Vote for Net Neutrality

[Lada Charlton]

7 minutes ago, encidious Opus said:

Prokofy Neva made a cogent argument in the beginning of this thread. He only stated his opinion on the actual subj matter. You must admit he was prophetic on how the replies would devolve into pejoratives and personal attacks. Surprising derogatory comments from the Good Samaritan Pixieplumb. And Lady Charlton, can you explain how his statements reflect any misogyny? Where did you see this in his statements? Wikipedia: Misogyny is the hatred of, contempt for, or prejudice against women or girls. Misogyny can be manifested in numerous ways, including social exclusion, sex discrimination, hostility, androcentrism, patriarchy, male privilege, belittling of women, violence against women, and sexual objectification.

Prof, congratulations on extricating yourself from the thread

•  

If you truly believe labeling misogyny is morally worse than misogyny itself, then there is no explanation you will understand. From my reading, there were no coherent arguments, and instead many ad hominems. 

Edited December 11, 2017 by Lada Charlton

[Theresa Tennyson]

1 hour ago, Phil Deakins said:

Sorry, but I found that the rest of your lengthy post wasn't worth replying to.

Yes, the intrenet did exist before today's infrastructure, and yes there was a reason for companies to create and own the current internet's infrastructure. So? Are you trying to make some sort of point? I've taught you what the internet actually is. Why aren't you satisfied with that?

Hmmm... maybe because what you "taught" me was laughably wrong, as the portion of my post that "wasn't worth replying to" explained?

[Phil Deakins]

Oh dear. No it wasn't wrong, not even slightly. I explained what comprises the internet. Nothing you can post can show any different. All you talked about in your post that you referred to is history. I never mentioned the history of the internet. I've only talked about what the internet is - now. You said that it's a concept and doesn't actually exist, and I said that it isn't, and that it's cables and connection points that do actually exist. I've shown you that it exists. What more do you want? We are all mistaken sometimes. I admit when I'm mistaken. You were mistaken. Why not admit it? Or don't admit it, and just stop posting stuff that's totally irrelevant instead.

ETA: I'm sorry, Theresa, but you were wrong about what the internet is. You didn't know what it is. I explained what it is, and you've read articles that confirm my explanation. So now you know what the internet is, and that your original statement was wrong. It's totally pointless trying to scratch away at it, hoping that you might find something in which I was wrong, because there isn't anything. It's best now to let it rest. You've made gains, because you now understand the internet, so let it rest, huh?

Edited December 11, 2017 by Phil Deakins

[Madelaine McMasters]

1 hour ago, encidious Opus said:

Prokofy Neva made a cogent argument in the beginning of this thread.

co·gent

ˈkōjənt

adjective

(of an argument or case) clear, logical, and convincing.

 

What part of Prok's post meets that criteria?

[Theresa Tennyson]

4 hours ago, BilliJo Aldrin said:

Whats fascinating was that the Republican party was founded by failed socialists fleeing Europe.

 

As for me, I'd be fascinated to see your source for this statement.

[Qie Niangao]

1 hour ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

As for me, I'd be fascinated to see your source for this statement.

It must be true because they're the "red" party, right?

A hint for those worried about the color balance in the "I Like Ike" buttons:

Quote

Indeed, until the 1980s, Republicans were often represented by blue and Democrats by red. The current terminology of "red states" and "blue states" came into use in the United States presidential election of 2000 on an episode of the Today show on October 30, 2000. According to The Washington Post, the terms were coined by journalist Tim Russert, during his televised coverage of the 2000 presidential election.^[4] 

 

[encidious Opus]

3 hours ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

co·gent

ˈkōjənt

adjective

(of an argument or case) clear, logical, and convincing.

 

What part of Prok's post meets that criteria?

Almost all of it. Except for his vote for the misogynist Hillary Clinton who led "operation bimbo", which was the effort to discredit, belittle and destroy the reputations of the women accusing Bill of sexual harassment, assault and rape. 

[Madelaine McMasters]

1 minute ago, encidious Opus said:

Almost all of it. Except for his vote for the misogynist Hillary Clinton who led "operation bimbo", which was the effort to discredit, belittle and destroy the reputations of the women accusing Bill of sexual harassment, assault and rape. 

Thanks! I wasn't expecting such a "cogent" answer.

[ChinRey]

Just a quick question to everybody: there is another thread going on where somebody asks for a combat section in the forum. Should we direct them over here?

Edited December 11, 2017 by ChinRey

[BilliJo Aldrin]

2 hours ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

As for me, I'd be fascinated to see your source for this statement.

I read it somewhere, I'l have to look it up, but its hardly a co-incidence that the Republican party was founded at the same time socialist movements throughout europe were expanding.

[Max Nova]

9 hours ago, BilliJo Aldrin said:

I never said Marx invented socialism, but he took the ideas found in socialism and took them to their most extreme conclusion.

I'm not sure who invented the term useful idiots either.

Whats fascinating was that the Republican party was founded by failed socialists fleeing Europe.

That's why their party color is red. At some point in time the republicans and democrats switched ideologies, but that makes sense because for most politicians their number one priority is pandering to popular opinion in an effort to gather more support.

Politicians true to their beliefs usually aren't very successful since the population doesn't care about ideals, it just cares about which party will give them more goodies.

Marxism is Marxism not socialism and there is an entire philosophy of Karl Marx as Karl Marx was a German Philosopher not a politician or a political leader, Marx published The Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital he did not enact them as any sort of government other people took his works and used bits and pieces of them kind of like people do with religious stuff and they always bastardised it and use it to their advantage.

As far as the Republican Party goes it was founded in 1854, called Republican after the form of American Government "Republic" it was founded by anti-slavery activists, economic modernisers, ex Whigs and ex Free Soilers NOT socialists from Europe, as far as the colours of the GOP there is a lot of speculation and reasons but none of them have anythign to do with socialism. 

The phrase "Useful Idiot" was used by Soviet communists and the KGB to refer to those who had been successfully manipulated (see 2016 election for details). 

Again these are facts NOT my opinion. 

 

 

 

[Max Nova]

Back to the topic... here is a pretty accurate list of the pros and cons of Net Neutrality: 

https://vittana.org/13-pros-and-cons-of-net-neutrality

[Kaynara Ray]

Let me get this straight.. you want to vote for the Federal Government to keep trying to control the internet? Because that's what this 'Net Neutrality' crap is. You want the most irresponsible entity possible to keep putting its greedy fingers where it absolutely does not belong? Seriously? Their utterly stupid ideas change with the freaking political wind at the drop of a hat, and they have screwed up every program they run whenever they reach outside their jurisdiction, and even make disasters of the ones they are REQUIRED to run, and you want to keep giving them MORE power outside their scope? The FCC never had ANY business getting involved or claiming the internet is now a 'utility' for them to control.

These big companies that you hate so much that are abusing the bandwidth.. that they provide and own the hardware for.. are also the ones that can weather the storm of any new regulations costs, and in fact are involved in the lobbying for how these rules are written! The little guys that might behave better if allowed into the market to compete CAN'T survive the regulation's cost of compliance. 

Net Neutrality is at best a really bad joke, and at worst a lie to get government foot in the door for control and regulation of internet content. To be suckered into actually supporting this is sad. This is insanity.

How about we look toward something useful, like figuring out how to get competition back into the market and force these ISPs to compete for our business?

[Paul Hexem]

At this point, all I can say is...

 

[ChinRey]

6 hours ago, Kaynara Ray said:

Let me get this straight.. you want to vote for the Federal Government to keep trying to control the internet? Because that's what this 'Net Neutrality' crap is. You want the most irresponsible entity possible to keep putting its greedy fingers where it absolutely does not belong?

I'm not going to say if you're right or wrong but if your government really is the most irresponsible entity possible, you have a problem that is far more serious than this whole net neutrality question can possibly ever be.

[Theresa Tennyson]

7 hours ago, Kaynara Ray said:

How about we look toward something useful, like figuring out how to get competition back into the market and force these ISPs to compete for our business?

Hmmm... Now what sort of thing could do that, seeing as all of the infrastructure is owned by private companies?

[Qie Niangao]

8 hours ago, Kaynara Ray said:

How about we look toward something useful, like figuring out how to get competition back into the market and force these ISPs to compete for our business?

You really don't want to take this line of argument unless you're trying to make the case for very heavy-handed regulation. The incumbents have repeatedly succeeded in feather-bedding their natural monopoly rents to pay for opening their facilities to competition, but they're always starving and sabotaging those "competitors."

What's worse, Pai not only proposes to remove the current competition-promoting regulatory regime but further to prevent competition by restricting pro-competitive actions of state and local governments.

(On the plus side, that overreach is almost certainly unconstitutional, so the whole action may be thrown out in the courts -- or not, as Trump has busily stacked the courts with more captives to industry interests.)

All this is in stark contrast to the UK where there actually is substantial and (comparatively) widespread competition for broadband services because of aggressive regulation.

The US "Net Neutrality" rules are really far too little, far too late, and that's a big reason that American internet bandwidth is among the worst and most expensive in the developed world. (In telecom, Canada can always be counted on to be even more backwards.) Pai's industry patrons and cronies will do anything to perpetuate their rapacious gouging of US customers while driving the nation's telecom infrastructure even further behind world standards.

[Klytyna]

10 hours ago, Kaynara Ray said:

How about we look toward something useful, like figuring out how to get competition back into the market and force these ISPs to compete for our business?

Competition... The great rallying cry of the Free Market Fallacy believers.

Beginning of this century, here in the UK, we supposedly had 'competition' in the ISP game...

OffCom, the Govt. funded official 'watchdog/regulator', disagreed.

Technically, we had all these new isp's all over the place, cable tv companies, mobile phone companies etc., but the reality was that who ever you signed up with, sooner or later your internet traveled along BT copper or BT glass.

British Telecom, a privatised monopoly, were the Gatekeepers, they owned all the damn cable and controlled all the access, and THEY set all the prices.

They set the charges for isp's to use their cable so high that there was hardly any damn profit, so you *could* pay for Smallville Interweb Ltd, say 40.99 a month for throttled  "fair use policy" bandwidth, or pay BT 39.99 a month for unlimited bandwidth.

Offcom officially stated that BT's pricing policies were stifling growth of internet usage and e-commerce in this country. Situations improved a bit since then but realistically BT still largely set bandwidth prices in the UK.

All that waffle earlier in the trhread of what the internet is "data vs hardware" is bs... What the internet really is, is CABLES, running from point a to point b. A multi node auto re-routing network, designed to bypass lost nodes. It was created by the US Govt. as a backup civil defence coms system, that a) was based on civilian hardware and cable in non nuke-target areas, and which b) could reroute around nuked nodes, so the Buttburg Militia could meet up with the National Guard Remnant to oppose Commie ground troup, when they emerged from their tunnel under the North Pole and invaded John Wayne's house...

However, now a small number of big firms control most of that cable, and the chances for small firms to 'compete' in a free market simply does not exist. That's why we have... Regulation of markets by outside agencies like governments, to STOP Engulf & Devour Inc owning the whole damn shebang. Anti-Trust, Anti Monopoly, and Anti-Cartel regulations are commonplace in our modern world. The dream of the Free Market Fallacy died with the "South Seas Bubble" a long time ago.

The Buttburg Interweb Co, Inc, cannot compete with Engulf & Devour Web Inc, because they can't AFFORD to lay their own glass across the entire damn continent side by side with Engulf & Devours.

As I said in response to a similarly foolish post elsewhere...

It's like expecting Billy-Bob Nomates, a minimum wage trainee car mechanic from Des Moines, to open a huge factory, and produce an innovative range of new cars in large enough numbers to put Ford & GM out of business. And trust me, Billy-Bob's innovative idea of using SQUARE WHEELS, won't help him win.

 

[Madelaine McMasters]

17 hours ago, Kaynara Ray said:

Let me get this straight...

These big companies... are involved in the lobbying for how these rules are written! The little guys that might behave better if allowed into the market to compete CAN'T survive the regulation's cost of compliance. 

So, big business is writing the regulations (or more accurately, removing them). Check.

How about we... force these ISPs to compete for our business?

Who is this "we" of which you speak? Would that be the government? Check.

I removed the parts of your post that conflicted with your call to action.

Thank you for supporting Net Neutrality.

Edited December 12, 2017 by Madelaine McMasters

[Luna Bliss]

17 hours ago, Kaynara Ray said:

Let me get this straight.. you want to vote for the Federal Government to keep trying to control the internet? Because that's what this 'Net Neutrality' crap is. You want the most irresponsible entity possible to keep putting its greedy fingers where it absolutely does not belong? Seriously? Their utterly stupid ideas change with the freaking political wind at the drop of a hat, and they have screwed up every program they run whenever they reach outside their jurisdiction, and even make disasters of the ones they are REQUIRED to run, and you want to keep giving them MORE power outside their scope? The FCC never had ANY business getting involved or claiming the internet is now a 'utility' for them to control.

These big companies that you hate so much that are abusing the bandwidth.. that they provide and own the hardware for.. are also the ones that can weather the storm of any new regulations costs, and in fact are involved in the lobbying for how these rules are written! The little guys that might behave better if allowed into the market to compete CAN'T survive the regulation's cost of compliance. 

Net Neutrality is at best a really bad joke, and at worst a lie to get government foot in the door for control and regulation of internet content. To be suckered into actually supporting this is sad. This is insanity.

How about we look toward something useful, like figuring out how to get competition back into the market and force these ISPs to compete for our business?

[BilliJo Aldrin]

Its funny but both sides seem to be using the same arguments for and against net neutrality.

[mortalum]

Anyone else here affected by GDPR especially on pixel ads?

 

Edited December 13, 2017 by mortalum

[Kaynara Ray]

18 hours ago, ChinRey said:

I'm not going to say if you're right or wrong but if your government really is the most irresponsible entity possible, you have a problem that is far more serious than this whole net neutrality question can possibly ever be.

Very true. Unfortunately.

16 hours ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

Hmmm... Now what sort of thing could do that, seeing as all of the infrastructure is owned by private companies?

Consumer discipline. Like.. not buying their service? There is no easy solution here. But you sure as hell don't take the irresponsible route and just offer power to the central government without hard restrictions, such as a Constitutional Amendment that clearly defines what they can and cannot do.

15 hours ago, Qie Niangao said:

You really don't want to take this line of argument unless you're trying to make the case for very heavy-handed regulation. The incumbents have repeatedly succeeded in feather-bedding their natural monopoly rents to pay for opening their facilities to competition, but they're always starving and sabotaging those "competitors."

What's worse, Pai not only proposes to remove the current competition-promoting regulatory regime but further to prevent competition by restricting pro-competitive actions of state and local governments.

(On the plus side, that overreach is almost certainly unconstitutional, so the whole action may be thrown out in the courts -- or not, as Trump has busily stacked the courts with more captives to industry interests.)

All this is in stark contrast to the UK where there actually is substantial and (comparatively) widespread competition for broadband services because of aggressive regulation.

The US "Net Neutrality" rules are really far too little, far too late, and that's a big reason that American internet bandwidth is among the worst and most expensive in the developed world. (In telecom, Canada can always be counted on to be even more backwards.) Pai's industry patrons and cronies will do anything to perpetuate their rapacious gouging of US customers while driving the nation's telecom infrastructure even further behind world standards.

Let me be clear: I don't want the federal government anywhere near the internet. I just offered the only truly LEGAL way for them to regulate it. An Amendment. Any I don't think anyone thinks companies lobbying and buying how regulations are written is good.

14 hours ago, Klytyna said:

Competition... The great rallying cry of the Free Market Fallacy believers.

Beginning of this century, here in the UK, we supposedly had 'competition' in the ISP game...

OffCom, the Govt. funded official 'watchdog/regulator', disagreed.

Technically, we had all these new isp's all over the place, cable tv companies, mobile phone companies etc., but the reality was that who ever you signed up with, sooner or later your internet traveled along BT copper or BT glass.

British Telecom, a privatised monopoly, were the Gatekeepers, they owned all the damn cable and controlled all the access, and THEY set all the prices.

They set the charges for isp's to use their cable so high that there was hardly any damn profit, so you *could* pay for Smallville Interweb Ltd, say 40.99 a month for throttled  "fair use policy" bandwidth, or pay BT 39.99 a month for unlimited bandwidth.

Offcom officially stated that BT's pricing policies were stifling growth of internet usage and e-commerce in this country. Situations improved a bit since then but realistically BT still largely set bandwidth prices in the UK.

All that waffle earlier in the trhread of what the internet is "data vs hardware" is bs... What the internet really is, is CABLES, running from point a to point b. A multi node auto re-routing network, designed to bypass lost nodes. It was created by the US Govt. as a backup civil defence coms system, that a) was based on civilian hardware and cable in non nuke-target areas, and which b) could reroute around nuked nodes, so the Buttburg Militia could meet up with the National Guard Remnant to oppose Commie ground troup, when they emerged from their tunnel under the North Pole and invaded John Wayne's house...

However, now a small number of big firms control most of that cable, and the chances for small firms to 'compete' in a free market simply does not exist. That's why we have... Regulation of markets by outside agencies like governments, to STOP Engulf & Devour Inc owning the whole damn shebang. Anti-Trust, Anti Monopoly, and Anti-Cartel regulations are commonplace in our modern world. The dream of the Free Market Fallacy died with the "South Seas Bubble" a long time ago.

The Buttburg Interweb Co, Inc, cannot compete with Engulf & Devour Web Inc, because they can't AFFORD to lay their own glass across the entire damn continent side by side with Engulf & Devours.

As I said in response to a similarly foolish post elsewhere...

It's like expecting Billy-Bob Nomates, a minimum wage trainee car mechanic from Des Moines, to open a huge factory, and produce an innovative range of new cars in large enough numbers to put Ford & GM out of business. And trust me, Billy-Bob's innovative idea of using SQUARE WHEELS, won't help him win.

 

Good grief. First of all.. who cares what a foreign government is doing. Thats their problem. And second.. how the hell would you know what a free market looks like? We haven't had one in longer than anyone has been alive truth be told, likely longer outside the U.S. Clearly you have bought into the whole 'It has to be done by a central authority or it can't be done at all!' mentality. There's no helping you. Cute analogies though, points for creativity if nothing else. Scoff and call it foolish all you like. Some of us might want to see about thinking outside the box from time to time.

12 hours ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

I removed the parts of your post that conflicted with your call to action.

Thank you for supporting Net Neutrality.

You edit my post to suit you and you expect me to take you seriously? Yea... no. Next?

.............

I'm sure more folks are gonna try to say how we have no choice but to give more power to the federal government to solve all out problems for us. Have at it. Its not like there aren't enough examples to show why thats a bad idea. But if you have to keep doing the same thing over and over again and expect a different result? I think we have a word for that, as I said before. Insanity. But sure, lets go with what those that think that way seem to want to do. Lets see what the internet looks like in the USA after a few years of changing political winds now that the foot is in the door. Lets see the results of how they saved us from the mean big companies. I mean.. we all know that someone thinking up a better tech or better way of doing something never happens right? Hardware can't be bought or sold after all. Big companies can never fail. And government invents everything!

Have fun peoples, noone can say I didn't try.

 

[ThorinII]

On 12/12/2017 at 4:08 AM, Kaynara Ray said:

Let me get this straight.. you want to vote for the Federal Government to keep trying to control the internet? Because that's what this 'Net Neutrality' crap is.

Bullsh*t. it's about voting for the Federal Government to make sure that all web services are treated equally in regards of bandwidth. No matter if it's some big newspaper's web platform, or a no-name blog, Startpage.com or Google.com, youtube or vimeo, AT&T or some local provider.

 

That said, however: If *I* had a say in the States (or here in Germany, where I live), there would be no *private* ownership of ISP's at all anymore. Internet and telephone would all be nationalized and tax-paid - ergo available to everyone, and free of extra charge.

Though while at it, I would also  nationalize the entire healthcare system (so that neither healthcare insurance nor hospitals were owned by greedy for-profit companies anymore, and that everyone would automatically be covered, no questions asked). AND public transport. AND electricity.AND water supply. Plus a few other branches.

[Phil Deakins]

7 minutes ago, ThorinII said:

Though while at it, I would also  nationalize the entire healthcare system (so that neither healthcare insurance nor hospitals were owned by greedy for-profit companies anymore, and that everyone would automatically be covered, no questions asked). AND public transport. AND electricity.AND water supply. Plus a few other branches.

I'm with you on that. It's a deeply held conviction of mine that we, the people, should own a service of the basic necessities of life - healthcare, power, water, transport, communications. Sadly, except for healthcare,  we, the people of the UK, sold them off the privateers.