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I can see how a bit of outrage about this is how the NRA got to the place it is today. This by itself isn't that meaningful, but anything can be politicized, t

I can see how a bit of outrage about this is how the NRA got to the place it is today. This by itself isn't that meaningful, but anything can be politicized, turn public opinion and gain momentum. That's why the NRA's position is to say NO to any kind of gun regulation, because they know that's how you ensure guns are made available and gun culture is for sure secure. In the tech community I see people rising up against any kind of movement against net neutrality. And I do not want to see it erode. But I worry that by becoming averse to any reversal, any compromise, the communities stance will eventually be so politicized that it is just another part of the unreasonable and ultra biased political landscape that grinds progress to a halt.

smallnamespace 10y ago
The thing about democracy based on mass mobilization of different interest groups is that no negotiation or compromise is possible, because leaderless groups are incapable of doing anything so complex. Compromises only happen person to person between strong leaders or between small groups of elites that both groups accept -- "Only Nixon could go to China". But for the last 30 years, both the left and the right (for both good and bad reasons) have been tearing down the very idea of legitimate elite authority, whether it's from politicians, academics, or anyone else. Who today has the moral standing to make reasonable compromises that everyone would accept?
wtallis 10y ago
There are pros and cons to gun ownership; it both contributes to and harms the public good. Net neutrality is a more lopsided issue—the arguments against net neutrality are all about legalizing extortion and promoting a tragedy of the commons, or else they're non-specific arguments against regulation of any kind. Taken on its own and rationally, the net neutrality issue is much less amenable to producing a permanent stalemate than gun control. Existing political factions can incorporate positions on net neutrality into their existing political stalemate, but outside of such a context it's pretty easy to see that holes in net neutrality like the one here are absurd—why should smaller monopolies have more leeway to abuse their customers than large monopolies?
- chris_va 10y ago
  To be fair, your "arguments against net neutrality are all about legalizing extortion" already sounds a bit "ultra biased". What if someone wants to start an ISP, and charge less for a lower QoS band? Is that legalized extortion? (Not to say it would be a good idea, I agree that it is a slippery slope)
  - wtallis 10y ago
    What do you mean "charge less for a lower QoS band"? Net neutrality has nothing to say about an ISP that wants to offer both 10Mbps and 100Mbps plans, or business-class plans that offer an SLA for a higher price than ordinary residential plans.
    - michaelmrose 10y ago
      This is not a violation of network neutrality. You are allowed both to treat different types of traffic and different groups of customers differently. What you aren't allowed to do is treat traffic of the same variety differently depending on whether the endpoint paid you money. The people being extorted aren't even your customers they are people who want to do business with your customers.
    - chris_va 10y ago
      This hypothetical company wants to drop packets from lower tier customers first, when congested, and oversubscribe their fiber to reduce costs.
      - wtallis 10y ago
        That sounds like something that could be badly implemented, but there's nothing unreasonable about the idea in general. Oversubscribed services are par for the course. If your neighborhood's uplink is saturated during a period of heavy usage, do you really expect each customer to get 1/N share of the bandwidth, or do you expect the customers paying for the 100Mb plan to get up to 5 times more bandwidth than the customers paying for the 20Mb plan? Either way, it's obviously not suffering from the kind of unfairness that gives preference to certain usage patterns over others, and it doesn't involve any extorting of upstream content providers or other form of double-charging for services.
Oxitendwe 10y ago
>That's why the NRA's position is to say NO to any kind of gun regulation, because they know that's how you ensure guns are made available and gun culture is for sure secure. There also exist groups whose sole purpose is to make gun ownership infeasible for the vast majority of Americans. Given this, I don't believe their position is unreasonable - the threat to their values and culture is very real.
- comicjk 10y ago
  There exist groups whose sole purpose is... every conceivable political position. This argument is so general as to be completely reversible. "We have to support the NRA to stop excessive anti-gun legislation," but also "we have to support gun banners in order to stop excessive pro-gun legislation." It's a recipe for endless polarization.
kevando 10y ago
We need an NRA for the free internet.

smallnamespace 10y ago

The thing about democracy based on mass mobilization of different interest groups is that no negotiation or compromise is possible, because leaderless groups are incapable of doing anything so complex. Compromises only happen person to person between strong leaders or between small groups of elites that both groups accept -- "Only Nixon could go to China". But for the last 30 years, both the left and the right (for both good and bad reasons) have been tearing down the very idea of legitimate elite authority, whether it's from politicians, academics, or anyone else. Who today has the moral standing to make reasonable compromises that everyone would accept?

wtallis 10y ago

There are pros and cons to gun ownership; it both contributes to and harms the public good. Net neutrality is a more lopsided issue—the arguments against net neutrality are all about legalizing extortion and promoting a tragedy of the commons, or else they're non-specific arguments against regulation of any kind. Taken on its own and rationally, the net neutrality issue is much less amenable to producing a permanent stalemate than gun control. Existing political factions can incorporate positions on net neutrality into their existing political stalemate, but outside of such a context it's pretty easy to see that holes in net neutrality like the one here are absurd—why should smaller monopolies have more leeway to abuse their customers than large monopolies?

chris_va 10y ago
To be fair, your "arguments against net neutrality are all about legalizing extortion" already sounds a bit "ultra biased". What if someone wants to start an ISP, and charge less for a lower QoS band? Is that legalized extortion? (Not to say it would be a good idea, I agree that it is a slippery slope)
- wtallis 10y ago
  What do you mean "charge less for a lower QoS band"? Net neutrality has nothing to say about an ISP that wants to offer both 10Mbps and 100Mbps plans, or business-class plans that offer an SLA for a higher price than ordinary residential plans.
  - michaelmrose 10y ago
    This is not a violation of network neutrality. You are allowed both to treat different types of traffic and different groups of customers differently. What you aren't allowed to do is treat traffic of the same variety differently depending on whether the endpoint paid you money. The people being extorted aren't even your customers they are people who want to do business with your customers.
  - chris_va 10y ago
    This hypothetical company wants to drop packets from lower tier customers first, when congested, and oversubscribe their fiber to reduce costs.
    - wtallis 10y ago
      That sounds like something that could be badly implemented, but there's nothing unreasonable about the idea in general. Oversubscribed services are par for the course. If your neighborhood's uplink is saturated during a period of heavy usage, do you really expect each customer to get 1/N share of the bandwidth, or do you expect the customers paying for the 100Mb plan to get up to 5 times more bandwidth than the customers paying for the 20Mb plan? Either way, it's obviously not suffering from the kind of unfairness that gives preference to certain usage patterns over others, and it doesn't involve any extorting of upstream content providers or other form of double-charging for services.

Oxitendwe 10y ago

>That's why the NRA's position is to say NO to any kind of gun regulation, because they know that's how you ensure guns are made available and gun culture is for sure secure. There also exist groups whose sole purpose is to make gun ownership infeasible for the vast majority of Americans. Given this, I don't believe their position is unreasonable - the threat to their values and culture is very real.

comicjk 10y ago
There exist groups whose sole purpose is... every conceivable political position. This argument is so general as to be completely reversible. "We have to support the NRA to stop excessive anti-gun legislation," but also "we have to support gun banners in order to stop excessive pro-gun legislation." It's a recipe for endless polarization.

kevando 10y ago

We need an NRA for the free internet.