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I'd agree that deregulation is a complete hard no for most people, but that's because removing bad/watered down regulation isn't enough. Calling for "deregulati

• protocolture 4mo ago
  There was a pretty decent campaign locally to make it legal to deliver fixed line broadband services. But once you convince someone that the legislation exists and the penalties exist for supplying fixed line broadband services, the next goal posts slide into place, and they reflexively defend the idea that the government would fine people more for overbuilding the national carrier to a greater extent than importing several kilos of cocaine. They parrot absolutely bonkers shit like "Internet is a natural monopoly" when they literally have to fine people to make it a monopoly. Most people defend the status quo with extreme vigor. And most people aren't even slightly qualified to analyse the status quo. The supplied alternative doesnt matter. Some person they dont know, doing something they are ambivalent about might find their profession easier. Thats completely verboten.
  • autoexec 4mo ago
    Are you sure that the "Internet is a natural monopoly" people were actually people and not just bots and shills? The only reason I could see real people wanting a monopoly would be if they were pushing for the government to handle the infrastructure and then lease out access to whoever wants to offer services over the lines. There's a case that it doesn't make sense to have 50 different companies all running physical cables everywhere. What doesn't make sense is only allowing one private company to do it and leaving yourself at their mercy.
    • protocolture 4mo ago
      The australian disease is the great big national thing. The only time this concept has ever worked for us is Medicare, and secretly thats actually managed on the state level with national funding. >government to handle the infrastructure and then lease out access to whoever wants to offer services over the lines. We had loosely: 1. Government telco ran copper everywhere, did a shit job of it, they are still replacing faulty gel joints. 2. Government sold said telco, with a monopoly on fixed line internet services. 3. Newly private telco did fuck all and basically existed for a while. 4. The government mandated that they permit ULL resale, basically renting access to their monopolised cabling 5. Australia had its greatest % increase in internet speed as lots of small players started dropping DSLAMS on their exchanges and exchanging peering. 6. That fizzled out, and we reached the limits of what could possibly be done with copper in the short term. 7. Instead of looking at what worked historically (ULL) they decided to build a brand new giant government telco with a fixed line monopoly (ripping it away from the last guys). Average punter has no long term memory and thinks that repeating the original sin with Fibre instead of copper has literally no downside. 8. Because this is a NEW NATIONAL thing, chumps, of which there are plenty, will defend it without any analysis deeper than "My fibre works fine" 9. One of our larger private carriers took the National Carrier to court arguing that the law was anticompetitive. They settled out of court and the law wasnt changed. However, the industry has continued in sort of a grey area where the national carrier hasnt formally complained about any of its competition but it could still do so and fines would be issued. 10. Several government MP's floated the idea, all at once, that the government should compulsorily acquire every other fixed line telco network in the country. 6 weeks later they stopped saying that. Its in policy limbo, largely because their justification was that the National telco was better somehow, but upon reflection they probably realised that the national telco was the only telco excluded from customer protections and things would be worse for customers overall if they lost their private alternatives. But thats where their brain is at. Rather than the fines, they will probably just use the threat of fines at some stage to forcibly acquire other networks. Which will be a long, expensive, and overall shitty experience for customers. The public will clap and cheer when the evil private networks (many of which are far better in speed and quality than the national carrier) get absorbed.
      • 4mo ago
• TylerE 4mo ago
  "Defund the police" was such a dumb slogan. "Demilitarize the police" would have been much better.
  • autoexec 4mo ago
    Agreed, although in addition to that the hope was to do other things too like divert funds out of tasks the police do that they shouldn't be doing in the first place (like mental health calls and wellness checks) and into social services/EMS instead and also away from internal affairs and into independent/community oversight boards (no more policing themselves). I doubt any pithy slogan would have encompassed all of it, but the least they could have done was avoid something that most people would reject instantly for being insane. It's amazing that so many people managed to get past the slogan at all to get into the "well actually what we mean is..." and it was totally predictable that the slogan would be weaponized against the movement by opponents