3 ms·

I find you choosing the roaming charge example to be bizarre: A lot of people here are pretty free-market, and the telecoms industry is not one of those free ma

by rtpg 13y ago

I find you choosing the roaming charge example to be bizarre: A lot of people here are pretty free-market, and the telecoms industry is not one of those free markets. It's dominated by few large corporations who piggy-backed off of large public investment (ultimately from the taxpayer). This is one of the most legitimate uses of government : when the market fails, at least make sure that people are protected from being exploited.

mseebach 13y ago
It's relevant because you can't have your cake and eat it too. An organisation powerful enough to dictate prices for a service on the european market, is an organisation powerful enough to dictate, say, total data retention: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Retention_Directive http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Retention_Directive
- rtpg 13y ago
  The price dictation is more of something similar to the WTO: roaming is pretty isomorphic to tariffs, in one sense. Technically speaking it isn't (tariffs do not represent anything other than some line, roaming is because you're actually on some other guy's network) but de facto larger carriers end up with plans to mutualise this anyways. Getting rid of tariffs is nice. Also I don't see the link between price control and data retention. You're conflating everything under government. I'm pretty sure these two things underwent completely different processes.
  - mseebach 13y ago
    You seem to be under the impression that there is a separate "evil" arm of governments that can be cut away somehow, letting you retain the good (or, rather, convenient) bits while getting rid of the bad ones. That kind of fantasy is why we won't get rid of PRISM or the data logging directive. Government will only ever work for its own benefit, it's just that every once in a while, it's in its benefit to throw you a bone.
    - rtpg 13y ago
      actually yeah, what you're talking about is something called checks and balances, where the bad is mitigated as much as possible. Even in your situation where government works in its own benefit, these are conflicting: - The executive wants the data logging because it makes investigations easier , so less police work - The judicial would not want this because it would make more open and shut cases, those reducing the need for workforce there Even here , by applying your logic, checks and balances work
      - mseebach 13y ago
        That would be a wholly more convincing argument had checks and balances actually prevented the data retention directive and the NSA excesses. They didn't. Now what?

by rtpg 13y ago

mseebach 13y ago

It's relevant because you can't have your cake and eat it too. An organisation powerful enough to dictate prices for a service on the european market, is an organisation powerful enough to dictate, say, total data retention: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Retention_Directive http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Retention_Directive

rtpg 13y ago
The price dictation is more of something similar to the WTO: roaming is pretty isomorphic to tariffs, in one sense. Technically speaking it isn't (tariffs do not represent anything other than some line, roaming is because you're actually on some other guy's network) but de facto larger carriers end up with plans to mutualise this anyways. Getting rid of tariffs is nice. Also I don't see the link between price control and data retention. You're conflating everything under government. I'm pretty sure these two things underwent completely different processes.
- mseebach 13y ago
  You seem to be under the impression that there is a separate "evil" arm of governments that can be cut away somehow, letting you retain the good (or, rather, convenient) bits while getting rid of the bad ones. That kind of fantasy is why we won't get rid of PRISM or the data logging directive. Government will only ever work for its own benefit, it's just that every once in a while, it's in its benefit to throw you a bone.
  - rtpg 13y ago
    actually yeah, what you're talking about is something called checks and balances, where the bad is mitigated as much as possible. Even in your situation where government works in its own benefit, these are conflicting: - The executive wants the data logging because it makes investigations easier , so less police work - The judicial would not want this because it would make more open and shut cases, those reducing the need for workforce there Even here , by applying your logic, checks and balances work
    - mseebach 13y ago
      That would be a wholly more convincing argument had checks and balances actually prevented the data retention directive and the NSA excesses. They didn't. Now what?