If you haven't seen season 3, the big conflict is over Frank's new jobs program called America Works. The idea is that entitlements are a failing system, so he wants to allocate the $500 billion from them to fund job creation and ultimately reach full employment, meaning anyone that wants a job will have it, be it in government, military, or private sector.

This generation will surely never see benefits from social security, so I'm wondering what your thoughts on this are.

In what universe is free speech irrelevant to the Internet? Free speech and Internet costs were the primary concerns of this entire debate.

Evidence that most people speaking loudly about this don't know what was actually going on. We're talking about infrastructure. Not the internet, the physical network that supports the internet like fiber optic lines, tunnels, channels, etc. This has nothing to do with regulating what you can do on the internet legally.

If you're going to make statements such as this, you don't understand what this is all about
And here's a hypothetical scenario to help get you started:

Spoiler

That picture is also wrong. It's ironic that so many people conflated this with cable bundles, given that cable is also a utility. There's no reason that services like Netflix couldn't be split up and bundled separately, exactly like cable bundles, which are also regulated by the FCC.

I'm asking you to momentarily remove yourself from the sensationalist, italics-laden emotional arguments about free speech and how the internet is the best thing for freedom since America-sliced bread. That's not what this is about.

This has nothing to do with free services.

By labeling broadband internet as a utility, the FCC is declaring that all infrastructure is open for use and the owners of that infrastructure may not discriminate against companies that use it by charging them money, limiting their access through paywalls, or speed throttling. Basically, the government waited until the infrastructure was developed by private money, then decided it was theirs to regulate.

All the romanticized hype about low internet costs and free speech are literally irrelevant to what happened.

I build a toll road. You pay me to drive your car on it. My road is designed for many small cars mainly, each contributing. Then a bus company (let's call it Netcar) comes along and offers to give tons of people rides for a small fee, and these buses don't have to pay a toll for each person. Eventually, these buses take up over a third of all traffic on the road, but I'm not getting paid for its usage. In addition, my toll has been forced to be lower and lower every year. Each year, it costs 30% less to use the road. So now I'm making pennies and 1/3 of my traffic isn't even paying to use the roads. Now, other companies come along and want to use the stuff I built to run their bus companies and use my infrastructure to build more roads (I already have the asphalt and trucks ready). To account for the massive increase in usage and the decrease in revenue I'm getting, I'm forced to restrict the buses and charge more for the cars. People say this isn't fair, and when other companies with very little investment use my equipment to build more roads and offer the same or lower prices, the customers accuse me of wringing them for cash. When I go to the government about it, they pass a measure that allows those other companies to use my roads, my equipment, my infrastructure to run their business, all without chipping in for my initial massive investment which laid the foundation for all of the roads for everyone. That's legal because now it's regulated, meaning I lose the ability to charge different users (like the buses or other high-use vehicles) more than I would a little car, and I lose the ability to make faster lanes for those that would like to pay for it (although this is largely hypothetical now).

Heavyhanded analogy aside, this isn't the cyber-liberty battle that it has been talked up to be.

Quote from: HurtfulTurkey on February 27, 2015, 11:03:36 AM

They're not forced. Google is laying down their own fiber, and cell providers build their own network. The infrastructure is an investment, and allowing other companies to use it freely, as this FCC decision does, isn't preventative of monopolies, it's destructive to fair competition. Why should anyone build any more of this infrastructure if they don't benefit from its exclusivity?

But it's talking about existing infrastructure. Currently, many cities [including my own] only have one ISP you can have because no other ISP is allowed to run cables. That's anti-competitive.

Where do you live that restricts laying cable?

Quote from: HurtfulTurkey on February 27, 2015, 10:29:42 AM

Quote from: Mr Psychologist on February 27, 2015, 10:24:21 AM

Quote from: HurtfulTurkey on February 27, 2015, 10:21:36 AM

Is there any evidence that service providers will, or ever did, throttle speed or prices for access to certain sites?

http://www.cnet.com/news/netflix-reaches-streaming-traffic-agreement-with-comcast/

This is the thing that comes to mind <.<

If anything, that's evidence of the market's ability to self-correct. Netflix is a competitor to Comcast, yet they reached a deal to provide non-preferential partnership wherein Netflix pays a fee for the use of Comcast's infrastructure.

I'm worried this FCC decision has done little except cement the existent monopolies.

It seemed more like Comcast extorting Netflix so that it's customers (Netflix) won't be having throttled/shite connections giving a borderline useless service <.<
Netflix then has to pay a premium to Comcast so that it's customers don't cancel their subscriptions because they get awful quality video.

It'd hardly call that extortion. Despite being internet-based, they're still a direct competitor to Comcast's broadcasting.

Quote from: HurtfulTurkey on February 27, 2015, 10:21:36 AM

Is there any evidence that service providers will, or ever did, throttle speed or prices for access to certain sites?

http://www.cnet.com/news/netflix-reaches-streaming-traffic-agreement-with-comcast/

This is the thing that comes to mind <.<

If anything, that's evidence of the market's ability to self-correct. Netflix is a competitor to Comcast, yet they reached a deal to provide non-preferential partnership wherein Netflix pays a fee for the use of Comcast's infrastructure.

I'm worried this FCC decision has done little except cement the existent monopolies.

Gotta get those classic sequels done before he kicks the bucket.

Quote from: HurtfulTurkey on February 26, 2015, 11:56:11 PM

Quote from: Cheat on February 26, 2015, 11:45:47 PM

It's next Friday.

When did the admins change their color to black?

...What do you mean?

Dress joke.

Fuck you man, it's obviously completely white.

How could I have been so blind?

You literally had to change the color settings of the picture to wash the colors out to get even a semblance of white/gold on it.

Clearly her genes are inferior. Her squinty Asian eyes have failed her not only in field of view, but in a simple color test.

I think it's best to ensure my lineage isn't tainted with her faulty chromosomes.

So I was all hyped up for Anor Londo because it was said to be really hard and fun. I just breezed through it. Was worried about S&O because they're two tough badasses, and I got them on the first try. I got Ornstein's armor, and love it. Not trying to brag, I just felt pretty underwhelmed.

I'm like 99% certain that the people saying white and gold are in on some elaborate FB prank, like when girls made ambiguous status updates about where they put their purse to make it sound like sex, like "I like it on the bed" or something.

Indian professors. Actually, throw in any Asian professors.