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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/1...n_6133584.html
So, tea baggers are against it. Or rather Ted Cruz and Mitch McConnell are against it. I think even most republicans are for it. At least the ones who understand it. How do y'all think this is going to play out?
Oh, if only Obama would be against swimming with a plastic bag over your head! :0!
Not sure if this is the right forum but it is about the internet and really is very important.
I would be very upset to see the end of net neutrality. It's the last frontier of a democratic (small "d") media platform.
My prediction: how it's going to play out is that we'll reach some absolutely moronic "compromise" between a few screamingly wealthy entities and the rest of the country, as if "compromise" is the only answer when the vote is about a million to one on the side of The People. Yes, by all means let's compromise and shell out more money to a few greedy manipulators of a formerly equitable and non-monetized process, it's only fair. :doh:
I helped invent and implement the Internet, and I'm against "neutrality".
We anticipated and designed the Internet to allow for explicit specification of priority and handling of traffic - see section 3.1 of RFC 791. There are sound technical reasons for this - some things are "hard" without it. I designed and implemented several of the first IP/TCP and XNS protocol stacks, and the routers/gateways/bridges that used them, and went through the NCP -> TCP transition hoorah (see RFC 801). I made my fortune building this stuff and getting it into the hands of hundreds of vibrant innovative competitors who brought you today's Internet. I think I "understand" the technical issues, even though I don't tend to vote for Democrats.
I don't think this innovation would have happened if we'd had the government managing competition at the level that is being proposed in many of the net neutrality solutions that float to the surface every few years.
I also see regulatory capture as a real risk if we go down this road. I see it driving the current net neutrality lynch mob, behind the scenes. Big bandwidth users (Netflix, Youtube, ...) are trying to get the government to step in and foist their costs of doing business onto others (the carriers) under the banner of populism. This effort isn't about your brother's anti-whatever blog, it's about Netflix using the government to force Comcast to give them free cheese, at your expense.
Let 100 flowers bloom, let 100 schools of thought contend.
:)
Ok, I'll bite. Why is there a cost to bandwidth in the first place? And why, exactly, can someone claim to own it? Isn't that sort of like trying to claim I should pay you for ... use of ultraviolet light, because you have created a man made scheme by which you "own" the airspace above my house?
ETA: I do also feel like Catherine's point is really valid: even if this smacks of socialism in some way, isn't some protection of independent news a valid social goal worth protecting? Ok I'll enlarge on that ... to me, allowing corporations to buy my ear at the expense of allowing me to hear anyone else's POV is simply wrong. There's a reason for the "free" in free speech, and just because some crazy legislation has come down allowing people to buy the biggest political megaphone doesn't make drowning out voices with money ethical. That's my flower.
Well, if it is bandwidth delivered to your home via wires, routers, backbones, office space, electrical power, and man-hours belonging to someone else, it seems reasonable that they could lay claim to ownership of the service they are offering to sell you.Quote:
Originally Posted by kib
If it is bandwidth in the radio spectrum you are speaking of, that is a whole other can of worms, as the air waves "belong" to us all, or to no-one. Cue boring discussion of game theory and tragedy-of-commons and externalities. So far, the USA has decided that while the air waves "belong" to us all, the FCC should allocate frequency slices to users capable of putting that chunk to beneficial use, and charge them for the use of the public air waves. Much like the Federal government administers timber and mineral leases on our public lands.... With many of the same interesting and predictable results.
I'm sitting pretty though, I have access to huge amounts of insanely valuable spectrum, for personal non-profit use only, due to an accident of history. We're all pretty lucky here though - there was a pretty solid proposal in the Early Days of Radio for the US Navy to own this valuable strategic and tactical resource, we barely avoided that.
That made me laugh out loud, thank you.Quote:
Originally Posted by peggy
Thanks for the information, bae. You make some good points about owners' rights. But there are a lot of social/cultural questions that emerge in this case. I remember when cable TV first came out. Because you had to pay for the service there were no commercials, as opposed to the free TV where you had commercials you had to sit through, but there were no monthly charges. Well, now there's monthly charges and scads of commercials. Yes, this is free enterprise and we will get choked with our own desires, for the benefit of the people who dangled the carrot to begin with, but this is a parallel to the potential slippery slope of unregulated internet access.
Over the last couple of decades now, the internet has changed our lives--for the better for the most part. I love the internet. Love. Love. Thank you for your contribution to it! My world would be a lot smaller if I didn't have it. (I wouldn't know you guys for one thing) But with this net neutrality issue, I feel that if companies are allowed to tier their bandwidth and make more money, it will inevitably bias the information flow. Convince me I'm wrong. Convince me that the regular person who can barely afford a computer, or who has to go to a library to use one, will get the exact same level of information as the person who can afford all the bells and whistles. We have so much disparity in every aspect of our lives, I'd just hate to see the internet fall to the same curse.
Yes, someone invented the internet. Someone "owns" it (or at least pieces of it). To make money. To build capital. To make profits. I get it. But the internet isn't a Mercedes. It's become part of our way of living, learning, doing business, communicating. This is a a question of at what point does pursuit of profit conflict with the common good? There are a lot of analogies to our current healthcare debate here. It will be interesting to see how it all works out.
I worry about net neutrality - the media talks about it possibly making sites slower, they don't talk much about the possibility of just blocking sites entirely. Using Comcast for an example, why should they allow internet sites through that compete with their business? Or if they "partner" up some other company, blocking that company's competitors?
Or tiering, like they do with cable TV - pay $ and you get access to X sites, pay $$ if you want access to more.
The one thing that really annoys me is the idea that you are being sold x Mbit of bandwidth - but there's a problem if you actually use it. If I am supposedly paying for a 20 Mbit connection, what difference does it make who I'm streaming data from? It's like having the gas and water to your house throttled based on what you are going to use it for. But maybe they'll decide to meter internet usage like they do with cell phones
Given most folks don't have many options for providers, we could end up in a really bad place. I'd hate to have to stop working from home just because I could no longer afford the internet charges for doing that.
On the flip side, what about content providers such as Google, Yahoo, Netflix, Hulu or VOIP providers using Comcast's (or whoever) network to deliver their content. Should they be able to pay the various network owners for additional bandwidth to improve their user's quality of service?Quote:
Originally Posted by creaker
My biggest problem with the government regulating the internet as a utility is simply that, the government is regulating the internet. We've seen our own government attempt to regulate talk radio and suggest putting overseers in newsrooms. We've seen other governments restrict access to social media and force search engines to hide results they don't want their citizens to have access to. I'd rather they not be involved in what I can access on public networks.
But you'd rather Comcast decide which sites you can access? That's kind of like saying i don't want the government to regulate insurance companies to make them offer real coverage cause I want insurance companies to decide if i deserve that cancer treatment...oh, well, never mind.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alan
Sure, the only downside to letting Comcast decide is the relative lack of competition in individual markets. We've essentially allowed monopolies to flourish within cable and/or telephone providers. If Comcast were to block your access to HuffPo, you could always find another way to get there through anonymous proxies or other means. If the government blocks it, you probably couldn't. Which do you prefer?Quote:
Originally Posted by peggy
And it's not just poor people not having access to all of the internet, it's start ups. Little businesses trying to get started. How can they compete with amazon or netflix when Comcast demands lots of money to have their content sent out? This will devastate small business and entrepreneurs who are just starting out and don't have extra money to bribe Comcast or the other providers.Quote:
Originally Posted by catherine
And to Alans hand wringing about those PROVIDERS having to, you know, actually provide service. Well, that IS their service, isn't it? I mean, they charge people money to PROVIDE the gateway into the internet. They don't want to actually spend the money to upgrade, if that's what's needed. We already pay more and get less than just about every other country out there. Allowing these companies to tier 'programming', charge we the users more if we actually want to access all of the internet while demanding extortion from websites who actually want to be seen is obscene.
Once again, setting regulations isn't a 'government takeover' anymore than setting regulations on insurance companies is a take over of health care. I sure hope folks aren't fooled by the fear mongering about 'regulations'. As if regulations are HORRIBLE. Yeah, I hope people keep that in mind next time they buy meat in the store, or eat at a restaurant, or turn on the water tap, or put their kids on a bus, or any one of a thousand regulations that keep them and their loved ones safe, and keep this country as wonderful as it is and not like Somalia.
Net neutrality is keeping the internet as it is now. Koch backed republicans want you to pay more while getting less, or just Koch approved web sites.
The government wouldn't block it. Why would they? They have no interest in blocking my website anymore than they block your ability to buy from any insurance company you want, at whatever price you want to pay. Comcast would block it. And yes, competition would be harmed. I hope all the people out there with their small websites to sell art, or product, or info keep that in mind when they see who wants to destroy their business.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alan
For our own good? Isn't that why I can't buy a 32oz soft drink in New York?Quote:
Originally Posted by peggy
Come now. Among other things, I invented and shipped some of the first internet proxy caching servers. Entire countries ran their full traffic through these puppies. There was incredible demand from the governmental customers to add features to let them monitor individual user's access patterns, to restrict access to certain sites/regions, to transparently redirect traffic through sites of their own on the way to the final destination, to alter traffic on-the-fly, and so on. Some of the features China wanted were clearly aimed at identifying and killing dissidents.Quote:
Originally Posted by peggy
When I was developing some of the initial commercial routers, we were under great pressure to provide back-door access so the FBI and other agencies could tap into traffic. This was over 30 years ago. It is routine now. You've probably seen it in the news.
I have the fellow who ran Cisco's security architecture for the last 10 years visit my home regularly - the things that go on now would probably make most of you hide under your beds. I'd tell you more but they'd probably kill you.
No thanks.
The thing is ... sigh. We - the world - always seem to wind up with the question of ownership. Who should own this, who should regulate that, who should have the rights and who should pay for the privilege. Yes, the same old same old argument about the commons. Why the bleep couldn't we just for bleeping once consider a model in which something is not owned, hoarded and exploited. Imagine.
Government blocking is not something that's currently, or likely to be in the future, on the table. Sort of like government healthcare death panels. It appears to be an attempt to deflect the argument away from what is actually happening to fear of a theoretical similar thing that the government might theoretically do some day.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alan
Most things seem to be done for my own bad. I think this for my own good is starting to sound like an improvement.
* eh relax, that's humor, but really almost everything is done against the public interest at this point anyway
Ah, but there is a "death panel" in existence right now. It's a reality, I read about it recently. It's the board that determines when Medicare thresholds have been exceeded. It's their job to step in and say "no more care for grandma" in specific areas. But to be fair (according to the article I read) the panel hasn't actually had to act since none of the costs have exceeded the defined thresholds. I am scratching my head about "no costs exceeding" business but then, I forget that the gumnt has unlimited money. So perhaps, in the end, you are right, the death panels sits there for show having no real teeth.Quote:
Originally Posted by jp1
I am "pro-death panels" and you will find all my past posts to be consistent with that idea. Unfettered spending on healthcare for all Americans is not something I support.
Bring on the death panels. I can't see how any rational citizen who actually pays any tax would be against that, but I am often wrong. :~)
And before the ACA there were death panels too, they worked at insurance companies refusing to provide approvals for treatments that cost too much money. The difference is that the insurance company death panels actually carried out their function.
Truthfully I'm fine with death panels too. And physician assisted suicide for terminally ill people. Frankly I think we tend to treat our pets far more humanely at the end of their lives than we do grandma oftentimes.
honestly they will pull the plug when someone is going to die anyway, they aren't that heroic in their measures. I find my actual experiences of things like that and well probably everything else, match not at all the type of things people talk about (they do know when it's hopeless and they don't encourage heroic measures). I would caution anyone from taking discussions about how they take heroic measures all that seriously - it won't prepare you for reality and it's better off to be prepared for things that are actually real in such a situation. If you think you are going to be fighting doctors who only want to take heroic futile measures - not likely, they don't want to do that either.
Yeesss....and this is EXACTLY what Comcast and Verizon and Ted Cruz/McConnell want to do. So what are you saying here? You think we should have to pay for the privilege of them doing it?Quote:
Originally Posted by bae
Yes, yes (sigh) OF COURSE you invented the internet...why am I not surprised...
You also think there shouldn't be a government, and all people should be armed everywhere, every time...You clearly don't exist in the same world as the rest of us, on many levels.
My experience was different. When my father was lying in a coma induced state in an ICU, his family (us!) were the ones to focus on "what happens next?" i.e. pulling the plug. Now, I'm sure that at some point later the professionals would have convened a meeting with his family and said there's no hope, pull the plug so perhaps it's just a matter of timing. The pros would have waited a few day longer (?) But I thought it was weird that we had to chase down the various Drs. of record to get them to give a bloody opinion.Quote:
Originally Posted by ApatheticNoMore
Same for DH's mother--heart attack, clinically dead, and the family pushed for pulling the plug.
Yes, I've had the same thought that insurance companies are another sort of death panel. That's why I'm not freaked out by the idea.Quote:
Originally Posted by jp1
Do you then agree that health care provided to all American's must have a cap? Who determines the cap? Do you think it's ok for some Americans to have gumnt funded health care that is a lower product thatn those who can pay out of pocket?
How is it determined elsewhere? Maybe we don't have to invent the wheel from the hub on out.
I agree with kib. How do other countries handle this. I'm not sure a hard dollar cap is the right answer, but maybe certain aggressive procedures should only be done if the person is at a certain level of health to be likely to recover and have a decent quality of life.
In my personal experience my dad opted not to have a cardiac catheterization that would have opened up the 90% plugged arteries in his heart. He died a month later. He could have had the procedure, would have likely lived longer, but would've probably spent the rest of his life working to get strong enough to hopefully go home again. He had the same procedure done 2years ago and spent the next 4 months in the hospital and rehab. This time around would likely have been longer. I'm sad that he's gone, but glad he didn't have the procedure done since it would've likely just been an expensive way to extend his misery.
Sorry to derail this thread...
My impression is that in Canada one may NOT use one's own money to go beyond what the gubmnt pays for a specific treatment. I completely, utterly, think this sucks. If I have $$$ why shouldn't I be able to go beyond the treatment that some asshat gubmnt bureaucrat thinks I should not have? Granted, IRL I personally would likely not want experimental or even high end, aggressive treatment. But if I wanted it and could pay for it, why the h*ll not?Quote:
Originally Posted by jp1
Meanwhile, in the UK, they have tiered system whereby those who want to skip pas the NHS can go to Harley Street. I like that idea.
In this case you are placing, I believe, the decision in the hands of the DR for the most part. And while that might be fine, he would likely ceed this decision to the patients and family in many cases. Dr. absolutely CANNOT determine outcome many time.Quote:
Originally Posted by jp1
And the patient and family won't be picking up the bill. I will, as a taxpayer. All the more reason to make certain that patients have skin in the game, and if they cannot afford big ticket treatments. so be it.
Sorry if you already responded, I rethought what I wanted to say.Quote:
Originally Posted by iris lilies
It sounds like the Canadian prohibition is in place to keep people from bribing their way to the front of the line? I have to agree that if you can pay for it yourself, there should be a secondary source for treatment, but that the people already in queue, regardless of their ability to pay, shouldn't be shouldered out of the way by the rich.
It still, of course, doesn't address the question of what procedures should be covered, gubmnt, insurance or otherwise. And I suppose if cutting edge procedures are never paid for, the cutting edge stops advancing.
... and I just realized we're having this conversation in "Net Neutrality." Sorry.
No, that's not what I was intending to say. When I said no treatment unless the patient had a certain level of health I was envisioning a checklist of things that would disqualify the person from the new treatment, based on the researched statistical likelihood of success. For example (and I'm not a doc so I have no idea if this would be reasonable, but I imagine studies have been done that would come up with reasonable ideas on this line of thought) heart bypass operations will not be done (paid by medicare) on people over 80 who have not been capable of walking 25 feet without assistance in the last month. Or another, life support will only be paid for by medicare/medicaid for X period of time if the patient has been determined to be in a persistent vegetative state. Insurance companies figured out how to take the doc out of the death panel process. Surely medicare could do the same thing.Quote:
Originally Posted by iris lilies
As kib mentioned, I would imagine that other countries have already put together such lists of when things will and won't be covered.
That's OK. Such is the nature of the ebb and flow of normal conversation.:) I quite like it as these are all thoughtful words.Quote:
Originally Posted by kib
Actually, even though folks like to criticize all the 'heart transplants' that poor people are getting, it's actually quite hard to get one, whoever you are...unless of course you ARE wealthy. The reality is, IL's experience not withstanding, most hospitals deal in reality. They might call a code on an 85 year old, but they probably won't put them on a vent and give them a heart transplant.
If I remember correctly, and correct me if I'm wrong IL, her family wasn't all on board with unplugging. This is where things get sticky, and where a board of some kind would be useful. If the family says 'do everything possible', (and if adequate insurance is involved) hospitals/doctors will. No one wants to be accused of knocking off grandpa. And really, more often than not this is the reason, and not some unbridled greed. "Grandpa is ALIVE and you want to KILL him!"
I am all for limits. A set of 'rules', if you will, on what can and can't be done at what age and health level. Unfortunately, there will always be those who push back. (remember the Terry Schiavo fiasco!)
I love that most can get at least basic health care (for now) but it isn't an infinite resource. These has to limits.
oh no no no! My brother, mother, and I were completely in agreement with pulling the plug. Once we chased down the heart doc, the lung doc, and the GP who had to assent and give their opinion, all were in agreement.Quote:
Originally Posted by peggy
I just wonder how long my father would have lain in ICU racking up those costs, and on a ventilator, if we had not been proactive. I'm sure it would have been just a matter of days, but each day costs how much?
And even if the only insurance is medicare, if the family tells the docs to do all possible, they will. A friend's father had made it well known to everyone in the family that he wanted to be kept alive and given all possible medical treatments and life support available in the event that something happened. Then he suffered a massive stroke. He spent the last two years of his life first in a hospital ICU and eventually a nursing home, all paid for by medicare and mediCal since he had no assets or other insurance. Although the family generally thought this was ridiculous none wanted to pull the plug because they all knew it would be going against his wishes. In a situation like that having a 'death panel' that has determined what will and won't be paid for could go a long way towards reigning in stupidity like this man's.
They tried to kill off my father before his time, taking my SO (obviously no relation) and I aside to ask if we thought it would be a good idea to just let him go, or (reluctantly) if we thought he should have a feeding tube and fluids after his stroke. We said "Why don't you ask him?" He turned down the feeding tube, okayed fluids, and lived on. My observation is that if you have something serious wrong with you and are over, say, 70 you're just a GOMER and they want to wash their hands of you.
We were on vacation in Vermont when my MIL became critically ill (and died). Had she been at home, she would have been in a very strong academic hospital in the area. As it was, we were in a small Vermont community hospital on a Friday night. I often wonder if she would have lived a lot longer or just a little longer if we had been in NJ, because the VT country surgeon definitely gave us the "she's 85 and if it were my mother I wouldn't want her to go through this surgery which she might not survive anyway" speech.Quote:
Originally Posted by JaneV2.0
However, if I think about what I want (and I'm sure I should make this very clear in a living will), I prefer to let nature take its course. No heroic measure for me if I'm in my mid-80s and the outcome is questionable from a quality of life standpoint.
Yea I'm not sure it necessarily tilts toward keeping people alive no matter what at present. There may a belief system that it does but there may be a belief system that the main thing making medicine expensive is legal liability as well and like that it may be quite false. Anecdotes have truth, but they are anecdotes and may vary based on the hospital, culture, who knows what etc. My anecdote is they give up when the odds are long, which I don't think is unreasonable, but I don't think matches some stereotype of pushing for heroic measures. And if it the system doesn't match the stereotype at present, but let's for the sake of argument say already strikes a pretty good balance most of the time, then pushing for it to "have more death panels" or whatever, is pushing ice floes.Quote:
They tried to kill off my father before his time, taking my SO (obviously no relation) and I aside to ask if we thought it would be a good idea to just let him go, or (reluctantly) if we thought he should have a feeding tube and fluids after his stroke. We said "Why don't you ask him?" He turned down the feeding tube, okayed fluids, and lived on. My observation is that if you have something serious wrong with you and are over, say, 70 you're just a GOMER and they want to wash their hands of you.
All of which has probably only so much to do with why our healthcare system sucks, I mean our healthcare system sucks horribly quite independent of end of life care being expensive.
Both of my parents are in relatively good health, and at 85/90, I don't actually see any age-related advice being given to them, they're just on the same pills and more pills treadmill as everyone else who gets into the medical complex. Mom had a pacemaker put in last year; I had just finished reading Katy Butler's memoir, NYT excerpt here http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/ma...anted=all&_r=0 about how her own father and family went through hell because of it. Basically the doctors refused to turn it off, saying "when it's his time, he'll go", when obviously the only thing keeping him from 'going' was the pacemaker itself. Her book is a very interesting turn on the question of what to do at what age, because it asks the question of when enough may be enough, before there is an obvious crisis.
Well this is really weird. I've never heard of the family being asked to make such a decision when the actual patient is conscious and able to communicate and make decisions for themselves. How creepy. I think I would avoid going to that hospital ever for any reason, or taking a family member there. What did they expect you to do? Talk dad into starving himself? This really is not the norm, believe me. Usually it's too far the other way.Quote:
Originally Posted by JaneV2.0
Well they do all have to agree, and sometimes that may take a day or two. You really don't want them to jump the gun. There is something between pulling the plug too fast and waiting too long. And sometimes, they know it's just a matter of a day, or hours, and would really just rather let nature take it's course. Turning off (unplugging) is a very serious, and difficult thing to do for hospitals and doctors. We can say, OK unplug him, but it is very much more complicated than that.Quote:
Originally Posted by iris lilies
On the other hand, there are people like my brother in law, who likes to micro manage EVERYTHING, including his own mothers death. When she slipped into a coma following a stroke, we were all there within a few hours. She wasn't on a vent or anything, just IV drip and usual heart monitor, etc..., in a regular hospital room (no ICU) It was obvious she wouldn't last long, and certainly no one was suggesting heroics, but my brother in law kept talking about pulling out her IV and withholding medicine, etc... This within about 5 hours of her going into a coma. What a tool! It's like geez! she wasn't going fast enough for him! As it was, she passed the next day.