Is Mobile Broadband a Luxury Or a Human Right? 332
concealment sends this quote from an article at CNN:
"Moderating a discussion on the future of broadband, Mashable editor-in-chief Lance Ulanoff tossed a provocative question to the audience: 'By quick show of hands, how many out there think that broadband is a luxury?' Next question: 'How many out there think it is a human right?' That option easily carried the audience vote. Broadband access is too important to society to be relegated to a small, privileged portion of the world population, Hans Vestberg, president and CEO of Ericsson, said during the discussion. Dr. Hamadoun Touré, secretary-general of the International Telecommunication Union, echoed Vestberg's remarks. 'We need to make sure all the world's inhabitants are connected to the goodies of the online world, which means better health care, better education, more sustainable economic and social development,' Touré said."
A Luxury (Score:5, Insightful)
One must be careful about diluting the word "right." Leave it at 3, and protect them fiercely.
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If you are fine with just three rights, be my guest.
I prefer a few more, like a right for privacy or a right to dignity.
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Here is my definition of what a "right" is, and how it exists.
You are on a desert island, all by your self. Everything you can or would do, is your "right". Everything else, is not.
Rights exist, without effort or requirement of others. The moment a "right" (supposed) requires something of or from another, it is no longer a right. Period.
This is a very simple and easy to describe definition that just works.
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One must be careful about diluting the word "right." Leave it at 3, and protect them fiercely.
By the time that half of the common things people have been doing will be online, not being able to access the (commercial, government) computers will be almost akin to American blacks being discouraged from voting, or other population groups being misinformed of prevented from having equal access to stuff.
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Well, that ship already rather sailed:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Human_Rights [wikipedia.org]
Where we have a "right to an adequate standard of living" ("freedom from want"). Of course, I am (because it is?) unclear whether "right to" means 'must be provided' or 'must be allowed'. Putting that aside, however, I guess it is an interesting question as to whether or not internet access can be considered an important part of an adequate standard of living. I don't really see it in there, but if you
Re:A Luxury (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course, what he's really saying is "Governments, through the force of taxation, should get the richer taxpaers to buy Internet connections for the poorer, increasing the market for my company."
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You have a right to broadband but not an entitlement to broadband.
That is, if the government makes it illegal to have broadband - then it is violating your natural right to be left alone, and your political right to freedom of speech (since broadband is a method of speech like the printing press).
However, you do not have a right to have the government or anyone else
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Do you have a right to have a government that doesn't actively discourage you actually getting mobile broadband? Where does the distinction between what is and isn't a right fall?
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A Luxury ... One must be careful about diluting the word "right."
Yes, one must be careful, but I would still say that internet access is a right or is quickly moving toward becoming one
When living your life often requires internet access, then it becomes a right. If everyone had provided the non-internet equivalent of the daily services, then maybe it would be a luxury
Example: Many providers (online vendors, credit cards, etc) try to hide a phone-based or even human-based customer support. Email forms are your only way
Example: Rent a video from the vending machine. Want a receipt? Well, you can enter an email
The number of examples where email/broadband availability is ASSUMED will increase in the future, because it is cheaper to remove human cost from the equation. Thus, the non-internet minority will become marginalized to an increasingly greater degree.
None of those things are necessities for life. To survive, to be alive, I do not need to use on-line vendors. I do not need credit cards. I do not need to rent videos.
I want to do those things, but by no means do I need to. The problem is that most people, the AC included, at this point do not understand the fundamental difference between need and want.
Re:A Luxury (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously???
I mean, the internet is fantastically convenient...but there's nothing I couldn't do to live (eat, buy stuff, pay bills) without having an internet connection, and doing things the "old fashioned" way of like 8-10 years ago....
A right? Give me a break.....
Re:A Luxury (Score:5, Interesting)
I wouldn't use your definition to read this article, I would more use the American Convention of Human rights, to set a baseline:
commits its parties to respect the civil and political rights of individuals, including the right to life, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, electoral rights and rights to due process and a fair trial [wikipedia.org]
From this I think internet in the US, meets that definition. To have a meaningfull say in the right to free speech, assembly, and information on how laws are interpreted... We are to the point where everyone needs to be given access to internet to defend these Human rights. Now the second part of the question is, does having that access freely available at public library still cover the need, or do we need to extend that to giving free access to anyone carrying say, a expired smartphone, like we do with dialing 911 and a dumb phone....
I would come down on the side of "not a right" but I think the line is not nearly as far off, as your definition of rights goes. IE I don't think your definition of a right would include free speech.
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The right to a free press does not include a right to compel others to pay for your press, or to read it.
That said, there is a right implied here, danced around - a right to contract for essential services without interference. If that right were being defended here, I would be all for it. Network neutrality, and deregulation to allow competition. Oh wait, they hate those ideas!
So of course, nothing like that is actually going on. This is just a bunch of plutocrats trying to boost their profits by convincin
Re:A Luxury (Score:4, Insightful)
A right doesn't equal funding or even government sponsored. IE the right to free speech, or bear arms doesn't equal no cost access to both, it does say undue restriction by government, ether by rule or cost is wrong. I would apply this to mobile internet. IE call it a right, so if the government, or provider ever bans a device because say the device didn't have a security back door for snooping, we have standing to say that is illegal, and mobile internet must not be overly restricted.
A Luxury? (Score:5, Informative)
None of those things are necessities for life. To survive, to be alive, I do not need to use on-line vendors.
Here in the Netherlands we increasingly need to... Various government taxes already can only, be handled online. Currently the taxes that can only be handled online are those for all (small and large) businesses. And if those businesses refuse they are put out of business. Individuals can still get a paper form for their income tax but it's already strongly discouraged. More and more parts of the government are going an online-mostly or only route, not only for additional stuff but the essentials.
Many businesses stopped sending bills through 'snail' mail. Most communication businesses (telephone, cable and internet providers) were the first to do so. Banks are decreasing their number of offices throughout the country rapidly. Most of the time only the major cities still have one (1) office where you can do your banking business. (Such an office would have to serve ten of thousands of customers if not a majority was doing his/ber banking online.) For the rest they only offer online services. The least expensive health-insurers (with the basic package) only offer you service if they can send bills electronically and medicine can only be ordered through an internet-apothecary (after you get a prescription by a certified GP or specialist of course).
With other things, not interacting online causes a hefty financial penalty. Getting your receipts through mail is a value-added option, not included in the basic packages for those businesses still offering it that don't have to send you the actual goods by mail (like shops... which are cheaper most of the time, by the way, if you order the goods online). The best deals on contracts for electricity, cooking gas, all insurances, savings accounts, mortgages and other financial products, communication products, etc. are found online.
If you want to access the educational system, you have to be online, if only it was to sign up for an actual school or university (for college education or equivalents or better).
A person in the Netherlands which doesn't have access to the internet has either a very poor standard of living or a very high one (because he can afford to opt-out).
I would say, here in the Netherlands the ability to have an internet connection capable of doing all this described above is a right. Of course that does not imply you should get a connection for free. You should still pay a proper (but also limited) fee for your connection if you decide to use the services of a provider that provides you with said internet connection. The providers however are (and increasingly so) regulated, for example, by means of laws for things like net-neutrality and the anti-telecoms-monopoly agency OPTA. And there are also government subsidies for providers willing to implement connections to places less profitable. Which is all fair, considering you can't really live in the Netherlands without having an internet connection of some sorts.
Re:A Luxury (Score:5, Insightful)
When living your life often requires internet access, then it becomes a right.
Living your life more often requires a car than internet access. Is owning a car a right? Do we all get free cars?
Re:A Luxury (Score:5, Insightful)
When living your life often requires internet access, then it becomes a right.
Living your life more often requires a car than internet access. Is owning a car a right? Do we all get free cars?
Plenty of people live without both, and neither one is a right. This is silliness that's being used to sell electronics.
Re:A Luxury (Score:4, Insightful)
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Forget about cars. What about food, water, a place to sleep and stay warm. Shouldn't those be a right and placed first in line and not this internet thing that seems to just be a craze.
I have a problem declaring "positive" rights at all, but if you're going to "grant" positive rights (these are not human rights, i.e. rights you should have simply by existing), then you should only grant positive rights to necessities. Necessities are the things you cannot live without. To this day, nobody has ever convinced me that includes anything beyond the commonaly accepted food/shelter/clothing. So no, internet, phone, TV, cars... luxuries all.
Re:A Luxury (Score:5, Insightful)
They live on a barter system and off the land they live on. This is a LOT OF THE WORLD. Make it available, sure, but most of them don't give a rip about it other than a curiosity. Teach their kids how to use it, and there aren't any jobs that will use it there.
As a privileged person who lives much of their lives on the Internet, you can't imagine life without it. Meet a person in sustenance living conditions, and they don't see it as a right or a need...just a toy.
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As a privileged person who lives much of their lives on the Internet, you can't imagine life without it. Meet a person in sustenance living conditions, and they don't see it as a right or a need...just a toy.
I have a very good imagination, and I quite like imagining life without being chained to a phone or computer. But you're right... most people couldn't even benefit from it at all, even if they wanted to.
Re:A Luxury (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that Slashdot is full of technocrats who think that we live in post-scarcity world. Arguing over whether broadband internet access is a human right or not just shows how out of touch we are with the rest of the world, which is struggling just to survive.
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If only everyone posting here read and, more importantly, was actually capable of putting aside their biases long enough to understand what you wrote.
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Of course, that has nothing to do with what we're talking about.
We aren't talking about the right to purchase Internet service, and we aren't talking about the right to purchase cars. We are talking about the right to have those things provided by the government at no direct cost.
Re:A Luxury (Score:5, Insightful)
When living your life often requires internet access, then it becomes a right.
I don't know whether to feel sorry for you or just be disgusted by the fact that you think one can't live one's life without internet access. What basic function of existence, exactly (and by the way, entertainment - as per your video machine rental analogy - isn't a basic function of existence) becomes impossible without the internet? How exactly do you think mankind lived before the internet existed (and by the way, I'm an old(ish) fart so I've spent more of my life without the internet than with it)?
The number of examples where email/broadband availability is ASSUMED will increase in the future, because it is cheaper to remove human cost from the equation. Thus, the non-internet minority will become marginalized to an increasingly greater degree.
And here you've committed a horrible and dangerous logical error, thereby missing the fact that marginalizing a segment of mankind because they a) can't afford a service, or b) choose - for whatever reason - not to spend money on that service, would be a pretty facist action. Whether or not it happens anyway isn't the issue; tacit acceptance of that happening (and thereby mandating that service as a human right) is.
:)
The internet is a wonderful thing - and access to it is certainly a nice thing to have. It does make some aspects of living in a 1st-world country very convenient (we can argue later about how convenience can and often does destroy skill, but for now we'll assume convenience is a good thing). But the absence of it does not make life unlivable. Anyone who says different probably works for Comcast.
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How incredibly naive.
When living your life often requires internet access, then it becomes a right.
I don't know whether to feel sorry for you or just be disgusted by the fact that you think one can't live one's life without internet access. What basic function of existence, exactly (and by the way, entertainment - as per your video machine rental analogy - isn't a basic function of existence) becomes impossible without the internet? How exactly do you think mankind lived before the internet existed (and by the way, I'm an old(ish) fart so I've spent more of my life without the internet than with it)?
You have to laugh... I once actually had to argue about how a microwave was not a necessity with some slashdotter once. So let's "grant" the Bushmen of the Kalihari free broadband so they can rent videos and stick it in some wildebeest's butthole for entertainment.
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I'm not quite ready to call renting movies or having a credit card a human right. If you can't do those things without broadband... Well... That's unfortunate, but it's hardly going to kill you.
Granted, if you have mandatory government "services" that require it like paying your taxes, then I start to see where you're going. Don't have email, can't pay your taxes any other way, go to jail. Okay... That's starting to make email a necessity of existing legally in society. Prior to that point though, the
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Many (perhaps most) people here are not capable of making the distinction between the concepts of access to something and being given something for free.
Yes, access is a right (only theoretically, since the Federal government does not recognize the 9th and 10th amendments except where it is politically expedient). Most people seem to read the question in the context of a positive right though, which it absolutely is not.
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When living your life often requires internet access, then it becomes a right.
False. Also, living life does not require internet access.
Re:A Luxury (Score:4, Informative)
"When living your life often requires [...something...], then it becomes a right"
Hogwash. The world does not owe you survival. Your neighbour is not violating your "human rights" because he fails to donate you something "your life often requires".
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"Society, via its instrument the government ..."
It is tragic to have grown generations of people who think of "society" as equal to their "government", as opposed to "the group of fellow citizens", the latter of which is a much much larger set, at least in any free & viable state.
"The alternative is to have no human rights at all."
No. The alternative is a system of government that limits itself to protecting the classical - in wikipedia, called "negative" - rights.
"The right to life? Meaningless if soc
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When living your life often requires internet access, then it becomes a right.
No, actually it doesn't. At all. Not even close to the definition of a "right."
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Here is a good way to express it. People have a right not to be ACTIVELY marginalized (i.e. singled out in some way and oppressed). People do not have a right not to be PASSIVELY marginalized (living in some disadvantaged way due to their own inability or inaction).
Leftist "rights" advocates are not able to see the difference.
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You have the right to pay for your own stuff. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Precisely. An "entitlement" is a service someone is required to provide to you. A right is generally defined in the negative: No one is permitted to do X to you. No one is permitted to prevent you from doing Y.
Right to life - not allowed to kill you.
Freedom from torture - not allowed to torture you.
Freedom from slavery - not allowed to require work from you.
Right to a fair trial - not allowed to penalize absent a fair trial.
Freedom of speech - may not prevent you from speaking your mind.
Freedom of thought,
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Now if they changed this to "A right to access the internet provided you pay for it" them I'm all in. Denying someone an internet connection because they use too much bandwidth, or posted something you dont like, etc... is wrong. Refusing to provide internet service because that person decided to live on the side of a mountain and trunking DSL to them would cost half a million dollars, that's their problem.
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Precisely, because if you choose to define a "right" to include a good or service, then why not make it a "right" to pay for it?
And who says how much? I thought so...
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Word. No material object or service can ever be a human right.
Of course, you can say equal access to those goods and services is a human right, i.e. nobody should be denied access at the whim of another, but that's very different from saying "everybody is entitled to broadband service."
Nobody is denied access on the whim of another. If they want to move somewhere where a company sells internet access and choose to pay for it, any person may have it. I don't think some internet company is going to say "Whaoh, there.. you're from Somalia despite the fact that you now live in London. No soup for you!"
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OK...
Then maybe internet access is just an aspect of speech, and we leave it at that?
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Binary question (Score:5, Insightful)
A luxury or a human right. What there isn't a middle ground here?
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Exactly. It's a highly valuable resource and something for which there's a strong argument to get to as many people as possible. But I wouldn't go so far as to consider it a basic human right.
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I'm nearly positive that I have a basic human right to a weekly three-way with Jessica Biel and Scarlett Johanson.
(Actually, I've always wondered why it is that if I choose to work and receive a salary then a portion of that salary is to be given to others, but if the eighteen year old hotty next door chooses to have wild monkey sex at least a portion of that isn't with me! Damn the injustice of life!)
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Yep.
It's a very handy/nice thing to have, but you can live without it.
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There are many middle grounds here.
One is that Internet access should be an -entitlement- like Social Security or Medicare. If you cannot afford Internet access, Internet access will be provided for you.
Another is that Internet access is a staple of life. Like denying food or water runs afoul of the right to life and freedom from torture, denying Internet access runs afoul of freedom of speech, thought, conscience and religion. You still have to buy it and you can only have what you can afford. But it can't
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That was my first thought to. False dichotomy.
On topic : I'd rate broadband connection (note, broadband in general, not necessarily MOBILE broadband as the question suggests) around the same level of necessity as terrestrial radio signals, a vehicle, grid power etc. While it's certainly possible to live your life without these things, I certainly expect them to be present or at least available in my daily life.
So I guess the question is : Do you consider working power outlets in your house to be a luxury
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I agree, its a utility (in the power grid sense) with increasing utility (in the economist jargon sense).
Right now I know plenty of people who don't have broadband internet (for various reasons). And I don't think their human rights are being violated but I do feel they are at an economic disadvantage (in the same sense that country folk have more expenses tied to sewer issues than city folk etc).
For me it is a necessity, I rely on fast internet to provide me income, information, etc. For them its a luxury because they can get by with out it.
Calling broadband a human right is a bit far fetched. A human right by definition is something you cannot be a full human without. Life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness comes to mind. Internet access can be a tool to these ends, but not an end to its self.
Though it's probably worth recognizing that the first step to denying people those things is trying to inhibit or shutdown access to the internet and other types of communications.
Right vs Good Idea (Score:5, Insightful)
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Rights versus someone else's property (Score:5, Insightful)
Rights are only appropriately applied to liberties. You never have the right to someone else's property or labor. Goods and services are not something you can have a "right" to.
Access may be a compelling social good but it is absurd to call it a right.
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Not that I necessarily disagree, but how did you arrive at that definition of right? It seems to come from the bare assertion that liberty is the highest ideal. I'd like to see that assertion defended a little more clearly.
Re:Rights versus someone else's property (Score:4, Insightful)
A right is something you can do, not something someone else does for you.
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Of course you can have a right to property, for example in many places you have a right to healthcare. A universal human right is a different thing and I agree with you in that they should only contain natural rights, however this isn't the case [wikipedia.org].
Telephone (Score:3, Insightful)
It's a luxury stupid.
50 years from now people will reminisce about cablemodem "party lines" and such, but just because a luxury is cheap, does not make it a human right.
You have a inalienable human right to speak and to listen, but not to be heard (by whatever means of conveyance is completely irrelevant).
Conveyance beyond your own two feet, larynx and lungs, is a luxury. Plain and simple.
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50 years from now people will reminisce about cablemodem "party lines" and such, but just because a luxury is cheap, does not make it a human right.
American society has in the past considered a telephone connection to be essentially a human right. Aside from outliers who lived far from any pretense of civiliation (which is difficult to do these days, because people keep fucking) everyone got a phone. Even some truly remarkably distant locations were served by POTS, for example the Mojave desert phone booth. The purpose was emergency communications. A fund was set up to extend phone lines to remote regions where handfuls of people lived, and that desert
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Ubiquity != Human right.
Humans have a right to communicate. Full stop. If you had a (legal or inalienable) right to a phone you wouldn't have to pay for it.
It depends on (Score:2)
which political part wins the election and what kind of companies contribute to that party. Got it?
There is a pretty wide disparity between... (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a pretty wide disparity between "Luxury" and "Basic human right."
I'd hardly call indoor plumbing, 99.9% uptime electricity, or interstate highways to be "basic human rights," but they're pretty much essential for an modern, industrial society/economy.
Silly false dichotomy (Score:4, Interesting)
Have a bunch of "rights" for you, from 1936. (Score:3, Interesting)
Here is a bunch of "rights" for you, fresh from the 1936 USSR constitution.
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You forgot the "some pigs are more equal than others" at the bottom.
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You forgot the "some pigs are more equal than others" at the bottom.
That's an implementation problem, not a theoretical one.
On paper, communism is just as theoretically sound as any other socioeconomic principle.
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1. Many (most) people are lazy and work only because they have to do so to survive and/or live a comfortable life.
2. Many (most) people are selfish and won't work up to their full ability just for the benefit of society
3. Many (most) people are selfish and that includes the leaders. If everyone is truly equal and there are no leaders, the more capable people will find a way to make themselves leaders.
Re:Have a bunch of "rights" for you, from 1936. (Score:4, Insightful)
Communism is not theoretically sound because it fails to account for the basics of human nature.
I never said it was theoretically sound; my exact words were
The "basics of human nature" that you claim is the antithesis of communism also invalidate the thesis of capitalism, fascism, et. al.
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That's an implementation problem, not a theoretical one.
So could we say that a "feature" of communism is the inability to implement it?
Idiotic. (Score:3)
I'm glad to hear so many championing common sense. Of course it isn't a right. No one has a right to other people's property or the fruits of other people's labor, and that's what network connectivity of all kinds is.
No rights here, move along. (Score:3)
I'm confused? Mobile Broadband or Regular? (Score:2)
In either case, I don't believe they are a "right", they are a luxury. Hell, even electricity isn't a "right", try not paying your bill for a couple months.
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Yeah, I was confused too. The article and summary refer to "mobile" broadband, yet TFA clearly quotes Lance Ulanoff referring to just broadband (not mobile).
That's three levels of "rights" to take into consideration. Is Mobile communications a right? Is Broadband a right? And THEN on top of that, is *mobile* broadband a right?
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Came here to post exactly the same thing. Broadband is something that is much more essential to life these days than mobile broadband.
Does anyone feel that access to cable television is a fundamental human right?
False dichotomy (Score:2)
Actually exercising their human rights is a luxury for the vast majority of people in the world.
On the other hand, the right to enjoy luxuries is also being curtailed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumptuary_law [wikipedia.org]
Basic Human Rights Should Remain Somewhat Constant (Score:2)
Life, Liberty, Pursuit of Happiness (Score:5, Insightful)
2. Liberty: Does not having it limit your freedom of speech, right to bear arms, right to a fair and speedy trial, or other consitutional rights? No.
3. Pursuit of Happiness: Could you live a happy life without it? Yes.
It is not a right to be bestowed upon you, it is an opportunity afforded to you by others. As such, others may request compensation for it.
I'm getting sick of this new generation of entitlement.
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So government X is extorting money from you to pay from grandma Y
Grandma Y voted for and supported government X giving her all these social guarantees. Social Security, Medicare, etc.
Government X and Grandma Y didnt want to pay for it, instead choosing to decide that people that had not even been born yet should foot those bills when the time comes. Government X and grandma Y also conspired to get immediate benefits at the expense of those unborn people through the miracle of deficit spending, so not only does grandma Y get a retirement that she doesnt deserve, she be
Broadband = a luxury; Connectivity = a necessity (Score:2)
First, mobile or not is secondary, the question is whether people are connected to the Internet or not. Mobile is generally the best way to do it (cheaper infrastructure, cheaper terminals, no needs for reliable/permanent mains power...), so let's accept mobile is best, though this might be untrue in some circumstances (cities, st world countries...) where fixed would be OK too.
Second, broadband or trickle-band is moot: the question is whether people have access to Internet or not, not whether that access i
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Connectivity is also a luxury. The internet as a public commodity is less than a generation old, fer cryin' out loud.
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At some point, that could be said of cars, running water, telephone, electricity, sewers, public schools, TV, radio... Something being new does not automatically mean it's superfluous ?
there's no such thing as natural human rights (Score:3)
there's merely values a society holds dear. the success or failure of that society is based on what those values are and how dearly the society holds those values
if it holds those values so fervently that it calls them natural human rights and fights and dies for such so-called rights, then that society will succeed if those rights indeed help the society thrive better than other societies with a different set of values. the human rights the USA holds dearly i think enriches the happiness and productivity of society enough that the USA succeeds as well as it does
some other societies hold other values to the point of fighting to the death, which i will not name, but a review of current events will reveal what i am talking about. it is my assertion that those values those other societies will fight to the death for doom those societies to less happiness and less productivity and therefore the dustbin of history, eventually, as they are simply out competed
as for mobile broadband, i can see a just society handing out cell phones to homeless and poor people to guarantee a baseline of voting rights and access to health records and financial abilities. but it will take time before cell phones reach that level of indisputable necessity and ubiquity. but we are definitely headed in that direction
in other words: not yet, but someday, when your cell phone is your credit card, id, bank account, patient records, etc., you will need such access to be called a right
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You can define "rights" if you like, but that's just what it is, a definition. Strictly speaking, no one has a right to anything. All you can be sure of is what is granted to you by other people or what you can claim with your own power or abilities.
Now if you want to be a bit looser about it, you can define certain things called "rights", but asking whether there is a natural right to something like broadband or even life is always an answer to the negative. You do not have any right to broadband. You
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a government can say that everyone has a right to a pink house. a government can say everyone has a right to a daily meatball sandwich. it doesn't matter
but if that thing called a right results in a happier and more productive society, that's the only metric that matters. because then that society will outcompete other societies, and they will be beaten or change to also include that right out envy or outright necessity due to dire economic reasons or social cohesion reasons
in other words, the idea you need
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the only rules are genetic and psychological
everything else is made up by our heads. we have, and will, make up some really nutty and exotic values in various societies. if those values play out in such a way that the society is more successful than another society with a different set of values, then one succeeds where another fails, and the losing society fades or changes by adapting the set of values that work better
that's the only dynamic in play
think of it as natural selection, but operating on ideas a
As much a right as immovable Broadband.I guess (Score:2)
We really going to stir up this old pot again?
Do I have the Right? (Score:3)
What "right" really means (Score:3)
I've always been puzzled by the grandiose term "right" when applied to something like healthcare or in this case broadband. I'm taking an ethics class and "right" in this context doesn't mean what we colloquially think it means; it's an academic term. It simply means that a society is making the decision that every citizen will have access to some thing or some service. I have a right to traffic signs and lights on my route to work. I have a right to electrical service so long as I pay for it. If my old school district ever went through with the policy, every high school student would have the right to a laptop.
It has little to do with your inalienable Constitutional rights that are on a higher level. It's a poor choice of words when entering a civic debate when the terminology implies something quite a bit different.
Information Is A Right (Score:3)
But seriously . . . I believe access to information is (or should be) a right. By whatever means is the accepted norm for the times. For example, in colonial (US) days that might mean via public assembly, printed pamphlets or newspapers. As technology progressed so did the accepted norms -- from magazines to radio and television broadcasts to the internet and beyond. And I believe the government has some responsibility to ensure that all citizens have access to information.
Am I saying every citizen should be issued a shiny new smartphone with the latest and greatest 4G plan? Of course not. But every single person should have at least some sort of internet access available to them - whether it's at a local library, school, town hall or some other public facility. Or even publicly funded private access for special cases such as a low income person who is an invalid/shut-in.
I'm afraid if we treat access to information as a privilege or luxury rather than a right, we're going to start a slippery slope we'll never get back up. And we may have already started down it . . .
electricty, plumbing, food (Score:2)
Try living without those.
"Oh sorry; you can't afford food, too bad!"
Even something like electricty is needed now-a-days.
Well I guess people live in in shacks in 3 world countries, scrounging for food scraps.
You can live without them.
What about public defenders?
They cost money.
Are they a right?
There aren't enough pro bono lawyers to go around.
I think people should have to pay taxes for some things, whether they like it or not.
Even if it isn't a "right" it is an essential privilege.
You probably already have the "right" to internet (Score:2)
What? (Score:2)
"We need to make sure all the world's inhabitants are connected to the goodies of the online world, which means better health care, better education, more sustainable economic and social development"
No, better healthcare means better healthcare and better education means better education.
And more work for you and your kind doesn't mean more sustainable economic and social development.
Not a right (Score:2)
Consulting the Declaration of the Rights of Man, (Score:2)
...I find that one has the right to own and use a printing press. That does not imply that anyone is entitled to have the printing press given to him.
Even the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which is possibly the most liberal definition of "human rights" currently imaginable, seems to concur. It is difficult, given the reality of life on this planet, to see how mobile broadband can be included as a requirement for "a standard of living adequate for... health and well-being" (Article 25).
Can you have a right to something like that? (Score:2)
How can you have a right to something that someone else provides to you? What if they don't wan't to? Will you force them to give it to you? Wouldn't that interfere with their ability to live their own lives as they choose?
Maybe it would be better to say that we should endeavor to provide internet access to everyone for the sake of human progress. It's a little disingenuous to pretend that by failing to provide you with internet access they've actually denied you something to which you were rightly entitled
No. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
no, no, no and no. All these things have non-zero costs and require others to provide them to you.
Rights are things that you can't be depraved of in absence of external intervention violating them. If you are alone in the desert unprepared you can say any shit you want, you can self-determine who you are and what not, but you can die of dehydration. Obviously you have a right to self-ownership but you don't have a right to water, if you had, you wouldn't die because of lack of it.
Re: (Score:2)
and food prices are volatile, but steadily increasing:
Why not just say fuel prices are rising? Food is so cheap as to have become nearly ubiquitous. Its not a hard sell to get even staunch free-market folks on board with a food-providing social program due to its low costs and high benefits. However, the delivering of the food to where its needed, well thats still quite expensive. It would not be so easy to get those same staunch free-market boys on board to pay for that, especially since THAT cost is going up.