Come on, Rob, let's keep things civil. We can disagree without calling each other trolls. I'm making sweeping generalizations because although it may seem like a small technical issue it's subject to the same basic laws of governmental intervention as anything else. Of course regulation is a double-edged sword. Some helps keep us safe, and some helps make us miserable. But all of it restricts our choices, because that's what regulations are designed to DO. The market is free-for-all that gives us choices. Regulation restricts providers of goods or services from offering us some of those choices because we (loosely defined) think those choices are bad enough that nobody should be allowed to make them. You asked for examples: New vehicles are required to have seat belts in order to be sold to the public and be allowed on the roads. Sounds like a reasonable regulation to me. On the other hand, we have regulations on telecomm companies that make them go through all kinds of crazy govt approvals and rigid pricing structures that when I worked in the telecomm industry 11 years ago some smaller telcos would tell me that they couldn't afford to offer DSL to their customers because they could only lose money on it (not because customers wouldn't pay, but because they weren't allowed to charge enough to recoup their costs). That may have changed by now, but I doubt it since I have to use 3G at home because it's 2010 and Sprint still hasn't put in a DSLAM in my area. Specific to the FCC, we've got the restriction on obscenity on radio and TV. I personally think that's a good reg (I have kids), but I know people who think we'd have better content if we allowed freer speech on the airwaves. Nobody here is saying all regulation is bad. I'm saying it's a big clumsy weapon that we should think very carefully about before using. Some people seem to react quickly to the issue -- your reaction, for instance, was too quick to take the time to give examples or demonstrate any in-depth knowledge of the issue, which is exactly what you criticized me for -- rather than thinking it through. If regulation is the answer, so be it, but as a fellow internet user who will have to live with those regulations for a long time -- because most regulations, no matter how poorly written, are hard to change or undo (think DMCA) -- I'm asking you to think it through instead of calling people names. -Harry On Thu, Aug 19, 2010 at 1:02 PM, Robert Nesius <nesius at gmail.com> wrote: > > > > On Thu, Aug 19, 2010 at 10:41 AM, Harry Penner <hpenner at gmail.com> wrote: > >> At the risk of flames: the Internet as we know it has flourished in >> large part because its original sponsor, the federal government, has >> mostly left it alone. Why do we think adding government regulations >> to it will make it better (or preserve the freedom we enjoy on it)? >> Generally speaking, doesn't regulation take away freedom rather than >> increasing it, by definition? I'm no futurist but it seems to me that >> putting restrictions on the big guys is likely to affect us little >> guys in some unforeseen but unpleasant way. >> >> Sorry if the above sounds trollish but I just think we should be >> careful what we ask for. With companies you can usually vote with >> your feet to try to change or avoid their bad behavior, but >> regulations are usually universal and forever... And the regs will >> surely by written by people not nearly as close to or as thoughtful >> about the problem as we tclug'ers... >> >> Seems to me we ought to show up and tell the FCC to keep their paws off >> us. >> >> -Harry >> >> > Harry, > > How about instead of making sweeping generalizations you make > a case for your position with supporting arguments. Regulation > is no less a double-edged sword than an absence of regulation. > How does net-neutrality regulation harm us? How does the > absence of net-neutrality regulation help us? Do you even > properly understand the topic you are debating, and do you know > for a fact the federal government mostly left the internet alone > after funding its creation and development, or does it just seem > that way to you for other reasons? > > I don't think you should apologize for your comments sounding > trollish. I think you should apologize for making trollish comments. > > I can already see this thread spinning away into the land of > rhetoric. > > -Rob > > > _______________________________________________ > TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota > tclug-list at mn-linux.org > http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.mn-linux.org/pipermail/tclug-list/attachments/20100819/5d874b8b/attachment.htm