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  • #16
    Originally posted by gunnut View Post
    Sir, his article pretty much sums up my entire belief system.
    Mine too, especially as to the basic idea that elected government has been and will continue to constrict our freedom in small slices year after year.

    He points to how the role of the central government has spilled over from the constraints put on it by the Constitution. The slice that allowed that to happen began in the 19th century when state after state decided that their US Senators should be elected by popular vote rather than by their state legislatures. Today Senators with 6 year terms are only slightly more immune than US Representatives with 2-year terms from the constant need to curry favor with the voting public. The Senate is now more, though not entirely, a rubber stamp for the US House of Representatives. The states, in effect, forfeited a key check they once held over the central government. Once Senators no longer depended on their state legislature for reelection, the states lost their true voice in Congress, and the country was opened up to socialism.


    What a government does is pretty much racketeering, if the same were conducted by another party. Government runs a ponzi scheme called Social Security yet we persecute a private party for running the same scheme, but on a much smaller scale.
    Racketeering is illegal. :))

    We may differ a bit on Social Security. I see it as an annuity plan similar to what private life insurance offers. You pay in and if you live long enough you take out. The downside, as you say, is that it's forced on people. IMO, it needs to be, as I will try to explain. The Ponzi part is typically how insurance plans work, present pays future. The bad part is that the retirement payout is too small for most people to live on comfortably. My view is radical in this regard. I think we should be paying a higher rate.

    Here's why. Currently you pay only 6.20% of our gross wages into Social Security. Your employer matches it, or if you are self employed you pay the whole 12.40%. The maximum you have to pay a year is currently set at $6,420, and that's only if you earn $103,000. You pay nothing on what you earn above that amount.

    So, currently 12.4 cents of every dollar you earn goes into your social security account. When you reach retirement age at 65, your monthly checks will be based on what you and your employer paid in all your life. But regardless, the most you can receive monthly is currently $2,323 or $27,876 a year. Most people get less. The average payment for all retirees is $1,153 a month. This is simply not enough to live on.

    True, someone starting out in the workforce at 18 years old ideally will have 47 years to get his act together so he won't have to depend solely on social security once he retires. Things like 401Ks, private pensions, IRAs, saving accounts, and paying off his home mortgage would help a lot. But in reality, the majority of working people don't prepare enough, if at all, partly because they have no excess earnings, partly because they don't understand how these things work, and partly because they thought they were immortal when they were young and healthy and didn't save. But they do pay into a retirement account all their working life because they are FORCED to by law, and thanks to that they are not totally destitute when they reach 65.

    I think now that we have Social Security, and are stuck with it, we ought to make it work better. We should up the "premium" and grow the social security trust fund so folks can get a higher payout when they retire. Bush wanted to do the latter and was summarily ignored. I don't know; maybe his plan stunk.

    What do you think? From the point of view of fiscal responsibility, isn't it better to have a compulsory Social Security system into which people must pay some of their earnings rather than later doling out tax-funded welfare to them because they are too old to work and too poor to support themselves. Now Shek will come out of the woodwork and blast me across the room.:)


    I know corporations don't have my best interest in mind. I don't have to give them money if I don't feel like it. I can't NOT pay the government when its thugs are at my door demanding me to pay for a service that I neither need nor want.
    Agree on the first count. The second is up the air. The gov't "thugs" can't as a practical matter separate people into those who want or don't want a particular service. We all pay for highways whether we drive or not; pay for public schools even if we're childless; pay for the military even if we are conscientious objectors; and pay for police protection even if we are criminals. We have to bat down the programs legislators champion to win reelection.


    Mr. Williams even touched on the subject of why the world seems so wrong today. Capitalism is so successful that it has eliminated the most serious threat to the human race, all within the last 200 years. We no longer worry about starvation or pestilence. We are able to adapt to harsh environmental conditions with advanced technology made cheaply by capitalism. Without the threat to our very existence, we start to pay attention to boogeymen that in reality cause very little harm to us as a species. The religion of "global warming" is a great example.
    Yes, I am with you on that, although capitalism has benefited only a minority of countries, ours more than most. But you're right. Affluence and excess buying power makes it possible, especially in the US, for people to throw conscience money into "good" causes and advocacy groups that lobby for new regulations, many of which have the annoying affect of raising our taxes and the cost of goods. When my customers grow faint at the cost of building their dream home, I tell them, if the government would get out of it, their home would cost 30% less. Every year new code requirements are dreamed up by people paid to do that sort of thing. Some are good; most are superfluous and arcane. The end result is that goods, once code compliant, become useless and must be trashed and new steps are added to the building process driving up the cost of construction.

    I think it was Ray Bradbury who said, paraphrasing here, "when evil has been eliminated, we will start to separate the good from the no-so-good."
    I get the point. It's true; good is relative.

    We're suffering from the same problem here. Our lives are too good, too comfortable. We no longer struggle to stay alive. Now we struggle to live well. Eventually we will struggle to live as easy as possible.
    And the satisfaction of our every whim fills our homes with stuff, which in turn drives the construction of more and more storage facilities.

    Thanks for sharing your views.
    To be Truly ignorant, Man requires an Education - Plato

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    • #17
      Wanted to post this here as at the time i read this thread i was highly against what gunnut & JAD had to say on the topic concerned. After watching the below video my views have changed and i'm starting to realise the dogmas i was living under



      The fear i had was without NN we'd have a balkanisation of the web lots of walled gardens with tolls to pay to transit from one to the other.

      net neutrality is a hypothetical based on the future that does not take into account the past or how the interweb as we known it began.

      Net neutrality is a form of regulation and the problem is we're not sure how it will affect further growth of the web which all would agree is a good thing.
      Last edited by Double Edge; 13 Oct 14,, 12:46.

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      • #18
        Internet is in a lot of respects past it's prime anyway IMHO.

        Would not be suprised to see that where government fails to "ruin" the internet, private companies will succeed very nicely.

        NSA internet spying or Google internet spying, is it really all that different?

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        • #19
          The topic is back. FCC decided no more net neutrality. Now the lawsuits will come in. How long until net neutrality is really dead assuming these lawsuits lose ?

          Interestingly enough the Indian regulator moved in the opposite direction, by proposing the most stringent net neutrality rules on the planet. I see this as populist because their electorate are young and you don't mess with the internet.

          But Trump charged as being populist allowed his deregulation instincts to override here
          Last edited by Double Edge; 18 Dec 17,, 18:04.

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          • #20
            A counter view from the tech community

            Net Neutrality Harms are NOT Hypothetical | Dec 18 2017

            Are these just anecdotes or can a case be made here for proven harmful ?

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            • #21
              Originally posted by Double Edge View Post
              Are these just anecdotes or can a case be made here for proven harmful ?
              There's one article linked in there from 2015 about T-Mobile and their BingeOn service, where they supposedly throttle Youtube - more likely the same as over here, see below - down to the same low datarates as other video services they offer zero-rated.

              T-Mobile, rather Deutsche Telekom, runs "StreamOn" over here, a virtually identical data product with the same problem. However, unlike with BingeOn in the USA, with StreamOn this throttling (which affects all streamed video with adaptive bitrates - and yes, that's Youtube right there) can not be vetoed by a non-partnered third party video provider. And over here that's perfectly legal, since we don't have any such thing as net neutrality.


              Current network hardware can run pretty extensive traffic shaping too by the way. That's mostly on the front end though, e.g. professional Wifi controller hardware allows selectively throttling in selected areas. Down to the point where on a company wifi you can throttle say Facebook-embedded videos in its office rooms but allow them at full speed in the cafeteria. And yes, we've tested that feature at my workplace.

              Comment


              • #22
                Originally posted by kato View Post
                There's one article linked in there from 2015 about T-Mobile and their BingeOn service, where they supposedly throttle Youtube - more likely the same as over here, see below - down to the same low datarates as other video services they offer zero-rated.

                T-Mobile, rather Deutsche Telekom, runs "StreamOn" over here, a virtually identical data product with the same problem. However, unlike with BingeOn in the USA, with StreamOn this throttling (which affects all streamed video with adaptive bitrates - and yes, that's Youtube right there) can not be vetoed by a non-partnered third party video provider.
                Very good

                And over here that's perfectly legal, since we don't have any such thing as net neutrality.
                https://www.thisisnetneutrality.org/

                In October 2015, the European Union enshrined binding Net Neutrality protections in 28 countries with its Telecoms Single Market regulation. The Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) was then tasked with developing implementation guidelines for Net Neutrality to accompany the regulation's text.

                There was a 9 month long multi-stakeholder consultation which ended on 30 August 2016 with strong Net Neutrality rules for the EU.

                The guidelines provide clarity for the implementation of specialised services, and solidify neutral traffic management measures.

                However, clarity is still lacking regarding zero rating programmes; the guidelines confirm that “sub-internet” offers, where only a part of the internet is offered for “free”, are incompatible with the TSM and therefore banned.

                Thus, there is uncertainty regarding other types of zero rating whereby a telco prioritises either its own content or that of third parties. For such offers, BEREC has developed a set of criteria for a “case by case” assessment.
                May not be called net neutrality but you have protections in Germany. See Map, click Germany

                Current network hardware can run pretty extensive traffic shaping too by the way. That's mostly on the front end though, e.g. professional Wifi controller hardware allows selectively throttling in selected areas. Down to the point where on a company wifi you can throttle say Facebook-embedded videos in its office rooms but allow them at full speed in the cafeteria. And yes, we've tested that feature at my workplace.
                Sure, and this you can do because your workspace is not an ISP
                Last edited by Double Edge; 18 Dec 17,, 21:59.

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                • #23
                  Originally posted by Double Edge View Post
                  May not be called net neutrality but you have protections in Germany. See Map, click Germany
                  Oh, we call it that. We even have our national regulator do pretty useless, pretty short annual reports on it (seriously, the last report was only 24 pages, with one third of that reciting EU laws and one third forming the introduction).

                  Telekom's StreamOn has been evaluated by the national regulation agency and their Zero-Rating has been found to be legal, which has been criticized. Zero-rating is effectively indirect traffic-shaping in a way that attempts to circumvent EU net neutrality guidelines, and one closely watched by regulators over here these days (but, as said, considered legal, at least in Germany).

                  Originally posted by Double Edge View Post
                  Sure, and this you can do because your workspace is not an ISP
                  A bit complicated, but yeah, in the legal sense we aren't.

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                  • #24
                    Originally posted by kato View Post
                    T-Mobile, rather Deutsche Telekom, runs "StreamOn" over here, a virtually identical data product with the same problem. However, unlike with BingeOn in the USA, with StreamOn this throttling (which affects all streamed video with adaptive bitrates - and yes, that's Youtube right there) can not be vetoed by a non-partnered third party video provider. And over here that's perfectly legal, since we don't have any such thing as net neutrality.
                    What is the fastest bitrate you can watch on youtube in this case ?

                    If you want to opt out of zero rating for video, how much more do you have to pay ?

                    Comment


                    • #25
                      Originally posted by Double Edge View Post
                      What is the fastest bitrate you can watch on youtube in this case ?
                      Supposedly 720p, although that might depend on particular service. The company announced it with 480p originally (same as BingeOn in the USA).
                      They also have an unthrottled zero-rated service, which is only bookable in certain premium tariffs.

                      Originally posted by Double Edge View Post
                      If you want to opt out of zero rating for video, how much more do you have to pay ?
                      The default package limits high-speed data transfer to the first 4 GB (except zero-rated content) and throttles all traffic to 64 kbps (including zero-rated content!) once you exceed that. You can buy package reenabling high-speed either time or volume-based - 4.95 Euro per 24 hours or per 250 MB.

                      If your consumption is consistently 250 MB/day - a bit over half an hour of 480p video - you basically have to pay around 75 bucks per month on top of the basic tariff.

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                      • #26
                        Originally posted by kato View Post
                        Supposedly 720p, although that might depend on particular service. The company announced it with 480p originally (same as BingeOn in the USA).
                        They also have an unthrottled zero-rated service, which is only bookable in certain premium tariffs.


                        The default package limits high-speed data transfer to the first 4 GB (except zero-rated content) and throttles all traffic to 64 kbps (including zero-rated content!) once you exceed that. You can buy package reenabling high-speed either time or volume-based - 4.95 Euro per 24 hours or per 250 MB.

                        If your consumption is consistently 250 MB/day - a bit over half an hour of 480p video - you basically have to pay around 75 bucks per month on top of the basic tariff.
                        Sounds reasonable for mobile data ? restrict to 480p automatically to save on data. But 720p is needed to read smaller text.

                        This does not happen in India so you wonder where your data went so fast. How high resolution you get depends on signal strength and network congestion. I actually reduce resolution my self to save on battery. Less data downloaded less work for the radio and quota lasts longer

                        The thing that bugs me about mobile data is the expiry date. Use it or lose it depending on the pack you get and this can range from a day up to a month. There is no carry over to the next month. Eventually found a plan that offered 10GB valid for a year. But if data use is light just paying the going rate works out less
                        Last edited by Double Edge; 19 Dec 17,, 15:06.

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