Comment by bluetonium | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bluetonium | Hacker News Reader

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Giving the government near-total control over our internet access is going to introduce more problems that it would solve.

We're already seeing that Western countries too can be just as censorship happy (e.g. the UK where the government pressures ISPs, and is seeking to enshrine in law, the blocking of a huge assortment of content including such ridiculous things to block as female ejaculation)

Just imagine how easy and unescapable that censorship will be if the government is the ISP itself. We've seen repeated attempts in congress to illegalize encryption the government cannot easily break. District Attorney General Rod Rosenstein hinted just this very month that in wake of the Texas shooting the Trump administration will take a harder line against "unbreakable encryption."

Just imagine how stronger their effort against encryption will be once it's the only thing standing between them and completely blocking your access to information they'd rather you not have?

Let's just settle for net neutrality and incentivizing new cable lines and ISPs, rather than open the "nationalize the web" can of worms.

>Giving the government near-total control over our internet access is going to introduce more problems that it would solve.

I love how we are facing a present, practical problem that is the complete opposite of this dystopian hypothetical that people damn near have a fetish over. Yet it still gets brought up as some kind of counter weight to current circumstances. And this kind of attitude is why we're here. We elected a host of representatives that basically ran on "gummit bad!" and when they start handing power over to private entities some of you still don't have the self-awareness to see how absolutely ABSURD it is to sit there and go "But if the government had all the power think about how BAD it would be!" -- all while willfully ignoring that we're still a republic. It's unlikely to be that bad. We're here because we choose to be.

Right now, giving more power to private entities is going to cause far more problems than the government having/had power is/did or maybe even ever could.

Never in the history of this country have we had a problem in where the government has too much power and private entities have too little. Not once. The U.S. government has only had its scope of responsibilities expanded due to the misconduct of private entities over the course of our history. Yeah, governments CAN be bad and they CAN do bad things -- in general. But right now what we have is, in a glorious stroke of irony, people running the government who hate the government.

Basically, TL;DR, the whole censorship boogeyman is just rhetorical misdirection and is completely, utterly, and frustratingly unproductive.

Censorship isn’t the only concern. The NSA and Big Brother are as big a concern if not bigger in my opinion. Of course, a private company Big Brother (Google??) isn’t that much better. But it’s easier to escape a private company than it is to escape the government, especially if you’re just a normal guy and not being specifically targeted.

>But it’s easier to escape a private company than it is to escape the government

I find this statement suspect in the current U.S. landscape.

Prove that your concern somehow is more real under Net Neutrality than without. Seriously. I am sick of this lie being tossed around. Did you completely forget the NSA just setting up shop inside AT&T's switch room? What about Net Neutrality or the lack thereof would change any of that?

I’m all for net neutrality. I’m not for the government being everyone’s ISP as was mentioned.

NSA in an AT&T closet should not be happening. It would be the default situation for everyone if we all had government ISP.

I fail to see any reason why, or any reason that a municipal ISP would somehow be easier for the NSA to operate. However, they are far more responsive to customers, and provide better service than the incumbent private ISPs.

>Never in the history of this country have we had a problem in where the government has too much power and private entities have too little. Not once.

I suspect the American Indian might disagree. I don't recall them being hunted down and massacred by a corporation. Also, black Americans before the 1965 civil rights act might have something to say on the topic of government power vs private entities. As would imprisoned Japanese sent to internment camps. Newspaper editors imprisoned for speaking out against Lincoln during the Civil War probably had a different point of view, as well. Shall I continue?

I like how you blatantly just google'd this and didn't even take the nominal effort to research anything further let alone think about your response, because literally none of it has anything to do with economic/business regulation.

1. Indians weren't citizens. I mean I could stop there, but it's also pretty hilarious that you think the actions taken at the time were somehow not without popular public support. Government as an entity had nothing to do with the expansions, to put it lightly.

2. Yeah, like when we stopped the government from enforcing such laws and gave more protections to people (via the government), all exclusionary practices totally vanished. Totally wasn't a societal problem at that point either. It took the power of the government to alleviate unjust practices, but the power of government wasn't needed to keep them as "virtues" within the society that implemented them in the first place. Something something government, right?

I mean for 3 and 4? Really? You're going to try to use Constitutional powers as an example of the government having too much power?

And no, please don't go on with an aggravating lack luster response like the one you've decided to put on display, I've only responded for the people reading this thread so as to not fall into such disingenuous misdirection.

The government here collects fees through nationalized institutions like vehicle insurance and licensing, so if you get a police ticket/fine for anything including jaywalking you have to pay it before they will let you renew insurance. I would imagine a nationalized ISP would do the same, seize your access to the internet in exchange for paying off city/state/provincial fines or even student debt.

Another problem of public owned utilities is the ruling regime raiding the coffers for party funds, which forces the utility to jack the rates every year since they are a corporation that operates without any savings. They also parachute in a new regime crony every election to be the well paid CEO and fill the board with party hacks as well, ensuring the public utility never goes against the wishes of the regime (and gives their friends huge salaries in the +1m range). Public ISPs would have to operate at the city/local level and no higher for the public to retain any control over it and not have it turn into yet another fine collecting branch.

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