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Comment by lazylland | Hacker News Reader

I don't get his arguments ... it just seemed like one big REGULATION IS EVIL rant/FUD.

Did I miss anything ?

Let's put it a way a programmer would understand. Regulation is like generalization. Not enough of it is bad. Too much of it is also bad.

What is the problem we're having that's in need of fixing? If you can't answer that question with concrete examples of problems we are having right now, that would be fixed by adding expensive lawyers and regulators, then it is an imaginary problem. Regulation is not necessary. Regulation costs money. Do we have an overabundance of money right now to fix imagined problems that nobody can explain? I sure don't.

When faced with a prompt: "Input a number from 1 to 5", a tester asks "What if I put in 6?". One possible answer might be: "The program crashes."

In this situation, there is no problem with the program right now, only at some hypothetical point in the future when someone actually enters an invalid value.

regulation is like optimization ... can be the root of all evil if done prematurely... or necessary to do useful work.

(I would add - the problem that exists right now is companies like Comcast want to start taxing companies like Netflix and Google)

> Did I miss anything?

No. There's regulation and there's regulation. Net neutrality is the concept that network providers should not privilege some kinds of content over others - i.e. that all packets are created equal.

I don't think net neutrality legislation means what you think it means.

government regulation with regards to ISP's is broken, thus stifling the competition that would ensure far more robust net neutrality than any legislated version.

you don't stop monopolies from abusing their powers by legislating that they play fair. you take away the governmental protections that allow them to have a monopoly and let the market consume them when they refuse to change their shitty business practices.

> you take away the governmental protections that allow them to have a monopoly and let the market consume them when they refuse to change their shitty business practices.

How is that supposed to work? Have you ever heard of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly

no examples exist. the wikipedia example is terrible. epidemics were caused by something that had never existed up until that point? (water network) and because profit margins were too low? so you're going to tell me that a lack of running water caused widespread DEATH AND PESTILENCE and people still were going "nah, I think I'll wait for those water bills to drop some more"?

My point was that in certain markets unregulated competition will naturally lead to a monopoly. The technical term for this in microeconomics is "natural monopoly", and the explanation at the beginning of the Wikipedia article is actually pretty good. Without regulation monopolists can prevent the market entry of competitors and can extract excessive profits from consumers, to the detriment of society as a whole.

again please point to a single example of this happening ever.

Nope, you did not miss anything. There is not a single argument in the whole piece. But hey, what do you expect from a Republican?

Hey, just got down voted by a Republican. That's a special honor. Keep it coming.

I don't think we should make this about elephant corporatist shills vs. donkey corporatist shills.

This comment is too smart for me (and added a new word to my english vocabulary). Care to elaborate on what you mean?

After most elected Republicans and Democrats voted for EESA in 2008 (against the wishes of their constituents by 100:1 or more) and after Bush's PATRIOT Act and Obama's decision to renew it, it should be apparent that the major political parties are functionally identical and not interested in their voters.

Dividing people along party lines distracts from the issues while changing nothing. The issue here is net neutrality.

This is like saying just because China and the US act much in the same way (for example, they are the leaders in environment pollution) there is no distinction between people who believe in a communist regime vs. in a democratic government. Of course a distinction between Republicans and Democrats is useful. For example it is a good prediction to say if you have a PhD, you are probably not a Republican.

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