No Credit for Uncle Sam in creating Net? Vint Cerf disagrees • Hacker News Board

Re: No Credit for Uncle Sam in creating Net? Vint Cerf disagrees

#11

Post by biot » Thu, Jul 26, 2012, 2:56 PM UTC

stuff4ben wrote: post #4

Key quote: "Cerf: I would happily fertilize my tomatoes with Crovitz' assertion."

The claim he's referencing:

  Here for 30 years the government had an immensely useful
  protocol for transferring information, TCP/IP, but it
  languished...In less than a decade, private concerns have
  taken that protocol and created one of the most important
  technological revolutions of the millennia.

Is Cerf's argument against the notion that it was private concerns that created the internet on top of a languishing protocol? That's valid, though it's certainly true that without the private sector investing in developing on top of the internet that it wouldn't be where it is today.

Re: No Credit for Uncle Sam in creating Net? Vint Cerf disagrees

#12

Post by twoodfin » Thu, Jul 26, 2012, 2:57 PM UTC

rondon1 wrote: post #6

The republicans want to frame the presidential race as Big government vs. small government. "Romney wants to let the free market fuel America's success while Obama wants the government to your money and spend it how they see fit" Obama has recently tried to point out that the success of the free market in America has been dependent on the US Government. "Someone built the road and bridges and someone educated your em…

"Someone built the road and bridges and someone educated your employees, and someone built they internet that you use. Those things were funded by tax dollars."

All of that's true, but it's also true that the guy who didn't build a business also gets to use those roads and the internet. It's also true that private spending on telecommunications infrastructure in this country utterly dwarfs public spending. And nobody serious is arguing we shouldn't have roads and bridges.

How any of this is a justification for $1T deficits and real marginal tax rates that will approach 50+% is anyone's guess.

It also sounded really bad coming out of the President's mouth. "I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. . It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something -- there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there." Hey, maybe being "so smart" and "working harder than everyone else" doesn't guarantee success, but at least most voters think those are pretty helpful in America, and may not appreciate anyone, least of all the President, sneering at them.

Re: No Credit for Uncle Sam in creating Net? Vint Cerf disagrees

#13

Post by nathan_long » Thu, Jul 26, 2012, 2:57 PM UTC

chris_wot wrote: post #2

Wow. Crovitz says that Ethernet was invented to "link different computer networks". How embarrassing for his argument!

Yes. I was fascinated to learn recently that, as Cerf says, Ethernet was based on a broadcast network in Hawaii. Two interesting things about that:

1) Networking between local machines came after larger, more distributed networks. This seems odd to us who might walk around with 3 computers on our person, but in those days, you might have 1 computer per institution, and networking's goal was to allow better sharing of those scarce resources. 2) The Ethernet method of "broadcasting" every message to everyone on the network (absent a switch to filter traffic for individual hosts) seemed odd to me when I first heard it, but there's no other way to do it in a radio network, which is what Ethernet was based on.

Re: No Credit for Uncle Sam in creating Net? Vint Cerf disagrees

#14

Post by nathan_long » Thu, Jul 26, 2012, 3:03 PM UTC

rondon1 wrote: post #6

The republicans want to frame the presidential race as Big government vs. small government. "Romney wants to let the free market fuel America's success while Obama wants the government to your money and spend it how they see fit" Obama has recently tried to point out that the success of the free market in America has been dependent on the US Government. "Someone built the road and bridges and someone educated your em…

Yes. If anything, the internet is a good example of the correct place for government and business. The initial research was publicly funded, and when it was up and running, it was handed off to private companies to manage, who compete to offer the best prices and service. (Of course, we'd all love to have more ISP competition, but that's a different subject.)

Re: No Credit for Uncle Sam in creating Net? Vint Cerf disagrees

#15

Post by joezydeco » Thu, Jul 26, 2012, 3:06 PM UTC

twoodfin wrote: post #12

rondon1 wrote: post #6

The republicans want to frame the presidential race as Big government vs. small government. "Romney wants to let the free market fuel America's success while Obama wants the government to your money and spend it how they see fit" Obama has recently tried to point out that the success of the free market in America has been dependent on the US Government. "Someone built the road and bridges and someone educated your em…

"Someone built the road and bridges and someone educated your employees, and someone built they internet that you use. Those things were funded by tax dollars." All of that's true, but it's also true that the guy who didn't build a business also gets to use those roads and the internet. It's also true that private spending on telecommunications infrastructure in this country utterly dwarfs public spending. And nobody…

It sounded bad coming out of the President's mouth because he did a very bad job of paraphrasing Elizabeth Warren. Warren put it like this:

"I love small businesses. My daughter started a small business, my brother started a small business, my aunt Alice started a small business, I worked in it when I was a teenager. This is really about a basic question of fairness. And that is, when big businesses really make it big, should they get the special tax breaks so that they don't have to make the contributions to help support all of the basic infrastructure—you know, the roads and bridges and the schools and all those pieces, the basic infrastructure that lets the next kid make it big, and the next kid after that, and the next kid after that? You know, the way I see this, this is really about the basic question of how we build our future. The Republicans have given their vision of how we build our future—they've said, 'I got mine, the rest of you are on your own'. Our vision of how you build a future is that you make the investments forward, so every kid has a chance. That's what this is really about."

Re: No Credit for Uncle Sam in creating Net? Vint Cerf disagrees

#16

Post by joshuahedlund » Thu, Jul 26, 2012, 3:09 PM UTC

rondon1 wrote: post #6

The republicans want to frame the presidential race as Big government vs. small government. "Romney wants to let the free market fuel America's success while Obama wants the government to your money and spend it how they see fit" Obama has recently tried to point out that the success of the free market in America has been dependent on the US Government. "Someone built the road and bridges and someone educated your em…

As prominent libertarian thinker Julian Sanchez said on Twitter recently, "Look, I'd really love it if it were a myth that gov't created the proto-Internet, but it's just not... A decent working definition of dogmatism is the refusal to recognize that sometimes GENERAL truths have counterexamples." [1][2]

[1] https://twitter.com/normative/status/227822924575408129 [2] https://twitter.com/normative/status/227829635109515265

Re: No Credit for Uncle Sam in creating Net? Vint Cerf disagrees

#17

Post by twoodfin » Thu, Jul 26, 2012, 3:11 PM UTC

joezydeco wrote: post #15

twoodfin wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Someone built the road and bridges and someone educated your employees, and someone built they internet that you use. Those things were funded by tax dollars." All of that's true, but it's also true that the guy who didn't build a business also gets to use those roads and the internet. It's also true that private spending on telecommunications infrastructure in this country utterly dwarfs public spending. And nobody…

It sounded bad coming out of the President's mouth because he did a very bad job of paraphrasing Elizabeth Warren. Warren put it like this: " I love small businesses. My daughter started a small business, my brother started a small business, my aunt Alice started a small business, I worked in it when I was a teenager. This is really about a basic question of fairness. And that is, when big businesses really make it b…

The Republicans have given their vision of how we build our future—they've said, 'I got mine, the rest of you are on your own'.

Now that's some thoughtful political discourse right there. Take the most draconian budget Republicans have even proposed, and you're still looking at trillions in spending for "the rest of you".

And anyone want to guess how big a % of the Federal budget "roads, bridges and schools" are? Next we'll have Federal candidates talking about firefighters. This isn't a serious argument.

Re: No Credit for Uncle Sam in creating Net? Vint Cerf disagrees

#18

Post by mseebach » Thu, Jul 26, 2012, 3:16 PM UTC

lutze wrote: post #5

TheGateKeeper wrote: post #3

WSJ should be embarrassed and fire that writer. Getting basic tenets of history wrong and misleading millions? What a sham.

Fire him... Are you serious? Like the truth has ever mattered to Murdoch. This writer is exactly on message, they'll give him a bonus.

Yes. Polemic columnists is a phenomenon exclusively observed in the Murdoch-owned end of the world.

Re: No Credit for Uncle Sam in creating Net? Vint Cerf disagrees

#19

Post by lutze » Thu, Jul 26, 2012, 3:19 PM UTC

mseebach wrote: post #18

lutze wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fire him... Are you serious? Like the truth has ever mattered to Murdoch. This writer is exactly on message, they'll give him a bonus.

Yes. Polemic columnists is a phenomenon exclusively observed in the Murdoch-owned end of the world.

"BUT EVERYONE ELSE IS DOING IT!!!!" is not an excuse you'd accept from a child, so why does it become an acceptable defence in politics and journalism?

Re: No Credit for Uncle Sam in creating Net? Vint Cerf disagrees

#20

Post by Prophasi » Thu, Jul 26, 2012, 3:23 PM UTC

joezydeco wrote: post #15

twoodfin wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Someone built the road and bridges and someone educated your employees, and someone built they internet that you use. Those things were funded by tax dollars." All of that's true, but it's also true that the guy who didn't build a business also gets to use those roads and the internet. It's also true that private spending on telecommunications infrastructure in this country utterly dwarfs public spending. And nobody…

It sounded bad coming out of the President's mouth because he did a very bad job of paraphrasing Elizabeth Warren. Warren put it like this: " I love small businesses. My daughter started a small business, my brother started a small business, my aunt Alice started a small business, I worked in it when I was a teenager. This is really about a basic question of fairness. And that is, when big businesses really make it b…

The Republicans have given their vision of how we build our future—they've said, 'I got mine, the rest of you are on your own'.

Which is, in turn, a poor job of paraphrasing the actual small-government view, which would be better stated as 'I was on my own, I made it, and you can do the same.'

And not all Republicans/libertarians have made it yet. For them it might be 'I haven't made it yet, but I will -- and so can you.'

Her line implies that the view is an asymmetric "benefits for me, but not for thee" philosophy, which isn't the case. It'd be great if more ideologues had enough confidence in their own views to accurately depict and dispute the opposition's, rather than relying on strawmen.