Quote from: UnunoctiumTesticles on November 20, 2014, 04:51:40 AM

Cross-posting from other thread...

Quote from: RodeoX on November 19, 2014, 06:20:43 PM

I trust my government a million times more than I trust my ISP. That is the bottom line for me.

The point you are missing is that in a free market, you dont need to trust your ISP as competition will provide you with options.

What you dont believe or fail to understand is that regulatory capture of your government is precisely what stifles competition. This is what the quote from Eric S. Raymond about asymmetric power means.

So yes the monopolistic telcos are on their knees praying that you will trust the government more than the free market, because the more power you give to the government to regulate, the stronger their monopolies will become.

This has been proven over and over to always be the outcome in all of recorded human history. The mathematical reason was explained by Mancur Olsons book, The Logic of Collective Action.

I dont expect you to be able to wrap your mind around this, because the reason socialists are socialists is because they dont have the IQ to reason rationally at this high level.

And evolution is at work (over and over throughout recorded human history since Mesopotamia) to cull the population of the low IQ fools (via the war, eugenics, genocide, rationing, and totalitarian megadeath that results from peaking socialism when it runs out of other people's resources to steal, ahem redistribute) so the human race can get smarter and advance knowledge. So sorry for you, you havent been able to grasp how to survive.

And the point you are missing is that there is nothing "free market" about western style, free market economics at least in the United States. For many people in the USA there is no choice at all. The local cable provider is the de facto internet provider, take it or leave it. In other parts of the country there is simply no high speed option at all (much like, prior to government intervention many parts of the USA did not have landline telephone service). And typically, in western style free market economies, the typical response to competition isn't to improve service or reduce price, it is to use various forms of rent seeking to make it difficult or impossible for your competition to compete in your market (look how the local telecoms respond when google fiber tries to enter a market to see western style "free markets" in action).

But the point I would rather address is the anti government regulation rant that typically comes from western style capitalist. And what is most interesting about it is that typically when a western capitalist talks about government regulation being bad, what they really mean is that one specific government regulation is bad because it may potentially cost them money. You won't for example, here the congressman up there say anything about the numerous government regulations that allow these telecom companies to exist in the first place. He doesn't mention the enormous tax grants and free money they are given (so much for survival of the fittest business huh). Do they for example own all the land they run their lines on? Of course not, I have some on my property as we speak. Government regulations prohibit me from cutting the lines or charging them rent of course though. So before we get too carried away with the evils of government regulation let's just remember that these companies wouldn't even exist without government regulation, shall we?

Incidentally, the argument "you must be a socialist, and stupid", isn't very persuasive.