Fri

Jun 30
2006

Tim O'Reilly

Tim O'Reilly

And These Guys Are Writing Our Laws?

Having just discovered the 27B Stroke 6 blog via the previous posting, I have to point to the latest entry as well, a hilarious reposting of a shockingly ignorant speech on the net neutrality debate by Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska). You won't know whether to laugh or cry.

Update: Ryan Singel followed up with an even funnier spoof of "the internet" that Stevens' staff supposedly sent to him that was delayed because of too much commercial activity filling up the Internet's tubes. When you're done with crying over the original posting, turn to the second one for a really hearty laugh.


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Comments: 4

  Tim O'Brien [06.30.06 09:31 AM]

I sent you an internet the other day, and it appears that you still haven't read it. I wonder if it just went through "the wrong tube".


His "internet as a series of tubes" analogy is similar to the "Amazon is sending thousands of Semis over the highway argument" that the Telecom industry keeps on touting.

You might find this interesting, it is some reaction to the house Subcommmittee's hearing on Net Neutral from April. long story short, Timothy Wu tears apart Walter McCormick's argument that companies should be able to charge for preferential or tiered access.

This is what happens when public policy is dictated to our lawmakers through the filter of highly paid lobbying firms. We might as well install dedicated phones for lobbying firms in our Senate committee hearing rooms - our Government has been purchased, and when I read incompetence like that from Ted Stevens, I fear that it is far too late.

  Tim O'Brien [06.30.06 10:04 AM]

Sorry, I couldn't help myself from making another comment. This article over at WebProNews.com has some great information for anyone wondering how and why we ended up in this situation. From the article, you see that the top contributors to Ted Stevens R-AK are "1. News Corp...3. Verizon...5. Viacom...6. AT&T...7. Walt Disney...9. General Electric (NBC)...19. Sprint Nextel"

  Mark Wallace [07.04.06 05:58 AM]

So what can we do to help educate the legislators then?

  Keith Fieldhouse [07.04.06 06:01 AM]

s/Tubes/Pipes/


At some point, someone, probably a lobbiest for one of the carriers explained their position to Stevens. Through Stevens' mangling you can still see the analogy that was presented to him and while it's slanted to a particular perspective it's not wholly riduculous. The point is, it worked. Stevens has power and was convinced to use that power in a certain way.


While it feels good (for a while) to feel smug about our superior understanding of technology we'd do well to remember creating change requires helping people to understand facts and perspectives that they don't yet understand. In this case, the carriers suceeded. We've got snarky
T-Shirts
though.

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