3 ms·

It seems like there would be an incentive for people to build radio jammers or other ways of generating interference. They would then use those jammers to exto

It seems like there would be an incentive for people to build radio jammers or other ways of generating interference. They would then use those jammers to extort legitimate broadcasters - pay me $1 million or I'll ruin your broadcast. Since the extortionist has equal rights to broadcast waves, broadcasting the interference is not illegal. How would you prevent this? Radio broadcasts - ie electromagnetic radiation - is energy projected onto other's people's property. The libertarian view should be that it can limit person's A right to project energy if it interferes with the rights of person B. If I aim powerful lasers at my neighbors house, the government has the right to intervene. If I broadcast loud sound waves at 3AM, the government has the right to intervene. If I want to build a nuclear plant that might irradiate everyone in my town if things go wrong, the government has the right to regulate it. When I broadcast radio, I interfere with the ability of others to broadcast and listen to radio. The purpose of a government is to mediate these conflicts. Predictable mediation requires establishing clear ownership rights. Maybe you could argue the government should have allowed spectrum to be homesteaded, rather than purchased, but the end result would be similar.

jacques_chester 14y ago
Extortion is a crime and tortious interference with business is tortious interference with a business. I don't think either of those would magically vanish upon the abolition of spectrum regulations. One thing that bugs me about pro and contra libertarian debates is that both sides do something similar: imagine a kind of Year Zero world in which somehow all laws have been shipped to /dev/null. It's a dumb debate to have. Angels waltzing with strawmen on the head of a pin.
- zanny 14y ago
  I'm not going to speak on all libertarians, but my world view is pretty much that you can possess finite scarce goods and call them "yours" (things made of atoms) but with things that aren't scarce (information, once produced, is not scarce - we can easily order electrons to represent the super-majority of the information space) it is tragic and wrong to try to restrict them. Radios are scarce, but the range and ability to produce electromagnetic waves at certain frequencies is not scarce with said radio. Computers are scarce, but digital information is infinitely reproducible and millions of people will send you a copy for free (see: torrents). This kind of stuff shouldn't be limited or restricted by artificial government constructs. There is a difference between having a finite resource and artificially calling it "yours" and taking an infinite resource and calling it "yours. Ownership is a fundamental human right - to possess scarce resources you can call your own. It is only recently the bulk of humanity has had this right. I don't think it should be anyones right to own an infinite resource like an idea, though. Personal opinion. I write software and think trying to sell per-copy instances of infinite information is ridiculous. In computer terms, it is the flip side to the free software coin that makes open source a whole. If you distribute a black box you shouldn't be able to try to force people to treat it some certain way, after all, you freely gave it the first time, anyone else can do with it what they will. I still target open source since I'm not a dick and don't like giving someone a black box, but that is tangential.
  - jacques_chester 14y ago
    Economists talk about rivalrousness and excludability when classifying goods. Rivalrous means that, to the extent I am using or possessing some good, you are not. Excludable means that I can, as a seller, prevent you from using it without payment. Most physical goods are rivalrous and excludable. I can keep an icecream to myself and while I am digesting it, you are not. The icecream truck can prevent you taking one without payment. This meets the definition of what people usually think of as "private property". Radio waves are rivalrous but not excludable; economists call these "common goods". These lead to -- you guessed it -- the tragedy of the commons, where individually optimal decisions lead to globally suboptimal outcomes. Commons can't work unless agents agree to constrain themselves, or are made to constrain themselves. The former can happen by agreement, the latter by regulation. In the case of radio, regulation has been the standard model because of the nature of the usage. Voice and vision have been analogue and the human nervous system is a poor demultiplexer, so they needed bands to themselves. Similarly for many other applications (radar, for example) , the amount of information put through a certain band has historically been low but the value high. So: regulation. Wireless networks are an example of a commons managed by agreement; or perhaps managed by emergent phenomena. Each wireless node blindly follows some simple rules (such as randomised exponential backoff) that, in practice, make a shared medium largely usable. edits: to clarify terms a bit
  - rayiner 14y ago
    > I'm not going to speak on all libertarians, but my world view is pretty much that you can possess finite scarce goods and call them "yours" (things made of atoms) If ownership only extends to things made of atoms, then you'd agree that it's totally okay for me to build my house on your land so long as it hovers an inch over the dirt and grass that comprises your ownership. Otherwise, you're claiming ownership of an incorporeal thing--the geographic coordinates that encompass not just your land but the space above it. > Radios are scarce, but the range and ability to produce electromagnetic waves at certain frequencies is not scarce with said radio. Ownership of spectrum is not a monopoly on the right to produce electromagnetic waves of a certain frequency. It's a monopoly on the right to invade certain areas of space with electromagnetic waves of a certain frequency. The FCC doesn't care what frequencies you transmit on in a lead-lined room on your own property.

jacques_chester 14y ago

Extortion is a crime and tortious interference with business is tortious interference with a business. I don't think either of those would magically vanish upon the abolition of spectrum regulations. One thing that bugs me about pro and contra libertarian debates is that both sides do something similar: imagine a kind of Year Zero world in which somehow all laws have been shipped to /dev/null. It's a dumb debate to have. Angels waltzing with strawmen on the head of a pin.

zanny 14y ago
I'm not going to speak on all libertarians, but my world view is pretty much that you can possess finite scarce goods and call them "yours" (things made of atoms) but with things that aren't scarce (information, once produced, is not scarce - we can easily order electrons to represent the super-majority of the information space) it is tragic and wrong to try to restrict them. Radios are scarce, but the range and ability to produce electromagnetic waves at certain frequencies is not scarce with said radio. Computers are scarce, but digital information is infinitely reproducible and millions of people will send you a copy for free (see: torrents). This kind of stuff shouldn't be limited or restricted by artificial government constructs. There is a difference between having a finite resource and artificially calling it "yours" and taking an infinite resource and calling it "yours. Ownership is a fundamental human right - to possess scarce resources you can call your own. It is only recently the bulk of humanity has had this right. I don't think it should be anyones right to own an infinite resource like an idea, though. Personal opinion. I write software and think trying to sell per-copy instances of infinite information is ridiculous. In computer terms, it is the flip side to the free software coin that makes open source a whole. If you distribute a black box you shouldn't be able to try to force people to treat it some certain way, after all, you freely gave it the first time, anyone else can do with it what they will. I still target open source since I'm not a dick and don't like giving someone a black box, but that is tangential.
- jacques_chester 14y ago
  Economists talk about rivalrousness and excludability when classifying goods. Rivalrous means that, to the extent I am using or possessing some good, you are not. Excludable means that I can, as a seller, prevent you from using it without payment. Most physical goods are rivalrous and excludable. I can keep an icecream to myself and while I am digesting it, you are not. The icecream truck can prevent you taking one without payment. This meets the definition of what people usually think of as "private property". Radio waves are rivalrous but not excludable; economists call these "common goods". These lead to -- you guessed it -- the tragedy of the commons, where individually optimal decisions lead to globally suboptimal outcomes. Commons can't work unless agents agree to constrain themselves, or are made to constrain themselves. The former can happen by agreement, the latter by regulation. In the case of radio, regulation has been the standard model because of the nature of the usage. Voice and vision have been analogue and the human nervous system is a poor demultiplexer, so they needed bands to themselves. Similarly for many other applications (radar, for example) , the amount of information put through a certain band has historically been low but the value high. So: regulation. Wireless networks are an example of a commons managed by agreement; or perhaps managed by emergent phenomena. Each wireless node blindly follows some simple rules (such as randomised exponential backoff) that, in practice, make a shared medium largely usable. edits: to clarify terms a bit
- rayiner 14y ago
  > I'm not going to speak on all libertarians, but my world view is pretty much that you can possess finite scarce goods and call them "yours" (things made of atoms) If ownership only extends to things made of atoms, then you'd agree that it's totally okay for me to build my house on your land so long as it hovers an inch over the dirt and grass that comprises your ownership. Otherwise, you're claiming ownership of an incorporeal thing--the geographic coordinates that encompass not just your land but the space above it. > Radios are scarce, but the range and ability to produce electromagnetic waves at certain frequencies is not scarce with said radio. Ownership of spectrum is not a monopoly on the right to produce electromagnetic waves of a certain frequency. It's a monopoly on the right to invade certain areas of space with electromagnetic waves of a certain frequency. The FCC doesn't care what frequencies you transmit on in a lead-lined room on your own property.