a thoughtful web.
Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking.   Login or Take a Tour!
comment by cgod
cgod  ·  3964 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: The Net Neutrality Endgame

It's not even worth worrying about this, just get used to it and move on.





ecib  ·  3964 days ago  ·  link  ·  

It's profoundly depressing, but I'm not willing to stop calling my representatives and worrying about it. Not to say that I see it ending well.

cgod  ·  3964 days ago  ·  link  ·  

It's an issue that moves too slow for the news cycle, main stream news probably isn't all that sympathetic to net neutrality to begin with, to gain much popular traction outside a relatively small circle of concerned individuals.

The companies that stand to benefit are large monopolies or oligopolies can probably engage in more free speech (bribes) in the form of campaign donations than the other side. There are also lots of jobs in the cable and phone companies to employ all the staffers, senators and their sons and daughters combined to make killing off net neutrality a pretty easy sell.

It will be a while before the expense hits individuals. The first attacks will come in the form of pay for better bandwidth to content providers cushioning the impact on consumer households. By the time the consumer is really taking the whole system will have become entrenched.

Maybe I've gone over the paranoid cynicism cliff never to return but I don't really think we have a government dedicating to serving the people and not even sure if we ever did.

ecib  ·  3964 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Like I said, -*depressing*.

For what it's worth, the last thing you are is paranoid. The misalignment of our representatives actions and our interests is plain for anyone to see.

b_b  ·  3964 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    The misalignment of our representatives actions and our interests is plain for anyone to see.

That's the problem with gerrymandering: representatives are no longer accountable to public opinion. We're at the lowest level on record of people who identify as Republicans, and very close to a new low for people who identify as Democrats, and (obviously) an all time high for people who identify as independents. How many independents in the House does this translate to, you ask? 0. Zero. None. Not a single one. Public opinion is dead. NYT had a front page story yesterday about how the GOP is hitting the abortion issue hard in the midterms to stir people up. Seriously. Abortion. In these times. This is how out of touch they are, and it's by design.

ecib  ·  3964 days ago  ·  link  ·  

The number of tools and tricks employed to disenfranchise voters are too many to enumerate.

    NYT had a front page story yesterday about how the GOP is hitting the abortion issue hard in the midterms to stir people up. Seriously. Abortion. In these times. This is how out of touch they are, and it's by design.

Extremely relevant:

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/01/opinions.../