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People are objecting to racializing business decisions: that’s a reasonable and laudable goal. If we want to address “underserved populations that can't get be

People are objecting to racializing business decisions: that’s a reasonable and laudable goal. If we want to address “underserved populations that can't get better internet”, we can do that directly without adding racism.

kayodelycaon 3y ago
“Protected classes” already exist and have been tested in courts. It’s a lot easier to use that than to come up with completely different criteria businesses will find loopholes in or create loopholes through lobbying. Personally I don’t like that our best option is to use protected classes to enforce better behavior. But most of the time it’s a good equivalent, and it’s a good example of those nasty compromises that allow democracies to work effectively.
- appleskeptic 3y ago
  There's a big difference between banning discrimination against protected classes and mandating discrimination in their favor, which is what this basically does, see the comment and discussion here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38304639 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38304639
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - kayodelycaon 3y ago
    Correct. Protected classes is being used as a proxy for all economic situations. It prevents a telecom from under-serving poor neighbors. It has significant historical precedence: https://www.fcc.gov/general/universal-service https://www.fcc.gov/general/universal-service
aaomidi 3y ago
[flagged]
- tbrownaw 3y ago
  > What are you on about? How is this adding _racism_? It is mandating that race be a factor in decisions. Declining to build out faster service in a particular poor area would be either allowed or not allowed based on what race the people there happen to be.
icehawk 3y ago
So the FCC found no evidence of racism, but they're 'racializing' it anyway? That makes no sense.
- tbrownaw 3y ago
  Politics often makes no sense.
SamoyedFurFluff 3y ago
I’m really confused by arguing this is “adding racism”. If I just so happen not to build a ramp into my building aren’t I de facto discriminating against the disabled? It might be economically beneficial to me to save on the cost of ramp building, and I may not be like “fuck wheelchairs”, but I’m still discriminating against the disabled. Also, I don’t understand why it’s unreasonable to consider race in any broad societal inequality where it just so happens the inequality is concentrated on race. I consider slavery to be a form of societal tech debt of the United States where this discussion is happening: the United States literally enslaved a race of people for over a century and then fought tooth and nail in every level of government against ever giving blacks anything. Within living memory blacks weren’t allowed to vote because of their blackness in that country. Black adults now had to be sent to white schools with national guard protection because the United States populace was going to be violent to children just for going to a non-black school. In this context how the hell can anyone dissociate race from anything in that country? Race was practically in every government policy, drove their only civil war, was part of every subsidy and even in their constitution.

kayodelycaon 3y ago

“Protected classes” already exist and have been tested in courts. It’s a lot easier to use that than to come up with completely different criteria businesses will find loopholes in or create loopholes through lobbying. Personally I don’t like that our best option is to use protected classes to enforce better behavior. But most of the time it’s a good equivalent, and it’s a good example of those nasty compromises that allow democracies to work effectively.

appleskeptic 3y ago
There's a big difference between banning discrimination against protected classes and mandating discrimination in their favor, which is what this basically does, see the comment and discussion here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38304639 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38304639
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- kayodelycaon 3y ago
  Correct. Protected classes is being used as a proxy for all economic situations. It prevents a telecom from under-serving poor neighbors. It has significant historical precedence: https://www.fcc.gov/general/universal-service https://www.fcc.gov/general/universal-service

aaomidi 3y ago

[flagged]

tbrownaw 3y ago
> What are you on about? How is this adding _racism_? It is mandating that race be a factor in decisions. Declining to build out faster service in a particular poor area would be either allowed or not allowed based on what race the people there happen to be.

icehawk 3y ago

So the FCC found no evidence of racism, but they're 'racializing' it anyway? That makes no sense.

tbrownaw 3y ago
Politics often makes no sense.

SamoyedFurFluff 3y ago

I’m really confused by arguing this is “adding racism”. If I just so happen not to build a ramp into my building aren’t I de facto discriminating against the disabled? It might be economically beneficial to me to save on the cost of ramp building, and I may not be like “fuck wheelchairs”, but I’m still discriminating against the disabled. Also, I don’t understand why it’s unreasonable to consider race in any broad societal inequality where it just so happens the inequality is concentrated on race. I consider slavery to be a form of societal tech debt of the United States where this discussion is happening: the United States literally enslaved a race of people for over a century and then fought tooth and nail in every level of government against ever giving blacks anything. Within living memory blacks weren’t allowed to vote because of their blackness in that country. Black adults now had to be sent to white schools with national guard protection because the United States populace was going to be violent to children just for going to a non-black school. In this context how the hell can anyone dissociate race from anything in that country? Race was practically in every government policy, drove their only civil war, was part of every subsidy and even in their constitution.