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from the so-long,-interwebs,-it-was-nice-knowing-you dept.
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission next month is planning a vote to kill Obama-era rules demanding fair treatment of web traffic and may decide to vacate the regulations altogether, according to people familiar with the plans.
The move would reignite a years-long debate that has seen Republicans and broadband providers seeking to eliminate the rules, while Democrats and technology companies support them. The regulations passed in 2015 bar broadband providers such as AT&T Inc. and Comcast Corp. from interfering with web traffic sent by Google, Facebook Inc. and others.
[...] Pai plans to seek a vote in December, said two people who asked not to be identified because the matter hasn't been made public. As the head of a Republican majority, he is likely to win a vote on whatever he proposes.
[...] The agency declined to comment on the timing of a vote. "We don't have anything to report at this point," said Tina Pelkey, a spokeswoman for the commission.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Friday November 17 2017, @12:43PM (1 child)
But coercion is unavoidable when the resources are limited. Even if not right from the start, humans reproduction will out pace available resource. At that point, you're being coerced into joining one trade group or the next or risk getting killed. The Greek city-states have a fairly well documented stretch of about 500 years of this pattern repeating until Rome took over by force. And Rome wasn't a free market by any means. Quite the opposite, they had a very rigid property class system with a very rigid tax code cementing it. The most important of which was their equestrian aristocracy were allowed to hold so many lands and represent so many people in the assemblies and government only based on how many horses they fielded during war. It made a huge difference compared to the typical city-state since it gave huge benefits to growing military might even internally. If you look at Athens by comparison, their ruling class didn't really compete over military might internally. One representative could filed a dozen or so commanders. Another, a bit more or less. But they were all equals to the law. Ironically, that fairness and freedom ended up stagnating their military growth since it was more profitable for the families to focus on trade and political marriages then warfare.
Anyhow, similar pattern happened in China and India. So, you can sum it up with that even if you happen to have an ideal democracy and free market, your neighbors might not have one and there's a real possibility they'll focus on warfare like the Spartans did to the point they'll run you over.
In the end, it's all about balancing internal and external competition to match your neighbors military might first, and then allow the best possible growth second. And that act of balancing is the very definition of a non-free-market.
compiling...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 17 2017, @07:40PM
It's impossible to have a conversation; we disagree vehemently on the meanings of the words "fair", "free market", "freedom", "property", "profit" and probably many others such as "law", "order", "self-interest", and so on.
I'll simply note that monarchists scoffed merrily at the ridiculous, patently absurd notion of a representative democracy of The People, and yet here we are today.
You are scoffing at libertarianism in the same way, because you cannot see past your own authoritarian paradigm; you refuse to envisage improvements in both culture and technology that would enable a shift in the organization of society. The monarchists were myopic, and so are you.