The KGB Oracle Forums General Public Discussion (SPECIAL ACCESS) KGB Political Debate Central Forbes: Silk Road and Libertarians

I did not avoid it, but sure feel free to revisit it. I will answer your questions/inquiries.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/...missioner-says/

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57565561-38/the-strange-resurrection-of-net-neutrality/

Some interesting reads.

Why do you think that giving an ability to existing last-mile duopolies to block competitor's content is a good move?

Why do you think bandwidth has to be sold more than once - paid once by user in form of a subscription and paid second time in form of costs passed down by content providers having to pay to not get penalized by low priority?

Yes I have decided to stop beating my wife.

Aside from ideological opposition to any kind of government interference and/or regulation, on what grounds do you oppose net neutrality?

It is based on a faulty premise that internet content and distribution regulation should be run by unelected govt bureaucrats.

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It will create unintended consequences.

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It ignores the fact that any monopolies or duopolies are created by govt in the first place. You think running an ISP is technically hard? Its not. The hard part is dealing with

1: regulations
2: Taxpayer subsidized telecoms
3: Politically connected/subsidized telecoms that get eminent domain going in their favor, and have govt granted control over public infrastructure.

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The internet has worked because it has been a self-generating system, and not an exogenous order - and by transforming it into such we forever abandon the very principles that has allowed it to work.

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Why should we accept telecom monopolies and grant them permanent rent-seeking status as an entrenched entity, instead of leveling the playing field while we still can?

The very fact that "Net Neutrality" is even an "Issue" in of itself shows that we are focusing on the wrong problem. The question we should instead have been asking is "How can we level the playing field?"

If Ma Bell decides to squelch some service or entity for one reason or another, why would a customer stay with them? The answer in this case is obvious - because Ma Bell has a monopoly. Which begs the question "Why does Ma Bell have a monopoly" and following that "How can we make sure Ma Bell isnt able to maintain a monopoly"

Instead of addressing the fundamental issues, many people seem to want to start up yet another game of regulatory whack-a-mole , give the telecoms a small lobbying target to co-opt (FCC) , and pray that somehow the FCC can micromanage the internet into producing good results.

Objectively speaking, the latter approach is insane. The entire monopoly issue can be easily solved by govt getting out of bed with the massive telecoms, and ensuring equal opportunity to infrastructure. This is a long-term solution, that would not be dependent on the politics of a particular day.

Instead , people claiming to want the internet to have freedom want to embark on a Quixotic quest of regulatory micromanagement while accepting the monopolistic paradigm.

Yes, everything you say is a valid, except you failed to consider immediate consequences of your position and instead talking about some might-never-come ideal outcome and ideal way of things. You assumed that if get government out of enforcing Net Neutrality, then magically we are going to arrive into completely market-driven internet infrastructure free of any kind of uncompetitive distortions. It doesn't work that way.

In reality we will end up in a shithole where providers double-triple-dip charge everyone and build walled gardens. Net Neutrality is what keeps these other evils somewhat in check.

Net Neutrality has to exist because other evils you described exist. When/If they disappear then the need for NN will also disappear.

A lot of your views follow this scenario:

You have a crumbling dam protecting a city downstream. You end up advocating to dynamite the damn and justify your views based on the fact that eventually river will settle into its natural course and repairing the dam will no longer be necessary. Meanwhile it is obvious that your approach will also end up in a city getting washed away.

If you are ready to pay for Internet toll booths to go to your favorite website then keep believing that.

What happens when Verizon, Comcast, Suddenlink or ATT decide they are only going to let their cronies move traffic on their fiber lines. Sucks for you since 99% of America has a extremely limited choice of providers when it comes to getting internet. If you are lucky you may have 2 options.

Lets say ATT has a huge liberal board of directors...they may decide that if you want to go to FOX NEWS then it will cost you 15c per minute. Hell they may decide to just not let you go there at all.

Lets say Verizon needs more profit on the bottom line...Instead of providing a betetr service to their customer they now have other options. Well guys, Hulu is taking up alot of our backbone. Lets charge them 400 million dollars extra per year to move their traffic on our lines or we will block them. Guess what...your Hulu account now cost 70 dollars per month instead of 7.

I could go on for days with examples of why removing Net Nuetrality laws will be bad for the average internet user.

Are you familiar with a concept of last mile? Duopolies mostly exist at the last mile and they exist in this way because of municipal laws.

To connect your house you have to ether dig, hang things on the poles, or go through the sewers. Recently extra option of building cell towers was added. These all fall under municipal oversight.

Federal regulation has nothing to do with this. Issue of telecom monopolies has very little to do with federal government. Yes, they get corporate handouts, but this is not what keeps competition out.

I never assumed any such thing. I get frustrated because our society is ever focused on addressing the *wrong* problems, and crafting "solutions" without even bothering to identify what the real problems actually are. This NN debate exemplifies this.

Neither liberty nor efficiency can be maintained where principle is routinely abandoned in the name of expediency.

Society cannot be improved in this manner, even where effective the only thing this type of NN patchwork thinking accomplishes is slowing the rate of entropy - it obviously does nothing to help a self-organized system regenerate or rejuvenate. Even if slowed, accepting a paradigm of perpetually encroaching stagnation is still accepting failure in the long run.

Or in other words, NN advocates are simply advocating capitulation - albeit a slightly slower one. This is not a good outcome.

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In regards to your post on last mile, etc, yes I am fully aware of the entire telecom supply chain. Note I did not say "FedGov" when mentioning gov. In some ways the feds are a problem, in other ways localities... in any case, I wouldnt hold strong views on a system I didnt understand.