Vote for Net Neutrality

[Madelaine McMasters]

7 minutes ago, Pamela Galli said:

Well what If? How would it matter? Do we stop voting because we don’t really choose our beliefs?

(i refer you again to kahneman’s  supremely enlightening Thinking Fast and Slow. )

Nope, we carry on.

Even if free will is an illusion, it's impossible to understand all the factors, with sufficient precision (thank you Mr. Heisenberg), to know what we're destined to do. So it may be a distinction without a difference, excepting in that those who believe free will is an illusion might vote (and otherwise think about things) differently than those who don't.

ETA: I've yet to read Kahneman's book (or any other one recently), but the title makes me wonder if he delves into the idea that our "fast thinking" is often at odds with our "slow thinking", and evidences biases and errors in logic that would surprise it. I might have recommended David Eagleman's "Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain" before. It may well rhyme with Kahneman.

Edited December 10, 2017 by Madelaine McMasters

[Pamela Galli]

6 minutes ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

Nope, we carry on.

Even if free will is an illusion, it's impossible to understand all the factors, with sufficient precision (thank you Mr. Heisenberg), to know what we're destined to do. So it may be a distinction without a difference, excepting in that those who believe free will is an illusion might vote (and otherwise think about things) differently than those who don't.

Think they would vote exactly the same as if they had the opposite belief. It makes not the slightest difference what we believe re if there is such a thing as free will or not.

 I am a believer in paradox. For example how you get something out of nothing – it makes no sense logically, but there it is.  All existence is a paradox. So is the moral responsibility to choose well despite having no free will. 

[Pamela Galli]

19 minutes ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

Nope, we carry on.

Even if free will is an illusion, it's impossible to understand all the factors, with sufficient precision (thank you Mr. Heisenberg), to know what we're destined to do. So it may be a distinction without a difference, excepting in that those who believe free will is an illusion might vote (and otherwise think about things) differently than those who don't.

ETA: I've yet to read Kahneman's book (or any other one recently), but the title makes me wonder if he delves into the idea that our "fast thinking" is often at odds with our "slow thinking", and evidences biases and errors in logic that would surprise it. I might have recommended David Eagleman's "Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain" before. It may well rhyme with Kahneman.

Yes. I added a link to a nyt review of the book. 

 How it changed me: I am vastly more aware that the basis for my opinions is far less than I think. 

Edited December 10, 2017 by Pamela Galli

[Madelaine McMasters]

5 minutes ago, Pamela Galli said:

Think they would vote exactly the same as if they had the opposite belief. It makes not the slightest difference what we believe re if there is such a thing as free will or not.

 I am a believer in paradox. For example how you get something out of nothing – it makes no sense logically, but there it is.  All existence is a paradox. So is the moral responsibility to choose well despite having no free will. 

I think our views of other things might be different if we had opposite beliefs about free will, just as our views of other things might be different if we had opposite beliefs about god. Beliefs are generally systems, not individual things. Noodle with one and you noodle with them all.

I am both a believer in, and a fan of, paradox. I feel a moral responsibility to choose well and exhibit hypocrisy by not always doing it.

;-).

[Lada Charlton]

14 hours ago, ChinRey said:

I think I can live with you hating me and my native and quite socialistic country.

But since you also say you hate fallacies, you need to be a bit careful with labelling. I have to point out that there has never ever been a functioning communist regime anywhere in the world (except possibly in Czechoslovakia for a few months in the summer of 1968). It's hard to hate something that doesn't actually exist. Oh, I know there have been lots of regimes that have called themselves communist but none of them have showed much respect for the actual theories of Marx and Engels. Most of the time the word has just been abused as an excuse for dictators to dictate. A few have honestly tried to create communist societies but they have all failed msierably. For good reasons too - real communism is both incredibly complex and incredibly naive at the same time - it's never going to work.

Anyways, this isn't really a question about political ideologies. As Gadget Portal pointed out, this is about consumer protection and perhaps even more about small business protection. I'm not American and realistically there's not much chance other nations are going to pick up on this trend so I suppose it is none of my business. But USA is moving very fast back towards the pre antitrust laws cartel economy nowadays and this is one rather big step in that direction. I have to wonder, is that really what you want?

 

This is the stock-response for socialists, "*real* socialism/communism has never been tried." It has, and as you mention, it has always failed, and will continue to fail forever.  IMO, there is no respect to be had for Engles or Marx, or Hitler. 

The fact is that this perception is completely false. Communism has been "tried" at micro and macro levels globally for thousands of years, and because it always devolves into a political ideology, not an economic one as it tries to portend, it must always be balanced with other, more democratic forms of government. 

The idea that because you're not American, this doesn't affect you ignores what I have been trying to explain earlier. This is just not true, and even in non-American countries where telecoms are allowed to control all aspects of service, the results are clear. I also appreciate the comment about how freedom /= free. 

This really isn't about small business or consumer protection. Those are just small parts of the greater issue of freedom on the internet. This is about the free flow of information on the internet by anyone with a connection or device. 

Also, the exploitation of power has nothing to do with the human rights of other people. One is used to abuse the other, and they do not automatically exist together. 

[Lada Charlton]

Also, remember that as of 2017, there are literally over a billion people connected to the internet via smartphones (Facebook apps, etc.) that do not have access to electricity. This means the only light in their homes after dark is the glow of their Facebook feed. This is not fake, this is the reality of today, and we need to protect those people who, yes, may even use Facebook to find fresh water. (Think Peurto Rico, etc.).

[Theresa Tennyson]

3 minutes ago, Lada Charlton said:

Also, remember that as of 2017, there are literally over a billion people connected to the internet via smartphones (Facebook apps, etc.) that do not have access to electricity. This means the only light in their homes after dark is the glow of their Facebook feed. This is not fake, this is the reality of today, and we need to protect those people who, yes, may even use Facebook to find fresh water. (Think Peurto Rico, etc.).

Theresa Tennyson raises her hand.

How do they charge their phones?

[Pamela Galli]

18 minutes ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

35 minutes ago, Pamela Galli said:

 

I think our views of other things might be different if we had opposite beliefs about free will,

So in what way would you choose differently if you believed you did not have the ability to choose?

[Lada Charlton]

Community generators that are provided for the sole purpose of charging phones and nothing else. That's how important the internet is to daily life in underdeveloped countries. It's more important than electricity for lighting. 

This is an example of how less stringent net neutrality rules have created add-on packages for telecoms in other countries. This one is Portugal. Next, assume that the markup will be compounded about 5-10 times because the data centers for most of these services also rely on U.S. networks. 

Edited December 10, 2017 by Lada Charlton

[ChinRey]

2 minutes ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

Theresa Tennyson raises her hand.

How do they charge their phones?

Same method as Linden Lab uses: hamsters.

[Madelaine McMasters]

10 hours ago, Pamela Galli said:

So in what way would you choose differently if you believed you did not have the ability to choose?

Although I was never a supporter of capital punishment, for practical (it's expensive and capital conviction carries a 4% error rate) as well as moral reasons (killing doesn't excuse killing), my thinking about this evolves with my increasing understanding of hidden bias. The more we discover about unknown processes that direct our actions, the more I'm interested in finding ways to reduce the likelihood of undesirable outcomes and taking responsibility when we don't. I don't even have to believe that free will is an illusion to believe that an increased understanding of our "invisible levers" should lead us to better ways of handling problems. Before we even get to the absolute idea of free will, I'm learning of macro-level examples of hidden limitation of choice.

That "freedom of choice" metric in the Happiness Index is a fascinating thing. Americans, by and large, think they have more freedom of choice than citizens of other countries, and we're loath to give up any of it, as we might believe the Fins have. Yet the metric, however it was obtained, says the Fins have greater freedom of choice than we do. That's (to me at least) evidence that our perception of freedom is warped. I don't worry myself over whether we ultimately have free will or not, at a measurable level, we can have less than we think, and that's already enough to think about.

;-).

Edited December 11, 2017 by Madelaine McMasters

[Madelaine McMasters]

1 hour ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

Theresa Tennyson raises her hand.

How do they charge their phones?

Communities that have public fresh water taps can also have cell phone charging stations, often solar powered.

ETA: One of the micro-payment system success stories I read about was the resulting proliferation of "cell moms" in Africa. Enterprising women from remote villages obtained small loans to buy cell phones and solar panels, and then sold connection time to locals who had neither.

Edited December 10, 2017 by Madelaine McMasters

[Phil Deakins]

4 hours ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

Why? Did the sky split open and a booming voice declare, "Thou shalt set up thine own networks?"

All rights are granted by society.

You didn't understand what I said. YOU don't have any kind of right to make use of other people's equipment, unless they grant you that right. And neither do I. Society cannot grant you such a right. The only people who can grant such a right are the owners of the equipment. The cable connections and connection points (ISPs), that facilitate the internet, are ALL owned by other people. Neither you nor I have a right to use their stuff unless they allow it.

[Phil Deakins]

2 hours ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

No, what makes it the internet is a shared set of protocols, procedures and addresses that are universal and discoverable. Most of those were developed at government agencies and controlled by nonprofit groups. Without them? Good luck being found and heard.

(I, on the other hand, still have an AOL account from before there was what we think of as the "internet." Nyah.)

You are mistaken. The internet exists as hardware - cables and connections. Good luck accessing the internet without the express permission of those who own that hardware.

The protocols you mention are not the internet. They facilitate uses of the internet's hardware, but they are not the internet. The internet is the hardware, which is not publically owned and, therefore, nobody has an intrinsic right to use it.

 

[Phil Deakins]

7 hours ago, ChinRey said:

Norwegians do.

The Norwegian government regards internet access as so essential it is covered by social security. It saves them a lot of money actually because every now and then they have to contact a person and if that person doesn't have internet, they have to resort to paperwork and snail mail and such and that's expensive. Besides, an economy won't work very well unless people have a way to pay their bills. How are you going to do that without internet?

 

Not even Norwegians

The Norwegian government may well have legislated that everyone in Norway can access the internet as a right, but they only legislate concerning the hardware (cables and ISPs) within Norway. They can't make the rest of the world connect to Norway, or receive anything over the internet from Norway. Having said that, Norwegians do have more rights in the matter than the rest of us. The rest of us don't have any.

[Theresa Tennyson]

23 minutes ago, Phil Deakins said:

You didn't understand what I said. YOU don't have any kind of right to make use of other people's equipment, unless they grant you that right. And neither do I. Society cannot grant you such a right. The only people who can grant such a right are the owners of the equipment. The cable connections and connection points (ISPs), that facilitate the internet, are ALL owned by other people. Neither you nor I have a right to use their stuff unless they allow it.

I'm assuming that you live near a street or sidewalks. You pay taxes to support them, but would you want those who you pay taxes to determine who can visit you and who can't?

 

13 minutes ago, Phil Deakins said:

You are mistaken. The internet exists as hardware - cables and connections. Good luck accessing the internet without the express permission of those who own that hardware.

The protocols you mention are not the internet. They facilitate uses of the internet's hardware, but they are not the internet. The internet is the hardware, which is not publically owned and, therefore, nobody has an intrinsic right to use it.

 

Cobblers.

The internet is not the hardware, it's the content. Hardware exists to facilitate content.

What you're reading this very moment isn't a Pace 5256AC router, it's content that was encoded in HTML, then transmitted through a Pace 5256AC router via TCP/IP onto the lines owned by a variety of ISP's (most of whom laid their lines through a variety of public easements, and some of whom were allowed to lay those lines by a government contract). These IP's largely exist because people are paying them because they want to access content. A few months earlier this same content would have been sent through a different router on a different ISP, but the basic content and logic would have been very similar.

Of course, if you want to listen to the wisdom of a Pace 5256AC router be my guest. You should know that my previous one stir-fried itself within months though.

Edited December 10, 2017 by Theresa Tennyson

[NevaehHeartstrings]

1 hour ago, ChinRey said:

Same method as Linden Lab uses: hamsters.

 

It's been upgraded to a more robust power source.

 

 

 

Edited December 10, 2017 by NevaehHeartstrings

[Phil Deakins]

2 hours ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

Phil's ignorance extends well beyond Norway, and his understanding of how rights are afforded to citizens by governments is naive. The UN Human Rights Council took a step towards declaring internet access a human right a couple years ago...

I didn't know that, but it changes nothing as your own words indicate. Taking a step towards is not arriving at the end, so the UN Human Rights Council has not declared that everyone has a right to access the internet. That's according to your words. But even if they did declare it, it still wouldn't give anyone an intrinsic right to make use of other people's equipment. The only thing that could do that is a country's government where such equimpent exists, and if that happened, the owners of the equipment would either comply or close down. So nobody has a right to access the internet as it currently exists - privately-owned equipment.

The rest of your post was too long to read, so I didn't get past the bit at the beginning that I quoted.

[Paul Hexem]

Like it or not, Phil is right. 

Even if the content on the Internet is a human right, the hardware we need to access it still belongs to someone- someone has to pay for it.

[Madelaine McMasters]

1 hour ago, Pamela Galli said:

Yes. I added a link to a nyt review of the book. 

 How it changed me: I am vastly more aware that the basis for my opinions is far less than I think. 

Me too.

Eagleman's book is but one reason for the increasing feeling I have that I'm a passenger on my own bus.

[Theresa Tennyson]

21 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

America is what created the Internet, Google, Facebook and Twitter.

There's no need to be getting all nasty and anti-American now, is there?

[Theresa Tennyson]

2 minutes ago, Gadget Portal said:

Like it or not, Phil is right. 

Even if the content on the Internet is a human right, the hardware we need to access it still belongs to someone- someone has to pay for it.

And, of course, nobody is paying for Internet access at all now.

 

 

Oh, wait...

[Paul Hexem]

7 minutes ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

And, of course, nobody is paying for Internet access at all now.

 

 

Oh, wait...

Yes, anyone that wants the Internet can pay for it. Pay more, and you even get it faster.

That said, no ISP has to provide you with Internet if they don't want to, it's their hardware. 

Don't pay your bill, don't get Internet. That's when the "right to it" goes out the window.

Edited December 10, 2017 by Gadget Portal

[Phil Deakins]

40 minutes ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

I'm assuming that you live near a street or sidewalks. You pay taxes to support them, but would you want those who you pay taxes to determine who can visit you and who can't?

I do live at the side of a road, yes. The roads and pavements are not privately owned. They are publically owned, and I am one of the owners. If I lived at the side of a privately-owned road, then I would have to accept what the owner says about who can use it and who can't.

The internet is not the hardware, it's the content. Hardware exists to facilitate content.

No, no, no. You don't seem to know what internet is. You seem to be thinking that the web is the internet when you say 'content', but the web isn't the internet. The web makes use of the internet. The internet is a network of computers, connected by cables. Yes, hardware (the internet) does exist to facilitate content (the web and other things) and traffic, otherwise there would be no point in having the network at all, but the network of computers is the internet. What moves around it (the content) is mostly the web but there are other things too.

What you're reading this very moment isn't a Pace 5256AC router, it's content that was encoded in HTML, then transmitted through a Pace 5256AC router via TCP/IP onto the lines owned by a variety of ISP's (most of whom laid their lines through a variety of public easements, and some of whom were allowed to lay those lines by a government contract). These IP's largely exist because people are paying them because they want to access content. A few months earlier this same content would have been sent through a different router on a different ISP, but the basic content and logic would have been very similar.

You are right, but you are mistaking the hardware for the content. You are confusing what is the internet and what is traffic and content that make use of the internet. The two are completely different. The internet is privately owned, and neither you nor I have an intrinsic right to use it.

Think of it like a a postal system. It has routes and schedules. I have a business that needs to get stuff to people all over the place, so I make use of the postal system to move my stuff to the various places it needs to go. My stuff and the postal system are two completely different things. The internet equates with the postal system. My stuff equates with the content. You seem to be mixing the two together, but they are completely different things and can't be mixed.

If the postal system is publically-owned, then I'd have a right to make use of it for my deliveries, because I'd be part-owner, but, if it's privately-owned, then I have no 'right' to use it, but I can use as long as the owner allows me to.

Edited December 10, 2017 by Phil Deakins

[Theresa Tennyson]

16 minutes ago, Phil Deakins said:

Think of it like a a postal system. It has routes and schedules. I have a business that needs to get stuff (content) to people all over the place, so I make use of the postal system to move my stuff the the various places it needs to go. My stuff and the postal system are two completely different things. The internet equates with the postal system. My stuff equates with the web. You seem to be mixing the two together, but they can't be mixed.

This "network of computers connected by cables" simply doesn't exist, except as an idea. The computers and cables are independent. As an old geek, over the years I've connected to the "internet" over lines intended for voice telephony (if we stretch definitions, even by using an acoustic-coupling modem connected to a teletype, as my avatar blushes and hides her face), lines intended for cable television service, etc. The physical internet only exists to serve the idea of connected computers. The hardware itself constantly changes.

Meanwhile, here's a little story about  how things were when the service providers had complete control over the use of their lines:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2008/06/carterfone-40-years/

Edited December 10, 2017 by Theresa Tennyson
Posted the wrong page of the article.