, not from the axioms which one presumes to be self-evident.

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

#736

Post by rlion »

simonh wrote: post #690
zo1 wrote: post #659

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As always, these items are only presented as "problems" because of the presence of government. So when government steps in and solves them, all pro-state individuals shout a glorious "Hurray, take that free-market!!'. >Seat Belts: If individuals wanted them, the car companies would have followed suit. You forget that not only were seat belts mandated to be installed, but people were FINED if they didn't put them on.…

I'll let that great promoter of free trade and market forces Adam Smith weigh in here: “People of the same trade seldom meet together... but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public,...” Corporations have vast resources and capabilities far beyond those of the individual and frequently use them against us for their own benefit. Tobacco companies faked and suppressed research and knowingly lied in thei…

"They regulate markets on our behalf..."

That would be awesome if it were true, but it's not. It's very naive to believe politicians and bureaucrats work for anything other than their own self-interest.

Now that the FCC runs the Internet who do you think is going to influence them more- Comcast's lobbyists or you?

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

#737

Post by woofyman »

rsync wrote: post #331
duaneb wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not the job of the government to make companies less shitty, it's their job to protect the free market so OTHER companies can reduce the shittiness of e.g. comcast. This is just the first step. I'd also like to point out that splitting up Ma Bell hardly solved the problem.

"I'd also like to point out that splitting up Ma Bell hardly solved the problem." Really ? I'm not an expert, but one item that comes to mind is that my children have never heard the term "long distance" and never will. That's pretty swell.

Back in the day, you could make a person to person collect call knowing they would refuse to accept the charges. You would do this to signal that you safely arrived after a long trip...etc. You could also encode information in the name you told the operator was making the call.

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

#738

Post by doktrin »

mehwoot wrote: post #595
ertdfgcb wrote: post #563

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I think at least part of it is because the people on HN enjoy solving problems so much. Or we're all cynical assholes. Just possibly.

Or overly pedantic alpha nerds, the lot of us.

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

#739

Post by innguest »

djur wrote: post #735
innguest wrote: post #702

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given two or more sides of an issue, there will be those that use more emotional arguments in their rhetoric, and there will be those that won't care about the pathos side of rhetoric and focus on the logic. According to my experience, a good heuristic to know which side is right is to pick the one that is more grounded on logic and relies less on arguing from pathos. Unfortunately, this simple heuristics is out of r…

Your definitions of "collectivist", "fascist", "individualist", and for that matter "heuristics" are novel and vacuous. I see in your comment a great deal of ten-dollar words and not a single citation or even a verifiable claim of any sort. The existence of a democratic government does not begin to mean that "more than half the population wants it to be like this", whatever "this" is. The failings of formal democracy…

Do you disagree that most people want a government? I think not.

Do you disagree that most of those people want a government because they want government to intervene on social and economic issues?

Do you disagree that most of those people want a government because "otherwise we'd have to make every decision" and they like to delegate some decisions to representatives so that they don't have to bother to check for themselves if their water is clean, so that they don't have to bother having to contract with a garbage collection company, so that they don't have to bother to check if restaurants aren't poisoning their customers, and so on? In other words, so that they can trust things will be taken care of and don't have to manage every aspect of their lives?

Do you disagree that because most of those people seem to want to abstract away certain aspects of their lives, namely those they want government to take charge of, that they also won't be as willing to discuss those issues, seeing that the reason they delegate those things to government is because they don't want to think about it, let alone argue about it?

Do you then disagree that maybe, because of this unwillingness to engage in these discussions, that if a group of people, namely individualists, that believe governments cause more harm than good, would like to see things changed towards freer markets, that it might be fruitless to think the way to achieve those changes is to engage in discussions with those people who are unwilling to engage in discussions because they are in favor of not thinking about those issues and instead abstracting them away onto government?

That's all I'm arguing. Coarsely put, one side wants to debate. The other doesn't. The side that wants to debate usually uses logic because that's the fundamental tool of debating. The side that doesn't want to debate uses emotion because that's the fundamental tool of avoidance.

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

#740

Post by djur »

innguest wrote: post #739
djur wrote: post #735

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your definitions of "collectivist", "fascist", "individualist", and for that matter "heuristics" are novel and vacuous. I see in your comment a great deal of ten-dollar words and not a single citation or even a verifiable claim of any sort. The existence of a democratic government does not begin to mean that "more than half the population wants it to be like this", whatever "this" is. The failings of formal democracy…

Do you disagree that most people want a government? I think not. Do you disagree that most of those people want a government because they want government to intervene on social and economic issues? Do you disagree that most of those people want a government because "otherwise we'd have to make every decision" and they like to delegate some decisions to representatives so that they don't have to bother to check for th…

Agreed on the first two.

Disagreed on the third. The purpose of government is not to delegate decision-making to others, but to join together the power of individuals to accomplish goals that they could not together, and to protect the weak many from the strong few.

I agree that people frequently ignore issues that they perceive as too big or out of their control. Sometimes this is a rational assessment of the situation. Sometimes it's an abdication of personal responsibility.

I disagree that the position you identify as 'individualist' is associated with a willingness to debate, or to use rational arguments. Some of the most rational thinkers I've ever read were communists, and some of the lowest emotional sloganeering I've read was from self-proclaimed libertarians. Emotional and rational arguments are used by every political faction, and the use of emotional arguments is not a sign of weakness. Humans are emotional creatures and they are rational creatures, and there is nothing wrong with engaging with people on an emotional level.

I appreciate this response, even though I disagree with it. Thank you.

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