Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Senate votes to reinstate net neutrality

theverge.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 242 posts

Re: Senate votes to reinstate net neutrality

#31

Post by oh_sigh »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #15
dragontamer wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Things aren't addressed either. Because the House still needs to vote. Bicameral Legislative process in the USA. Laws need to be passed twice before they have any effect, and Trump has the (nearly) final say in the form of a presidential veto. Assuming the Democrats manage to vote as a bloc in the House, there still needs to be ~25 Republicans who switch sides on this issue. Net Neutrality is... for some reason... se…

Net neutrality is a "Democrat issue" because the companies who benefit from net neutrality primarily fund Democrats. The companies who benefit from it being repealed primarily fund Republicans.

Are you sure you don't have cause and effect reversed? Could it be the case that those companies donate to politicians because those politicians views naturally align with their own?

Re: Senate votes to reinstate net neutrality

#32

Post by dragonwriter »

Lionsion wrote: post #19
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a "prediction" on the scale of how many months in advance I said Bernie Sanders was not going to be the next President of the United States. It's within the laws of physics for me to be wrong, but not a practical real world scenario here nonetheless. Only 35 Senators are up for reelection this year, I assume you meant the House, not "all of Congress". (Note that all of the House is up for reelection every electi…

> but not a practical real world scenario here nonetheless. That is the kind of thinking that entrenches the status quo. Close political fights are worth fighting because there's nothing to be gained by preemptively surrendering. > Only 35 Senators are up for reelection this year, I assume you meant the House, not "all of Congress". (Note that all of the House is up for reelection every election term, and it doesn't…

> Single issue voters make policy.

Most often, and most significantly, unintentionally, on all the issues they aren't considering when voting.

Because, actually, the policy makers they elect make policy, and and that's true whether or not the one election a single issue voter tips is enough to shift the national balance on the issue of concern.

Or whether the candidate elected on your one issue even bothers voting the way you expect on it, rather than abandoning it.

Single issue voters often don't stick with it long enough for policy makers to worry about betraying them after an election where they issue moves a small but (for reasons particular to the context of that election) decisive segment of the electorate, or if they are sticky then representatives have a strong incentive to keep them onboard with an image that victory is just over the horizon, to hold on to their vote without resolving their issue so as to enable all the other policies the representative is concerned about.

Re: Senate votes to reinstate net neutrality

#35

Post by jacquesm »

sykh wrote: post #29
jacquesm wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a lot of issues on the front burner right now that would fall in that bracket and net neutrality isn't the most pressing one by a very long shot so why would you let your vote hinge on that one issue?

Why do you presume that net neutrality isn’t among the most pressing for OP? There are few issues where a majority of both Republicans and Democrats both agree. It seems like a worthy issue to hinge a vote on.

Because I follow American politics pretty closely for a foreigner and it would appear to me that if the house is on fire the color of the sidewall isn't top priority.

Re: Senate votes to reinstate net neutrality

#36

Post by CWuestefeld »

andrewla wrote: post #5

This seems like the way that this should be addressed. The case against Net Neutrality was made almost strictly as a case of regulatory overreach and overly burdensome regulations that inherited irrelevant restrictions and unenforceable provisions designed for specific telecom use cases that don't apply to ISPs. The first issue is clearly addressed by a legislative approach -- it stops being regulatory overreach when…

I think the way you're looking at this is really important, and something that's being lost in the vehement support of NN.

Intellectual honesty demands that we admit that there really are problems with NN as it had been implemented. Trying to fit the technology of a massive packet-switched data network into very specific regulations designed for an ancient circuit-switched primarily voice network really was a kluge. The FCC while they were supporting it needed to take a lot of "poetic license" with the letter of the law just to get it to make sense at all.

While it's a a big burden being forced to start from scratch, it's also an opportunity to craft something that better matches the way our systems work today. Doing so removes the uncertainty and political caprice that comes from an unelected agency making the calls.

Re: Senate votes to reinstate net neutrality

#37

Post by ocdtrekkie »

oh_sigh wrote: post #31
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Net neutrality is a "Democrat issue" because the companies who benefit from net neutrality primarily fund Democrats. The companies who benefit from it being repealed primarily fund Republicans.

Are you sure you don't have cause and effect reversed? Could it be the case that those companies donate to politicians because those politicians views naturally align with their own?

Nobody in Congress had a view on net neutrality until they were paid to. Because it's a largely invented issue between those groups of corporations. ISPs want to charge tech companies more for the traffic they generate, and tech companies don't want to pay it. Those companies were already donating to politicians which align with their own views... but primarily because of their views on other topics.

Re: Senate votes to reinstate net neutrality

#38

Post by boomboomsubban »

Again, this is meaningless. Currently the future of net neutrality is the decision of the courts, and if this miraculously passes the house and president, the future remains in the hands of the courts.

A new law is necessary to guarantee net neutrality. This has been known for over twelve years, both Clinton and Obama cosponsored a bill on it in 2006, but so far neither party has made any serious move towards passing a bill.

Re: Senate votes to reinstate net neutrality

#39

Post by dragonwriter »

jacquesm wrote: post #35
sykh wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you presume that net neutrality isn’t among the most pressing for OP? There are few issues where a majority of both Republicans and Democrats both agree. It seems like a worthy issue to hinge a vote on.

Because I follow American politics pretty closely for a foreigner and it would appear to me that if the house is on fire the color of the sidewall isn't top priority.

To many peoole, neutrality isn't a color of the sidewalk issue, it's a house on fire issue, because it concerns control of communication content in a major channel of public communication by a narrow band of actors vs. guaranteed freedom for lawful communication on that channel.

Re: Senate votes to reinstate net neutrality

#40

Post by Consultant32452 »

andrewla wrote: post #5

This seems like the way that this should be addressed. The case against Net Neutrality was made almost strictly as a case of regulatory overreach and overly burdensome regulations that inherited irrelevant restrictions and unenforceable provisions designed for specific telecom use cases that don't apply to ISPs. The first issue is clearly addressed by a legislative approach -- it stops being regulatory overreach when…

I feel like the root problem is lack of competition at the ISP level. If we had that, net neutrality regulation would likely not be necessary. Instead we're trying to fix a bad regulatory environment with even more regulations.
Post reply on HN