5 ms·
It's a sad state of affairs if this FCC approval is a major advance in communication technology.
by ryanlol 9y ago
It's a sad state of affairs if this FCC approval is a major advance in communication technology.
- godzillabrennus 9y agoRegulation can enhance confidence and breed investment interest.
- wallace_f 9y agoPeople aren't perfect, and some are terrible, so it makes sense to have government. However, it is reasonable to be critical of government removing your rights to work. Actually, it is a civil duty. I am not sure where the line should be drawn, but it has certainly gone too far. Should you need gov approval to download an IDE, or sell an app? What about to braid hair?[1] I would bet that as soon as government begins infringing on the rights to work which affect HN usere, suddenly everyone here would be a civil libertarian. 1-https://www.theroot.com/tennessee-has-fined-residents-almost-100-000-for-braid-1823829972 https://www.theroot.com/tennessee-has-fined-residents-almost...
- kakarot 9y agoWhat does any of that have to do with launching satellites and distributing radio bandwidth, both of which need regulation in order to provide safety for the masses?
- wallace_f 9y agoI'm sorry, but it's completely self evident. The point was that the natural right to perform/produce a service/product should be the null hypothesis (as opposed to government removing that right and granting it at their discretion) in any such case; and while on the extremes the answers may seem obvious (launching communication satellites vs braiding hair), it's often not always so. Finally, I concluded that people should ideally care about this before it adversely affects them. In other words, the OP's post was not without reason.
- kakarot 9y agoI'll ask again, what does any of that have to do with launching satellites and distributing radio bandwidth?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- wallace_f 9y agoI can't think of a better way to explain it. Maybe you should re-read the comment chain to help you understand this conversation.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- freehunter 9y agoYou don't own the radio spectrum. Neither do I. No one individual does. We can license it, but since there's such a great opportunity for harm, it's controlled by the government. You're against the government deciding on "removing your right to work", but the alternative is your neighbor or your competitor making that decision for you and overloading "your" spectrum. And you have no recourse to complain, all you can do is push more power, which impacts more people. And your competitor pushes more power, so you push more power and now no one gets to use it. Libertarian ideas always seem to end in a corporate power struggle while everyone else gets locked out. That doesn't sound like a good outcome to me.
- wallace_f 9y agoYea, if you see the other comment I replied to, I tried to make it more clear that this case is obviously to the benefit of everyone. What you describe is a simple tragedy of the commons market failure, which need be regulated, and is not unique to radiowaves. I think the point I was trying to make is missed. Should someone, the OP, criticizing the FCC's role for doing this be downvoted/ridiculed? No, I think it's an important job, because we should always question when rights are taken away from the people and handed over to government. Maybe it's all too far gone and this is a better discussion to have for a Mars colony, but I still have faith.
- bri3d 9y agoAs many of us learned from the unauthorized Swarm Technologies satellites the other week, the FCC approve satellite launches. So this is effectively SpaceX getting the final sign-off they need to launch this service - I think that can count as an advance. I think there are a lot of arguments to be made about the world-changing nature of this project but I'm not sure FCC approval is the best one to downplay.
- greglindahl 9y agoDid you notice the part of the article that talked about this being a conditional approval, not the final one?
- walrus01 9y ago99.9% of the time FCC conditional approvals for new tech will eventually convert into final approval. It's just a procedural thing.
- etskinner 9y agoI dont think parent meant that the FCC approval itself is what should be celebrated, but rather that the technology needed FCC approval to move forward, and every step closer is something to celebrate
- mrep 9y agoThe Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States government created by statute (47 U.S.C. § 151 and 47 U.S.C. § 154) to regulate interstate communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable. The FCC works towards six goals in the areas of broadband, competition, the spectrum, the media, public safety and homeland security, and modernizing itself. [0] Lots of that communication moves through electromagnetic radiation which practically anyone anywhere can use/interfere with. This is a textbook case of a common good which if unmanaged would be effectively destroyed due to the tragedy of the commons [1]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Communications_Commission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Communications_Commiss... [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons
- jessaustin 9y agoFCC was formed to discourage competition in telecom, and that is mostly what it has done for over 80 years.