Ajit Pai Taunts Net Neutrality Critics. Mark Hamill Taunts Ajit Pai (mashable.com) 346
An anonymous reader writes:
Just days before voting to repeal net neutrality regulations, FCC chairman Ajit Pai introduced a comedy video at the annual gathering of the Federal Communications Bar Association -- and it offered its own self-disparaging version of Pai's tenure as a Verizon attorney in 2003. "We want to brainwash and groom a Verizon puppet to install as FCC chairman," says a real-world Verizon executive appearing in the videotaped skit. "That sounds awesome," Pai responds.
And the day of the vote Pai also appeared in another trying-to-be-funny video on the conservative site The Daily Caller demonstrating "seven things you can still do on the internet after net neutrality." In the first image he's holding a fidget spinner and dressed as Santa Claus, and the unmistakably patronizing video reminds critics that they can still upload photos of their meals to Instagram and "post photos of cute animals, like puppies." He also demonstrated that net neutrality critics can still stay part of their favorite fan communities -- by showing himself holding a light saber. And this unexpectedly drew the wrath of Star Wars actor Mark Hamill, who responded on Twitter by calling him "Ajit 'Aren't I Precious?' Pai."
Hamill also added that "you are profoundly unworthy 2 wield a lightsaber. A Jedi acts selflessly for the common man, NOT lie 2 enrich giant corporations." When U.S. Senator Ted Cruz responded -- likening government overreach to Darth Vader and urging Hamill to "reject the dark side" -- Hamill responded again, complaining that the Senator was "smarm-splaining." Hamill also added, "you'd have more credibility if you spelled my name correctly. I mean IT'S RIGHT THERE IN FRONT OF YOU! Maybe you're just distracted from watching porn at the office again."
The Houston Chronicle reports that the newest meme on Twitter is now Pai's over-sized coffee mug stamped with the logo for Reese's Peanut Butter cups, "which he occasionally sipped from during the widely-criticized reversal." The Dangerous Minds site notes that some angry net neutrality supporters have even taken their complaints to Reese's Facebook page, adding "Perhaps these protester's pleas to the candy company are simply a misguided hope that someone, ANYONE will listen to their frustration."
"Clearly, the FCC wasn't listening to the estimated 83% of Americans who support net neutrality."
And the day of the vote Pai also appeared in another trying-to-be-funny video on the conservative site The Daily Caller demonstrating "seven things you can still do on the internet after net neutrality." In the first image he's holding a fidget spinner and dressed as Santa Claus, and the unmistakably patronizing video reminds critics that they can still upload photos of their meals to Instagram and "post photos of cute animals, like puppies." He also demonstrated that net neutrality critics can still stay part of their favorite fan communities -- by showing himself holding a light saber. And this unexpectedly drew the wrath of Star Wars actor Mark Hamill, who responded on Twitter by calling him "Ajit 'Aren't I Precious?' Pai."
Hamill also added that "you are profoundly unworthy 2 wield a lightsaber. A Jedi acts selflessly for the common man, NOT lie 2 enrich giant corporations." When U.S. Senator Ted Cruz responded -- likening government overreach to Darth Vader and urging Hamill to "reject the dark side" -- Hamill responded again, complaining that the Senator was "smarm-splaining." Hamill also added, "you'd have more credibility if you spelled my name correctly. I mean IT'S RIGHT THERE IN FRONT OF YOU! Maybe you're just distracted from watching porn at the office again."
The Houston Chronicle reports that the newest meme on Twitter is now Pai's over-sized coffee mug stamped with the logo for Reese's Peanut Butter cups, "which he occasionally sipped from during the widely-criticized reversal." The Dangerous Minds site notes that some angry net neutrality supporters have even taken their complaints to Reese's Facebook page, adding "Perhaps these protester's pleas to the candy company are simply a misguided hope that someone, ANYONE will listen to their frustration."
"Clearly, the FCC wasn't listening to the estimated 83% of Americans who support net neutrality."
Really? (Score:5, Interesting)
Let the Intertube Memes begin! This will not be pretty! Well, it will be pretty funny...
I do, however, wonder if there might be legal ramifications in any lawsuits brought on the Net Neutrality issue? An impartial judge might look dimly on this buffoonery...
Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Was anybody actually surprised by the vote?
It was crystal clear which way it was going to go as soon as Trump announced it. All the protesting and wailing was just background noise.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Was anybody actually surprised by the vote?
It was crystal clear which way it was going to go as soon as Trump announced it. All the protesting and wailing was just background noise.
If the leaders of a democracy are going to treat its citizens as mere background noise, then we no longer hold the status of a democracy, and should stop trying to proclaim we are.
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The US isn't a democracy, it's a representative Republic.
http://thefederalistpapers.org... [thefederalistpapers.org]
It has been observed that a pure democracy if it were practicable would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved that no position is more false than this. The ancient democracies in which the people themselves deliberated never possessed one good feature of government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity. â" Speech in New York, urging ratification of the U.S. Constitution (1788-06-21)
I'm not even American, and even I know that.
You vote for a President and the President appoints people like Pai. Now, admittedly you can make a case that appointing bureaucrats who can then make rules on the fly is something that people like Hamilton may well have had some issues with. However he definitely wasn't a fan of direct democracy, Classical Athens [wikipedia.org] style.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Informative)
If you want to be technically correct about all this ... the USA is a democratically-elected, federal & presidential, representative constitutional republic. Let's actually parse everything so we can be clear on all this:
Democratically-elected: The reason why this is the case is explained further along. Except for the President which is done by the electoral college, the members of the Congress, as well as one's state and local governments (state Senate, Mayor, etc.) are done as a democracy.
Federal: We have a federal government and the US for all intents and purposes is a Federation of States.
Presidential: The head of the state, as opposed to a monarchy.
Representative: This does hand-in-hand with Democratically-elected, we are a representative democracy and all Western democracies are practically such (due to sheer population sizes), we DEMOCRATICALLY (you know, like a Democracy) elected representatives to address concerns.
Constitutional: Obviously, the a constitution of sorts that binds the government to the will of the people, govern by the rule of law.
Republic: This means "of a public matter" for the country, not beholden to concerns of a select few elites.
You want to split hairs on the term democracy. Get it right, most modern countries that have elections to leadership are known as representative DEMOCRACIES .
I am American (since we're throwing one's nationalities around) and I know exactly the form of government here. It's much more than a nuanced "representative Republic" as outlined.
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Would you characterise the recent FCC behaviour as consistent with this?
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Re: Really? (Score:2)
So?
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If the leaders of a democracy are going to treat its citizens as mere background noise...
The US is not a democracy, full stop.
The US is a representative republic. And they *did* listen to the people, the people who elected their party and president to represent them with this internet deregulation as one of the campaign promises prior to the election. Elections have consequences, particularly for contentious executive-branch Agency/Dept./Bureau/etc administrative unilateral fiats. Same thing as with Executive Orders. What one administration can do, another can undo.
Strat
Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
This would be accurate if the gerrymandering that put these people into office weren't so disgustingly abundant. The representatives that are "elected by the people" are nowhere near an accurate representation of the will of the people.
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If the leaders of a democracy are going to treat its citizens as mere background noise...
The US is not a democracy, full stop.
The US is a representative republic. And they *did* listen to the people, the people who elected their party and president to represent them with this internet deregulation as one of the campaign promises prior to the election. Elections have consequences, particularly for contentious executive-branch Agency/Dept./Bureau/etc administrative unilateral fiats. Same thing as with Executive Orders. What one administration can do, another can undo.
Strat
Bollocks, republic and democracy are not mutually exclusive things. The USA is a democratic republic, or more specifically a federal republic with features of a representative democracy where where elected individuals represent the citizen body in government. If you require further proof read the writings of the founding fathers, the federalist papers and a whole mountain of other literature on the subject although most of us don't need to do more than note the fact that every two years you guys go out and
Look, take it easy on Ajit (Score:5, Insightful)
He's a retard.
Re:Look, take it easy on Ajit (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Look, take it easy on Ajit (Score:5, Insightful)
No, voting for retards is what got you into this mess ;)
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No, voting for retards is what got you into this mess ;)
No. Having only retards for candidates is what got us into this mess.
Re:What Mess? (Score:4, Insightful)
Something that people never consider is that "Net Neutrality" is an explicit Federal regulation of the internet.
It places the Internet under Federal control.
Regulation is not the same as control. For instance, saying you may only drive on the right side of the road is not controlling use of roads nor where they go, only that traffic must stay right. Similarly with the Net Neutrality legislation in concept - it isn't regulating where it goes nor what it can carry, but only saying that everything must be treated equally. You can't charge the ACME brick load for driving down your network pipe and let the provider's brick load drive down free.
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I don't subscribe to giving retards leeway and letting their idiocy slide. It's basically what gets us deeper and deeper into shit. In the end, all it accomplishes if you don't call a spade a spade and an idiot an idiot is that the idiot thinks he's smart. You're basically reinforcing the Dunning-Kruger effect, and instead of an idiot noticing that he is one and trying to learn something, instead you encourage him to stay the idiot that he is.
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Besides he's very clearly an intelligent, educated man. So his actions are far better explained by him being evil. It takes a great deal of intelligence to construct such misleading bullshit. He knows hes lying, he knows every word out of his mouth is garbage, he is just acting to make himself rich by helping ISPs fuck consumers ever harder.
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No, he is an evil piece of self serving shit.
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Actually no one believes the lie posited by you anonymous coward. We are well aware that the ISP's want some of the revenue from Google, Netflix et al and that Net Nutrality prevented them from taking it. It they do not take it the shareholders will sack their CEO's and put someone in who does. You would have to be some kind of cretin to not understand how capitalism works and that it will definitely cost the consumer more.
Re: Look, take it easy on Ajit (Score:2)
Uh... (Score:5, Insightful)
Mark Hamill seems to forget that, in the Star Wars universe, the light sabre lost to the politicians scheming... Palpatines manoeuvres in the senate got him far further than wielding a light sabre ever did.
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Mark Hamill seems to forget that, in the Star Wars universe, the light sabre lost to the politicians scheming... Palpatines manoeuvres in the senate got him far further than wielding a light sabre ever did.
Pity then that he could not maneuver his way out of getting thrown down a reactor shaft.
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Now THAT would be an event I'd gladly pay to see. Ajit? You available?
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Now THAT would be an event I'd gladly pay to see. Ajit? You available?
I'm not so sure, if Ajit fell down a reactor shaft there would probably just be a loud farting noise followed by the overwhelming stink of skunk perfume instead of the awesome flash of plasma they got out of Palpatine.
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As long as we're rid of him, who cares?
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As long as we're rid of him, who cares?
Good point, I could get used to the stink.
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In the end, though, he was tossed into the reactor by his former pupil. Maybe Ajit one day notices just how he was used and tosses his masters down the drain, preferably shortly before he himself croaks, much like Vader did.
Re:Don't forget... (Score:4, Insightful)
the might of the whole galaxy was against the Jedi and they got killed off one by one
You say that like it was a bad thing. Look, the Jedi had NOTHING TO OFFER the people of the galaxy. The Empire brought peace and order. Building the Death Star created a Keynesian expansion that provided prosperity for trillions of people. Life was good. Then the Jedi destroyed all of that, killed the emperor, and the galactic economy collapsed. Soon people were reduced to scavenging the wreckage left behind by the golden age of empire. Of course the people turned against the Jedi. Can you blame them?
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What fell the republic was infighting, petty bickering and not realizing a looming danger that was pretty good at playing with the fears and using them to take power out of hands more than willing to hand it over.
Reminds me of something, if I could only remember what...
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http://www.weeklystandard.com/... [weeklystandard.com]
Lucas wants the Empire to stand for evil, so he tells us that the Emperor and Darth Vader have gone over to the Dark Side and dresses them in black.
But look closer. When Palpatine is still a senator, he says, "The Republic is not what it once was. The Senate is full of greedy, squabbling delegates. There is no interest in the common good." At one point he laments that "the bureaucrats are in charge now."
Palpatine believes that the political order must be manipulated to produce peace and stability. When he mutters, "There is no civility, there is only politics," we see that at heart, he's an esoteric Straussian.
Make no mistake, as emperor, Palpatine is a dictator--but a relatively benign one, like Pinochet. It's a dictatorship people can do business with. They collect taxes and patrol the skies. They try to stop organized crime (in the form of the smuggling rings run by the Hutts). The Empire has virtually no effect on the daily life of the average, law-abiding citizen.
Also, unlike the divine-right Jedi, the Empire is a meritocracy. The Empire runs academies throughout the galaxy (Han Solo begins his career at an Imperial academy), and those who show promise are promoted, often rapidly. In The Empire Strikes Back Captain Piett is quickly promoted to admiral when his predecessor falls down on the job.
And while it's a small point, the Empire's manners and decorum speak well of it. When Darth Vader is forced to employ bounty hunters to track down Han Solo, he refuses to address them by name. Even Boba Fett, the greatest of all trackers, is referred to icily as "bounty hunter." And yet Fett understands the protocol. When he captures Solo, he calls him "Captain Solo." (Whether this is in deference to Han's former rank in the Imperial starfleet, or simply because Han owns and pilots his own ship, we don't know. I suspect it's the former.)
But the most compelling evidence that the Empire isn't evil comes in The Empire Strikes Back when Darth Vader is battling Luke Skywalker. After an exhausting fight, Vader is poised to finish Luke off, but he stays his hand. He tries to convert Luke to the Dark Side with this simple plea: "There is no escape. Don't make me destroy you. . . . Join me, and I will complete your training. With our combined strength, we can end this destructive conflict and bring order to the galaxy." It is here we find the real controlling impulse for the Dark Side and the Empire. The Empire doesn't want slaves or destruction or "evil." It wants order.
None of which is to say that the Empire isn't sometimes brutal. In Episode IV, Imperial stormtroopers kill Luke's aunt and uncle and Grand Moff Tarkin orders the destruction of an entire planet, Alderaan. But viewed in context, these acts are less brutal than they initially appear. Poor Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen reach a grisly end, but only after they aid the rebellion by hiding Luke and harboring two fugitive droids. They aren't given due process, but they are traitors.
The destruction of Alderaan is often cited as ipso facto proof of the Empire's "evilness" because it seems like mass murder--planeticide, even. As Tarkin prepares to fire the Death Star, Princess Leia implores him to spare the planet, saying, "Alderaan is peaceful. We have no weapons." Her plea is important, if true.
But the audience has no reason to believe that Leia is telling the truth. In Episode IV, every bit of information she gives the Empire is willfully untrue. In the opening, she tells Darth Vader that she is on a diplomatic mission of mercy, when in fact she is on a spy mission, trying to deliver schematics of the Death Star to the Rebel Alliance. When asked where the Alliance is headquartered, she lies again.
Leia's lies are perfectly defensible--she thinks she's serving the greater good--but they make her wholly unreliable on the question of whether or not Alderaan really is peaceful and defenseless. If anything, since Leia is a high-ranking member of the rebellion and the princess of Alderaan, it would be reasonable to suspect that Alderaan is a front for Rebel activity or at least home to many more spies and insurgents like Leia.
Palpatine did nothing wrong!
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By the way Skywalker pulls an Obi Wan and becomes a force ghost, Kylo Ren cuts Snoke in half and puppet Yoda shows up.
Re:Uh... (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you shitting me? People dislike the prequels because they're shit.
Fuck, it's possible to enjoy lighty-up sword fights and blasters while also coping perfectly well with deep rich political films. The prequels sure as fuck weren't the latter and didn't deliver very well on the former.
Where the hell were the politics in some kid flitting about in a computer-game-turned-boring-as-fuck-film-chase-scene pod race? Contrived as shit.
The star wars films have never been terribly well written or exemplars of the acting profession, but they were at least fun. Until the prequels.
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Nah, we just want a cool fantasy action story, if we want political bickering, watching scheming assholes trying to destroy a Republic while amassing wealth and power for themselves and their cronies, we could watch C-SPAN instead.
Clown show (Score:5, Insightful)
Wrong Comparison (Score:5, Funny)
Ajit Pai is not only incompetent... he's also a complete clown.
Exactly. So people are getting their Star Wars analogy wrong when they compare him to Darth Vader. This guy is Jar-jar Binks.
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Jar-Jar was a mess, but he worked for the good guys. While Ajit Pai works for the dark side or Jabba the Hutt. I am not so sure which. It also might be Spaceballs. They polluted their home planet, sniff perri air, and try to steal the atmosphere of another planet.
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I would never go to such frivolous place which sells bad coffee. I'd rather have a real milk+coffee mixture without 100 toppings. Toppings is something for pizza not coffee. Such places are for people who do not need to make any decisions at their workplace. They get some sense of having their life in control from answering 10 questions before they get their coffee.
Anyway, I do not understand what you mean by "those people". Jar-Jar or Jabba the Hutt? Or do you refer to the US government?
Re:Clown show (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think I'd call Pai incompetent. Earnestly trying to do right by the American people, and failing, that is incompetence. Actively trying to screw us over, and succeeding, that's something else, but not incompetence. You can only consider him incompetent if you think this shitshow isn't intentional.
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Dude, that's unfair, ok. Hardworking people should not be offended like this, it's anything but easy to be put into such a position with huge responsibility, where you can ruin a life in mere minutes if you're not good, causing a traumatic experience that may last a lifetime.
You have any idea how long you have to study and learn if you really want to be good as a clown? And you compare this buffoon with people who dedicate their life to creating joy, wonder and entertainment.
On behalf of all clowns on the p
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Better approach: (Score:5, Informative)
Call your representatives and tell them what you want. Congress can pass a law to ensure net neutrality but they have to know it matters to voters. Also, if they won't support it then you need to get involved politically. If your preferred political party does not support net neutrality then you may want to reexamine why you are aligning yourself with them.
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Re:Better approach: (Score:5, Insightful)
you'd be better off petitioning your local government to open the local loop to competition. not everything has to be done at the federal level...
100 million Americans have but one provider to choose from. Google is struggling to compete.
Petitioning at the local government level is akin to pissing in a strong wind with your mouth wide open.
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Don't forget to attach a bigger check than Comcast to that call.
You don't expect a blowjob from a ho for free, do you? Then why do you expect a law from a ho in Congress?
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Call your representatives and tell them what you want. Congress can pass a law to ensure net neutrality but they have to know it matters to voters. Also, if they won't support it then you need to get involved politically. If your preferred political party does not support net neutrality then you may want to reexamine why you are aligning yourself with them.
Call your representative? Get a million angry voters together, head down to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and shout with one voice, "Give us a net neutrality law you corrupt skunk!", then head over to the senate building and repeat the exercise except the last word should be in the plural. Democracy works best when the politicians are scared stiff of the electorate.
If Ajit sees himself as one of the Jedi.... (Score:2)
... won't someone please go all Darth Vader on his ass?
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If he is a Jedi, I think it's time to execute Order 66.
That 83%? (Score:3, Interesting)
Until it translates into votes, it doesn't mean squat.
*Sweep the House*
The present Us government (Score:5, Insightful)
Trump - the Emperor
Pence - the Emperor's left hand and a religious fundamentalist => no religious freedom
Scott Pruitt - EPA dismantling agent => no healthy environment and no protection from dangerous and harmful substances in our food and water
Ajit Pai - FCC dismantling agent => no net neutrality => no freedom in communication and information
Steven T. Mnuchin - Give it to the rich => no state, no security
This is not drain the swamp of corruption. This is more like drain all remaining habitats and screw the population so they sit all in a dessert.
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Trump is Jabba the Hutt who was elected chancellor in an alternative Star Wars timeline.
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What do you mean by "promote a regressive religion"? Which religion is that? And which religion is responsible for which deaths? Any ideology and religion can be used to promote murder. Regardless of the real content of the ideology and religion. Examples are Socialism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Patriotism, and Liberalism. While Socialism aims to give workers/employees control over the companies they work in (so there is private property, but its distribution is different) and they decide democraticall
I don't believe in getting violent. (Score:2)
But Pai's idiotic and abrasive antics from a position of power are starting to push my "Fuck you motherfucker!" button.
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Starting to? This guy is garbage, and I am sucker punching his ass if I am ever fortunate enough to meet him.
I am notoriously forgiving and long-suffering...
The Heart of the Tiger... (Score:2)
Eventually it will hit him (Score:2)
Right now he's letting donor money do the thinking for him.
One day he'll call up Comcast for internet support. He'll play his "Don't you know who I am?" card and the operator will reply, in an Indian accent, "No, sir. We treat all of our customers equally."
Re: Ajit Pai > Mark Hamil (Score:2, Troll)
Re: Ajit Pai Mark Hamil (Score:2)
Can you imagine believing "I'm against Net Neutrality 'cause it triggers the libs" is a cogent political opinion?
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Sadly it must be true that people are completely controlled by fear based hateful propaganda. Otherwise large portions of the population would not believe that exterminating or deporting Wogs / Latinos / BLM / Muslims would actualy improve the lives of anyone. They would have been repelled by Trumps silent support for Nazi's and voted for someone else. The thing is that politics is now completely controlled by emotional propaganda and that there is actually almost no difference between the Democrats and the
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translated: Ajit has a future as a corporate stooge.
And the future is right now.
Re:Still (Score:4, Insightful)
Show of hands: How many of you believe that Ajit Pai's crusade to end Net Neutrality is about "restoring the open internet"?
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Could you list the terrible things occurring in 2015 that both forced the hand of government to enact "net neutrality" and why it precludes returning to the regulatory environment of 2015?
Re:Still (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Still (Score:5, Informative)
You want them in chronological order? I mean, you could have just googled it for yourself. https://www.freepress.net/blog... [freepress.net]
Here we go, and when this is over I expect you to apologize to the entire class for being such a dumbass...
MADISON RIVER: In 2005, North Carolina ISP Madison River Communications blocked the voice-over-internet protocol (VOIP) service Vonage. Vonage filed a complaint with the FCC after receiving a slew of customer complaints. The FCC stepped in to sanction Madison River and prevent further blocking, but it lacks the authority to stop this kind of abuse today.
COMCAST: In 2005, the nation’s largest ISP, Comcast, began secretly blocking peer-to-peer technologies that its customers were using over its network. Users of services like BitTorrent and Gnutella were unable to connect to these services. 2007 investigations from the Associated Press, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and others confirmed that Comcast was indeed blocking or slowing file-sharing applications without disclosing this fact to its customers.
TELUS: In 2005, Canada’s second-largest telecommunications company, Telus, began blocking access to a server that hosted a website supporting a labor strike against the company. Researchers at Harvard and the University of Toronto found that this action resulted in Telus blocking an additional 766 unrelated sites.
AT&T: From 2007–2009, AT&T forced Apple to block Skype and other competing VOIP phone services on the iPhone. The wireless provider wanted to prevent iPhone users from using any application that would allow them to make calls on such “over-the-top” voice services. The Google Voice app received similar treatment from carriers like AT&T when it came on the scene in 2009.
WINDSTREAM: In 2010, Windstream Communications, a DSL provider with more than 1 million customers at the time, copped to hijacking user-search queries made using the Google toolbar within Firefox. Users who believed they had set the browser to the search engine of their choice were redirected to Windstream’s own search portal and results.
MetroPCS: In 2011, MetroPCS, at the time one of the top-five U.S. wireless carriers, announced plans to block streaming video over its 4G network from all sources except YouTube. MetroPCS then threw its weight behind Verizon’s court challenge against the FCC’s 2010 open internet ruling, hoping that rejection of the agency’s authority would allow the company to continue its anti-consumer practices.
PAXFIRE: In 2011, the Electronic Frontier Foundation found that several small ISPs were redirecting search queries via the vendor Paxfire. The ISPs identified in the initial Electronic Frontier Foundation report included Cavalier, Cogent, Frontier, Fuse, DirecPC, RCN and Wide Open West. Paxfire would intercept a person’s search request at Bing and Yahoo and redirect it to another page. By skipping over the search service’s results, the participating ISPs would collect referral fees for delivering users to select websites.
AT&T, SPRINT and VERIZON: From 2011–2013, AT&T, Sprint and Verizon blocked Google Wallet, a mobile-payment system that competed with a similar service called Isis, which all three companies had a stake in developing.
VERIZON: In 2012, the FCC caught Verizon Wireless blocking people from using tethering applications on their phones. Verizon had asked Google to remove 11 free tethering applications from the Android marketplace. These applications allowed users to circumvent Verizon’s $20 tethering fee and turn their smartphones into Wi-Fi hot spots. By blocking those applications, Ve
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Re:Still (Score:5, Insightful)
I swear, you libertarian types seem to think that everything will magically even out, and that none of the things that happened to real people in real time ever occurred if it worked out mathematically in the end. And that's only in some magical ideal world where things ever work out mathematically.
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Nice straw man.
Just because not everyone dies of smoking related health problems, doesn't mean that it's a good idea to start smoking.
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Environmental regulations? Fuck that. We'll just pollute and then let the market tell us it's bad to have no clean drinking water. And who cares how many people get sick and die along the way. As long as it evens out in the end and we'll magically discover we should clean our water.
Meanwhile, we'll export this stupid idea to new places and let their market figure out that they shouldn't pollute their water.
Why, we should never learn from
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Not a single one of these is cellular (non-data) related. They're mostly phone companies blocking internet data services. I guess the free market, anti government oversight view is that people would vote with their wallets and change to the services that allow them to do the stuff they want to do, but I think that's where the whole concept falls down. These industries can and have made it too hard to do that, and too complicated and time consuming to argue against it. Corporations will end up with the 'sini
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Why do we need the second amendment? As long as no state wants to make a law against gun ownership, there's really no reason for it.
And no, as long as no ISP wants to implement any blocks or traffic shaping shenanigans to squeeze more money out of their customers, there is no need for net neutrality.
Both these things exist for the reason that governments want to regulate which people can have what guns to use them when and how, as much as ISPs want to regulate which customers can use which traffic when and
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Well, are we to construe it as SingleSpeak or DoubleSpeak?
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You can use a belt loop as "bump stock" to acquire automatic fire. Should be ban belt loops on pants too?
People don't use belt loops to kill dozens upon dozens of innocent civilians. You could use a screwdriver to kill too, but that doesn't mean people shouldn't carry swords and machetes around in public all day. Playing a semantics game doesn't mean your position or opinion isn't patently wrong.
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No, no it is not. Unless you assume an unarmed crowd who just stand still. In either case, bump stocks are not the point.
The shooting in Vegas was a tragedy, of that there can be no doubt, but the shooting related death toll in the US is rather insignificant compared to any leading cause of death and certainly is nothing compared to the lives saved because
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...the shooting related death toll in the US is rather insignificant compared to any leading cause of death and certainly is nothing compared to the lives saved because an invading power knows how costly a ground invasion of the heavily armed US would be.
Are you seriously suggesting that the reason Mexico hasn't invaded is that they're more afraid of civilians with hunting rifles than the Army's tanks and the Air Force's bombers?
Re:Internet regulation (Score:5, Insightful)
So, internet regulation is now back to what it was from circa 1980 - 2015? The horror .... the horror ....
Yeah, they have been doing some really shady shit. [imgur.com]
. . . the major problem with the FCC’s move: It forced ISPs into an 80-year-old framework designed for the telephone monopolies of a much different era. Those regulations were more concerned about things like controlling market power than, say, promoting innovation.
Except this is exactly the issue we are worried about. How is it a much different era? Did companies stop being greedy? Did they stop consolidating to control massive swaths of customers? How is this era any different?
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So, internet regulation is now back to what it was from circa 1980 - 2015? The horror .... the horror ....
Yeah, they have been doing some really shady shit. [imgur.com]
. . . the major problem with the FCC’s move: It forced ISPs into an 80-year-old framework designed for the telephone monopolies of a much different era. Those regulations were more concerned about things like controlling market power than, say, promoting innovation.
Except this is exactly the issue we are worried about. How is it a much different era? Did companies stop being greedy? Did they stop consolidating to control massive swaths of customers? How is this era any different?
I don't think companies stopped being greedy. What is different is that the idea the internet should be a level playing field has breathed it's last breath because Google, Facebook, Twitter, Apple, Hulu, Netflix, Amazon, and the rest of the big players who used to fight for net neutrality realised they can afford to pay the extortionists their pound of flesh, that given the utterly corrupt nature of the Trump administration they have to and finally that the real threat is not the extortionists, it is scrapp
Re:Internet regulation (Score:5, Insightful)
The internet and the legacy phone system may make use of related technologies, but the business, competitive environment, uses, and innovation are very different.
Let's take this argument back 80 years.
The telephone and the legacy power pole system may make use of related technologies, but the business, competitive environment, uses, and innovation are very different.
What business does a telephone company have caring about how I use my telephone? I paid for it, so but out!
What business does an Internet Service Provider have caring about I my Internet service? I paid for it, so but out!
If you are only worried about "greedy companies" and aren't concerned about the stifling effects of government regulation then you don't worry enough about enough things.
Please, inform me of the stifling effects net neutrality because there literally are none. The people that claim there are list things that are not related to net neutrality which is to say they have no argument or don't understand what net neutrality means.
Re:Internet regulation (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah they are. In fact, nearly every ISP is in exactly the same position as the original AT&T.
The part you're missing is that when it comes to consumer impact, it doesn't matter if there's a better ISP in a city a hundred miles away. You still live in your town, and you're not going to pack up, sell your house, and move to another city just to get better Internet service. You're stuck with what is available in your geographical area.
The reason they broke up the Bell system and, in the process, massively regulated the resulting smaller companies, is that geographical monopolies are fundamentally bad, and it doesn't make a dime's worth of difference how big the geographical area is. The critical part of the AT&T breakup was not splitting up the nationwide monopoly on end-user access, but rather splitting the long-distance provider from the end-user access provider, eliminating any real opportunity for the latter (which were regional monopolies) to limit which long-distance carrier you could use. We have almost the exact same problem now, with ISPs also being cable providers and voice telephone providers that can (and often do) unfairly compete with other streaming video and voice providers that operate over the Internet.
As for the equipment thing... well, Comcast won't provide static IP blocks without renting a Comcast Business Gateway from them. So we've kind of gotten back to that problem, too.
In other words, in every way other than the nationwide aspect, we've been at the exact same point that led to the breakup of AT&T for at least half a decade, if not longer. And as I said earlier, it doesn't matter if an ISP has a monopoly only in your town, in the county, or in an entire region. Unless your house has wheels, you're not going to move it to the next town over, the next county over, or the next state over just to get a better ISP. So anybody claiming that regional wire-line monopolies are somehow different from national wire-line monopolies in any meaningful way is kidding him/herself.
Just saying.
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And when they change enough that we have a dozen or more ISPs for each household, perhaps we won't need Net Neutrality regulations. Until then, though, mobile broadband isn't ready to take on home usage. My household uses about 500GB of data per month (mostly for streaming videos from Netflix/Hulu/YouTube). Verizon's Unlimited plan reduces speeds if you go above 22GB. Their non-unlimited data plans max out at 100GB which, IIRC was around $700 a month. Having an option that would give me 20% of the data I ne
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Funny thing is when AT&T was a monopoly and regulated under common carrier status I remember everyone complaining they were too slow in deploying DSL. Because it turns out a regulated monopoly has no incentive to deploy new technology.
Meanwhile in the UK BT have a monopoly on lines but local loop unbundling means you have multiple choices of DSL provider. And in the UK you don't local government imposed monopolies on cable and fibre.
Which is the real regulatory problem. Of course Pai won't do anything a
Re: Freedom from NN (Score:2)
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Search engines that don't derank for US party political reasons.
Actually, now google can pay to ensure that competing search engines always have a slower connection or do not connect at all.
News sites that don't ban and remove news.
Actually, now big news sites can pay to ensure that smaller sites have long loading times or even inject ads.
SJW social media that is not banning accounts and reporting users to their governments.
Actually, now SJW social media can pay to keep a competing site from ever connecting.
NN provided political cover for a lot of net censorship.
Reads like you don't understand the first thing about what NN really means.
With the NN rules removed new networks and services can emerge.
With the NN rules removed, new networks and services will have to be able to spend as much money as the giants they a
Re:Freedom from NN (Score:5, Insightful)
The removal of NN will allow new brands to emerge.
Boy, do you have that backwards.
Search engines that don't derank for US party political reasons.
Nope. Without NN, your ISP can redirect your search requests to their own search engine without even having to tell users that they're doing it. You might not even know that you're getting a substandard experience. Big search engines can, of course, afford to pay those ISPs to avoid that, but those new brands you're hoping will emerge? They won't have the money to do so, so they'll be stillborn.
And the same problem exists with all of your other ill-informed beliefs about net neutrality. Repealing net neutrality doesn't create opportunities for new Internet companies to emerge. In point of fact, the repeal of net neutrality does the exact opposite, providing new ways for existing large companies to become entrenched in ways that keep new players from being able to enter the field at all.
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Shill or stupid?
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Being a contrarian and disagreeing simply because veryone else thinks something doesn't make you smart.
There are more flat-earthers than there are Einsteins out there and you don't fall into the latter category.
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Because for a change something that's bad for us is also bad for them. Don't worry, it won't last, this is basically the odd one out, next week we will get to hear again how being screwed over is good for us.
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If I know it's his kids, I'll make sure to add a healthy dose of E621. Or was that E605? I'm really bad with numbers...
Re:Who Cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
I know how to use the internet without Google, without Facebook, without Twitter.
How do I do it without an ISP?
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He was made commissioner by Obama, but Trump made him chairman. At least according to the FCC [fcc.gov].
So no, Obama did not put him into the position where he could make this decision. But clever wording, I have to give you that. It's actually true enough to not make people call you a liar but omits enough to make people think that Obama is to blame for this asshole being where he is.