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European Parliament passes net neutrality law

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Re: European Parliament passes net neutrality law

#111

Post by arethuza »

oneandoneis2 wrote: post #102
Svip wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fun fact: People usually think that Britain and France has been most at war with one another, but Denmark and Sweden has actually been more at war (at least in terms of unique wars)[0]. Here is a non-exhaustive list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dano-Swedish_war [0] The Hundred Years' War sort of ruins the statistics in terms of years at war.

That's as maybe, but we hate the French more than Denmark &Sweden hate each other! :P

Except the Scots traditionally don't hate the French ;-)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auld_Alliance

Re: European Parliament passes net neutrality law

#112

Post by bausson »

claudius wrote: post #99
voicereasonish wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You may be waiting a lot longer than you think. No, I won't. The public is overwhelmingly hostile, and demands a say in who is creating our laws. There will be an absolute landslide victory for UKIP in the may elections, and the government will have to take note. If around 80% want to withdraw from Europe, you're going to have to do what they want at some point. The public will demand we govern ourselves rather tha…

> There will be an absolute landslide victory for UKIP in the may elections, and the government will have to take note. If around 80% want to withdraw from Europe, you're going to have to do what they want at some point. Yeah, I certainly hope so. Britain has been helding back European integration long enough :)

As an European from the Shengen Area, I never really considered the UK a part of EU.

London is 2H30 from my home (Paris), but I found going to Roma or Barcelona more easy, since I don't need any ID (and don't have to deal with customs and the induced delays).

I board the train on the evening, and when I wake up I'me ready for a week-end abroad. It's also cheaper, but that can be explained by the technical feat required to create The Channel Tunnel.

Re: European Parliament passes net neutrality law

#113

Post by mcv »

voicereasonish wrote: post #92
Karunamon wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The amount of money wasted in translating every document into every language alone is idiotic. Because fuck those people who don't speak a certain language, amirite? As someone from the US, some nanny-statism I dislike aside, I am very, very jealous of what the EU's getting done. They don't let corporations walk all over them, possible waste and bureaucracy issues aside.

> Because fuck those people who don't speak a certain language, amirite? No, because it shows how idiotic the EU is to start with. Trying to create laws that fit all countries, and then translating them into every language is just a silly waste of money. OK, another example for you: The parliament MOVES from Brussels to Strasburg EACH MONTH!!! (From wikipedia) - "Each month, the EP moves back and forth to meet the EU…

> OK, another example for you: The parliament MOVES from Brussels to Strasburg EACH MONTH!!!

That is not "another example"; that is easily the most ridiculous waste of time and money in the EU. There's plenty of other waste, but none of it compares even remotely to this.

Re: European Parliament passes net neutrality law

#114

Post by mcv »

shdon wrote: post #80
NicoJuicy wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PS. Some examples of good ideas: - Transforming libraries in hackerspaces (this is one of the best ideas i ever came accross) - Removing roaming (expensive cell phone calls in foreign countries, but in Europe, we are all different countries. 9000 € for checking your mail and etc... was not an exception). Some people who regulary stay in foreign countries (work, business, long vacation, .. get a mobile subscription in…

On the whole, I think she does good work. I'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt that she genuinely thought the text as proposed would sufficiently protect net neutrality or at least underestimated the holes it left. But even if she didn't, it is good to see that parliament did its job and corrected the mistakes made by the legislators.

She's the only Eurocommissioner that I constantly see fighting for all sorts of good causes. The others barely register or seem to be a net negative. I like Kroes a lot, but every once in a while, she suddenly supports something that seems quite the opposite of her usual position. Weirdly out of character. And I often find myself wondering if maybe there's something else at play in the background.

Re: European Parliament passes net neutrality law

#115

Post by mattmanser »

sgift wrote: post #98
mattmanser wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come on, that's a silly thing to say, everyone's empires were significantly dismantled after WW2. It's easy not to fight when there's nothing to fight over and you've got a massive bear beating at the door. I'm not claiming the EU's done nothing, I think it's made Europe richer, increased growth, etc., I'm claiming the EU had nothing to do with peace in Europe. Europe would still be at peace today with or without a c…

You know, we could discuss all day about the big russian bear which held Europe together, that there were no reasons to fight and so on. But let's just take a look at this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Coal_and_Steel_Communi... And there the reason for the ECSC, as stated by its "father" Robert Schuman: ----- He declared his aim was to "make war not only unthinkable but materially impossible" which w…

So what, European Unification-ists will say anything, it doesn't mean it's grounded in reality.

It's simply a political ideal, and an incredibly out-dated one at that. And I believe it's as deluded as communism, it's simply not how humans work. We don't share cultures, we have different values. Other countries are splitting up in the world today, splitting into their ethnic groups, where the EU is bizarrely trying to combine them.

The EU hasn't been tested. It's not had a single test because for decades the pressure the Cold War forced co-operation, and after the cold war finished we had a massive economic bubble, meaning everyone was swimming in cash.

We've finally had the crash and it doesn't look all that swimmingly amazing or stable in the EU any more.

You think if fascists seized control of Greece they would magically be peaceful because they're in the EU?

Re: European Parliament passes net neutrality law

#116

Post by voicereasonish »

claudius wrote: post #99
voicereasonish wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You may be waiting a lot longer than you think. No, I won't. The public is overwhelmingly hostile, and demands a say in who is creating our laws. There will be an absolute landslide victory for UKIP in the may elections, and the government will have to take note. If around 80% want to withdraw from Europe, you're going to have to do what they want at some point. The public will demand we govern ourselves rather tha…

> There will be an absolute landslide victory for UKIP in the may elections, and the government will have to take note. If around 80% want to withdraw from Europe, you're going to have to do what they want at some point. Yeah, I certainly hope so. Britain has been helding back European integration long enough :)

I agree. I am British. I'm in no way whatsoever "European". We'll be better out of the EU, and the EU will be better without us.

Re: European Parliament passes net neutrality law

#117

Post by voicereasonish »

sgift wrote: post #101
voicereasonish wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because fuck those people who don't speak a certain language, amirite? No, because it shows how idiotic the EU is to start with. Trying to create laws that fit all countries, and then translating them into every language is just a silly waste of money. OK, another example for you: The parliament MOVES from Brussels to Strasburg EACH MONTH!!! (From wikipedia) - "Each month, the EP moves back and forth to meet the EU…

That people feel better. Many things the EU does are about the feelings of people. I know, we are all rational beings and so on, we should just stop our feelings and get on with it. But that doesn't work. And because it doesn't work we don't say "English is our language from now on. You don't want that? Sucks to be you" and because of that the parliament moves between two cities.

The fact that some people, in some foreign country I will never visit, feel better, isn't much comfort to me I'm afraid.

Re: European Parliament passes net neutrality law

#118

Post by claudius »

voicereasonish wrote: post #116
claudius wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There will be an absolute landslide victory for UKIP in the may elections, and the government will have to take note. If around 80% want to withdraw from Europe, you're going to have to do what they want at some point. Yeah, I certainly hope so. Britain has been helding back European integration long enough :)

I agree. I am British. I'm in no way whatsoever "European". We'll be better out of the EU, and the EU will be better without us.

> We'll be better out of the EU, and the EU will be better without us.

I don’t know and don’t care about the former, but being able to implement remotely sensible policies without an American outpost sitting at the table will be a net plus for Europe, yes. I wonder why you guys wanted to join in the first place. Free tr…uce, free trace, free…trade, maybe?

EDIT: OTOH, is there any industry left in Britain that could benefit from ‘just’ free trade, as opposed to free movement of capital and such?

Re: European Parliament passes net neutrality law

#119

Post by pessimizer »

johansch wrote: post #57

Here's a kind of sickening statement: '"Europe's telecoms operators are facing decreasing revenues ... compared with operators in the U.S. and Asia," said the GSM Association, an industry group for mobile phone companies. In a statement signed by director Anne Bouverot, the group said European laws are "impairing their ability to invest in the infrastructure required to put Europe back on the path to growth and jobs.…

>"Europe's telecoms operators are facing decreasing revenues ... compared with operators in the U.S. and Asia,"

Because decisions on regulation should always have the goal of preserving the existing business models of middlemen:)

It's an important truth with a lot of implications for the wealth of nations that wages are sticky on the way down; should we devote as much study to the fact that modern governments don't believe that any regulation should be allowed to make the overall system more efficient?

The responsibility of the financial services are to allocate the utilization of resources between ventures that would produce more resources, and of course they as an industry find that 40% of that would be best allocated to themselves.

The responsibility of government is to facilitate interactions between people by providing rules, and guaranteeing that other actors that can facilitate that interaction be distributed efficiently within the system, and have to operate at a minimum quality standard. It has also taken on the duty of handing money to any rent-seeker whose actual facilitation function has become obsolete in the face of technology and other productivity gains.

This adds up to a situation where the financial industry and the state conspire to make sure that no productivity gains reach any individual either not in the financial services, or who doesn't represent a scarce resource required by rent seekers, i.e. mechanics of ways to obstruct interaction between individuals.

My only hope is that the inevitable slowdown in productivity that will come as the benefits of the Internet peter out (and by the repetition of identical siloed communication tools as a business model, that time is nigh) will force societies to eliminate these generalized inefficiencies just to keep up with population growth. We're seeing how that's going to play out right now in health care, education, and housing.

Sorry for typing this excerpt of my endless rant:)

Re: European Parliament passes net neutrality law

#120

Post by bayesianhorse »

mercurial wrote: post #27
mattmanser wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're thinking of the Cold War, the end of Colonialism and Nuclear Bombs and confusing it with something the EU did.

Well, he's technically right. The last European wars countries currently in the EU were involved in are the post-Yugoslavia wars (is there a name for them?). Prior to this, we have course the two world wars as the most well-known example of a cycle of destruction and butchery Europeans have displayed a particular taste for, often with exceptionally brutal results (eg, the Thirty Years' War).

For me, 70 years still is "a couple of decades" and the "cold war" wasn't entirely friendly either, now was it?
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