Goodbye, net neutrality

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Re: Goodbye, net neutrality

Postby Windy » Thu Feb 22, 2018 3:25 am

gregfrankenstein wrote:Republicans: "We're for individual states' rights."

Republicans: "No, not like that."


Remind me which party it was that started a civil war for states' rights
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Re: Goodbye, net neutrality

Postby Absentia » Thu Feb 22, 2018 5:14 am

Neither of them, really. The Southern Democrats split from the mainstream Democrats by running their own presidential candidate in 1860, and the post-secession CSA leaders consciously avoided any party association in order to promote unity.
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Re: Goodbye, net neutrality

Postby SandTea » Thu Feb 22, 2018 7:03 am

Windy wrote:Remind me which party it was that started a civil war for states' rights


Greedy, treasonous dickbags who only cared about their net worth. But it's not like there is anything like that in today's world, right? States rights are only for things that make me rich, not for the 'others'. The day some filthy Irish catholic can become sheriff is surely the start of americas downfall.
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Re: Goodbye, net neutrality

Postby Crimson847 » Thu Feb 22, 2018 7:35 am

Windy wrote:
gregfrankenstein wrote:Republicans: "We're for individual states' rights."

Republicans: "No, not like that."


Remind me which party it was that started a civil war for states' rights


Nobody. The Union didn't have that goal and the Confederacy didn't fire the first shots of the Civil War.

Technicalities aside though, personally I don't really hold modern party members accountable for things that were said and done by other people of the same party ~160 years ago, precisely because of how the parties have changed over the intervening time. So the fact that modern Democrats are acting in contravention of the ideals of other Democrats who are long dead doesn't really bother me, especially since I don't think much of those ideals anyway. I mean, I like federalism and state's rights in principle, but not to the point of allowing chattel slavery or Jim Crow even if that's what a state wants. I'm finicky like that.

I do hold people accountable for things they themselves said just yesterday and still publicly stand by, though, and the modern GOP has frequently trumpeted their support for federalism and state's rights now, not 160 or even 60 years ago. So it does seem fair to me to criticize them if they don't follow their own stated ideals.
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Re: Goodbye, net neutrality

Postby Windy » Thu Feb 22, 2018 1:33 pm

Crimson847 wrote:I do hold people accountable for things they themselves said just yesterday and still publicly stand by, though, and the modern GOP has frequently trumpeted their support for federalism and state's rights now, not 160 or even 60 years ago. So it does seem fair to me to criticize them if they don't follow their own stated ideals.


Then you're wasting your time. Logical consistency isn't important, it's how you can manipulate your own behavior and others with your beliefs, contradictory as they may be. Natural selection did not give humans a bias towards logical consistency because if we actually did introspection chances are we would be disgusted at ourselves.

SandTea wrote:Greedy, treasonous dickbags who only cared about their net worth.


Nothing wrong with that. The vast majority of people like to pretend to have principles until they have to actually pay for them. And those who don't are fools who will be manipulated into making those who do wealthy.

/edge
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Re: Goodbye, net neutrality

Postby Absentia » Thu Feb 22, 2018 7:00 pm

Windy wrote:Then you're wasting your time. Logical consistency isn't important, it's how you can manipulate your own behavior and others with your beliefs, contradictory as they may be. Natural selection did not give humans a bias towards logical consistency because if we actually did introspection chances are we would be disgusted at ourselves.


Funny story about that, speaking of the 1860 election. The reason the Democrats fractured is that the Southerners wanted to add a resolution to the official party platform calling for the extension of slavery into territories where a majority of voters opposed it, believing that this was the only way to maintain enough slave states to keep the free states from gaining the upper hand. Their resolution was voted down at the party convention and they walked out, and within a year these same guys were suddenly so aggrieved at the violation of states' rights that they just had to secede.
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Re: Goodbye, net neutrality

Postby Crimson847 » Thu Feb 22, 2018 11:04 pm

Windy wrote:
Crimson847 wrote:I do hold people accountable for things they themselves said just yesterday and still publicly stand by, though, and the modern GOP has frequently trumpeted their support for federalism and state's rights now, not 160 or even 60 years ago. So it does seem fair to me to criticize them if they don't follow their own stated ideals.


Then you're wasting your time. Logical consistency isn't important, it's how you can manipulate your own behavior and others with your beliefs, contradictory as they may be. Natural selection did not give humans a bias towards logical consistency because if we actually did introspection chances are we would be disgusted at ourselves.


It is true that human argumentation didn't evolve for the purpose of arriving at truth; rather, it seems to have evolved as a dominance strategy to increase one's status within a tribe. That for instance is why our natural tendency is to bitterly resent being proven wrong. After all, it increases our knowledge to discover that something we thought to be true is false, and if we make that discovery ourselves we indeed feel better for it. But if someone else proves us wrong, especially publicly, we tend to feel embarrassed and angry instead. We may have gained some knowledge, but that benefit is often outweighed in our minds by fear of a loss of social status or "face" as a result of being bested in an argument.

In essence, we created an alternate means of acquiring power in human societies that's far more efficient than the older methods were. Brute force and physical intimidation still works in a pinch, of course, but it's so much more efficient to make your underlings' desires match yours through persuasion and get their genuine cooperation, rather than frighten them into pursuing your ends rather than their own.


This doesn't mean logical consistency is irrelevant to the process, though. A more logical worldview isn't the evolutionary end goal, but correct logic is a crucial means that evolution uses to achieve the goal of greater social power. The reason for this is that natural selection did give humans an emotional bias toward internal logical consistency. It's called cognitive dissonance: knowingly holding two contradictory beliefs simultaneously creates an aversive feeling of anxiety and distress, and resolving that logical contradiction relieves the distress, creating an emotional incentive to avoid internal contradictions in one's belief system. It's a psychological lever that motivates people to be logically consistent.

So yes, being consistent does matter in arguments, and no, I don't think encouraging consistency in others is a futile venture.
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Re: Goodbye, net neutrality

Postby KleinerKiller » Fri Feb 23, 2018 5:13 am

The end is nigh: net neutrality ends on April 23rd.

Barring a sudden political shift, increased protests, lawsuits going through, widespread rejection by more state governments, or the spontaneous... disappearance of Ajit Pai and certain other individuals, everything's over on that day. Mark your calendars and get pissed off.
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Re: Goodbye, net neutrality

Postby Windy » Fri Feb 23, 2018 12:39 pm

Crimson847 wrote:It is true that human argumentation didn't evolve for the purpose of arriving at truth; rather, it seems to have evolved as a dominance strategy to increase one's status within a tribe. That for instance is why our natural tendency is to bitterly resent being proven wrong. After all, it increases our knowledge to discover that something we thought to be true is false, and if we make that discovery ourselves we indeed feel better for it. But if someone else proves us wrong, especially publicly, we tend to feel embarrassed and angry instead. We may have gained some knowledge, but that benefit is often outweighed in our minds by fear of a loss of social status or "face" as a result of being bested in an argument.

In essence, we created an alternate means of acquiring power in human societies that's far more efficient than the older methods were. Brute force and physical intimidation still works in a pinch, of course, but it's so much more efficient to make your underlings' desires match yours through persuasion and get their genuine cooperation, rather than frighten them into pursuing your ends rather than their own.

This doesn't mean logical consistency is irrelevant to the process, though. A more logical worldview isn't the evolutionary end goal, but correct logic is a crucial means that evolution uses to achieve the goal of greater social power. The reason for this is that natural selection did give humans an emotional bias toward internal logical consistency. It's called cognitive dissonance: knowingly holding two contradictory beliefs simultaneously creates an aversive feeling of anxiety and distress, and resolving that logical contradiction relieves the distress, creating an emotional incentive to avoid internal contradictions in one's belief system. It's a psychological lever that motivates people to be logically consistent.

So yes, being consistent does matter in arguments, and no, I don't think encouraging consistency in others is a futile venture.


Social status is more useful than knowledge most of the time. What did Galileo gain from knowing the earth revolved around the sun? Absolutely nothing. The systems may have changed but human nature hasn't evolved past the stone age. Humans are emotional creatures, they have a strong natural bias towards whatever they wish to be true. There's a million more reasons to ignore your cognitive dissonance than to resolve it. Natural selection favors this, because most humans can't function if they surround themselves in uncomfortable truths. There's a reason why the most popular religions all have an afterlife as a reward.

This behavior also has the tendency to spread itself and purge out those who are different. People who are different are bullied into submission or sometimes killed. Natural selection favors this behavior, because humans function better when they're not suffering from distress, anxiety, or depression. They are incentized to believe in whatever makes them happy and get rid of whatever threatens that happiness. If you hold some form of cognitive dissonance with your group's beliefs, it's better to just ignore it than it is to challenge it. Acknowledging your cognitive dissonance and staying silent isn't easy either, as it requires you to acknowledge that your group is a cult that only accepts you as long as you reinforce their beliefs. However, most people need social interaction, most people need to not hate themselves to function, and most people don't want to believe that they're in a cult, so this will rarely happen. The people who generally escape this kind of thinking are outcasts with rebellious behaviors, but these types usually hate being proven wrong, so while they're less susceptible to peer pressure, they're more vulnerable to their own egos.

If greed gets involved, people will be able to rationalize anything. There's no limit to what humans can rationalize if it benefits themselves. Pure psychological benefits are already enough for most people to ignore their cognitive dissonance, imagine how hard it is to acknowledge it when they benefit financially or socially from it. And since most people need to feel like they're good people, they usually can't acknowledge the inconsistency and consciously choose to take advantage of it either.
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Re: Goodbye, net neutrality

Postby A Combustible Lemon » Thu Mar 08, 2018 9:43 pm

Comcast recently was caught red handed heinously violating internet law, causing the murder of billions by allowing users to opt into a webfilter.

When will we assassinate Ajit Pai for allowing this to happen? smh.

Image
It's such a draconian process to turn off this behaviour and completely obscure too. Advanced Settings? Sorry but that voids the warranty on my web browser, it's absolutely ridiculous that we're expected to turn off a setting we turned on. And there's a DOT and a SLASH in that command, I don't get this nerd shit, I don't play around on DOS like elitist techbros, thanks.
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Re: Goodbye, net neutrality

Postby IamNotCreepy » Thu Mar 08, 2018 10:14 pm

A Combustible Lemon wrote:Comcast recently was caught red handed heinously violating internet law, causing the murder of billions by allowing users to opt into a webfilter.

When will we assassinate Ajit Pai for allowing this to happen? smh.

Spoiler: show
Image

It's such a draconian process to turn off this behaviour and completely obscure too. Advanced Settings? Sorry but that voids the warranty on my web browser, it's absolutely ridiculous that we're expected to turn off a setting we turned on. And there's a DOT and a SLASH in that command, I don't get this nerd shit, I don't play around on DOS like elitist techbros, thanks.


The issue itself isn't really net-neutrality related. Comcast put a filter that you could opt into to guard against sites that could contain malware. The problem is that it caught perfectly legitimate sites like Steam and Paypal.

This is indicative of the power that ISPs have as gatekeepers to content on the internet. People who are not necessarily tech-savvy (i.e., the ones who would need a filter because they can't tell real sites from malicious ones) aren't going to know the difference, and the sites have no recourse other than public shame.

If Comcast can't be trusted with something as basic as this, they should not have the ability to wield the power they do.
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Re: Goodbye, net neutrality

Postby A Combustible Lemon » Thu Mar 08, 2018 10:29 pm

Webfilters are the norm in pretty much all college campuses and pretty much all workspaces, and they've always been this shit. I've posted tons of surprising webfilter hits on irc when I was in college, from literary reviews we're supposed to be reading for homework being blocked for being porn sites to other nonsense like completely innocent sites being called underage porn sites.

Blocking a /gaming/ site in a /parental control/ filter is absolutely normal, it's not an unrelated thing at all. Kongregate and Newgrounds were absolutely blocked at my college, as was Steam. (edit: not sure where I got parental control from other than the article lede, it's just called protected browsing, not a parental control filter)

To imply this is unusual for webfilters is pretty goddamn ignorant or reactionary.

ISPs aren't your bitches, they can capitalize on routers they fucking own by blocking sites when you tell them to. If Windows 10 turning off update controls isn't a "wake-up call" to "how much abuse is possible", and I don't see microsoft getting death threats from Deathclaw or daily reminders to hate them and #resist from Kleiner, I think it's fair to say it's completely being blown out of proportion.

As I said before, Google unlisting sites is an insanely more effective route of censorship, one that they're currently full on acting on, and people like the net neutrality people aren't currently being encouraged to write death threats to Eric Schmidt by a bunch of rage baiting press articles.
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Re: Goodbye, net neutrality

Postby RatElemental » Tue Mar 13, 2018 12:12 pm

I don't think the ISPs are all too eager to jump down that rabbit hole while everyone's on high alert. But I'm also fairly certain they've got their eyes on it and the crowd, and have a few choice routes they have in mind to take getting to it. There's also the fact that companies rolling out new policies tends to take longer than a few weeks, not least of all because ISPs tend to provide their services in the form of contracts that are probably still in effect.

If they have any idea what they're doing (and really do have nefarious things in mind) it's going to be small changes we either don't notice, or that most people are okay with until one day we all realize how different it's gotten and by then most people will be too used to it to try and change it.

I sincerely hope I'm wrong.
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Re: Goodbye, net neutrality

Postby Aquila89 » Thu May 17, 2018 10:39 am

Yesterday, the Senate voted 52-47 to reinstate net neutrality. Every Democrat and three Republicans (Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and John Neely Kennedy of Louisiana) voted for the proposition, with John McCain not voting. But it probably won't pass the House.
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Re: Goodbye, net neutrality

Postby KleinerKiller » Thu May 17, 2018 4:48 pm

Aquila89 wrote:Yesterday, the Senate voted 52-47 to reinstate net neutrality. Every Democrat and three Republicans (Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and John Neely Kennedy of Louisiana) voted for the proposition, with John McCain not voting. But it probably won't pass the House.


I strongly suspect that this isn't so much an honest attempt at getting it reinstated (since even if it passed the House by some miracle, Trump would never let it survive his greasy little mitts) as it is a way to keep the issue in the public consciousness and force Congress to take clear sides for or against it just ahead of the midterms. Whether it actually makes a difference remains to be seen, but I'm glad it's sparking news again at any rate.
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