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> making another law to ensure more freedom? Those two concepts are kind of hard to fit together sometimes. Really? What do you think guarantees freedom, if no

> making another law to ensure more freedom? Those two concepts are kind of hard to fit together sometimes. Really? What do you think guarantees freedom, if not the rule of law?

gojomo 17y ago
Laws enforced against deceit and theft and murder help freedom. Laws dictating what's legal to sell, at what price, not at all. The FCC that would enforce "neutrality" also enforces "indecency" rules and has in the past required a minute-for-minute accounting and balance of political expression -- the "fairness doctrine". There is reason to doubt whether neutrality laws would be freedom-promoting or welfare-promoting, in the long run. How well did "rail neutrality" work, in the long run? See: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/03/opinion/03lee.html http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/03/opinion/03lee.html
- pyre 17y ago
  How about laws requiring that ISPs be 100% transparent with all filtering/throttling/etc that they do with company-crippling penalties for avoidance (instead of laughable penalties that large companies will just write off as the 'cost of doing business')? edit: Thinking more about this, ISPs would just bury this information in the EULA in obtuse legalese so that normal users would ignore it or at least have a hard time understanding it. Then they would be in the letter of the law, but not the spirit and they would still get away with stuff. Though it would help in places like taking the ISPs to court (as right now what happens on their network is essentially a blackbox and when there's a problem they can just shift the blame to someone outside of their network and there's little you can do to prove/disprove that).
- weavejester 17y ago
  > Laws enforced against deceit and theft and murder help freedom. Laws dictating what's legal to sell, at what price, not at all. Laws are far from the only way to restrict what is sold to the public. Large corporations can leverage their market share to shut down competition in other areas. In order to maintain a healthy market place, you have to ensure that a market is not completely controlled by a few large corporations.
  - dpatru 17y ago
    A simple way to do this would be to limit some of the advantages of a corporation, which is itself a state-created entity. I've no problem with government limiting the freedom of its own creation which enjoys unlimited life, limited liability, tax advantages. I do have a problem with government restricting the freedom of individuals and partnerships to contract freely in the marketplace.
    - weavejester 17y ago
      I think the problem still remains; a free market does not necessarily mean it is an optimum market, and the government is not the only factor that can adversely affect a marketplace.
  - gojomo 17y ago
    ...you have to ensure that a market is not completely controlled by a few large corporations. Maybe. But if so, that's an argument for antitrust enforcement, not net-neutrality type-and-price-of-service regulations. As the example of regulatory capture in many industries should make clear, regulations often turn out giving an advantage to the few large operators who can play at Washington rulemaking games -- with large staffs of lobbyists and big donations at election time -- no matter what the regulators' initial rationale.
    - weavejester 17y ago
      Isn't net-neutrality a form of antitrust law? Net neutrality is essentially a way of stopping corporations from using their influence over communication lines to unfairly affect other markets that use those communication lines.
steveklabnik 17y ago
Usually laws restrict what individuals can do, limiting thier individual freedom, to provide what will (hopefully) be a better situation for the greater good.
- icey 17y ago
  In the case of net neutrality, it's an exchange of freedoms - giving the individual greater freedom at the cost of freedom for companies.
  - steveklabnik 17y ago
    But companies are owned and run by individuals, so you're interfering with an individual's ability to run his company as he sees fit. I'm not saying I don't agree with Net Neutrality, because I do, I'm just torn about _why_ I agree with it.
    - gloob 17y ago
      But companies are owned and run by individuals, so you're interfering with an individual's ability to run his company as he sees fit. But governments are run by individuals, so saying that they aren't allowed to pass such-and-such a regulation means interfering with the individual's ability to run their government the way they see fit. The notion of "absolute freedom" suffers a stack overflow if you actually try and think about it. Any action whatsoever, not merely government regulation, reduces the freedom of some people and increases it for others.
      - steveklabnik 17y ago
        > The notion of "absolute freedom" suffers a stack overflow if you actually try and think about it. Any action whatsoever, not merely government regulation, reduces the freedom of some people and increases it for others. Yep. But this isn't neccessarily about 'absolute,' it's about "minimal as possible," at least in my eyes. As I said to someone below, I prefer to fix problems after the fact, rather than before, but I feel like this will almost certainly be a problem, so why not just cut to the chase?

> making another law to ensure more freedom? Those two concepts are kind of hard to fit together sometimes. Really? What do you think guarantees freedom, if not the rule of law?

gojomo 17y ago

Laws enforced against deceit and theft and murder help freedom. Laws dictating what's legal to sell, at what price, not at all. The FCC that would enforce "neutrality" also enforces "indecency" rules and has in the past required a minute-for-minute accounting and balance of political expression -- the "fairness doctrine". There is reason to doubt whether neutrality laws would be freedom-promoting or welfare-promoting, in the long run. How well did "rail neutrality" work, in the long run? See: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/03/opinion/03lee.html http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/03/opinion/03lee.html

pyre 17y ago
How about laws requiring that ISPs be 100% transparent with all filtering/throttling/etc that they do with company-crippling penalties for avoidance (instead of laughable penalties that large companies will just write off as the 'cost of doing business')? edit: Thinking more about this, ISPs would just bury this information in the EULA in obtuse legalese so that normal users would ignore it or at least have a hard time understanding it. Then they would be in the letter of the law, but not the spirit and they would still get away with stuff. Though it would help in places like taking the ISPs to court (as right now what happens on their network is essentially a blackbox and when there's a problem they can just shift the blame to someone outside of their network and there's little you can do to prove/disprove that).
weavejester 17y ago
> Laws enforced against deceit and theft and murder help freedom. Laws dictating what's legal to sell, at what price, not at all. Laws are far from the only way to restrict what is sold to the public. Large corporations can leverage their market share to shut down competition in other areas. In order to maintain a healthy market place, you have to ensure that a market is not completely controlled by a few large corporations.
- dpatru 17y ago
  A simple way to do this would be to limit some of the advantages of a corporation, which is itself a state-created entity. I've no problem with government limiting the freedom of its own creation which enjoys unlimited life, limited liability, tax advantages. I do have a problem with government restricting the freedom of individuals and partnerships to contract freely in the marketplace.
  - weavejester 17y ago
    I think the problem still remains; a free market does not necessarily mean it is an optimum market, and the government is not the only factor that can adversely affect a marketplace.
- gojomo 17y ago
  ...you have to ensure that a market is not completely controlled by a few large corporations. Maybe. But if so, that's an argument for antitrust enforcement, not net-neutrality type-and-price-of-service regulations. As the example of regulatory capture in many industries should make clear, regulations often turn out giving an advantage to the few large operators who can play at Washington rulemaking games -- with large staffs of lobbyists and big donations at election time -- no matter what the regulators' initial rationale.
  - weavejester 17y ago
    Isn't net-neutrality a form of antitrust law? Net neutrality is essentially a way of stopping corporations from using their influence over communication lines to unfairly affect other markets that use those communication lines.

steveklabnik 17y ago

Usually laws restrict what individuals can do, limiting thier individual freedom, to provide what will (hopefully) be a better situation for the greater good.

icey 17y ago
In the case of net neutrality, it's an exchange of freedoms - giving the individual greater freedom at the cost of freedom for companies.
- steveklabnik 17y ago
  But companies are owned and run by individuals, so you're interfering with an individual's ability to run his company as he sees fit. I'm not saying I don't agree with Net Neutrality, because I do, I'm just torn about _why_ I agree with it.
  - gloob 17y ago
    But companies are owned and run by individuals, so you're interfering with an individual's ability to run his company as he sees fit. But governments are run by individuals, so saying that they aren't allowed to pass such-and-such a regulation means interfering with the individual's ability to run their government the way they see fit. The notion of "absolute freedom" suffers a stack overflow if you actually try and think about it. Any action whatsoever, not merely government regulation, reduces the freedom of some people and increases it for others.
    - steveklabnik 17y ago
      > The notion of "absolute freedom" suffers a stack overflow if you actually try and think about it. Any action whatsoever, not merely government regulation, reduces the freedom of some people and increases it for others. Yep. But this isn't neccessarily about 'absolute,' it's about "minimal as possible," at least in my eyes. As I said to someone below, I prefer to fix problems after the fact, rather than before, but I feel like this will almost certainly be a problem, so why not just cut to the chase?