If the net neutrality repeal vote goes through

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Imaginaerum wrote:

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Jennik wrote:

Just a friendly reminder to any Americans here to always vote for Democrats. In a two party system, the only alternative is Republicans, who constantly do garbage like this. Be smart. Be decent. Be rational. Don't vote for the party against consumers, the environment, science, equality, and damn near everything else a reasonable person is in favor of.

What kind of fantasy land are you living in? 8 years of democrats are why Trump destroyed Hillary. 8 years of regulations are why we voted in someone who's deregulating the crap out of everything. Net neutrality didn't solve anything, we only had it for 2 years and it didn't make a difference. This kind of manufactured fear is what the democrats rely on, it's only when people realize it doesn't exist they start to get scared.

Based on pre-primary polls, Sanders would have absolutely rolled over Trump. The DNC nominating Hillary was what lost them the election, not the Obama administration's legacy.

Tribalism will always result in irrational decision-making on the part of voters in a democratic system, but Obama did not herald Trump. At least not to the degree you seem to think. The DNC ignoring their best shot at a president in their camp and nominating an actual factual sociopath did.

So we trading a mildly partisan sociopath for a strongly partisan one. Welcome to America.

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KiadawP wrote:

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pannra wrote:

It will be just like playing in 2015. Or 2014. Or any year before NN was implemented.

This.

Kind of....the problem with the environment before net neutrality was that the only reason businesses did not go to the extreme was the presence of an invisible gun (doing something may or may not incur the wrath of the FCC). There was very little understanding of what was okay and what was not okay -- so pushing too far towards a more cable TV type model had significant risk and cost associated with it.

If there is a clear understanding that major internet providers are allowed to move the goalpost to where they want as described in their terms & conditions, then I think things will be problematic.

There is an idea that the free market will work itself out, but the free market does not do so well when you have a de facto monopoly -- which I believe most of us are subjected to in the US. I'm personally at the whim of Comcast, and whatever they are willing to do. The only other option is satellite internet and the latency and throughput just isn't a viable alternative.

From what I've read, Comcast appears to be less likely to make a huge change because this is a regulatory change from an executive appointed committee that could change with the next administration. They want it to be legislated so that they can proceed with their business decisions, which I'm sure will not take advantage of being a monopoly and will be in the best interest of internet freedom and the consumer (/sarcasm).

The question is not what will they do, because they don't know what will happen with the next administration so they may do nothing. The question is what can they do -- and the answer is simple, anything they want. If they want to block Fox News or MSNBC because they own one and the other is a competing news agency, they can. They don't even have to offer access to those websites at a premium (why would they, better to suffocate the competition and gain a monopoly with another service).

What happened before 2015? Check out Comcast completely blocking torrents before the "invisible gun" got involved. (Just staying consistent with my Comcast bashing....there are plenty of other examples)

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Shagsbeard wrote:

While definitely a worthy topic of discussion, I have to wonder why they haven't moved this to Off Topic. It's not about the game anymore.

I'm confused on that point myself but hey. I've been halfway expecting them to just lock this altogether, no video game forum wants IRL hut-button issues on its discussion sites. Unless those discussions are about how Australia is actually Wraeclast pre-zombies. Seriously. Think about it.

Wraeclast has evil poisonous man-hating snakes, Australia has evil poisonous man-hating snakes.

Wraeclast has vicious toxic spiders who hunger for souls, Australia has vicious toxic spiders that hunger for souls.

Wraeclast has tiny carnivorous bears which fall from the sky to sink their bloodthirsty fangs into their prey. Australia has...well, those've never been confirmed, but I've seen some footage, man...

Seriously! All you need is a zombie outbreak down there and we're looking at Path of Exile: the Home Game.

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pannra wrote:

This is Day 4 of me completely missing the point...

Keep it up, bruh. No, really. Not gonna bite you in the behindus later or anything.

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Nubatron wrote:

Kind of....the problem with the environment before net neutrality was that the only reason businesses did not go to the extreme was the presence of an invisible gun (doing something may or may not incur the wrath of the FCC). There was very little understanding of what was okay and what was not okay -- so pushing too far towards a more cable TV type model had significant risk and cost associated with it.

If there is a clear understanding that major internet providers are allowed to move the goalpost to where they want as described in their terms & conditions, then I think things will be problematic.

There is an idea that the free market will work itself out, but the free market does not do so well when you have a de facto monopoly -- which I believe most of us are subjected to in the US. I'm personally at the whim of Comcast, and whatever they are willing to do. The only other option is satellite internet and the latency and throughput just isn't a viable alternative.
...

And here we have someone who gets it.

Prior to Neutrality being codified, the answer to "Can we do whatever we want to enforce our unfair monopolies and put any old anti-consumer piratical practice we like into effect?" was "I don't know. Try it if you like, but be prepared to eat some serious penalties if it turns out the answer is no." As Nubatron said, an invisible gun - these companies did not know if they could do what they wanted to do without inviting regulatory bodies to ream their asses for them.

With this announcement, if it manages to get through the lawsuits and the motions people are begging Congress to undertake, makes it absolutely clear that these companies can do whatever the fuck they want. There's no more ambiguity. There's no more "will the FCC/Better Business Bureau/FBI come down on us if we systematically abuse our entire customer base?" Ajit Pai has said 'do whatever you feel like. We won't stop you, no matter what it is."

There will be absolutely zero consumer protection, regulation, or punitive measures taken against companies which enact blatantly extortionistic 'services'. There will be no recourse when these companies enact their policies of privateering and abuse. And all those damned idiots who keep saying "BUT MUH FREE MARKET! JUST PICK SOMEONE ELSE! DUH FREE MARKET SOLVES EVERYTHING!" keep somehow failing to see the point that there is no free fucking market for ISPs. It doesn't exist. And since you need to have Internet service to start an ISP in the first place, it never will. These people are in the uniquely tyrannical position of being able to actively strangle their own competition, actively PREVENT the emergence of a "free market", without a single stitch of legal trouble.

Should this ruling of Pai's go through unaltered, these companies will be allowed to do just about anything short of bodily dragging the employees of competing companies out into the streets and executing them via guillotine.

How can any rational free-thinking individual with a modicum of education not see the problem here?!

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Imaginaerum wrote:

What kind of fantasy land are you living in? 8 years of democrats are why Trump destroyed Hillary. 8 years of regulations are why we voted in someone who's deregulating the crap out of everything. Net neutrality didn't solve anything, we only had it for 2 years and it didn't make a difference. This kind of manufactured fear is what the democrats rely on, it's only when people realize it doesn't exist they start to get scared.

Trump was elected because archaic institutions give a louder voice to the worst Americans and there are plenty of absolutely shitty Americans. Hillary received millions more votes than Trump. The voices of the people were again ignored in favor of shitting another sack of right-wing garbage into the presidency, though.

"Net neutrality didn't solve anything?" What a ridiculous statement. It existed to prevent terrible things from happening. It doesn't magically solve the world's problems by existing. It simply prevents more problems from being created in the future. Those problems are back in play now thanks to the usual evil Republicans, as is tradition. Democrats do something good, Republicans undo it. It's unfortunate that we both have a blatantly evil political party as well as enough shitty, stupid people to keep them in power.

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sainthazard wrote:

The DNC ignoring their best shot at a president in their camp and nominating an actual factual sociopath did.

What a load of nonsense. It's disgusting how many people fell victim to the anti-Hillary propaganda. The only reason she was a bad candidate is that we have an absurdly high number of Americans who are so fucking stupid they can't perceive reality with a reasonable degree of accuracy.

The anti-Clinton propaganda machine has been in play for decades. You swallowed their Kool-Aid. It's too late to do anything about that now, but try really, really hard not to make the same ridiculous mistake next time. The right's bullshit megaphone isn't going to stop blaring. It's on you not to fall for it.

You don't even know how the electoral college works. Why should anyone take you seriously?

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pannra wrote:

You don't even know how the electoral college works. Why should anyone take you seriously?

Knowing how the Electoral College works doesn't lessen one's disgust with it. The truth of the matter is that a larger number of Americans voted for Hillary Clinton, for better or worse, than they did for Donald Trump. The Electoral College twisted those results into a victory for Trump. There are many people in this country who know perfectly well how the Electoral College works and don't particularly care.

That being said, political affiliations have nothing to do with the discussion at hand. This isn't a Hillary vs. Trump issue, this is an Ajit Pai vs. the Free Internet issue. Why people keep trying to make this about party affiliation is beyond me, save that apparently if you're frightened/furious of what Big Telecom will do without any chains on it, you're a bleeding liberal. That makes no damned sense to me but fine.

Nevertheless. Let's not make this about political affiliation. That goes for you too, Jennik. There are plenty of reds who're just as outraged over this horrible decision as the blues are. This is an "All of Us" issue, not a "Them or Us" issue.

"The electoral college twisted those results into a victory for Trump." Again, you literally have no idea how the electoral college works. You don't know the most basic information about American government.

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pannra wrote:

"The electoral college twisted those results into a victory for Trump." Again, you literally have no idea how the electoral college works. You don't know the most basic information about American government.

The Electoral College

Even if I didn't have a basic understanding of the Electoral College already, it's not hard to get one. Note that even the Wikipedia page breaks down a "Criticisms and Support" segment, the basics of which are again taught in every half-decent public school curriculum. Even in the U.S..

That and I can absolutely bloody guarantee that if the EC/popular vote split had gone the other way, with Hillary taking the EC but Trump taking the popular vote, you'd be making the opposite argument right now.

Now. Are we going to keep talking about the 2016 election, or are we going to get back to the nominal topic at hand? Because I can switch topics here if you really want me to, but it wouldn't be pretty. And we'd absolutely end up either locked or in Off-Topic once the discussion started anchoring on current U.S. politics. Then how would you dig yourself a deeper hole every day?

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pannra wrote:

"The electoral college twisted those results into a victory for Trump." Again, you literally have no idea how the electoral college works. You don't know the most basic information about American government.

I have no idea why you're acting so confused here. The electoral college is very simple. We understand it. Are you pretending to be willfully obtuse here, or is there some reason you honestly believe we don't understand the EC?

Hillary won the popular vote, which is the voice of the American people. An archaic, absurd, and horribly unfair system then threw the popular vote in the fucking garbage and shit Donald Trump into the White House. I can both fully understand how the EC works and also recognize that it's a colossal failure in every way.

Like most right-wingers, though, I assume you absolutely love the EC. I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that it keeps shitting evil right-wing assholes into the presidency in opposition to the votes of the actual human beings who live in America. State lines matter, not people! At least when it's good for the right.

To be fair, though, you seem to honestly believe that the world not immediately ending because Net Neutrality was repealed means that there will never be any ill effects. I'm not sure you understand very much in this conversation at all.