[headmelted]

It encourages me to see that the European court at least has some people on it that seem to understand that net neutrality is in fact a human rights issue.

And this is why Brexit is so heart-breaking. I'm surrounded by people in my personal life who think it's a fantastic idea, but they're not the most... informed? Likewise for local politicians.

(Side note to my rant: I have this theory that the rise of the iPhone, and the fact that it is such a big part of people's lives now, has fooled regular folks into believing that they're experts on technology. I have no more than anecdotal evidence for this).

I strongly suspect that local legislators will see no conflict whatsoever with scrapping these laws when the exit finally comes, and it saddens me that I'm surrounded by a lot of people that will be cheering when it happens.

This is from a real conversation I had this week:

"What it boils down to is do you want to have us control our own laws and decisions and borders, or have to take orders from some bureaucrat in Brussels that doesn't understand us?"

Yes, I would rather have decisions made by people in Brussels that understand what they're doing.

[markonthewall]

Those are candy-bars to make you happy, just like the EHRC is keeping the leftists in line while we slowly shift toward an ordoliberal paradigm at the european level. For countries like France, Italy and even Germany, that means social regression and harmonisation by the bottom.

>Yes, I would rather have decisions made by people in Brussels that understand what they're doing.

Yay structural unemployment in the eurozone! The folks at the commission and at the ECB sure know as hell what they are doing since the EU is a sui generis structure and the non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment absolutely did not hurt western economies and destroyed the industrial tissue of those countries. I am being sarcastic.

Now, without any offense, you sound like someone who has red a wikipedia page about the European Union and who nows consider everyone having dissenting opinion to be a stinky redneck who does not deserve a voice.

Maybe that's not what you wanted to convey, in that case I apologise, but to be honest, at this point, I have met so many pseudo-smartass people who think they understand everything that I have very little hope you don't fall into that category of people. Thinking technocracy will magically solves all your problems is lazy, at best.

[whybroke]

Intriguing but 3 questions:

How could shifting more towards Ordoliberalism (=government regulation to maximize competition plus a social safety net) be a bad thing? Quality of life is rather high in Germany after all.

Is there in fact evidence that unemployment is intentionally maintained in order to suppress inflation?

Even if your assertions are true, how would Brexit address any of these things and generally how would a balkanized Europe be more prosperous let alone more globally competitive than a unified Europe?

[hueving]

Unification is counter-productive if you think that the goals of the group are bad.

[whybroke]

Which goals would those be? An efficient tariff free zone? A larger area for individual opportunity? A reasonable social safety net? Greater power on the global stage? Protection for human rights?

Or is the objection merely to some wholly imaginary threat to the purity of the anglo-saxon race and culture and an unthinking and instantaneous embracing of anything nationalist and right leaning?

[objectivistbrit]

"Or is the objection merely to some wholly imaginary threat to the purity of the anglo-saxon race and culture and an unthinking and instantaneous embracing of anything nationalist and right leaning?"

Yes. Yes it is. Everyone who disagrees with you is emotionally driven and intellectually dishonest.

The goal we object to was the attempt to build a giant country. The EEC should have stuck with the tariff free zone and free movement (of workers, not all citizens, as it was originally). Instead they grew into a 28-nation wannabe superpower with a currency, flag, central bank, law-making powers, etc. Now Juncker is pushing for an EU army. The whole project has departed from reality and is going to collapse in a few decades, sadly taking down the free trade zone with it.

[whybroke]

> The goal we object to was the attempt to build a giant country.

Why?

Honestly, how would that be bad? After all the UK consists of Wales, England, Scotland and N. Ireland. People of the past opposed that unity so much they were willing to die to try to prevent it yet on the whole that unity has been undeniably positive.

For the EU for example, how could having an single foreign policy be a bad idea in any way? How does having an EU flag do any harm what so ever? I'd claim that point in particular shows the issue very much is emotionally driven.

And what will make it fall apart except people voting to leave it on grounds as trivial as having a flag?

Likewise such an extreme step as dismantling the entire EU project rather than just fixing the monetary problem can't really be justified rationally and looks pretty overwhelmingly like emotionally driven nationalism.

[headmelted]

I've given a similar response below to a different comment, and it would be a bit pointless to paste it here.

To summarize though:

1) I don't believe I know any better than anyone else, it's just that I feel this was the wrong decision for a variety of reasons, and I'm very scared for the future based on this result.

2) I am a smug jackass that knows significantly less than he thinks he does, and I use long words in a futile attempt to disguise this. But I am not a pseudo smart-ass. Frank that works across from me is, and no-one sits with Frank at lunch.

3) I think the EU makes terrible decisions. I just think that they try to make the correct ones with the best of intentions and fail. I think this is vastly preferable to making the wrong decisions for questionable reasons and succeeding.

[shard972]

> I just think that they try to make the correct ones with the best of intentions and fail.

There is a saying that goes "the path to hell is paved with good intentions".

[fleevy]

Amen! The EU is corrupt and incompetent, and it needs to go away sooner than later.

[smsm42]

> Yes, I would rather have decisions made by people in Brussels that understand what they're doing.

That requires having people in Brussels who understand what they're doing - at least better than local politicians. But I'm not sure how exactly you ensure that. If we assume you are right that the people around you (excepting you, of course) are woefully misinformed and so are local politicians, where would the enlightened folks in Brussels come from, who would elect and appoint them? If you plan to keep the democracy around and not replace it with absolute monarchy with people as well informed as yourself at the helm (how do you ensure that btw?), I don't see how exactly that may work.

It is a great delusion that democratic mechanisms and limited federalized government are the way to put the best people on top and manage the system most efficiently. They are not. They are the safety valve to mitigate the effect of so-so and worse people being on top. And this mechanism is necessary because there's no viable solution so far that can identify "best" people (whatever that may mean, we have no idea for that either) and put them on top.

[headmelted]

In no way am I suggesting that my opinions are any "better" than anyone else's, but on this topic I feel like I'm more informed on the issue of net neutrality than most people I know offline, which is as much to do with my family and friends not sharing the same passion for technology that I have than anything else. I don't begrudge them this at all (different strokes for different folks etc).

I utterly agree with all of the points made above, I simply feel that if it's a case of "better the devil you know than the devil you don't", then I would choose "don't" any day of the week based on a lifetime of experiencing local politics.

Honestly, the thought of any increase in power to local politicians terrifies me, based on their track record alone.

[posterboy]

> It is a great delusion that democratic mechanisms and limited federalized government are the way to put the best people on top and manage the system most efficiently

That is not that important because the people on top can only prescribe, the population has to substantiate the plans. Therefore it is important that the population can be informed beforehand to agree with the plans.

[allendoerfer]

> "What it boils down to is do you want to have us control our own laws and decisions and borders, or have to take orders from some bureaucrat in Brussels that doesn't understand us?"

> Yes, I would rather have decisions made by people in Brussels that understand what they're doing.

Julia Reda is a MP inside the EU parliament. She was voted in their and is not some bureaucrat. The voter turnout in Great Britain was 36 % in 2014, so it is partly their own fault if the do not feel represented by their representatives.

Günther Oettinger however was rescued from an historic loss of the conservative CDU against the Greens in the state of Baden-Württemberg [0] where he was minister-president (governor in the US). It was the first time the Greens were the big partner in a coalition to govern a German state. Oettinger screwed up a big project to rebuild a train station followed by many protests, police scandals and so on [1]. His genius argument why Stuttgart should not have a terminal station, when Paris has one, is that there are no people living west of Paris. The CDU lost the election on the topic of nuclear energy and Oettinger was then of all places appointed to be Commissioner of Energy. People also ask themselves why Germany sends the one person with the worst English skills to an international parliament and make fun of it [2].

So yeah, you could definitely argue, that the commission could benefit from directly elected members. Although it is not undemocratic: The members are appointed by the governments. Great Britain also had nice, prestigious positions: Commissioner of Foreign Affairs (10-14) and Commissioner of Finances (today), while Germany only got energy and internet.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Baden-W%C3%BCrttem...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuttgart_21

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RrEQ8Ovw-Q

[toyg]

I agree on everything, just pointing out the (UK) Commissioner for Financial affairs very sensibly resigned post-referendum. In his place, a "Security Commissioner" was nominated, covering an area of policy that does not influence Eurozone economic policies and is overall less reliant on EU membership (because Interpol etc etc). Again, a very sensible move by everyone involved.

[cookiecaper]

>It encourages me to see that the European court at least has some people on it that seem to understand that net neutrality is in fact a human rights issue.

If everything is a human right, nothing is. At this point, what's the difference between a "human right" and a nice thing?

>Yes, I would rather have decisions made by people in Brussels that understand what they're doing.

The thing about centralized government is that it's great when you agree with what they're doing, but it's terrible when you don't. Ask yourself how happy you would be with European governance if they primarily didn't implement policies that you personally considered wise.

People have different ideas about what's fair. The hinge of democracy is the simplicity by which a people can make their will known and have that will executed, at least within their own region.

More local governance makes individual will much more important. Consider that a representative's attention is evenly divided by the quantity of his constituents, because each constituent has an equal quantity of votes. Thus, a smaller quantity of constituents means more individual influence in government. That's generally a positive thing. Therefore, jurisdictions should be broken into the smallest workable units, and the amount of power concentrated within a jurisdiction should be correlated with its localness.

[nitrogen]

Human right: neutral communications

Nice thing: iPhone 6+

Human right: freedom of movement

Nice thing: Maserati

See the difference?

---

As for your second part about localization of politics, the tyranny of the majority is much more severe in hyper-local settings. Global issues like human rights cannot be entrusted to local governments whose local majorities are prone to divisiveness and discrimination.

[smsm42]

> Global issues like human rights cannot be entrusted to local governments

Who they can be entrusted to? There's a lot of countries with severe human rights issues, and I don't see many examples of super-governmental bodies having much progress in fixing them unless local government is on board with it. In fact, it's almost always impossible to do without local government participation.

[johnnyhillbilly]

To put the "universal" in the declaration of human rights in its context: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cairo_Declaration_on_Human_R...

These countries each take part in the UN, without showing any signs that they respect the universal human rights declaration.

I'd suggest fixing that part of the human rights situation should have a higher priority than making monopolist abuse and unfair trade in communications about human rights.

[cookiecaper]

>See the difference?

Not really. I understand that you've differentiated between tangibles and concepts (and I probably should've said a "good law" instead of a "nice thing" to prevent this obvious conclusion), but the concepts can be moved up to exclude most tangibles. For example, perhaps "smooth, comfortable transportation" is a human right just as "neutral communications" are. In this case, budget transport carriers would be a violation of human rights, just as budget phone carriers deciding to charge either more or less for different traffic sources (as in T-Mobile's BingeOn promotion) apparently is.

Under the old guard, neither "neutral communications" nor "smooth, comfortable transportation" would be considered a "human right". They would be considered nice features. "Human rights" would simply be a very small core of natural, inviolable principles, the rights to which all men inherently possess, and are mandatory for a functional society (and you could perhaps argue that "neutral communications" is included in "free speech").

Since no man inherently possesses the ability to access the internet (he requires external devices for this), it is not a human right, which is a right fundamental and intrinsic to all humans, which the government can only restrict and has no power to grant (because they are granted naturally ("by their Creator", as in American founding documents) as an intrinsic part of being human) (people also do not have a "human right" to food or shelter -- they have to get those things on their own if they want them).

We can perform legislative tasks without exaggerating every issue into the category of basic human rights.

>Global issues like human rights cannot be entrusted to local governments whose local majorities are prone to divisiveness and discrimination.

There is no hard definition to what qualifies for "discrimination". At its most basic, discrimination is simply making choices, and everyone has to do that dozens of times a day. "Discrimination" in the political sense usually refers to making it illegal to make certain choices based on certain criteria -- what are those criteria and which choices should be restricted? That sounds like something for the local government to decide.

As for divisiveness, I've actually found that most localities are mostly one way or the other. They share a common culture. That's why there are only about 6 battleground states in the U.S. (and even then, that's usually the case because the state includes roughly equal numbers of people in 2 divergent cultures -- one rural/suburban and the other urban). The fact that politics is so divisive today, to the point where we are in total legislative gridlock, is evidence that we need more localization, not less.

Urban communities can make laws that sound good to them, rural/suburban communities can make laws that sound good to them, everyone can live in the way they see fit, and survival of the fittest will eventually prove out one method as superior. Competition between the jurisdictions will encourage friendly, popular laws and prevent excessive governmental intrusion.

[nitrogen]

You're inadvertently falling into the slippery slope fallacy with a bit of a strawman mixed in. Nobody has said that "smooth, comfortable transportation" is a human right. Human rights cover the basic dignities required to function in society, which can change over time. Due to the ubiquity of the Internet, it is reasonable for neutral communications to become a human right.

---

W.r.t. urban vs. rural communities and localized politics, those communities are less homogeneous than you seem to think. It's not terribly uncommon for people to find themselves trapped in a rural community when their personalities and values are more suited to an urban community, but they can't afford to move until they become adults and save up money, which may never happen.

There are floors of dignity below which no human should be allowed to fall, and allowing every rural community to set its own standards for human rights only makes sense if everyone in those communities has total freedom and means to leave, and total awareness of the other options available to them. Think of isolated, repressive fundamentalist or polygamist communities, for example (not that every fundamentalist or polygamist group is necessarily repressive, but it is certainly common).

[freshflowers]

Ironically, the same issue is exactly why I, as a citizen of the Netherlands, support leaving the EU.

Because even at this point, Net Neutrality is still less well protected by the EU than it was under our own national legislation.

I cannot in all good conscience support a union that has the power to undermine our civil rights. If Brits don't want those civil rights, that's their choice.

Brussels is not a force for good simply because in this case it would be an improvement for the Brits.

[ZenoArrow]

I agree with your general sentiment, but wonder where you get the idea that Britain is somewhat backward when it comes to civil rights. Whilst challenges to civil rights will continue to exist and be resisted, it should be noted that the European Convention on Human Rights was influenced by the UK's approach to civil rights: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Convention_on_Human...

If you have concrete examples of poor civil rights in the UK, by all means share them, I'm not pretending things are perfect here, and would be happy to get a better grasp of where things could be improved.

[M2Ys4U]

The UK's continuing contempt for the unanimous ruling of the ECHR in Hirst v United Kingdom would be one good point.

Likewise the continued push for mass surveillance (see: DRIPA, the defunct Draft Communications Data Bill and the seemingly inevitable Investigatory Powers Bill) is another - the most recent legislative attempts have been to make legal what the state has been doing illegally for many, many years. What worries me is that there is no common-law right to privacy in English law; our modern privacy rights stem almost exclusively from the ECHR and the EU.

The recent clampdown on the rights of trades unions is a third example. Despite an historic low number of days lost to industrial action, the government has been making it much harder to legally strike, or even to _fund_ trades unions (for example, imposing high thresholds on ballots and attempting to remove the option of payroll funding for union membership).

[ManlyBread]

>I would rather have decisions made by people in Brussels that understand what they're doing. >that understand what they're doing.

Wishful thinking.

[objectivistbrit]

It's a property rights issue. Specifically, should private organisations be allowed to own major pieces of infrastructure?

The European vision of capitalism is where you can own, say, a cafe or mobile app, and do what you want with it. However, something like a telecoms network or search engine is too important to be kept in the hands of ruthless big business, and the state needs to step in to control who said businesses deal with.

They talk about preventing monopoly, but even with infrastructure, technological shifts mean any purported monopoly constantly faces real competition. (Witness how IBM lost out to Microsoft, which lost out to the internet companies).

Private investment and private innovation is the best way to build infrastructure, and if the state wants to control how the infrastructure is used (and prevents the owners from cutting special deals with their largest potential customers), investment money stays away.

This has happened with pharmaceuticals - one reason there's been so much investment in viagra and plastic surgery is that more useful medical patents tend to be seized by government. It's also happening in the case of European telecoms: the net neutrality rules provide a disincentive to invest in 5G.

http://www.theverge.com/2016/7/10/12139700/telecom-companies...

(That article is negatively slanted, but gives a decent overview). Here's the actual report by the telcos:

http://ec.europa.eu/newsroom/dae/document.cfm?action=display...

    Yes, I would rather have decisions made by people in Brussels that understand what they're doing.

Every generation rediscovers Plato's republic.

[dmuneka]

As a Brit, you should appreciate the level of infrastructure you get to enjoy. You are more than welcome to come live in the US with some of the most 'innovative' privately funded infrastructure.

I'd be happy to swap my overpriced RCN internet with TalkTalk or not have to get a new wheel on my bike every year thanks to the pot-holed roads of New York.

[smsm42]

US telecom industry is not exactly the best example of non-regulated market. It's not like you can just come and put a new cable network in New York or San Francisco without asking anybody. In fact, Google - if ever there was a company with money and clout - couldn't pull it off in the capital of Silicon Valley, San Jose.

And if you do try to innovate, you get lots of vested interests attacking you on every corner and tons of regulations you have to comply with and some new ones that would be lobbied into law and introduced specially to suppress you. Look how much pushback companies like Airbnb or Uber are getting.

[objectivistbrit]

US is big and sparsely populated. Also, telecoms there are heavily regulated. Contrary to common claims, there isn't a huge difference between the European and American models (both are free markets with heavy state involvement in pretty much all industries).

[nordify]

Even if we go as far as to say that the models are similar, the implementation differs hugely. Especially with regards to telecoms.

[objectivistbrit]

From the report:

"In this context we must highlight the danger of restrictive Net Neutrality rules, in the context of 5G technologies, business applications and beyond. 5G introduces the concept of “Network Slicing” to accommodate a wide-variety of industry verticals’ business models on a common platform, at scale and with services guarantees.

Automated driving, smart grid control, virtual reality and public safety services are examples of use- cases with distinguished characteristics which call for a flexible and elastic configuration of resources in networks and platforms, on a continuous basis, depending on demand, context and the nature of the service. According to the telecom industry, BEREC’s draft proposal of implementation rules is excessively prescriptive and could make telcos risk-averse thus hampering the exploitation of 5G, ignoring the fundamental agility and elastic nature of 5G Network Slicing to adapt in real time to changes in end-user / application and traffic demand. The 5G objective of creating new business opportunities and satisfying future end-user needs would be at risk, with a regulation not coherent with the market demand evolution.

It is paramount to ensure 5G monetisation to drive investments. Monetisation can take place across the entire value chain with end-users, service providers and industry verticals in order to ensure fair returns, speed up adoption by end-users and ensure consumers are not alone in picking up the bill for the innovation that will help the business cases of the service providers. Operators should also be free to mix and manage different technology generations, mobile or otherwise, that are enabling 5G mobile technology to serve their customers optimally."

[nordify]

What a bunch of BS.

Not a single operator is going to delay rolling out 5G or decline to invest in 5G due to network neutrality.

Furthermore none of the given use cases are require general Internet access. I don't care what they do with those closed networks and network neutrality does not even apply to closed networks.

[Nullabillity]

That kind of thinly veiled extortion is exactly why harsher regulation is required.

[objectivistbrit]

Right, saying "we won't invest under these conditions" is extortion.

On a sane planet, one not following clown world logic, it would be obvious that the telcos are telling the government to stop extorting them.

[nordify]

I feel I missed something. How is the government extorting the telcos?

The telcos are of course under no obligation to invest in 5G. Do you know of any 4G provider that isn't?