How Some People Intend Net Neutrality to Work

Maybe the cartoonists had no idea of how net neutrality would work, but other people have some idea of how they want it to work.

Either some of the supporters of net neutrality are even more ignorant than the cartoonists or the cartoonists underestimated how much of a threat to freedom it would be.

By the way, smacking down a content provider hogging 30% of the bandwidth does not count as “broken.”

Four Political Factions

The Right-Wing NutJobs with which I'm sometimes allied will find it hard to believe that leftists are opposed to the “Establishment”. It isn't as absurd as it might seem. There is reason to think the media are not owned by far leftists. I think we can clear up the confusion of whether the “mainstream” media are right or left if we note that there are at least four political viewpoints common in the U.S. today:

1. the Establishment right;
2. the Populist right;
3. the Establishment left;
4. the Populist left.

We see that the first three are well represented (section 3 is excessively well represented) but the last tends to be ignored except when another group (usually 3) decides to speak for it. (Section 2 cannot be ignored nowadays. Even before the current administration, it was condemned but it was not ignored.)

The Populist left includes but is not limited to the underclass. It also includes underpaid artists, underpaid writers, underpaid musicians, much of the west side of Manhattan, and wacko ex-professors in Montana. (The Usenet version of this was written some time ago and it was based on a CompuServe rant dated April 22, 1996.)

The Establishment left tends to define itself in opposition to the Populist right. It will go along with the Populist left when it disagrees with the Populist right (e.g., on gay rights) or when the Populist right is apathetic (e.g., on nuclear power) but will oppose both populisms when they agree (e.g., on free trade).

The Establishment left will frequently pretend the Populist left does not exist. The Establishment right thinks that is because they will only pay attention to right-wing embarrassments. They may be right.

Here We Go Again!

Evan Williams, one of the people behind Blogger, now regrets starting Twitter, on the grounds that it my have put Trump in the White House.

This is part of a common pattern:

1. Leftists notice that not everybody agrees with the Enlightened Ones.
2. They attribute that to Establishment brainwashing. (They really do believe that.)
3. They then invent another platform that the Establishment cannot censor. (Seen on Usenet: “The Revolution will be Bloggerized” from a left-wing crackpot.)
4. They then become astounded at how the new platform is being used by The Enemy.

This may be related to the fact that Leftists don't know what capitalism is. (That may also have caused the reaction discussed here.)

As for the next platform … “I have no idea what it will be, and am in no great hurry to find out.”

I Have a Strange Superpower

I have a memory.

I can recall that the Rust Belt was called the Rust Belt long before either NAFTA or large-scale Chinese trade.

I can recall that we didn't have large numbers of people dying in the streets before Obamacare. (Those that were dying in the streets did so as a result of collectivism-inspired riots.)

I can recall when 7% interest was considered the minimum for a monetary crisis. (The interest rates at the peak of the alleged crisis of 2008 were much less.)

Addendum: I sometimes feel like this.