Bennett Haselton
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Clearly the answer is to remove all regulators and let the companies that wouldn't possibly be corrupt dictate their own terms.
It's not quite clear, but it's clearly better than the more powerful regulators. See above...
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Clearly the answer is to remove all regulators and let the companies that wouldn't possibly be corrupt dictate their own terms.
*snerk*
@boomzilla said:https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/19967-of-all-tyrannies-a-tyranny-sincerely-exercised-for-the-good
I am quite aware of that quote, but if you refuse to do it that way then you're stuck with the incorrigibly corruptible. If you know what the solution is but won't apply it, you shouldn't complain about the bad things that ensue.Let's face it, you guys must really love giving Comcast lots of money for shitty service. ;-)
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I am quite aware of that quote, but if you refuse to do it that way then you're stuck with the incorrigibly corruptible. If you know what the solution is but won't apply it, you shouldn't complain about the bad things that ensue.
Who says I won't apply it? That's very different from can't apply it. And to be clear, I don't think a 100% no government solution is likely (and maybe not even a good idea) but I'm damn fucking sure that less government than we have is a good idea,.
Let's face it, you guys must really love giving Comcast lots of money for shitty service.
I'm not sure I've ever given Comcast money. The last time I had service from any cable company was over a decade ago. I can't remember who it was back then. But it's possible it was Comcast.
Of course, one of the problems with cable companies is the natural monopoly WRT infrastructure. Verizon and Google and satellite have eaten into that a bit.
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I'm not sure I've ever given Comcast money. The last time I had service from any cable company was over a decade ago. I can't remember who it was back then. But it's possible it was Comcast.
I'm jealous. I have a 15 minute drive from home to where I work directly across from my state's capitol building, but...
- AT&T likes playing the "We don't offer DSL at your location" game. Their website says they do, but their reps will tell you otherwise. And even the service their website says they offer is their lowest tier (1.5Mbps down / I forget what up)
- Comcast's service ends 1/4 mile away from where I live and instead, cable is run out from the next city over, another 10ish minutes away. Oh, and it's Broadstripe cable, one of the lowest rated ISPs on BroadbandReports.
(There's more to this story involving dropped upstream connections, landline phones and housemates, but I'd rather not get into that right now.)
In other words, I'd love to throw money at AT&T or Comcast for broadband service... and can't without moving.
Now, I don't know enough about the other high speed options to even consider them at the moment... something I should probably look into. Having said that, I do still do gaming stuff, so a high latency upstream is out of the question. Even though randomly dropped upstream is annoying, it lasts for at most 15 seconds and doesn't occur that often.
Of course, one of the problems with cable companies is the natural monopoly WRT infrastructure. Verizon and Google and satellite have eaten into that a bit.
Or more likely became part of Comcast as they swallowed up cable companies.It's actually news to me that Time-Warner is still a separate cable company as I swear their area near where I live was taken over by AT&T cable a long time ago, then AT&T sold their cable part to Comcast.
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Of course, one of the problems with cable companies is the natural monopoly WRT infrastructure. Verizon and Google and satellite have eaten into that a bit.
The only sane way to fix the infrastructure issue is to require some sort of open access rules, so that there can be competing ISPs offering service over that infrastructure. The case can be made for this, especially where public money was (supposedly) given for the construction of the infrastructure in the first place.
This is what happened in the UK. It was fought tooth-and-nail by BT (our erstwhile telco monopolist) for years; they eventually lost and things got a lot better. What's more, as soon as you've got one set of infrastructure offering that class of service, if you've got alternatives they improve as well. (I've not used the BT infrastructure for many years, but the presence of real competition has forced the cable company to offer some pretty nice deals; even their cheaper tiers are actually quite good. Well, in this area anyway. )
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I am a capitalist and a libertarian to the core, and this has always been the only way I could see to de-monopolize our utilities. I cannot see it happen though. Comcast and others have our politicians by the short and curlies through their lobbying efforts. If we want to fix anything in the USA, we are going to have to de-couple politics from money, but the only people that could reasonably fix that problem are the ones who benefit from the status quo the most.
The lunatics are in charge of the asylum.
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@Intercourse said:
If we want to fix anything in the USA, we are going to have to de-couple politics from money, but the only people that could reasonably fix that problem are the ones who benefit from the status quo the most.
The lunatics are in charge of the asylum.
That's always been the case, of course, everywhere. We used to have some built-in mechanisms to cause struggles between different parts of the government (states vs each other vs federal vs legislative vs executive) who had somewhat differently aligned interests. For various reasons, a lot of that has been neutered. And some of it is more a consequence of modern communications and transportation than actual changes to governance.
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I've always felt it was a shame that the Electoral College was neutered so early on, the whole point was that the president was selected by the people's representatives rather than the people themselves. It should have been made a standing body from the start, with staggered elections for the electors and specifically forbidding them from publicly supporting a particular candidate. We wouldn't have the kind of popularity contests we ended up with. True, it would have been subject to other weaknesses and abuses, but if we could have a system which chooses based on qualifications rather than popularity, we might have had at least one competent president in my lifetime. The presidents aren't supposed to be leaders, damn it, their supposed to be administrators, that's why it is called the Executive branch. True, they have to lead in crises, but believe it or not, that's easier than administering during peace.
Filed Under: The last decent president was Eisenhower, and that's mainly because he didn't do much
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When you guys write this political bullshit in threads I start, I end up getting notified of it.
Or put in a different way, go away.
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When you guys write this political bullshit in threads I start,
I think that bullshit is fair game for frequent contributor Benett Hazelton.
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When you guys write this political bullshit in threads I start, I end up getting notified of it.
Or put in a different way, go away.
You also get notified if we just type @blakeyrat, right?
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Either that or he needs to stop making topics, one of the two...
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Who needs to stop making topics? @blakeyrat?
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Yup. He's complaining that people are replying to them, so if he stops making them, the problem solves itself.
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@blakeyrat is? Really?
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Oh yes, @blakeyrat complains so much when we notify him. Let's do it some more.
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@blakeyrat just complains. Let us give him a reason.
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You mean that you just have to say @blakeyrat and he shows up?
Filed under: We've discovered Candle Jack's secret identity!
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I have a fun wager for you. I bet you cannot mention @blakeyrat in all your posts between now and 2^13.
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You realise that now it's just a toss-up between whether he gets notified by reply or notified by @ mention.
Oh, I could the @blakeyrat thing every post if I wanted. But, and I amaze myself by saying this, I don't dislike him that much.
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Or, we could hope that @blakeyrat gets double notified?
I don't dislike @blakeyrat either. I merely find his lack of a sense of humor to be humorous for me.
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No, Discourse is too nice to double-notify @blakeyrat if we @-mention him in his own topic, as far as I know.
Also, I just read that last sentence as James Earl Jones.
"I find your lack of humour... disturbing."
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Bonus Discourse bug since last I checked, "blah" on its own line should quote.
@blakeyrat, have you noticed this?
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No, Discourse is too nice to double-notify @blakeyrat if we @-mention him in his own topic, as far as I know.
You have far too much faith in Discord working the way it should. I can assure you that @blakeyrat does not share your rosy view. @blakeyrat is a bit more cynical.
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I'm only going on what I've observed in my own dealings with Dickcorpse, where it has behaved in that fashion for me on my topics.
But maybe Jeff and co wrote special behaviour just for @blakeyrat.
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Dickcorpse? I like that. It is now added to the dictionary on my mobile. Hopefully that does not come back to bite me?
I could see Dickwood writing special behavior to handle @blakeyrat.
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I coined that one weeks ago, funnily enough, but it's still funny for me to mention it occasionally here.
And yes, I could imagine special @blakeyrat behaviour. For all we know, the shenanigans with Leaders could have been for @blakeyrat's benefit.
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Are we sure that @blakeyrat and @codinghorror are not brothers?
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You mean that you just have to say @blakeyrat and he shows up?
Yes, but you have to do it 2^16 times before @blakeyrat shows up. Let's get to it. I miss him.
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@Intercourse said:
Are we sure that @blakeyrat and @codinghorror are not brothers?
No we are not sure at all about this fact.
All I know for sure is that I have not seen @blakeyrat and @codinghorror together at the same time and place.
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So if I get what you are saying...@blakeyrat is @codinghorror 's sock puppet? Shit is finally starting to make sense. We are through the looking glass.
Really, shouldn't @blakeyrat know that we are all cocks who when you ask us not to do something, will do that thing ad infinitum?
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I thought @Nagesh was @codinghorror's sockpuppet.
Or was that the other way around?Evidence:
http://what.thedailywtf.com/badges/110/-codinghorror
http://what.thedailywtf.com/badges/111/-nagesh
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Leave @blakeyrat alone! Leave him aloonee!
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If we did not like @blakeyrat, we would not do such a thing. We kid because we care.
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Back on topic, for some screwed-up value of topic... @dkf said:
The only sane way to fix the infrastructure issue is to require some sort of open access rules, so that there can be competing ISPs offering service over that infrastructure. The case can be made for this, especially where public money was (supposedly) given for the construction of the infrastructure in the first place.
In the US, something similar happened. ISPs were given money by taxpayers (by way of government) as "common carriers", requiring them to do certain things like ensure 98% of households within a geographical area could access service and allow competitors to use the infrastructure at cost. The companies built out the most profitable areas, but when they were told to honor their common carrier agreements they said "shan't; we're not common carriers 😛"This is what happened in the UK. It was fought tooth-and-nail by BT (our erstwhile telco monopolist) for years; they eventually lost and things got a lot better. What's more, as soon as you've got one set of infrastructure offering that class of service, if you've got alternatives they improve as well. (I've not used the BT infrastructure for many years, but the presence of real competition has forced the cable company to offer some pretty nice deals; even their cheaper tiers are actually quite good. Well, in this area anyway. )
And we let them, thanks to their deep involvement with politics. Only now, several decades down the road, are we reconsidering that decision, and even though the public has responded with such force that the FCC can't handle it, it's still far from a sure thing.
Add to this most of our ISPs have unspoken gentlemen's agreements not to compete on price, and their cable/tele parents have gentlemen's agreements not to compete geographically, and our courts have mindbogglingly approved all this as "not an anti-competitive issue"... 😭
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We wouldn't have the kind of popularity contests we ended up with.
The Powers That BeTM have dealt with this issue by essentially having the media handpick the candidates so that there are acceptable (to TPTB, not necessarily to the general public) options on both sides. If someone unacceptable somehow threatens to win the nomination, you basically get what happened to Ron Paul (and really every Republican candidate not named Romney) during the last campaign.
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@Intercourse said:
If we did not like @blakeyrat, we would not do such a thing. We kid because we care.
Exactly. @blakeyrat is a special person of awesomeness around these parts.
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@blakeyrat can be awesome AND awkward.
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i'll grant you the two are not necessarily mutually exclusive.
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i'll grant you the two are not necessarily mutually exclusive.
Not even in @blakeyrat's case.
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i didn't say that was an exception in my grant.
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We just like @-mentioning @blakeyrat.
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I know, but it's always fun to mention @blakeyrat.
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should the bot have a triggerable @mention bomb feature?
/me thinking evil thinking
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Hardcoded to mention @blakeyrat?
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softcoded so we can change the target if needed.
return of @nagesh maybe?
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I was just thinking that. Something like every time someone mentions anything that @blakeyrat dislikes, it would @ mention him and ask his opinion on the matter.
It would take a pretty large array to hold that information though. @blakeyrat hates everything except C# and...tomatoes.
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No, no, in addition to.
Have @blakeyrat hardcoded and then perhaps Nagesh soft-coded. (Purposefully not mentioning since I'm hoping not to trigger a summoning)
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Have @blakeyrat hardcoded and then perhaps @Nagesh soft-coded.
FTFY
Edit: though IIRC quotes muck with mentions