5 ms·

This always makes me nervous - it's not a huge jump from "the government provides the service" to "the government decides what you can and can't say on the serv

This always makes me nervous - it's not a huge jump from "the government provides the service" to "the government decides what you can and can't say on the service". They regulated TV because the "airwaves" were public, and they didn't even provide those, they just licensed them.

piva00 3y ago
Whenever there's a question if the US government should provide a benefit to its population there's always someone coming up with a variation of the slippery slope fallacy trying to defend against it. The paranoia against the government the US has seems to bring more downsides than upsides, you pay for all the costs associated with that but no protection for when a tyrant governs your country (which seems to be approaching fast given the current political scenario). The government has the monopoly of violence, if the government decides you can't say something on some media it won't be the fact of having it privatised that will stop them, it's as simple as that. Your interstate highway system wasn't funded by private companies, a nationwide fiber optic infrastructure won't be either. Let the government invest in the wellbeing of its citizens, let them create a massive open fiber network (like what Sweden has done) to enable broadband for as many as possible, it's the centralisation of coordination that gives a government a lot of leverage to create benefits to its population, while you keep fighting ghosts the US will keep being a country for business first, citizens secondly.
- donatj 3y ago
  > The government has the monopoly of violence I don’t know, that alone seems like a good enough reason to stop giving them control over things to me. I don’t want the entity providing my information also having legal authority to murder me. Like if I can buy something from from an entity with the authority to kill me or an entity without for a little bit more, I'll pay the extra.
  - modriano 3y ago
    Companies can focus on providing service to their paying customers and (for the most part) ignore everyone else. Governments, on the other hand, have to govern over everyone. As a society (through our group decision-making process, politics), we decided everyone should have access to education, as it's massively beneficial to have an educated workforce and the unlocked positive-sum economic opportunities significantly reduce the number of people who elect (or are stuck with) zero-sum criminal opportunities (and these people are very expensive to have to manage). We could leave a lot of the country without usable access to the internet, but from the start we decided it's better that everyone be connected (our Constitution explicitly authorizes Congress to establish post offices and post roads). And thanks to our political system and relatively high degree of openness, we have been able to discover and patch a lot of the abuses of the system that motivate you to prefer private options.
  - piva00 3y ago
    The point is that it already has control over you, willingly or not you are part of the social contract. Society organised itself with governments to achieve things that private profit-driven motive can't, you wouldn't have roads connecting low density or low income places if they had to be paid for, the postal service wouldn't deliver to unprofitable areas, schools wouldn't exist or would be extremely bad in low income or low density areas. Communication is necessary, a government providing (or enabling) infrastructure that can reduce costs to all is a net gain for society. Your paranoia only bring higher costs to everyone, increases the gap between the haves and have-nots since poor people cannot afford a higher price for services when society is unwilling to provide a baseline for them. Are you against public schools? A government can decide to completely indoctrinate students as they wish, even with that risk I believe most people would say that it's worth it for the government provides education for kids. Isn't it better if everyone shares the burden through taxes for road construction enabling transportation rather than a network of private roads, each owned by a different entity that you are required to pay for access? Having the choice to pay for a private entity to provide you services is reasonable, completely shutting off the government from providing the basics of expensive infrastructure that will pay off in a span of 15-50 years which private entities can build services on top is mind-boggling dumb for your personal and a society's finance (case in point, healthcare in the USA). Worse, without giving you any bigger freedom since an evil government won't care if it's public or private, and on top of it I'd say much the opposite since you are then beholden to private entities that you have absolutely no democratic power to go against. > I'll pay the extra. It's not only you paying the extra, it's every single individual in your society, cumulatively that's a bad decision since the money could be spent more efficiently elsewhere.
mapt 3y ago
Right now, what a lot of people so rural they don't get broadband have is the newspaper, AM radio, the local network news, the national network news, and/or the cable news. Four of those five have seen major providers controlled by large-scale ideological campaigns to one degree or other. I'm not saying it's a slam dunk or anything, but access does at least permit another shot at viewing the world through a lens other than the movement conservative one.

piva00 3y ago

Whenever there's a question if the US government should provide a benefit to its population there's always someone coming up with a variation of the slippery slope fallacy trying to defend against it. The paranoia against the government the US has seems to bring more downsides than upsides, you pay for all the costs associated with that but no protection for when a tyrant governs your country (which seems to be approaching fast given the current political scenario). The government has the monopoly of violence, if the government decides you can't say something on some media it won't be the fact of having it privatised that will stop them, it's as simple as that. Your interstate highway system wasn't funded by private companies, a nationwide fiber optic infrastructure won't be either. Let the government invest in the wellbeing of its citizens, let them create a massive open fiber network (like what Sweden has done) to enable broadband for as many as possible, it's the centralisation of coordination that gives a government a lot of leverage to create benefits to its population, while you keep fighting ghosts the US will keep being a country for business first, citizens secondly.

donatj 3y ago
> The government has the monopoly of violence I don’t know, that alone seems like a good enough reason to stop giving them control over things to me. I don’t want the entity providing my information also having legal authority to murder me. Like if I can buy something from from an entity with the authority to kill me or an entity without for a little bit more, I'll pay the extra.
- modriano 3y ago
  Companies can focus on providing service to their paying customers and (for the most part) ignore everyone else. Governments, on the other hand, have to govern over everyone. As a society (through our group decision-making process, politics), we decided everyone should have access to education, as it's massively beneficial to have an educated workforce and the unlocked positive-sum economic opportunities significantly reduce the number of people who elect (or are stuck with) zero-sum criminal opportunities (and these people are very expensive to have to manage). We could leave a lot of the country without usable access to the internet, but from the start we decided it's better that everyone be connected (our Constitution explicitly authorizes Congress to establish post offices and post roads). And thanks to our political system and relatively high degree of openness, we have been able to discover and patch a lot of the abuses of the system that motivate you to prefer private options.
- piva00 3y ago
  The point is that it already has control over you, willingly or not you are part of the social contract. Society organised itself with governments to achieve things that private profit-driven motive can't, you wouldn't have roads connecting low density or low income places if they had to be paid for, the postal service wouldn't deliver to unprofitable areas, schools wouldn't exist or would be extremely bad in low income or low density areas. Communication is necessary, a government providing (or enabling) infrastructure that can reduce costs to all is a net gain for society. Your paranoia only bring higher costs to everyone, increases the gap between the haves and have-nots since poor people cannot afford a higher price for services when society is unwilling to provide a baseline for them. Are you against public schools? A government can decide to completely indoctrinate students as they wish, even with that risk I believe most people would say that it's worth it for the government provides education for kids. Isn't it better if everyone shares the burden through taxes for road construction enabling transportation rather than a network of private roads, each owned by a different entity that you are required to pay for access? Having the choice to pay for a private entity to provide you services is reasonable, completely shutting off the government from providing the basics of expensive infrastructure that will pay off in a span of 15-50 years which private entities can build services on top is mind-boggling dumb for your personal and a society's finance (case in point, healthcare in the USA). Worse, without giving you any bigger freedom since an evil government won't care if it's public or private, and on top of it I'd say much the opposite since you are then beholden to private entities that you have absolutely no democratic power to go against. > I'll pay the extra. It's not only you paying the extra, it's every single individual in your society, cumulatively that's a bad decision since the money could be spent more efficiently elsewhere.

mapt 3y ago

Right now, what a lot of people so rural they don't get broadband have is the newspaper, AM radio, the local network news, the national network news, and/or the cable news. Four of those five have seen major providers controlled by large-scale ideological campaigns to one degree or other. I'm not saying it's a slam dunk or anything, but access does at least permit another shot at viewing the world through a lens other than the movement conservative one.