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It's not surprising that Ron Paul would be against SOPA. That said, libertarians like Paul would have been against funding the projects that led to the Interne

by wycats 15y ago

It's not surprising that Ron Paul would be against SOPA. That said, libertarians like Paul would have been against funding the projects that led to the Internet, and are today against funding similar government projects that might lead to future innovations. In many cases, innovations are bootstrapped by government funding or research, and then handed off to an appropriate role by the free market. Libertarians are usually against regulating the private market once the handoff has occurred (for good in many cases, and definitely in this case), but they are usually against the initial government bootstrapping. It's easy to imagine attacking the initial ARPA work on privacy, anti-military, or anti-elitism grounds, and I could easily imagine it losing its funding today, decried as a boondoggle that was useless for regular Americans, who of course would never have access to a computer, with taxpayers footing the bill.

WalterBright 15y ago
It's often assumed that without the ARPA the internet never would have existed. ARPA, however, is just one of many "internets" that sprung up over the years. There was also FIDOnet, Prodigy, BIX, Compuserve, MCInet, etc. Everyone with more than one computer thought to hook them together. Heck, even some friends of mine invented their own internet back in the 70's. If it wasn't ARPA, it would have been something else.
- wycats 15y ago
  The examples you listed arrived after ARPA. CompuServe, which arrived pretty early in the greater scheme, was founded in 1969 as a time sharing computer service. It wasn't until quite a bit later that it became a packet-switched computer network, likely in response to the success of ARPAnet's implementation. In contrast, the plans for ARPAnet were finished in 1968, and the system was operational in 1969. The concept was pretty pie in the sky at the time, and it's likely that the success of ARPA led to commercial implementations of packet-switched networks. Additionally, the early private networks did not have the character of the "public Internet" which is a crucial component of the Internet we know and love today. Indeed, the reason we care about SOPA is that the public Internet, and not a patchwork of private internets, won the day.
dataminer 15y ago
However if a project was useful for military it would have gotten the funding from military budget. I don't think Ron Paul wants to dismantle the military.
- wycats 15y ago
  I think Ron Paul would consider ARPA to be military pork, and he is in favor of a drastically smaller military, so things like ARPA would likely end up on the cutting room floor as "pet projects" etc.
smokeyj 15y ago
You really believe connecting two computers would not happen without government "bootstrapping"? I hope this is not a serious position. I personally enjoy your simplistic vision of how an economy works. It's as simple as having the government water little seeds of innovation, and to simply hand it off to the "free market" to flourish and capitalize. You see, entrepreneurs operate in a market, in which they compete to create value. A monopoly on violence is not an entrepreneurial entity.
- wycats 15y ago
  See my other response on this thread. My comment here was based entirely on what actually happened, not some theoretical view of how economies work in the abstract.
  - smokeyj 15y ago
    > My comment here was based entirely on what actually happened I'm not disagreeing with your historical account, just what you derived from it. You're essentially arguing networks would never exist unless the U.S government made it happen -- and that's why government must act as an "entrepreneur". I hear you, I'm saying this is naive and without evidence, and most likely exists to support your opinions of central planning. It's been tried, I recommend you investigate the history behind that (hint: it doesn't end well).
    - wycats 15y ago
      Your argument here takes my claim that there are cases where government infrastructure bootstrapping (interstate highways, Internet) is useful and concludes that I would be in favor of a command-and-control economy. This is a classic reductio ad absurdum fallacy, and only works if your concept of how the economy works is very ideological.
      - smokeyj 15y ago
        You're confusing principle with ideology. We're discussing central planning verses distributed planning. I'm for a distributed economy that resembles a p2p network. I support p2p networks because it's robust and lacks a single point of failure -- and it's difficult to corrupt. You're saying, p2p networks will never work, because it's too ideological. Ok, cool story bro. But why is a centralized protocol better? That's what I want to know. There is no "hybrid" protocol, if a protocol is contingent on a centralized aspect, then it's a centralized protocol. Just because you have no principle doesn't make your ideology "moderate".

by wycats 15y ago

WalterBright 15y ago

It's often assumed that without the ARPA the internet never would have existed. ARPA, however, is just one of many "internets" that sprung up over the years. There was also FIDOnet, Prodigy, BIX, Compuserve, MCInet, etc. Everyone with more than one computer thought to hook them together. Heck, even some friends of mine invented their own internet back in the 70's. If it wasn't ARPA, it would have been something else.

wycats 15y ago
The examples you listed arrived after ARPA. CompuServe, which arrived pretty early in the greater scheme, was founded in 1969 as a time sharing computer service. It wasn't until quite a bit later that it became a packet-switched computer network, likely in response to the success of ARPAnet's implementation. In contrast, the plans for ARPAnet were finished in 1968, and the system was operational in 1969. The concept was pretty pie in the sky at the time, and it's likely that the success of ARPA led to commercial implementations of packet-switched networks. Additionally, the early private networks did not have the character of the "public Internet" which is a crucial component of the Internet we know and love today. Indeed, the reason we care about SOPA is that the public Internet, and not a patchwork of private internets, won the day.

dataminer 15y ago

However if a project was useful for military it would have gotten the funding from military budget. I don't think Ron Paul wants to dismantle the military.

wycats 15y ago
I think Ron Paul would consider ARPA to be military pork, and he is in favor of a drastically smaller military, so things like ARPA would likely end up on the cutting room floor as "pet projects" etc.

smokeyj 15y ago

You really believe connecting two computers would not happen without government "bootstrapping"? I hope this is not a serious position. I personally enjoy your simplistic vision of how an economy works. It's as simple as having the government water little seeds of innovation, and to simply hand it off to the "free market" to flourish and capitalize. You see, entrepreneurs operate in a market, in which they compete to create value. A monopoly on violence is not an entrepreneurial entity.

wycats 15y ago
See my other response on this thread. My comment here was based entirely on what actually happened, not some theoretical view of how economies work in the abstract.
- smokeyj 15y ago
  > My comment here was based entirely on what actually happened I'm not disagreeing with your historical account, just what you derived from it. You're essentially arguing networks would never exist unless the U.S government made it happen -- and that's why government must act as an "entrepreneur". I hear you, I'm saying this is naive and without evidence, and most likely exists to support your opinions of central planning. It's been tried, I recommend you investigate the history behind that (hint: it doesn't end well).
  - wycats 15y ago
    Your argument here takes my claim that there are cases where government infrastructure bootstrapping (interstate highways, Internet) is useful and concludes that I would be in favor of a command-and-control economy. This is a classic reductio ad absurdum fallacy, and only works if your concept of how the economy works is very ideological.
    - smokeyj 15y ago
      You're confusing principle with ideology. We're discussing central planning verses distributed planning. I'm for a distributed economy that resembles a p2p network. I support p2p networks because it's robust and lacks a single point of failure -- and it's difficult to corrupt. You're saying, p2p networks will never work, because it's too ideological. Ok, cool story bro. But why is a centralized protocol better? That's what I want to know. There is no "hybrid" protocol, if a protocol is contingent on a centralized aspect, then it's a centralized protocol. Just because you have no principle doesn't make your ideology "moderate".