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Comment by tptacek | Hacker News Reader

Go look up EPB's ASN and see which public utility companies they're peering with to get Chattanooga customers in touch with Google.

But this is entirely silly. EPB is great. More cities should run their own last-mile networks. What they do instead is impose regulatory frameworks that forbid companies that could run gig fiber networks from doing so unless they also serve markets where they would hemorrhage money.

But the success of public utilities in places like Chattanooga is not an argument that a public utility could have built the modern Internet. To see just one reason why, try to host Youtube or Netflix on EPB's network.

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You're right. They're prioritizing access over the financial concerns of the providers. That's what public utilities do. That's what we did when we electrified the South. That's why I keep pointing to your fundamental political assumptions. It's not that we can't do it, it's that certain people don't think it's valuable.

Please stop attacking me personally. You have no idea what my fundamental political assumptions are. If you're frustrated about how unpersuasive I find your argument, perhaps stop arguing; you aren't entitled to persuade me, but you're starting to write as if you feel you are.

I'm actually enjoying this conversation. That's why I've stuck around this long. To quote your last comment:

"What they do instead is impose regulatory frameworks that forbid companies that could run gig fiber networks from doing so unless they also serve markets where they would hemorrhage money."

Who cares if they're hemorrhaging money? The Public Works Administration hemorrhaged money electrifying the South. The Post Office hemorrhages money delivering to far flung rural areas. Society however has made the judgement that these costs are worth it because they promote inclusiveness and equality. You are making the opposite judgement. That judgement is inherently political.

You don't even seem to be reading my comments anymore. You've invented a disagreement that we don't even have, so you could reintroduce politics. I'm not interested in having a political argument with you.

Incidentally, you may be chuckling at the tenor of this conversation and where it's going, but as I've told you repeatedly, I am taking offense. I am not enjoying it, and I wish you'd stop.

Welp, maybe you shouldn't have commented on a political article then? I'm really not trolling you here. I'm reading everything you're writing.

I suspect others will notice that it is you who have been ignoring me.

This is my biggest problem with people in the tech industry. You can't divorce the systems you build, or the tradeoffs made by companies and policymakers, from the underlying political ideologies that inform those decisions.

You might be surprised and deeply dissatisfied what others will notice.

The article in question is a political article, and the solutions it posits are, by definition, political. Just because you don't feel that you're in any way having a political conversation does not necessarily make it so.

I'm not objecting to politics in general. I'm objecting to continually being asked to pass a political purity test in this particular branch of the discussion. I shouldn't have to explain to the other commenter why they're wrong about my politics. It was bogus and rude for them to invent a political straw man and attribute to me.

I'm prickly about this, because, as you might know, this happens all the time here.

fwiw I do know that it happens all the time here. And, as someone whose politics runs very far to the left contra this forum (I'm a regular Jacobin reader), I can appreciate the annoyance. I did strike me as a bit dissonant, coming from you.

Edit: also, not having to constantly battle either a) trolls or b) what I feel to be right wing libertarian myopia is one of the reasons I've commented so little here, so, I Get It. I've been a reader/lurker for something like 7 years now. early 2009, I believe.

Some years ago, during a phase in which every other comment on this site seemed to be accusing me of being an NSA shill, I made a decision never to spell out my particular (boring, especially if you know where I live) political beliefs in response to people accusing me of having a particular political inclination. Doing so might simplify (dumb, lazy) arguments. But we shouldn't have to do that.

I remember that. Not one of the brighter HN moments. I've done a small amount of activism, come from a family who have had run ins with the security state (had my own as well). It can be jarring to then turn around and have to defend a position that automatically grants you "shill" status to online nutjobs.

I was wrong to have brought up your personal political beliefs. I apologize for that.

The arguments you are making, however, are dependent on the idea that markets are a necessary mechanism for the existence of the modern internet.

You have the right to withhold your political beliefs from anyone in any context.

You've gone astray by demanding that others de-politicize their language in a similar way.

I believe that about the Internet. I don't necessarily believe it about anything else.

I am fine with politics, as long as the political discussion doesn't take the form of "here is what I have inferred about your personal political beliefs".

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