4 ms·

It gets lost in the culture wars, but as I understand it, the whole point of the concept of “structural racism” was that mustache-twirling racists aren’t requir

by jtr1 3y ago

It gets lost in the culture wars, but as I understand it, the whole point of the concept of “structural racism” was that mustache-twirling racists aren’t required for modern laws and policies to have a targeted, negative effect on specific minorities. A legacy of historical racism can set the stage for the intended effects to metastasize and remain as generational problems.

onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
Okay - but why do ISPs need to fix racism and not everyone else like grocery stores and gas stations? Should Erewhon be forced to operate equally in neighborhoods of different diversity - even if they clearly appeal to a certain type of customer? Why should ISPs invest evenly / charge evenly if it doesn't make sense for them? The funny thing about good business people is - they're usually more interested in making money than being racist (obviously there are exceptions).
- bugglebeetle 3y ago
  ISPs are some of the biggest monopolists in the US market and bribe and lean on politicians to keep out competitors. Relative to other industries, they thus lean on the infrastructural status quo (and all the inequity baked into that) to make the most money at the lowest cost to themselves, so your argument doesn’t really track.
  - onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
    LA is one of the very few non-monopolistic ISP markets in the US.
    - bugglebeetle 3y ago
      That’s laughable. I can get one bad broadband provider, one incredibly low-speed DSL provider, or bad coverage, data capped 5G service in my neighborhood in LA. Fiber isn’t available at all and when I asked if they had any intent to expand coverage to where I live they straight-up said “no.”
      - onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
        That's better options than 90% of the US. Most places you have one option, and that is it.
        bugglebeetle 3y ago
        I only have one option (shitty broadband) that allows me to do my job as a developer in America’s second largest city, so no, not really.
- alistairSH 3y ago
  Having a reliable, fast internet connection is (almost) as critical for modern life as electrical service. IMO, it falls into the same bucket as other utilities - water, power, etc an should be heavily regulated to ensure adequate and reasonably priced access.
- TulliusCicero 3y ago
  Honestly it should just be something run by local governments or non-profit utilities. This isn't a typical consumer product you buy at the store where I'm worried that the government will be bad at responding to consumer tastes, what consumers what out of their internet access is extremely simple: fast and reliable internet, that's basically it. It's not something where's a lot of questions of exactly how and where to advance things and give different offerings, like a smartphone or brand of yogurt or whatever.
  - toast0 3y ago
    You say that it's simple, but it's not like electricity where you can just measure it and see if it's the right voltage and frequency throughout the day. How many and which upstreams to connect to makes a big difference. What technology is used for the last mile access network makes a big difference. Who to peer with and who to let run CDN appliances in the network makes a big difference. Oversubscription ratios in various parts of the network make a big difference. Address policies make a big difference. Now, if the municipality wants to run last mile and hand it off to whatever ISPs want to take it in some central locations? That makes the municipal job simpler: they just need to measure quality on their network, and anything that happens after the handoff to the ISP is not their problem. But that's a more complex product for users than a single provider to blame for everything.
gottorf 3y ago
> the whole point of the concept of “structural racism” was that mustache-twirling racists aren’t required for modern laws and policies to have a targeted, negative effect on specific minorities You cannot have a targeted negative effect without mustache-twirling racists; what you have instead is an incidental negative effect. I discussed this elsewhere in the thread, but the "disparate impact" clauses of various civil rights legislation attempt to deal with precisely this -- cases when in the absence of any intent to discriminate along protected lines, nevertheless an outcome arises that impact those protected groups differently. I posit that this part of civil rights legislation is fundamentally flawed, because it is basically not impossible that any policy or action, public or private, impacts all subgroups of a population in equal measure. Make a law regulating taxis? There's a disparate impact on men, who are 85% of all cab drivers. NFL negotiates player pay? There's a disparate impact on black people, who comprise over half of the players. Covid policies close ski resorts in Colorado? There's a disparate impact on white people, who are the overwhelming majority of both people who work at ski resorts as well as those who visit. In none of those cases is there an intent to cause protected groups to be affected differently, but they are.

by jtr1 3y ago

onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago

Okay - but why do ISPs need to fix racism and not everyone else like grocery stores and gas stations? Should Erewhon be forced to operate equally in neighborhoods of different diversity - even if they clearly appeal to a certain type of customer? Why should ISPs invest evenly / charge evenly if it doesn't make sense for them? The funny thing about good business people is - they're usually more interested in making money than being racist (obviously there are exceptions).

bugglebeetle 3y ago
ISPs are some of the biggest monopolists in the US market and bribe and lean on politicians to keep out competitors. Relative to other industries, they thus lean on the infrastructural status quo (and all the inequity baked into that) to make the most money at the lowest cost to themselves, so your argument doesn’t really track.
- onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
  LA is one of the very few non-monopolistic ISP markets in the US.
  - bugglebeetle 3y ago
    That’s laughable. I can get one bad broadband provider, one incredibly low-speed DSL provider, or bad coverage, data capped 5G service in my neighborhood in LA. Fiber isn’t available at all and when I asked if they had any intent to expand coverage to where I live they straight-up said “no.”
    - onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
      That's better options than 90% of the US. Most places you have one option, and that is it.
      - bugglebeetle 3y ago
        I only have one option (shitty broadband) that allows me to do my job as a developer in America’s second largest city, so no, not really.
alistairSH 3y ago
Having a reliable, fast internet connection is (almost) as critical for modern life as electrical service. IMO, it falls into the same bucket as other utilities - water, power, etc an should be heavily regulated to ensure adequate and reasonably priced access.
TulliusCicero 3y ago
Honestly it should just be something run by local governments or non-profit utilities. This isn't a typical consumer product you buy at the store where I'm worried that the government will be bad at responding to consumer tastes, what consumers what out of their internet access is extremely simple: fast and reliable internet, that's basically it. It's not something where's a lot of questions of exactly how and where to advance things and give different offerings, like a smartphone or brand of yogurt or whatever.
- toast0 3y ago
  You say that it's simple, but it's not like electricity where you can just measure it and see if it's the right voltage and frequency throughout the day. How many and which upstreams to connect to makes a big difference. What technology is used for the last mile access network makes a big difference. Who to peer with and who to let run CDN appliances in the network makes a big difference. Oversubscription ratios in various parts of the network make a big difference. Address policies make a big difference. Now, if the municipality wants to run last mile and hand it off to whatever ISPs want to take it in some central locations? That makes the municipal job simpler: they just need to measure quality on their network, and anything that happens after the handoff to the ISP is not their problem. But that's a more complex product for users than a single provider to blame for everything.

gottorf 3y ago

> the whole point of the concept of “structural racism” was that mustache-twirling racists aren’t required for modern laws and policies to have a targeted, negative effect on specific minorities You cannot have a targeted negative effect without mustache-twirling racists; what you have instead is an incidental negative effect. I discussed this elsewhere in the thread, but the "disparate impact" clauses of various civil rights legislation attempt to deal with precisely this -- cases when in the absence of any intent to discriminate along protected lines, nevertheless an outcome arises that impact those protected groups differently. I posit that this part of civil rights legislation is fundamentally flawed, because it is basically not impossible that any policy or action, public or private, impacts all subgroups of a population in equal measure. Make a law regulating taxis? There's a disparate impact on men, who are 85% of all cab drivers. NFL negotiates player pay? There's a disparate impact on black people, who comprise over half of the players. Covid policies close ski resorts in Colorado? There's a disparate impact on white people, who are the overwhelming majority of both people who work at ski resorts as well as those who visit. In none of those cases is there an intent to cause protected groups to be affected differently, but they are.