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Dead People Mysteriously Support the FCC's Attack on Net Neutrality

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Re: Dead People Mysteriously Support the FCC's Attack on Net Neutrality

#61

Post by AnthonyMouse »

curiousgal wrote: post #55
blowski wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m sure you’ve heard this before, but I can’t let the response go unsaid: democracy does not require direct elections. The founding fathers were not naive idiots who didn’t know how to design an election.

No offence by why are the founding fathers put on such a high pedestal in the U.S.? Everything they did had a reason but some of those reasons do not make sense anymore. The electoral college was put in place to give more saying to the south but that's not needed anymore. Gun ownership was put in place to protect from militias but again, that's not the case anymore, why keep all of these laws?

> why keep all of these laws?

Because it takes agreement from three quarters of the states to change the constitution for good reason, and three quarters of the states aren't convinced we don't need them anymore.

Re: Dead People Mysteriously Support the FCC's Attack on Net Neutrality

#62

Post by mudetroit »

curiousgal wrote: post #55
blowski wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m sure you’ve heard this before, but I can’t let the response go unsaid: democracy does not require direct elections. The founding fathers were not naive idiots who didn’t know how to design an election.

No offence by why are the founding fathers put on such a high pedestal in the U.S.? Everything they did had a reason but some of those reasons do not make sense anymore. The electoral college was put in place to give more saying to the south but that's not needed anymore. Gun ownership was put in place to protect from militias but again, that's not the case anymore, why keep all of these laws?

The Electoral college wasn't put in only at the request of the South. A number of smaller states wanted it (Connecticut, Rhode Island, Delaware); because, they feared political domination by the larger states. Same fundamental reason that there is both the House and the Senate.

The big concession to the South with the 3/5 compromise which primarily had an effect upon the representation in the House, and correspondingly an effect on the Electoral College.

Re: Dead People Mysteriously Support the FCC's Attack on Net Neutrality

#63

Post by anigbrowl »

nnfy wrote: post #8
GauntletWizard wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been trying to tell people this for a while - I do believe in net neutrality, but the title II classification is a boondoggle, and those laws need serious rewrite. I'm not seriously concerned about getting arrested for downloading pornography - When was the last time you heard of someone getting arrested for shouting "Fuck!" over the phone? - But I am concerned that those laws were written for Bell Telephone, an…

These laws are dangerous because they are vague enough to give the government a free pass to legally target almost anyone who uses the internet. It is another means to possibly silence whistleblowers and/or opposition.

Your whole argument rests on the unspoken and incorrect premise that such laws aren't open to challenge, when in fact they have been challenged and litigated extensively and you're only looking at the statutory side.

This seems to be a common error among hackers who assume that statute = law and don't consider the history of how courts have interpreted and circumscribed statutes over the years. Of course, this is also a structural problem in our legal system which makes it quite difficult to ascertain what the actual operational parameters are without spending a lot of time in a law library or its digital equivalent. Much of what lawyers are paid for is their knowledge of how to trace and apply that history to new fact patterns.

Girls Lean Back Everywhere by Edward de Grazia is widely considered the best single work on the law of obscenity, although it's heavily focused on sexuality and pornography and may seem somewhat dated by today's standards.

Re: Dead People Mysteriously Support the FCC's Attack on Net Neutrality

#64

Post by AnthonyMouse »

mudetroit wrote: post #62
curiousgal wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No offence by why are the founding fathers put on such a high pedestal in the U.S.? Everything they did had a reason but some of those reasons do not make sense anymore. The electoral college was put in place to give more saying to the south but that's not needed anymore. Gun ownership was put in place to protect from militias but again, that's not the case anymore, why keep all of these laws?

The Electoral college wasn't put in only at the request of the South. A number of smaller states wanted it (Connecticut, Rhode Island, Delaware); because, they feared political domination by the larger states. Same fundamental reason that there is both the House and the Senate. The big concession to the South with the 3/5 compromise which primarily had an effect upon the representation in the House, and corresponding…

> Same fundamental reason that there is both the House and the Senate.

Actually the reason there is both the House and the Senate is that the Senate was intended to represent the voice of the states in the federal government. It wasn't supposed to be only about how many votes the people of each state get. Senators were originally appointed by the state legislatures.

That was changed in a fit of populism in the early 20th century and has caused only problems ever since.

Re: Dead People Mysteriously Support the FCC's Attack on Net Neutrality

#66

Post by cjslep »

forapurpose wrote: post #56
cjslep wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your questions are all assuming you are already correct. This won't be a productive conversation if you keep trying to start from there when I've already pointed out how you were originally wrong. Additionally, anti-cyberbullying laws which deal with this exact scenario we are discussing (obscenity with intention to harass/abuse) already exist in nearly all US States, so no I am not worried about our social consensus…

> I've already pointed out how you were originally wrong I don't see that. The GP accepted your statement, that it requires intent to harass and abuse, and commented on it. Also, why should the GP accept your analysis? Do you have expertise?

Rereading it, I can now see your view, thanks. I don't know enough about the legal definitions of "harass" and "abuse", but I suspect it comes down to your personal level of confidence of whether government abuses this narrow bit in the first place, and secondly whether the entire public would just let this quietly slip by in the public courts without demanding some sort of self-correction action (judicial, legislative, or executive). I am not a gambling man, but I think my position on both of these chances are both reasonable and the most probable, with high confidence. (Edit to add: a sibling in this tree says it better, to paraphrase: "laws can be challenged and reinterpreted, it is a mistake to assume they do not")

In case it isn't obvious, I'm not a lawyer. No one should accept my analysis, because I'm a stranger on the internet, or a Turing-Test-succeeding imitation of one. Likewise, I'm not going to accept OP's analysis for the same reasons. But I will participate in a discussion that allows readers to explore alternate ideas and viewpoints, chasing an overly-idealistic goal of inspiring each of us into self-driven personal growth. Because that's a virtue worth striving for no matter which side of the argument you are on.

Re: Dead People Mysteriously Support the FCC's Attack on Net Neutrality

#67

Post by rgbrenner »

curiousgal wrote: post #55
blowski wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m sure you’ve heard this before, but I can’t let the response go unsaid: democracy does not require direct elections. The founding fathers were not naive idiots who didn’t know how to design an election.

No offence by why are the founding fathers put on such a high pedestal in the U.S.? Everything they did had a reason but some of those reasons do not make sense anymore. The electoral college was put in place to give more saying to the south but that's not needed anymore. Gun ownership was put in place to protect from militias but again, that's not the case anymore, why keep all of these laws?

The electoral college is not obsolete.

50% of the US population lives in 10 states.

Don't you think the other 40 states would like a say too? Or do you (mistakenly) believe the concerns of urban citizens are identical to those living in rural areas?

Re: Dead People Mysteriously Support the FCC's Attack on Net Neutrality

#69

Post by upofadown »

tabtab wrote: post #20
upofadown wrote: post #15

Well if dead people can come up with insightful comments, then great. These are comments, not votes. Once all the possible ideas have been presented, there is no point in further comments. In the end only actual politics matters. If you want to do a petition then do a partition. If you want to complain then target a politician.

But what if the FCC is counting the quantity of citizens making a given point when deciding? In that case the quantity matters even if it is a restatement of the same argument.

>But what if the FCC is counting the quantity of citizens making a given point when deciding?

That is an interesting theory but ultimately the FCC answers to Congress. They are not allowed to do their own politics (although sometimes they try). They are in the end just a regulator. They do make a nice scapegoat so as to allow the actual politicians to avoid criticism of the policies those politicians created.

Re: Dead People Mysteriously Support the FCC's Attack on Net Neutrality

#70

Post by epmaybe »

curiousgal wrote: post #31
brightsize wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If net neutrality is axed I'm moving to Berlin to live on Max-Beer street. With HN throttled I'll need a new addiction.

HN is so fast I use it to test my internet issues. It’ll be hard to throttle it.

Additionally, why would any ISP throttle a site with as little traffic as HN?

Edit: I say "little" in comparison to the seriously high traffic sites like Netflix or Google.

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