Net Neutrality and the SAFE Network

How does that happen and how do we fix that? By introducing more laws that require more lawyers?
Do the execs and lawyers hire gangs to hunt down disobeying citizens?
Or do they have some other accomplices, such as the gov’t and the so-called independent justice system?

It’s easy to solve this problem - vote with your money - if you’re allowed to choose and if competitors aren’t prevented from showing up.
After the latest truckload of new laws and regulations that require a small army of lawyers, the minimum viable size of ISP/telco will go up. Instead of 100 ISPs, there will be 80 (or whatever).
Do you think that will give you more choice, lower prices and better quality of service?

How can one justify the idea that 2 individuals (“a corporation”) who provide data transfer service should be regulated, and one (“a guy”) who does the same should not?

I don’t think many people would like my solutions to these problems. In my view the current system is unfixable until we have the ability to build an omnipresent and entirely impartial AI that can understand perfectly and enforce the general golden rule of “Don’t be a dick.”.
This would also require the investigation into the possibility of using FMRI-based (or any other suitably high resolution brain scanning technology) lie-detection in order to find who was truly responsible for major crimes (with irreparable damage to its victims). It would help with today’s system, but this is an ability I wouldn’t trust the current system not to abuse so it’s a moot point.

Unfortunately, I don’t have realistic solutions, but I know that giving a legislative carte blanche to amoral entities whose only drive is profit is not the way to do it.

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When systems are localised / small enough for people to know each other these problems can self correct. Though not always. I think there’s some magic dust we need to identify and spread around…

Example: Several months ago I joined Nottingham hackspace. They have some simple and, you might think, tempting to abuse hackspace rules. Here they are in bullet form:

Rule Zero

  1. Do Not Be On Fire.
  2. Being a Member

    1. Pay-What-You-Like But Pay Monthly
    2. The 35L Rule

    ##Using the Space

    1. Talk is Cheap Discussing ideas is wonderful and exciting, getting too attached to them is not. See [http://www.bikeshed.com/ The Bikeshed Anti-Pattern]. Rule sometimes also interpreted as "Just get on with it".
    2. No CRTs Thank You relates to Hackspace donations & equipment you may bring to the Hackspace.

      Carefully consider the true usefulness and/or interestingness of an item before bringing it to the space. Seek permission for large items.

    3. DO NOT HACK means DO NOT HACK If you're leaving something and you would rather it was not hacked, please label it with a DO NOT HACK notice. If you see something has a DO NOT HACK notice on, don't hack it.
    4. '''Don't just *try* to clean up after yourself'''. Aim to clean up a little bit more mess than you make, because we all miss things from time to time, and mess builds up.
    5. The Space is Not For Sleeping Under the terms and attendant fire regs of our lease, overnight stays are not officially allowed.
    6. Don't be a contemptible fellow (be excellent to each other) - This is our main rule of behaviour. It takes priority over all other rules.

    ##Provisional Rules

    1. Be Bold - This is a newly-proposed rule under discussion.

    When I was joining I was really surprised, and somewhat intrigued, to read the rule about membership fees, rule 1: “Pay-What-You-Like But Pay Monthly.” Er really?

    And rule 8 “Don’t be a contemptible fellow (be excellent to each other) - This is our main rule of behaviour. It takes priority over all other rules.”.

    These are the “laws” of the hackspace but there are no hackspace police, lawyers or judges. There are trustees and there are members, but no-one is tasked with enforcing rules. So does it work? Yes, definitely, and this is quite a large community - several hundred members. While some will know quite a few of these, clearly no-one knows everyone personally.

    There is some surveillance (RFID controlled entry/exit - so members have access 24x7x365 - which logs entry and exit, and possibly some CCTV - not sure). So if it was needed, behaviour that needed to be tracked to a perpetrator could probably be narrowed down considerably, except the perpetrator could pretty easily destroy the logs, because essentially everyone has access to everything. So there’s a lot of transparency here, no-one is particularly in a position of power to abuse with impunity. Others can easily raise issues and call on the community to deal with problem situations, but TBH I’d be amazed if it ever got to something serious. There’s an element of self responsibility too - not leaving valuables around for example - although a lot of the hackspace kit and materials has value, the hackspace - all members - bears that risk together.

    There is an active Google group mailing list, and very occasionally, someone refers to a particular rule, typically helpful cautions to not “be on fire” or “get on with it”. And when someone speaks offensively, “not to be a contemptible fellow”, and when stuff has not been tidied up etc.

    It all reminds me of the internet before it became widespread. Years before the web began internet newsgroups and email all self regulated in this way and there was no spam. Flame wars (heated discussions) arose on forums an were handled (much like here) mostly by the community, but the system of loose regulation was not exploited in the way the web and internet is now.

    If you read up on rule 1 (pay what you like), the only proviso is “If you are taking more from the space than you are giving you will be politely asked to increase your monthly payment.”

    Notice that the most important rule which really is the only one that matters is rule 8: *“don’t be a contemptible fellow (be excellent to each other)” (taken from Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure).

    The reasons this works might be complex - its a bunch of humans after all - but I think one key really is that those who are members all believe and want the space to work. The amount of time some people put into just helping it work is astounding (which reminds me of this project). No-one is paid, and it all runs on the voluntary monthly subscriptions of members - this is a big space with a big rent, and it is choc full of tools from sowing machines to arc welders. I’d call this WILL.

    No doubt it attracts certain types. But enough people buy into it and care about making sure it works in one way or another. The difficulty seems to arise when systems become too large and too fragmented, even too diverse in terms of purpose and values. This is when problems arise and we end up introducing stronger enforcement, as a response and, well, that eventually is how we get here.

    Fragmentation comes from different sources: prejudice, distance, blaming… but ultimately I think misunderstanding. Of not trusting each other and therefore feeling justified in “being a contemptible fellow” because that’s how we see the other fellow as being.

    How to facilitate this on the larger scale is a our challenge. I don’t think it is going to be created by reverting to an unregulated free market any more than it is achieved by endless new regulations and enforcement. Both miss the point I think, while both are understandable responses to different perceptions of what is “broken”. What’s nice is to see that underneath, even in the most passionate (ahem) arguments on this forum, I think Project SAFE (and much credit to @dirvine, his vision, his values for this) has attracted a bunch of people who want essentially the same thing for themselves and each other. I’d call this LOVE.

    I think this is a fabulous community, and I guess that’s why I have found myself putting so much will into it. Far more than I though I would want to, and far more than I would have imagined I was physically capable of. And I see this from a lot of others here, and I hope you all realise where I’m coming from even when I myself have been “passionate” in my own interactions with you :slight_smile:

    I think the will is evident in most everyone here. Our differences can be overcome through learning about each other enough to trust, the love side of this equation. For that we need to have good will, and to get to know each other. I really feel that happens over time here, and that this is very important. I’m interested to know what you all think, about everything here, including of course these ideas.

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    We do that and then AT&T starts jamming all frequencies working even to clog up the white space, except somehow for police frequencies, because its just protecting its profit.

    The idea above that weak firm regulated transparency would empower ‘consumers’ in the current environment is laughable. AT&T would be not carrying sites that are critical of it or competitor sites because its not profitable meanwhile people are land locked stuck with AT&T.

    NN got us to where we could have SAFE, trying to convert the net to cable is what is new, its been happening precisely because it challenges systems that profit from censorship and creating artificial scarcity. Just let the pure free market take over and result is those with the most money win Rockefeller style and drive everyone out. Implicit in @janitor’s perspective is that the service provider comes first. But that can’t ever be allowed to happen. The citizen comes first and everything should be considered in terms of what is right for the end user.

    This isn’t like other markets it transcends the idea of market. Its the idea of unfettered communication. We don’t have to use profit seeking methods here, or make compromises for market think. We certainly can’t have artificial scarcity games which is what charging for better service always comes down to when we could provide an adequate baseline to begin with. Charging for better services (premium garbage) means incentivizing to never fix the base line. Its a scam. We don’t assume scarcity, or incentivize traffic or trust sponsored research or sponsored media or sponsored politicians on the capacity estimates.

    The road ways are possibly the metaphor. Instead of the national highways system @janitor would have something even worse than a super expensive economy killing system of toll roads with its infinite arbitrary fees. Instead, oil companies own the roads, and the stations and the car manufacturers and the cars. They charges a fuel fee, a road fee, a rental car fee, and they put red lights in the middle of the free ways to force you to watch ads that come down and block the way. They will allow you to avoid the massive traffic that this creates if you are rich enough to afford the two fast track lanes on the right side of the road. Driving on the fast track without sufficient funds to pay as you enter causes the car to pull over and shut off forcing you out to walk and it creates a situation where none of the 3 oil companies will rent a car to you until a huge fee is paid. The oil companies routinely decommission roads to groups that oppose their power and they charge huge premiums to use roads leading to such groups that haven’t been decommissioned. They sponsor imminent domain drives to create unneeded right of ways when real property markets bottom out. They charge a huge fee if you want to drive and instead of go driverless at expensive tiered rates for ‘traffic management.’ They don’t allow outside wireless when you are in the car and they require huge fees if you don’t want ads leaking out of all your devices and every panel in the car. This system works for the rich and further elevates the power of capital and it rapes everyone else. But its truly free market because if you don’t like it you can create a competitor.

    A better system would be a national highways system or at least right of way system if we ever get levitation stuff going that doesn’t require track. It would be a system where the end users own the cars and use there own means to like roof top solar to power their vehicles But in Janitor’s total free market-ism those solar/wind/zp rights would have been sold off before any one owned their home and on and on and on. The initial talk about small suppliers and peddlers is just a bait and switch. Anti Neutrality is about those with the most money having a mega phone loud enough to drown out everyone else and to be paid for doing so. Its about privilege and the deep seated belief that some people are permanently intrinsically better than other people that their ontological worth or claim is greater and this worth/claim by justice demands a return on equity and if need be we can let arbitrary contests like the market prove this out- cause the universe is unequivocal or just in its judgement and the contest of history has been won. Stuff like racism or notions of fundamental inequity cannot be the starting point or building block for building the future .

    I could not agree more, the ratio of interesting discussion / pointless one is astonishing. Big group hug, we all want to live in a better place and it shows.

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