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Comment by RpFLCL | Hacker News Reader

>Reach out to the rest of the FCC now. Tell them they can’t take away internet openness without a fight.

How?

As this article mentions, their comment system had issues (spam and DDoS) and the only other avenue I've seen is to beg our representatives (who aren't part of the December vote) to do _something_.

It was a clean and concise piece, but I was hoping that an insider would provide a new course of action.

I've seen action across online media from users (reddit, Twitter, etc) as well as among peers. But not as much from the platforms themselves. Remember SOPA? Do those pushing for this really not hear the public's outrage yet?

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This may be about the Internet, but doing online "protest" will get us nowhere. Real protest means people going to the streets and making the government afraid of real violence. Other than that I don't see any way out.

Real protest means going to your local government to fight the internet access monopolies and duopolies. It means voting with your wallet and not supporting the companies pushing for this. It means showing up to vote next time instead of staying home. It means educating your neighbors about what this will mean for all of us.

Don't pretend we've exhausted all alternatives to violence -- we haven't. We've barely done any of the things that have been successful in the past at causing change. Suggesting otherwise reduces our power, it doesn't enhance it.

Sometimes we lose ground before we make progress. But that doesn't mean we've been defeated.

Most of those have nothing to do with what “protest” means. It doesn’t just generically mean “participate in democracy”.

They're not all what people traditionally mean when they say protest, but the parent was talking about violence -- which I consider a separate category from protest. Definitionally, any act that registers disapproval or objection is protest -- so everything I listed is covered.

When I only have one option for Internet > 5mbps and my job depends on it how do I fight with my wallet? I would happily pay 3x for municipal fiber but it'll never happen.

The monopoly of ISPs is what makes this whole free market argument completely unbalanced.

Halve you looked at gathering like minded people and starting a WISP?

The problem with specialist isps is they tend to attract expert users, who are currently subsidised by the average Joe. If your ISP has a 1G port upstream for $3k a month, and 100 customers, you'd be paying $30 for 10mbit each, excluding the rest of the isp's costs, which we'll put at $30/month/customer.

So they should charge $60pcm for 10mbit, but instead they sell 500 customers at $32/month, and offer up to 20mbit. This covers the upstream port, but one gives you 2mbit, but it sets the expectation that bandwidth is far cheaper than it really is.

Start up a fair ISP and you'll have to win customers who see your option at $60/10mbit // $90/20mbit, or the competitor at $32/20mbit. You'll need to attract 100 customers to pay for your uplink for 3 times the price. You'll then realise those numbers don't really work for a small isp - with 100 customers at $60/month minus upstream you'll have $3k/month for running costs.

Voting with you wallet can only be done in a competitive market. That's why capitalists love to create oligopolies and monopolies.

Unfortunately, Americans today are weak. Everyone is way too self-obsessed with their own pitiful, pathetic lives (family, jobs, house, creature comforts, etc.) to actually take to the streets and protest like their parents and grandparents did during the 60s to fight for their rights and those of others.

The Internet, despite its tremendous potential, has proven to be a massive liability, as it gives people the illusion that they have done something useful and constructive after they post angry comments on message boards such as this one. At the end of the day though the truth is this: political representatives will only really represent the populace if they are constantly worried about real backlash, such as if hundreds of people are gathered outside their office blocking access to vehicles, buildings, and so on.

On December 17th, 2010, Mohamed Bouazizi famously set himself on fire, which precipitated the Tunisian Revolution and the wider Arab Spring. At this rate, America is going to need equally brave and selfless individuals to make a stand and spark similar movements.

While civil disobedience etc. are useful forms of protest, we haven't exhausted other avenues, like actually showing up to vote. And the parent post is talking about violence, not just civil disobedience.

The act you describe at the end of your post happened in a dictatorship where the people truly had no voice. While we may live in a flawed democracy[1] we're not in the same situation -- we do still have nonviolent ways we can turn things around.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index

Yes, which is why I said "at this rate, America is going to need equally brave and selfless individuals to make a stand and spark similar movements."

Things haven't reached that point, but will soon.

Ah yes, the Arab Spring, that beacon of hope and light for the world.

For that part of the world, it certainly was. Not sure what your point is.

Yes, ultimately it failed, but it is difficult to dispute that it was a noble attempt. More will come in time.

It wasn’t purely noble attempt. Arab Spring was actually driven largely by rising food prices and high unemployment. And it lead to some dangerous people getting in power. E.g. Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.

Unrest in this part of the world will continue as the population is still rising fast, average age is very low so you get young unemployed population with no jobs and no money and basics such as food are rising in price. That is a recipe for more revolutions.

But revolutions and overthrowing of local governments won’t solve the underlying issues of these countries not being able to provide some reasonable standard of living to their population due to economic reasons.

It would be much safer to do incremental change and try to slowly build up local economies to create jobs for millions of young people. Violent revolutions will only further damage economic conditions and make situation worse in many cases.

I hope so, it was so sad to see this region fall to power plays by various large and medium sized nations. Fending that off while a revolution is occurring is a challenge though!

It was a noble attempt by some, less so by others. The people who were involved in it all had very different goals - it's not like it was an ideologically monolithic movement even within country boundaries. The only unifying force was the opposition to the existing regimes. Which are/were bad, but what some people wanted to replace them was even worse.

I'd argue that taking to the street and protesting is also just giving people the illusion that they're doing something useful.

The Iraq War protests were some of the largest in history, and they accomplished exactly nothing (and to your example, look up Malachi Ritscher). Occupy Wall Street was a massive movement and accomplished nothing. The protests against Obamacare repeal were massive and widespread, and seem to have only succeeded in delaying the destruction of Obamacare to the current tax bill. Black Lives Matter is a massive movement that has accomplished meaningful change in a few jurisdictions and nationwide has managed to at least generate conversation, but that conversation has already been largely derailed to the question of whether or not football players need to stand for the national anthem.

Office holders are not beholden to people yelling in the streets but to the people who get them elected. This means the people who show up to vote and, increasingly, the people who finance their campaigns.

> Office holders are not beholden to people yelling in the streets but to the people who get them elected

That's completely incorrect, the easiest thing in politics is to get people to vote for you, especially in a two-party system that effectively prevents challengers to the status quo in an election. All in all, the only power that people effectively have is the power to revolt. Democracy is a peaceful system of government but it can only be maintained through the threat of revolution. When that threat doesn't exist, politicians will do whatever they want.

Or, alternatively, having more than two parties is also an option. Because then you have a real choice. I have that choice. If I don't like the currently ruling party I can vote for any of the numerous parties that I feel represent me better. And unlike a 2-party-system people actually do that in mass to protest what the government is doing.

I absolutely agree with you--there is no threat of anything resembling revolution in the US today. The issue is not the self-obsession or lack of engagement the ancestor comment describes, but that e.g. Occupy Wall Street was never going to result in the actual occupation of Wall Street.

I don't condone violence but I feel like it's coming. It just feels like so few of those representing the public are actually making decisions based on best interests and the rhetoric is getting exhausting. Net Neutrality and beyond - I'm surrounded by people who feel like our government does not represent them and that they are unheard. And, as MLK said "I think that we've got to see that a riot is the language of the unheard."

Call them. Write them. The internet comments don't really amount to much. But if you call or write, they will at least have a tally of how many complaints they've received. They may not see your complaint specifically but at least it counts, unlike internet complaints

I'm happy to do so. But in the end should we even need to do this crap? Isn't it just so obvious how bad this is that our representatives should be fighting it without calls? It just baffles me.

Corruption is baffling?

Yes. That's called democracy.

Well actually I'd call it a kakistocracy at a the moment.

Yes, you need to. So many people have already and we all need more voices.

"Should" isn't a helpful word when reasoning about reality.

No we shouldn't.. the government is supposed to work for us.. but instead its basically a criminal enterprise in large part.

At this point we may need to make a totally new decentralize internet with meshnets or something. I think that we should just come up with a way to do like cable protection/management in the streets and start laying out fiber in the gutters guerilla style.

I sent an email to one of them saying something like "this type of moral failure will lead to the downfall of Western civilization". Heh. I hope it was an exaggeration.

Ajit Pai - Ajit.Pai@fcc.gov

Mignon Clyburn - Mignon.Clyburn@fcc.gov (confirmed 'no' vote)

Michael O'Rielly - Mike.ORielly@fcc.gov

Brendan Carr - Brendan.Carr@fcc.gov

Jessica Rosenworcel - Jessica.Rosenworcel@fcc.gov (confirmed 'no' vote)

Email: https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/7ev42z/justin_tr...

https://act.eff.org/action/tell-congress-quit-trying-to-sabo...

https://www.battleforthenet.com/

Thanks. Who should I email if I'm against Net Neutrality as imposed by the FCC?

noreply@fcc.gov ;)

battleforthenet.com <-- This is a really great service that will dial each of your representatives for you, so you can state support for NN.

democracy.io (EFF) <-- The same thing but via email. Not as effective as battleforthenet, but takes maybe 30 seconds to contact all of your representatives

Fill out a form, click a button and the actual hard work is done for you - via robodialing and spam. Democracy in the modern age.

Do you really think this is effective? That this lets your voice be heard?

Well, they have a phone number here, and I suppose you could directly email Ajit Pai.

https://www.fcc.gov/about/contact

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