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Lessig On McCain's Technology Platform
Posted by
kdawson
on Tue Aug 19, 2008 06:12 PM
from the presiding-over-it dept.
from the presiding-over-it dept.
Agthorr writes "Lawrence Lessig has created a video analyzing John McCain's recently released technology platform (available here). Lessig's video touches on broadband penetration, competition, and network neutrality." Note that while Lessig has come out as a supporter of Barack Obama, this video is not from the Obama campaign.
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To sum it up... (Score:5, Insightful)
McCain's has the foresight and intents (and motivations like "faith") of GWB. Not that Obama is a saviour, but let's try to minimize the severe damage the internet will suffer under either candidate (in America).
Re:To sum it up... (Score:5, Insightful)
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If you're an optimist, this means that all those cold hard facts can eventually change, and everyone will be free! Yay!
If you're a pessimist, this means that Americans are just as bigoted as they were back then, only now it's the gays and atheists destroying America instead of blacks and Jews. Progress?
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Just the part that processes things like the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny.
the last poll I saw ~80% of the adult population in the US believed in God (not necessarily Jesus but a creator) so why do you find it surprising that the candidates would pander to a group that large?
No, the real question is, why would someone who calls himself the Candidate For Change, and who is proclaim
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Perhaps because even intelligent people don't necessarily agree about things, especia
Re:To sum it up... (Score:5, Interesting)
The difference is that Obama's faith isn't the rigid taking-orders-from-god kind, but rather the kind that's supportive of using logic and rationality to decide issues. He's on record supporting atheists and denying that religion is a requirement for morality. http://obama.senate.gov/speech/060628-call_to_renewal/
Parent
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Huh? I'm not registered with either party. I already know where McCain's coming from, religiosity-wise. He really hasn't changed in any way - though it would be nice if he woke up one morning and realized it was silly.
I'm paying more attention to how interesting it is to watch people on the left try to reconcile their mental image of Obama as a cerebral, rational, pillar of tolerance and understanding (and promoter of science and education) even as he loudly proclaims that he's an adherent to
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It doesn't matter if McCain has a better grip on reality than Obama, because it doesn't change the fact that everything* about his platform is wrong!
(*with perhaps the sole exception being his support for the 2nd Amendment -- if only he felt that strongly about the rest of th
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Try watching the video then try again. ...on with my opinion
I do state that I think Obama is the lesser of 2 evils. In America, politics equates to corruption. Obama is a SENATOR. No matter who is vying for the presidency or who arrives, they are all beholden to the same monetary and political interests. Based on what I have seen, read, and heard, I have my own faith. I believe that Obama is not a techno-retard and that's more than I can say for McCain. A liberal socialist over a con
To save you 16 minutes, (Score:5, Insightful)
Obviously Lessig would prefer to see more competition and open networks.
Personally, I think the broadband penetration number ("our rank has fallen to #22") is a bit of a red herring because the US is far less densely populated than most other countries and thus perfect broadband penetration is not feasible. And while I'm all for net neutrality, that issue alone is not going to determine who I vote for.
Despite the current lack of regulation I think I get a fairly fast, unrestricted Internet connection at a fairly low price. I think that as long as there are at least two providers available in any locality the market will force reasonable prices and net neutrality.
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And I'm sure if he'd thought you'd listen to more than 16 minutes, he'd have made a more complex argument.
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It also has to do with the media he is using.
One of the things you're supposed to do with speeches---and that was most definitely a speech---is to keep the point of the speech simple. Another thing you're supposed to do is to be very redundant with the point you're trying to make: say that you're going to say it, say it, and say that you said it. He did both of these things.
Re:To save you 16 minutes, (Score:5, Insightful)
Lower population density may mean that universal broadband access isn't as profitable for commercial vendors as it might be otherwise (ditto with access to electricity, running water, telephone service, mail, etc.), but it certainly does not mean it is not feasible.
Parent
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Lovely... (Score:2, Insightful)
> McCain will try to solve the broadband penetration "problem" by providing subsidies to the cable and telecom monopolies
Great. So regulation to protect Net Neutrality by preventing people from making an open market closed is bad, but giving tax money to monopolies is good?
As for broadband rank, I would like to point out that the Nordic countries do find in spite of having lower densities than we do. Also, if you look at coverage, it's concentrated in the rich areas.
I'm in the _middle_ of the 5th large
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It sounds like you are pretty far from any CO. You are in range for IDSL but not regular ADSL. To be at that range you must be pretty far out. There are benefits and drawbacks to anywhere you live. You dont have to deal with as much congestion and people are but you don't get easy broadband. If its not a worthy tradeoff then move.
Re:To save you 16 minutes, (Score:5, Informative)
Allow me to elaborate on the broadband issue. If you look at average and top speeds available in NYC, LA, Chicago, or any other major city, you'll find that they are 2-5 times slower than the average available to the whole country of Japan, South Korea, France and Sweeden.
The fastest speeds you can currently get from Verizon (via FiOS) are 50/20 (down/up), for which you'll pay $145 a month. This is below the average of what you'd get in the above countries, and I'm almost certain it costs 25-33% of the above rate.
A more reasonable 20/20 or 20/5 costs 70 or 57. The bottom line is that IF you can get the service, you'll pay 3-6 times the cost per mbps as you would in another country. One could argue that markup is to pay for further penetration, but eh... we're still well behind in internet speeds even in our metro areas.
To my knowledge Verizon offers the fastest service plans available for residential access, and I'm guessing their $/mbps is competitive as well. I'm glad that they're at least offering a 20/20 or a 50/20 package, but don't kid yourself - we're still pretty far behind in our coverage.
Parent
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I have a 20/5 business FiOS account. I have yet to visit any server (other than speed testing sites) that can saturate my connnection. I can reach 1+ Mbyte/sec download speeds with well-populated torrents, but that's still far below my 20 Mbit download speed. I could upgrade to higher speeds, but what difference would it actually make in practice?
Re:To save you 16 minutes, (Score:5, Insightful)
I have cable 20/2 Internet connection, and I'm in Romania (a small country in Europe with neighbors Hungary and Bulgaria for people with less knowledge of geography).
Inside the country, I can max the connection anytime, full 20mbps. Outside the country, the speeds are on average 13-14mbps.
This is the result of heavy competition between two ISP that bought almost all the small ISP companies in the country.
Also, no bandwidth caps and it costs about 20 dollars. Bundled with cable TV (576p, about 55 channels) the total cost is 40$.
For an additional 10$ a month, the company can give me a set top box that takes digital tv out of the same cable (still 576p but digital up to the set top box so crystal clear. HD is still in testing in the country).
About two years ago, for the same price I would have received 2mbps download, 256kbps upload.
So what I'm trying to say is that it's quite possible to saturate your connection, if I can for example by downloading two linux iso's from two different servers in my country.
It's your provider that doesn't invest enough to have the backbone capable of handling the speeds.
Parent
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Seriously? those countries are either technology obsessed or quasi-socialist. as another pointed out:
"Lower population density may mean that universal broadband access isn't as profitable for commercial vendors as it might be otherwise (ditto with access to electricity, running water, telephone service, mail, etc.), but it certainly does not mean it is not feasible."
How about you back up your claim with a list of government spending on broadband. TANSTAFL, The cos
Re:To save you 16 minutes, (Score:5, Informative)
I attempted to compare apples to apples. The population density in NYC or LA has to be greater than the population density of any of those countries outside their cities. Nowhere did I mention our average broadband speed, which even in the best of states is under 5 mbps IIRC. I didn't mention the average (under 3 mpbs), and I certainly didn't mention Alaska (under 1 mpbs)
Now an above poster mentions that a former USSR country (Romania) gets 10-15 times faster actual download speeds (20/2) than a 20/5 person in the US, and pays 1/3 as much.
As for your argument about density - Romania's average density is 236/sq mi. There are 11 US states with a density greater than that, according to wikipedia.
In my opinion (not to disparage Romania at all), but when a country that was under Communist control until 20 years ago has better internet speeds for 1/3 the price of the US, it should be entirely unacceptable.
Since you like economics, you should know duopolies (which are what most local ISPs are) and oligopolies (nationwide ISPs) don't allocate resources efficiently in many cases and reduce consumer surplus.
I'm also pretty sure U.S. telecoms have been given subsidies and/or tax breaks in return for guarantees on broadband penetration and speed. For the most part, telecoms are years behind where they promised to be if they got said subsidies.
If there's anything else you have a question about, let me know.
Parent
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In my opinion (not to disparage Romania at all), but when a country that was under Communist control until 20 years ago has better internet speeds for 1/3 the price of the US, it should be entirely unacceptable.
Why? Thats what i was asking, What are the costs? Sure a former soviet country has better internet then U.S.. Government subsidy's excel at this kind of thing. But the cost the end user pays is not the total cost of creation when subsidy is involved. What are the true cost of producing this internet? I'd bet you its way more then what it is in the U.S.. And what is the market desire? If they produce it more cheaply and abundantly then what is actually needed you have tons of resources going to wast.
Monop
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my goodness, how terrible that must be for you...
unlike us here in australia where in a capital city it's not possible to get faster than 24/8 for less than $100.00 a month -and- with horribly restrictive download limits of 20-40gb!
and this is supposed to be a 1st world country... it's shamefull.
Population density (Score:5, Insightful)
Was the USA more densely populated eight years ago?
I'll point out that Arizona is more urban than the Netherlands. Almost all of Arizona's population lives in major urban areas; the Netherlands has a higher net population density but a much higher percentage of their population lives in nonurban villages.
This is by way of saying that population density is a red herring, because broadband penetration is measured by people, not square miles. The USA's ranking isn't being driven down by the lack of broadband on the Yuma Proving Grounds or the Plains of St. Augustin.
Parent
Re:To save you 16 minutes, (Score:5, Insightful)
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by providing subsidies to the cable and telecom monopolies
Not quite. What McCain proposes is tax cuts to these areas to spur development. Lessig, of course, calls them subsidies. A subsidy is very different from a tax cut. Of course, one shouldn't be surprised that Lessig makes this confusion as his political leanings tend to assume that tax money originates and belongs to the government, not the originating source of the income. The word subsidy also makes it sound like McCain wants to fill evil tel
tax cuts vs subsidies (Score:3, Insightful)
Lessig first refers to them as tax cuts; he obviously is not "confused" about the distinction, he quite deliberately equates tax cuts with subsidies, and the end result of a selective tax cut and a subsidy (assuming the subsidy is not larger than the amount taxed) is the same thing, as you well know.
Re:To save you 16 minutes, (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, population density explains it. That's why a typical Canadian broadband connection is faster that a typical broadband connection in the US (or any particular part of the US, regardless of population density.)
Looking at the post from the fellow in Romania, I think it's interesting that HDTV is normal here is the US, but basically doesn't exist in Romania, while the reverse is true for fast Internet. It's not a matter of technology level, or wealth. It's just a matter of priorities. Romania invested in a key enabling technology that has impacts in education, the economy, and individual political empowerment. The US invested in American Idol with extra pixels. And, this makes me sad. I know we could do better, and I just don't understand why we as a society choose not to.
Parent
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Well... I've got my choice of four options (fiber, DSL, and two different cable providers). One of the companies involved didn't exist ten years ago. My neighborhood (which was developed in the 70's) now has fiber and coax from multiple providers competing for my money. And they do compete. I actually get reps from the companies I'm not using knocking on the door offering swell deals to make me jump ship.
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Is it likely Lessig might be lying? (Score:2)
In court, we require people to testify in person, and if they cannot for some good reason, we take a video deposition and show that. This is because we want the jury to see the person, to be better able to judge from their demeanor whether or not to believe them. Witnesses often have a strong incentive to lie, so this is important.
What are the chances Lessig is going to lie about his position on McCain's platform? Seems pretty damned low to me--I think we could trust him if a textual form of his analysis
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> So why present this in a cumbersome video format?
Welcome to the 21st Century. Text is dead, video is everything.
Litteracy in written English will be as common as basic arithmetic skills are now in another generation or so. The pocket calculator did in math, the mouse and cameras on everything will do in writing.
All I want to say about McCain is (Score:5, Funny)
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Click to learn how the McCain Economic Plan will help bring reform, prosperity and peace to America.
Peace? Oh, that John McCain cracks me up...
Re:All I want to say about McCain is (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
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sadly those who have banned flash on their pcs can't access content that could have easily been done with 2-5 small images and a text based blog entry instead of making a 2 minute shockwave flash video and wasting everyone's bandwidth.
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It has nothing to do with banning FLASH.
It does have all to do with many 56k dialup users around. Including us.
Thank your phone company for the 5 billion $ they took from us for "broadband".
Re:I can't watch this (Score:5, Informative)
Here's the video in mp4 format, for those who won't enable the Flash plugin for a few minutes:
ftp://definethis.org/video.mp4 [definethis.org]
It's 57.3 MB (60,102,443 bytes), straight from Google's servers.
For those complaining about dial up, here's only the sound:
ftp://definethis.org/sound.mp3 [definethis.org] (22050, mono, 3.82 MB (4,016,064 bytes))
Links are ftp to allow for bandwidth limit in case download goes overboard.
Parent
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Thank you :)
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How many people who might vote for mccain either know or care who Lessig is anyway? I won't be voting for McCain, and I'm only marginally aware myself.
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How many people who might vote for mccain either know or care who Lessig is anyway? I won't be voting for McCain, and I'm only marginally aware myself.
I would posit that it doesn't matter if his point is valid and well articulated.
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Your argument would be stronger if not knowing or caring who someone was didn't effect whether you listened to an argument, or trusted it as a source of information and/or analysis.
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My argument is just as strong as the argument I was responding to, which claims that the quality of the media affects whether or not someone is going to listen to an argument -- ie, judging the book by its cover. However, using Lessig in the first place is an appeal to authority, a rhetorical technique which often works best if the authority is recognized as such, so the quality of the video is secondary to the subject (not the topic) of the video.
Re:I can't watch this (Score:4, Insightful)
My argument is just as strong as the argument I was responding to, which claims that the quality of the media affects whether or not someone is going to listen to an argument -- ie, judging the book by its cover.
Except that it does, and people do.
Can you honestly tell me that you've never seen anyone get modded up for a well written post that didn't really say anything? Or conversely someone with a valid point get modded down because they write like an idiot?
That video added nothing to the point Lessig was trying to make, and in fact, actively detracted from it. I agree with every word he said and I thought that video was terrible. It was 16 minutes of poor PowerPoint emulation, bad parodies of Apple marketing, the implication that AT&T is *not* a villainous entity in the same vein as Comcast, and blatant political pandering (all of that Iraq war commentary was a distraction from his main point). Did you actually watch the video or do you just like arguing?
If I'm judging a book by it's cover, then you're too busy trying to see the forest to realize that the trees suck.
Parent
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No, I didn't even watch the video 'cause that's too much like reading the article.
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Oh, and my friends and family won't trust me as viable reference?
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***Agreed. Great message. Terrible video.***
Linux (Konqueror anyway) has once again saved me apparently. Got the audio, but no video. But sometimes I like ... want ... the damn pictures. I get the message that voting for McCain means more of the same. Can't say that I want that. Will voting for Obama somehow lead me toward that great technological wonderland where technology actually works right all the time?
In any case, let me point out that McCain was the force behind the #$@(*&( Children's Inter
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