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It encourages me to see that the European court at least has some people on it that seem to understand that net neutrality is in fact a human rights issue. And

It encourages me to see that the European court at least has some people on it that seem to understand that net neutrality is in fact a human rights issue. And this is why Brexit is so heart-breaking. I'm surrounded by people in my personal life who think it's a fantastic idea, but they're not the most... informed? Likewise for local politicians. (Side note to my rant: I have this theory that the rise of the iPhone, and the fact that it is such a big part of people's lives now, has fooled regular folks into believing that they're experts on technology. I have no more than anecdotal evidence for this). I strongly suspect that local legislators will see no conflict whatsoever with scrapping these laws when the exit finally comes, and it saddens me that I'm surrounded by a lot of people that will be cheering when it happens. This is from a real conversation I had this week: "What it boils down to is do you want to have us control our own laws and decisions and borders, or have to take orders from some bureaucrat in Brussels that doesn't understand us?" Yes, I would rather have decisions made by people in Brussels that understand what they're doing.

freshflowers 10y ago
Ironically, the same issue is exactly why I, as a citizen of the Netherlands, support leaving the EU. Because even at this point, Net Neutrality is still less well protected by the EU than it was under our own national legislation. I cannot in all good conscience support a union that has the power to undermine our civil rights. If Brits don't want those civil rights, that's their choice. Brussels is not a force for good simply because in this case it would be an improvement for the Brits.
- ZenoArrow 10y ago
  I agree with your general sentiment, but wonder where you get the idea that Britain is somewhat backward when it comes to civil rights. Whilst challenges to civil rights will continue to exist and be resisted, it should be noted that the European Convention on Human Rights was influenced by the UK's approach to civil rights: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Convention_on_Human_Rights https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Convention_on_Human... If you have concrete examples of poor civil rights in the UK, by all means share them, I'm not pretending things are perfect here, and would be happy to get a better grasp of where things could be improved.
  - M2Ys4U 10y ago
    The UK's continuing contempt for the unanimous ruling of the ECHR in Hirst v United Kingdom would be one good point. Likewise the continued push for mass surveillance (see: DRIPA, the defunct Draft Communications Data Bill and the seemingly inevitable Investigatory Powers Bill) is another - the most recent legislative attempts have been to make legal what the state has been doing illegally for many, many years. What worries me is that there is no common-law right to privacy in English law; our modern privacy rights stem almost exclusively from the ECHR and the EU. The recent clampdown on the rights of trades unions is a third example. Despite an historic low number of days lost to industrial action, the government has been making it much harder to legally strike, or even to _fund_ trades unions (for example, imposing high thresholds on ballots and attempting to remove the option of payroll funding for union membership).
markonthewall 10y ago
Those are candy-bars to make you happy, just like the EHRC is keeping the leftists in line while we slowly shift toward an ordoliberal paradigm at the european level. For countries like France, Italy and even Germany, that means social regression and harmonisation by the bottom. >Yes, I would rather have decisions made by people in Brussels that understand what they're doing. Yay structural unemployment in the eurozone! The folks at the commission and at the ECB sure know as hell what they are doing since the EU is a sui generis structure and the non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment absolutely did not hurt western economies and destroyed the industrial tissue of those countries. I am being sarcastic. Now, without any offense, you sound like someone who has red a wikipedia page about the European Union and who nows consider everyone having dissenting opinion to be a stinky redneck who does not deserve a voice. Maybe that's not what you wanted to convey, in that case I apologise, but to be honest, at this point, I have met so many pseudo-smartass people who think they understand everything that I have very little hope you don't fall into that category of people. Thinking technocracy will magically solves all your problems is lazy, at best.
- fleevy 10y ago
  Amen! The EU is corrupt and incompetent, and it needs to go away sooner than later.
- whybroke 10y ago
  Intriguing but 3 questions: How could shifting more towards Ordoliberalism (=government regulation to maximize competition plus a social safety net) be a bad thing? Quality of life is rather high in Germany after all. Is there in fact evidence that unemployment is intentionally maintained in order to suppress inflation? Even if your assertions are true, how would Brexit address any of these things and generally how would a balkanized Europe be more prosperous let alone more globally competitive than a unified Europe?
  - hueving 10y ago
    Unification is counter-productive if you think that the goals of the group are bad.
allendoerfer 10y ago
> "What it boils down to is do you want to have us control our own laws and decisions and borders, or have to take orders from some bureaucrat in Brussels that doesn't understand us?" > Yes, I would rather have decisions made by people in Brussels that understand what they're doing. Julia Reda is a MP inside the EU parliament. She was voted in their and is not some bureaucrat. The voter turnout in Great Britain was 36 % in 2014, so it is partly their own fault if the do not feel represented by their representatives. Günther Oettinger however was rescued from an historic loss of the conservative CDU against the Greens in the state of Baden-Württemberg [0] where he was minister-president (governor in the US). It was the first time the Greens were the big partner in a coalition to govern a German state. Oettinger screwed up a big project to rebuild a train station followed by many protests, police scandals and so on [1]. His genius argument why Stuttgart should not have a terminal station, when Paris has one, is that there are no people living west of Paris. The CDU lost the election on the topic of nuclear energy and Oettinger was then of all places appointed to be Commissioner of Energy. People also ask themselves why Germany sends the one person with the worst English skills to an international parliament and make fun of it [2]. So yeah, you could definitely argue, that the commission could benefit from directly elected members. Although it is not undemocratic: The members are appointed by the governments. Great Britain also had nice, prestigious positions: Commissioner of Foreign Affairs (10-14) and Commissioner of Finances (today), while Germany only got energy and internet. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Baden-W%C3%BCrttemberg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Baden-W%C3%BCrttem... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuttgart_21 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuttgart_21 [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RrEQ8Ovw-Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RrEQ8Ovw-Q
- toyg 10y ago
  I agree on everything, just pointing out the (UK) Commissioner for Financial affairs very sensibly resigned post-referendum. In his place, a "Security Commissioner" was nominated, covering an area of policy that does not influence Eurozone economic policies and is overall less reliant on EU membership (because Interpol etc etc). Again, a very sensible move by everyone involved.
cookiecaper 10y ago
>It encourages me to see that the European court at least has some people on it that seem to understand that net neutrality is in fact a human rights issue. If everything is a human right, nothing is. At this point, what's the difference between a "human right" and a nice thing? >Yes, I would rather have decisions made by people in Brussels that understand what they're doing. The thing about centralized government is that it's great when you agree with what they're doing, but it's terrible when you don't. Ask yourself how happy you would be with European governance if they primarily didn't implement policies that you personally considered wise. People have different ideas about what's fair. The hinge of democracy is the simplicity by which a people can make their will known and have that will executed, at least within their own region. More local governance makes individual will much more important. Consider that a representative's attention is evenly divided by the quantity of his constituents, because each constituent has an equal quantity of votes. Thus, a smaller quantity of constituents means more individual influence in government. That's generally a positive thing. Therefore, jurisdictions should be broken into the smallest workable units, and the amount of power concentrated within a jurisdiction should be correlated with its localness.
- nitrogen 10y ago
  Human right: neutral communications Nice thing: iPhone 6+ Human right: freedom of movement Nice thing: Maserati See the difference? --- As for your second part about localization of politics, the tyranny of the majority is much more severe in hyper-local settings. Global issues like human rights cannot be entrusted to local governments whose local majorities are prone to divisiveness and discrimination.
  - smsm42 10y ago
    > Global issues like human rights cannot be entrusted to local governments Who they can be entrusted to? There's a lot of countries with severe human rights issues, and I don't see many examples of super-governmental bodies having much progress in fixing them unless local government is on board with it. In fact, it's almost always impossible to do without local government participation.
objectivistbrit 10y ago
It's a property rights issue. Specifically, should private organisations be allowed to own major pieces of infrastructure? The European vision of capitalism is where you can own, say, a cafe or mobile app, and do what you want with it. However, something like a telecoms network or search engine is too important to be kept in the hands of ruthless big business, and the state needs to step in to control who said businesses deal with. They talk about preventing monopoly, but even with infrastructure, technological shifts mean any purported monopoly constantly faces real competition. (Witness how IBM lost out to Microsoft, which lost out to the internet companies). Private investment and private innovation is the best way to build infrastructure, and if the state wants to control how the infrastructure is used (and prevents the owners from cutting special deals with their largest potential customers), investment money stays away. This has happened with pharmaceuticals - one reason there's been so much investment in viagra and plastic surgery is that more useful medical patents tend to be seized by government. It's also happening in the case of European telecoms: the net neutrality rules provide a disincentive to invest in 5G. http://www.theverge.com/2016/7/10/12139700/telecom-companies-5g-service-european-union-net-neutrality http://www.theverge.com/2016/7/10/12139700/telecom-companies... (That article is negatively slanted, but gives a decent overview). Here's the actual report by the telcos: http://ec.europa.eu/newsroom/dae/document.cfm?action=display&doc_id=16579 http://ec.europa.eu/newsroom/dae/document.cfm?action=display... Yes, I would rather have decisions made by people in Brussels that understand what they're doing. Every generation rediscovers Plato's republic.
- objectivistbrit 10y ago
  From the report: "In this context we must highlight the danger of restrictive Net Neutrality rules, in the context of 5G technologies, business applications and beyond. 5G introduces the concept of “Network Slicing” to accommodate a wide-variety of industry verticals’ business models on a common platform, at scale and with services guarantees. Automated driving, smart grid control, virtual reality and public safety services are examples of use- cases with distinguished characteristics which call for a flexible and elastic configuration of resources in networks and platforms, on a continuous basis, depending on demand, context and the nature of the service. According to the telecom industry, BEREC’s draft proposal of implementation rules is excessively prescriptive and could make telcos risk-averse thus hampering the exploitation of 5G, ignoring the fundamental agility and elastic nature of 5G Network Slicing to adapt in real time to changes in end-user / application and traffic demand. The 5G objective of creating new business opportunities and satisfying future end-user needs would be at risk, with a regulation not coherent with the market demand evolution. It is paramount to ensure 5G monetisation to drive investments. Monetisation can take place across the entire value chain with end-users, service providers and industry verticals in order to ensure fair returns, speed up adoption by end-users and ensure consumers are not alone in picking up the bill for the innovation that will help the business cases of the service providers. Operators should also be free to mix and manage different technology generations, mobile or otherwise, that are enabling 5G mobile technology to serve their customers optimally."
smsm42 10y ago
> Yes, I would rather have decisions made by people in Brussels that understand what they're doing. That requires having people in Brussels who understand what they're doing - at least better than local politicians. But I'm not sure how exactly you ensure that. If we assume you are right that the people around you (excepting you, of course) are woefully misinformed and so are local politicians, where would the enlightened folks in Brussels come from, who would elect and appoint them? If you plan to keep the democracy around and not replace it with absolute monarchy with people as well informed as yourself at the helm (how do you ensure that btw?), I don't see how exactly that may work. It is a great delusion that democratic mechanisms and limited federalized government are the way to put the best people on top and manage the system most efficiently. They are not. They are the safety valve to mitigate the effect of so-so and worse people being on top. And this mechanism is necessary because there's no viable solution so far that can identify "best" people (whatever that may mean, we have no idea for that either) and put them on top.
- posterboy 10y ago
  > It is a great delusion that democratic mechanisms and limited federalized government are the way to put the best people on top and manage the system most efficiently That is not that important because the people on top can only prescribe, the population has to substantiate the plans. Therefore it is important that the population can be informed beforehand to agree with the plans.
- headmelted 10y ago
  In no way am I suggesting that my opinions are any "better" than anyone else's, but on this topic I feel like I'm more informed on the issue of net neutrality than most people I know offline, which is as much to do with my family and friends not sharing the same passion for technology that I have than anything else. I don't begrudge them this at all (different strokes for different folks etc). I utterly agree with all of the points made above, I simply feel that if it's a case of "better the devil you know than the devil you don't", then I would choose "don't" any day of the week based on a lifetime of experiencing local politics. Honestly, the thought of any increase in power to local politicians terrifies me, based on their track record alone.
ManlyBread 10y ago
>I would rather have decisions made by people in Brussels that understand what they're doing. >that understand what they're doing. Wishful thinking.

freshflowers 10y ago

Ironically, the same issue is exactly why I, as a citizen of the Netherlands, support leaving the EU. Because even at this point, Net Neutrality is still less well protected by the EU than it was under our own national legislation. I cannot in all good conscience support a union that has the power to undermine our civil rights. If Brits don't want those civil rights, that's their choice. Brussels is not a force for good simply because in this case it would be an improvement for the Brits.

ZenoArrow 10y ago
I agree with your general sentiment, but wonder where you get the idea that Britain is somewhat backward when it comes to civil rights. Whilst challenges to civil rights will continue to exist and be resisted, it should be noted that the European Convention on Human Rights was influenced by the UK's approach to civil rights: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Convention_on_Human_Rights https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Convention_on_Human... If you have concrete examples of poor civil rights in the UK, by all means share them, I'm not pretending things are perfect here, and would be happy to get a better grasp of where things could be improved.
- M2Ys4U 10y ago
  The UK's continuing contempt for the unanimous ruling of the ECHR in Hirst v United Kingdom would be one good point. Likewise the continued push for mass surveillance (see: DRIPA, the defunct Draft Communications Data Bill and the seemingly inevitable Investigatory Powers Bill) is another - the most recent legislative attempts have been to make legal what the state has been doing illegally for many, many years. What worries me is that there is no common-law right to privacy in English law; our modern privacy rights stem almost exclusively from the ECHR and the EU. The recent clampdown on the rights of trades unions is a third example. Despite an historic low number of days lost to industrial action, the government has been making it much harder to legally strike, or even to _fund_ trades unions (for example, imposing high thresholds on ballots and attempting to remove the option of payroll funding for union membership).

markonthewall 10y ago

Those are candy-bars to make you happy, just like the EHRC is keeping the leftists in line while we slowly shift toward an ordoliberal paradigm at the european level. For countries like France, Italy and even Germany, that means social regression and harmonisation by the bottom. >Yes, I would rather have decisions made by people in Brussels that understand what they're doing. Yay structural unemployment in the eurozone! The folks at the commission and at the ECB sure know as hell what they are doing since the EU is a sui generis structure and the non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment absolutely did not hurt western economies and destroyed the industrial tissue of those countries. I am being sarcastic. Now, without any offense, you sound like someone who has red a wikipedia page about the European Union and who nows consider everyone having dissenting opinion to be a stinky redneck who does not deserve a voice. Maybe that's not what you wanted to convey, in that case I apologise, but to be honest, at this point, I have met so many pseudo-smartass people who think they understand everything that I have very little hope you don't fall into that category of people. Thinking technocracy will magically solves all your problems is lazy, at best.

fleevy 10y ago
Amen! The EU is corrupt and incompetent, and it needs to go away sooner than later.
whybroke 10y ago
Intriguing but 3 questions: How could shifting more towards Ordoliberalism (=government regulation to maximize competition plus a social safety net) be a bad thing? Quality of life is rather high in Germany after all. Is there in fact evidence that unemployment is intentionally maintained in order to suppress inflation? Even if your assertions are true, how would Brexit address any of these things and generally how would a balkanized Europe be more prosperous let alone more globally competitive than a unified Europe?
- hueving 10y ago
  Unification is counter-productive if you think that the goals of the group are bad.

allendoerfer 10y ago

> "What it boils down to is do you want to have us control our own laws and decisions and borders, or have to take orders from some bureaucrat in Brussels that doesn't understand us?" > Yes, I would rather have decisions made by people in Brussels that understand what they're doing. Julia Reda is a MP inside the EU parliament. She was voted in their and is not some bureaucrat. The voter turnout in Great Britain was 36 % in 2014, so it is partly their own fault if the do not feel represented by their representatives. Günther Oettinger however was rescued from an historic loss of the conservative CDU against the Greens in the state of Baden-Württemberg [0] where he was minister-president (governor in the US). It was the first time the Greens were the big partner in a coalition to govern a German state. Oettinger screwed up a big project to rebuild a train station followed by many protests, police scandals and so on [1]. His genius argument why Stuttgart should not have a terminal station, when Paris has one, is that there are no people living west of Paris. The CDU lost the election on the topic of nuclear energy and Oettinger was then of all places appointed to be Commissioner of Energy. People also ask themselves why Germany sends the one person with the worst English skills to an international parliament and make fun of it [2]. So yeah, you could definitely argue, that the commission could benefit from directly elected members. Although it is not undemocratic: The members are appointed by the governments. Great Britain also had nice, prestigious positions: Commissioner of Foreign Affairs (10-14) and Commissioner of Finances (today), while Germany only got energy and internet. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Baden-W%C3%BCrttemberg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Baden-W%C3%BCrttem... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuttgart_21 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuttgart_21 [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RrEQ8Ovw-Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RrEQ8Ovw-Q

toyg 10y ago
I agree on everything, just pointing out the (UK) Commissioner for Financial affairs very sensibly resigned post-referendum. In his place, a "Security Commissioner" was nominated, covering an area of policy that does not influence Eurozone economic policies and is overall less reliant on EU membership (because Interpol etc etc). Again, a very sensible move by everyone involved.

cookiecaper 10y ago

>It encourages me to see that the European court at least has some people on it that seem to understand that net neutrality is in fact a human rights issue. If everything is a human right, nothing is. At this point, what's the difference between a "human right" and a nice thing? >Yes, I would rather have decisions made by people in Brussels that understand what they're doing. The thing about centralized government is that it's great when you agree with what they're doing, but it's terrible when you don't. Ask yourself how happy you would be with European governance if they primarily didn't implement policies that you personally considered wise. People have different ideas about what's fair. The hinge of democracy is the simplicity by which a people can make their will known and have that will executed, at least within their own region. More local governance makes individual will much more important. Consider that a representative's attention is evenly divided by the quantity of his constituents, because each constituent has an equal quantity of votes. Thus, a smaller quantity of constituents means more individual influence in government. That's generally a positive thing. Therefore, jurisdictions should be broken into the smallest workable units, and the amount of power concentrated within a jurisdiction should be correlated with its localness.

nitrogen 10y ago
Human right: neutral communications Nice thing: iPhone 6+ Human right: freedom of movement Nice thing: Maserati See the difference? --- As for your second part about localization of politics, the tyranny of the majority is much more severe in hyper-local settings. Global issues like human rights cannot be entrusted to local governments whose local majorities are prone to divisiveness and discrimination.
- smsm42 10y ago
  > Global issues like human rights cannot be entrusted to local governments Who they can be entrusted to? There's a lot of countries with severe human rights issues, and I don't see many examples of super-governmental bodies having much progress in fixing them unless local government is on board with it. In fact, it's almost always impossible to do without local government participation.

objectivistbrit 10y ago

It's a property rights issue. Specifically, should private organisations be allowed to own major pieces of infrastructure? The European vision of capitalism is where you can own, say, a cafe or mobile app, and do what you want with it. However, something like a telecoms network or search engine is too important to be kept in the hands of ruthless big business, and the state needs to step in to control who said businesses deal with. They talk about preventing monopoly, but even with infrastructure, technological shifts mean any purported monopoly constantly faces real competition. (Witness how IBM lost out to Microsoft, which lost out to the internet companies). Private investment and private innovation is the best way to build infrastructure, and if the state wants to control how the infrastructure is used (and prevents the owners from cutting special deals with their largest potential customers), investment money stays away. This has happened with pharmaceuticals - one reason there's been so much investment in viagra and plastic surgery is that more useful medical patents tend to be seized by government. It's also happening in the case of European telecoms: the net neutrality rules provide a disincentive to invest in 5G. http://www.theverge.com/2016/7/10/12139700/telecom-companies-5g-service-european-union-net-neutrality http://www.theverge.com/2016/7/10/12139700/telecom-companies... (That article is negatively slanted, but gives a decent overview). Here's the actual report by the telcos: http://ec.europa.eu/newsroom/dae/document.cfm?action=display&doc_id=16579 http://ec.europa.eu/newsroom/dae/document.cfm?action=display... Yes, I would rather have decisions made by people in Brussels that understand what they're doing. Every generation rediscovers Plato's republic.

objectivistbrit 10y ago
From the report: "In this context we must highlight the danger of restrictive Net Neutrality rules, in the context of 5G technologies, business applications and beyond. 5G introduces the concept of “Network Slicing” to accommodate a wide-variety of industry verticals’ business models on a common platform, at scale and with services guarantees. Automated driving, smart grid control, virtual reality and public safety services are examples of use- cases with distinguished characteristics which call for a flexible and elastic configuration of resources in networks and platforms, on a continuous basis, depending on demand, context and the nature of the service. According to the telecom industry, BEREC’s draft proposal of implementation rules is excessively prescriptive and could make telcos risk-averse thus hampering the exploitation of 5G, ignoring the fundamental agility and elastic nature of 5G Network Slicing to adapt in real time to changes in end-user / application and traffic demand. The 5G objective of creating new business opportunities and satisfying future end-user needs would be at risk, with a regulation not coherent with the market demand evolution. It is paramount to ensure 5G monetisation to drive investments. Monetisation can take place across the entire value chain with end-users, service providers and industry verticals in order to ensure fair returns, speed up adoption by end-users and ensure consumers are not alone in picking up the bill for the innovation that will help the business cases of the service providers. Operators should also be free to mix and manage different technology generations, mobile or otherwise, that are enabling 5G mobile technology to serve their customers optimally."

smsm42 10y ago

> Yes, I would rather have decisions made by people in Brussels that understand what they're doing. That requires having people in Brussels who understand what they're doing - at least better than local politicians. But I'm not sure how exactly you ensure that. If we assume you are right that the people around you (excepting you, of course) are woefully misinformed and so are local politicians, where would the enlightened folks in Brussels come from, who would elect and appoint them? If you plan to keep the democracy around and not replace it with absolute monarchy with people as well informed as yourself at the helm (how do you ensure that btw?), I don't see how exactly that may work. It is a great delusion that democratic mechanisms and limited federalized government are the way to put the best people on top and manage the system most efficiently. They are not. They are the safety valve to mitigate the effect of so-so and worse people being on top. And this mechanism is necessary because there's no viable solution so far that can identify "best" people (whatever that may mean, we have no idea for that either) and put them on top.

posterboy 10y ago
> It is a great delusion that democratic mechanisms and limited federalized government are the way to put the best people on top and manage the system most efficiently That is not that important because the people on top can only prescribe, the population has to substantiate the plans. Therefore it is important that the population can be informed beforehand to agree with the plans.
headmelted 10y ago
In no way am I suggesting that my opinions are any "better" than anyone else's, but on this topic I feel like I'm more informed on the issue of net neutrality than most people I know offline, which is as much to do with my family and friends not sharing the same passion for technology that I have than anything else. I don't begrudge them this at all (different strokes for different folks etc). I utterly agree with all of the points made above, I simply feel that if it's a case of "better the devil you know than the devil you don't", then I would choose "don't" any day of the week based on a lifetime of experiencing local politics. Honestly, the thought of any increase in power to local politicians terrifies me, based on their track record alone.

ManlyBread 10y ago

>I would rather have decisions made by people in Brussels that understand what they're doing. >that understand what they're doing. Wishful thinking.