What Interests Me Today

So since it is officially summer break for me I find myself with a bit more time on my hands than I am used to. And since I can only milk goats, go on nature walks, and drive quad-runners around for so long I am back to my intellectual pursuits regarding information, the flow of information and the presentation of content with the primary goal to be a more active, involved and informed member of society. So I am going to blog about a couple issues that are interesting to me right now.

Net Neutrality:

The basic idea of net neutrality as I understand it is that all information on the internet is treated equally as far as how it gets from one point to another. So no information is given priority treatment over others. This means my email travels from my computer through the internet to whatever agency I am sending it to as fast as whatever agency I am contacting would send information to me. This end-user relationship means that no data in any data stream is treated differently right? Ok, so that may all be coming to an end since the FCC is no longer enforcing this policy. What is the FCC good for these days anyway? So what would this mean? One example I can think of would be this: I use the Berkeley server for my internet, and Berkeley for whatever reason likes Google more than Yahoo, and they create a system so that all Google data is delivered faster than Yahoo data, making Google the faster search engine. That example is only a hypothetical, but it is possible. It is far more likely that a company such as Sprint or SBC will allow websites and corporations to pay for this preferential treatment in order to gain an edge on their competition. This makes me ask the question, is this fair in a capitalist market? From a capitalist perspective I would assume that the market for this type of system would be one sides. As a user I would not be interested in using an internet provider that does not support net neutrality. So if I was an ISP, and I knew selling bandwidth priorities would open one market while closing another I might not take this course of action. There would be a cost benefit analysis of course, and if every other ISP was selling bandwidth priorities I would know that there would not be an alternative choice for my users to go to. This would make me consider selling the priorities if the profits were high enough.

But here is the problem. Without multiple ISPs competing in one area, there will be cases where a user has no other place to go in order to get broadband internet access. This makes it unfair in my opinion. Since the broadband market is still establishing itself, when users have only one choice it is unfair to force them to deal with an ISP who does not subscribe to net neutrality. This could easily lead to a situation where what you see on the internet is filtered by your ISP because some websites paid for priority in an exclusive contract (i.e. one search engine or news site) while other websites were left wondering where their traffic went. In essence, this controls the information we are able to access. In my opinion limited access to information leads to an uniformed and woefully ignorant public. This may be just fine for some people, but I happen to believe the world will be a better place when the general public is as informed as possible on all issues.

Now, here is an interesting discussion of the topic: http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=392

There is a lot more here than I can offer in my simple ramblings. It just seems to me that some people want to be ignorant and some companies want people to be ignorant. I want people to not be ignorant. The lack of net neutrality would lead to greater ignorance. If you agree with me, you should let your member of congress know because they don't think it is important. Yes, I am linking to the openleft, and I am conservative. It seems lately to me that the left is more informed than the right, and also more concerned with the general public being informed. I think EVERYONE should be informed, left, right or center.

Mountaintop Removal:

So I don't know much about this, but I am looking stuff up about it because my dad is interested. So I went to the first place I always go when I want a broad overview of something I don't know anything about, wikipedia. After I type in mountaintop removal it links me to a site (link) that tells me that this is a new form of coal mining where up to 1000 feet of mountaintop are leveled using explosives and the debris are dumped into the river. This happens mostly in Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, and Kentucky. It went on to say that Hose bill H.R. 2169 would effectively stop valley fills, though it does not mention anything about mountaintop removal for the mining of coal itself. Just what is done with the debris. Some of you may be thinking that you don't care about what happens in TN, WV, VA and KT. The excess mineral deposits in dump sites alone is killing species of aquatic life in the rivers, lakes and streams around these sites. A decrease in population spreads out from the center affecting every habitat involved in the same ecosystem. If I lived around where this was happening, and I saw my rivers getting filled up with dumped rubble from mountaintops in order to get a small amount of coal, I would be pissed. Anyway, I plan on telling my member of congress all about it. Besides, if we let it go in these states, it will surely spread. Reckless disregard of the state of our ecosystems and the impact we have on the planet is what leads to the loss of habitat, the extinction of species, and the weakening of life in general. I really am reminded of the commercial where the lumberjack cuts down a tree, and the domino effect comes full circle and lands on him. Drastic changes are never good. One of the many sites offering information and ways to get involved is ILoveMountains which is what my dad linked to me in order to get me informed on this particular subject.

I think that's it for now. Back later when I have more free time.