
Today is the last chance to comment on the proposal to kill net neutrality - kbyatnal
https://techcrunch.com/2017/08/30/today-is-your-last-chance-to-comment-on-the-proposal-to-kill-net-neutrality
======
byuu
I'm all for everyone commenting so at least it's well known how far this FCC
is going against public opinion, and encourage everyone to make their voices
heard.

But, and I hate to be the cynic here, does anyone really believe that even if
all 323 million Americans commented in opposition to killing net neutrality,
that Ajit Pai would relent?

It's all but guaranteed he's going to do this. The only question is when, not
if :(

~~~
aphextron
This is just a microcosm of the greater political climate created in the US
over the past 40 or so years. Business interests completely control every
single legislative decision made. We're all just along for the ride now.

~~~
etplayer
There's an interesting essay about democracy in America (well, there are
hundreds if not thousands probably) but what's unique is that it's a criticism
levelled against the idea of democratic pluralism, and from where it emerges -
the 'tolerance' of the democracy, the idea that rather than the individual
action expounded by the classical liberals (for all their faults) there is now
a system in which representative voices are heard - whether those are
religious or ethno-groups or worker groups or business groups. The key part,
though, is that the group is recognised as _legitimate_ by the others and only
then will it be tolerated.

The idea of this tolerance is a kind of peaceful existence, which, the author
argues, is inadequate for democracy but makes us feel good.

The essay is "Beyond Tolerance" by Robert Wolff, and it's part of a three
essay book called _Critique of Pure Tolerance_ , which as the name may not
suggest to the reader is written from a strongly left-wing point of view (it
even contains an essay by Frankfurt School critical theorist Herbert
Marcuse!). You can read the PDF of it here, I hope others are as enlightened
by it as I was:
[https://monoskop.org/images/5/55/Wolff_Moore_Marcuse_A_Criti...](https://monoskop.org/images/5/55/Wolff_Moore_Marcuse_A_Critique_of_Pure_Tolerance.pdf)

~~~
pas
Do you maybe care for a tl;dr?

I see, that it's not long (124 small form pages), but I'm very interested in
what do you [or others] think of the essence of the essays, what are the
insights that it gives to the reader. What was unexpected? What was expected?

I also see that it's from 1968. How has it aged?

~~~
bobwaycott
1968 was a particularly seminal year for political thought and action. There’s
such a wealth of writings and histories to draw upon— Kurlansky’s _1968_
provides an easily digested history, and the writings of The Situationist
International, particularly Debord’s _Society and the Spectacle_ , provide a
great look at thought currents that drove some of the more tumultuous scenes
of that year (and decade). Marcuse’s _One-Dimensional Man_ (1964) fits
squarely within the current of cultural critique that fueled the decade. I’d
say a great many of the writings age eerily well—they’re often still poignant
and relevant to issues we deal with today.

~~~
etplayer
The unfortunate part about many works of political thought, particularly I
think from German philosophy is that you need to have a significant amount of
prerequisite knowledge, and this has been my case with the Frankfurt School in
particular. I simply haven't had the time to do the background reading, so the
texts are a little mystifying to me. Take for example _The Dialectic of
Enlightenment_ which is so very packed and dense that it reads like poetry to
me, and what was accomplished in the first 20 pages therein could have been
accomplished in a whole book by any authors other than Adorno and Horkheimer.

I have similar trouble with _Society of the Spectacle_ , though I managed to
find help getting through it. Some are more approachable though, like
Marcuse's shorter essays, Marx's non-Capital economic works and Erich Fromm's
_Escape from Freedom_. Edit: and of course Slavoj Zizek, though he is known to
simplify and reduce concepts until the reader only gets a "kinda yeah" idea of
what's being talked about.

Sometimes I really do wonder if the wealth of distracting information
presented to me, so easy to grab in a capitalist economy has dulled my brain,
or if I even had that brain to use in the first place.

------
nkkollaw
That's amazing that a government would so blatantly go against the public
interest.

Your politicians might as well just admit they work for corporations instead
of citizens. At least they're not implying they think people are stupid.

~~~
0xfeba
The problem is more that the public isn't interested. Only a small percentage
of people know what NN even is.

~~~
nkkollaw
Well, the public shouldn't have to worry about getting interested.

Isn't that why one has a government, so that we don't have to worry about
taking care of everything and can live our lives?

Governments should do what's best for the people who have elected them, and I
don't see how anyone can think that being the only country in the world where
you don't have net neutrality is something good for anyone (but a handful of
corporations).

------
anotherbrownguy
It's unfair to ISPs (some of it is their own doing like introducing "unlimited
data" purely based on the assumption that most users wouldn't use their data
at the same time, which companies like Google and Netflix capitalized on by
building high bandwidth services on top of it) but since Google and Netflix
are capable of manipulating consent of internet users and will not let FCC
rollback "net neutrality", ISPs will have to stop innovating, keep giving
terrible service and pass their costs to consumers.

~~~
shuntress
Why not give good service and pass costs to customers?

~~~
AmIFirstToThink
Why?

1\. They don't have to give good service. Most are monopolies.

2\. They already do pass all costs, and all profit margins created, to
customers.

3\. They want higher profit margins than currently being squeezed.

4\. They want more entities to pay them. New classes of customers.

5\. Deeper the pockets and fewer the paying entities, easier it would be for
ISPs. HBO charges the Cable providers, for long long time HBO didn't allow
individuals to buy directly from them, subscribing through a Cable provider
was the only option. It allowed HBO to have a simple money supply from big
entities with deep pockets which were easy to control. HBO could simply
terminate one cable provider. Comcast can simply terminate preferential
treatment to Vimeo if they didn't pay. Much easier than sending 4th reminder
and collection notice to 65 year old Mrs. Smith.

------
alexandercrohde
I think on the plus side, if net neutrality is killed, and ISPs start gouging
the major providers (e.g. netflix, amazon, google/youtube) then it'll give
huge financial incentive for those content providers to break the ISP
monopoly.

Google started to do so before (fiber), but the political follow-through
wasn't cost effective. There is a tipping point where it is.

~~~
convolvatron
how does that help anything if i have to choose a service-specific last mile?

maybe i guess in the short term we pay off google by agreeing to let them
monitor all the traffic and hope that keeps them sufficiently well fed they
don't feel like offering preferential handling to google services and
partners.

------
AmIFirstToThink
I soured up on Net Neutrality after seeking what
YouTube/Facebook/Twitter/Reddit did to silence voices that they don't like on
their platforms.

How does net neutrality matter if what travels on a perfectly neutral net is
controlled anyway, actually controlled much more effectively, by a very few
with agenda that goes far beyond just greed for money?

"Don't open and judge my TCP/IP packets. But, I will open and judge your video
uploads all day, every day." \- YouTube

How is that fair?

No, thank you. I refuse to be fodder for something, only to be surrendered at
a later point in the fight for fairness.

"Bernie" taught me that lesson. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice,
shame on me.

~~~
prophesi
Youtube won't be able to open and judge your video uploads if you can't afford
to upload a video with your ISP.

~~~
ShabbosGoy
You'll be able to afford it, just be prepared to have a throttled, asymmetric
upload speed to YouTube.

~~~
0xfeba
And when ISPs eventually resort to requiring you insert a root certificate to
use the internet at all, your ISP will judge you.

~~~
AmIFirstToThink
Sure, but it's hypocritical for Google/Facebook/Twitter/Reddit to complain
about someone else judging it in future, while they are judging it today with
impunity.

We, as people, have same influence on current Google/Facebook/Twitter/Reddit
censorship as we do on future Comcast/Verizon/AT&T/Charter censorship... none
what so ever.

~~~
prophesi
So the solution is to give up entirely?

~~~
AmIFirstToThink
No, but there is bigger fish to fry.

Censorship of speech is much much bigger issue for me than Net Neutrality.

I can't stand with multi-billion corporations claiming victimhood on subject
of Net Neutrality, while at the same time playing God with people being able
to speak their mind.

~~~
CaptSpify
You can be an activist for more than one cause at a time. Additionally, those
corporations (who I detest probably more than most people here) can still be
legitimate victims, even if they are terrible. I don't like siding with them
either, but if they are right, then their evil-ness is irrelevant.

~~~
AmIFirstToThink
>You can be an activist for more than one cause at a time.

I agree. But scale does matter. You are not going to be worried about if the
person giving you CPR has cooties or not, if you are suffering through an
heart attack.

>their evil-ness is irrelevant

It is relevant, because I think free speech is more important than speed of
packets. I have to use this opportunity to point out the hypocrisy of these
corporations.

~~~
prophesi
You're just being stubborn now.

Speed of packets is part of free speech, as it affects how it's sent and
received.

It's obviously in Google/FB/etc's interest to advocate Net Neutrality, but
they'll still be using their algorithms to filter what their users see whether
or not net neutrality is a thing.

If Net Neutrality wasn't a thing, FB/Google might have a blow to their wallet.
But they can afford it. The hobbyist can't.

And if you can choose between a person with cooties versus a person without
cooties to save your life, you'd go with the one without cooties. You have
nothing to lose to make the more sensible choice.

~~~
AmIFirstToThink
>You're just being stubborn now.

I hear you. :)

Do I want Net Neutrality? Yes

Is Free Speech more important to me? Yes

Is pointing out hypocrisy of YouTube at this point important for me? Yes

Will I vouch for a guy who gave me finger at the last intersection, if he gets
into an accident no fault of his own at the next intersection? Yes, without
hesitation.

Would I have some choice words for him for giving me finger? You bet.

~~~
prophesi
And with this response, it sounds like you agree with everyone in this comment
thread.

~~~
AmIFirstToThink
I don't want Comcast looking inside my packets. I don't want Google looking
inside my videos.

Deal?

~~~
prophesi
Ideally, yes. But you can just host your videos yourself instead of with
Google, which may be difficult to do without Net Neutrality. Most people don't
have the luxury of choosing their ISP.

It sounds like you have a beef with how the US is currently handling corporate
personhood, not necessarily free speech.

~~~
AmIFirstToThink
> But you can just host your videos yourself instead of with Google, which may
> be difficult to do without Net Neutrality.

The problem is not hosting, the problem is not slow speed, the problem is your
audience being pulled from you without any legal due process. From listener's
perspective, you are denied audience of the person you want to hear, because
YouTube decided they didn't like what is being said and heard.

I find that more suffocating than an ISP slowing down my packets.

Google services were taken away, including youtube, gmail, google docs from
paying accounts that Google didn't like. That's like Mead coming into your
house and taking away the paper notebook they sold to you a week ago, because
they don't like what you write in it.

~~~
prophesi
Without net neutrality, you might not have an audience in the first place. I'm
telling you, it's as big of an issue as Google/Facebook's algorithms and their
account/video takedowns. It would become even more impossibly difficult to
compete with their services. The problem is their monopolization, and a lack
of net neutrality would kill their competition.

This is a bit of a tangent, but it sounds like you're wanting a social media
platform that has:

1) Popularity (essential for any social platform)

2) Unbiased search functionality (Probably needs to be open source, and will
frustrate users with how it underperforms at finding relevant results in
comparison to search engines that are closed source and rely on user tracking)

3) Incapability to take down user files and accounts (Tons of legal issues
here. Probably needs to be decentralized somehow, or hosted somewhere with lax
information laws, otherwise the platform itself would be taken down by the
server's location's government)

Edit: And as for your analogy, no. It's like renting a paper notebook, which
the seller then takes back because you violated their terms of use by drawing
lolicon in it.

~~~
AmIFirstToThink
>Without net neutrality, you might not have an audience in the first place.

DNS can be, and was, taken away without any due legal process. That was my
wake up call. Google cloud is registering domains and has that control over
it.

When it comes to dire situations, if my ISP does funny business, I can choose
another ISP e.g. a mobile connection.

No different than taking another road to go to the bank. My account and money
in there is still safe.

If the bank take away my account without due legal process, does it matter if
the roads to get to the bank were traffic/pothole/toll free?

For a YouTube content creator, who spent years building brand and audience,
one fine day to wake up and have videos demonetized and/or account suspended
is like bank terminating your account without giving you a dime from your
account. With bank, you can get government/FDIC engaged, with YouTube, they
are the Gods of that universe.

>And as for your analogy, no. It's like renting a paper notebook,

Paying account holders of g-suite apps from google, faced account termination
with no cause, no access to videos/files/emails. This is digital violence and
much bigger threat that has materialized, and is far greater than NN.

If terms of service are enough to allow Google doing what it does, why can't
Comcast do the same with their terms of service?

I didn't know it was that easy to do. Don't tell Comcast, please. They would
be delighted to hear that terms of service is all it took to convince you to
override NN.

You are renting their cable and ability to send traffic over their
infrastructure, aren't you? How is cable infrastructure renting different than
DNS/Video-site/email renting?

~~~
prophesi
Finally, some good points.

> When it comes to dire situations, if my ISP does funny business, I can
> choose another ISP e.g. a mobile connection.

No, a mobile connection is hardly a replacement for a traditional internet
connection. You can't host a site or connect to it with most devices, for
example. And no, most people can't choose another ISP. Comcast will have run
out all other competitors, or receive funding from the government to build
their infrastructure and outlaw any other ISP's from providing service there
(which happened in the outskirts of my hometown, despite us already having a
much superior self-sufficient ISP with lower cost.)

> I didn't know it was that easy to do. Don't tell Comcast, please. They would
> be delighted to hear that terms of service is all it took to convince you to
> override NN.

Yes, their terms of service is all Comcast needs should there not be net
neutrality. You are indeed renting it all from them. Net neutrality will stop
them from doing what Google can already do.

I hardly doubt Google's account terminations has anywhere near the level of
impact that the lack of net neutrality will have. Once again, you can host
your site/media/email and manage your DNS elsewhere. The key to taking down
Google's kingdom is to set up competition. Net neutrality will help with that.

And a sidepoint: You should always back up your videos/files/etc. Then if
Youtube/etc is taken down somehow, or your account is terminated, you'll still
be able to put it up elsewhere.

~~~
AmIFirstToThink
>And a sidepoint: You should always back up your videos/files/etc. Then if
Youtube/etc is taken down somehow, or your account is terminated, you'll still
be able to put it up elsewhere.

How do I backup my audience?

>The key to taking down Google's kingdom is to set up competition.

Tread one overlord for another, or be an overlord yourself.

I think anti-competitive behavior laws will play a role in taking down Google.

I can't believe I typed that. I loved, loved, loved Google two months ago. Few
with political agenda have co-opted years of work of thousands of imaginative,
hard working, caring engineers. Now, I want Google broken up by the government
using anti-trust.

~~~
prophesi
Just two months ago? I've been red-pilled for the past decade.

~~~
AmIFirstToThink
Red-pilled a year and half ago. I still liked Google, the technical parts. The
political advocacy was uncomfortable, but OK, political agenda implementation
is downright scary.

------
Danihan
Why does it matter when domain registrars can simply yank domains for posting
speech they don't like?

~~~
colanderman
Individual domain registrars do not have a monopoly, nor is it apparent that
they collude against free speech. ISPs do have local monopolies, and do act
against net neutrality.

