It might be if we were not talking about communications infrastructure or those were the only options.
What happens according to your theories if all of your telecom companies make the wrong choice? Isn't your industry dead then anyway? And according to your description of how perilous the process is, this seems like a likely outcome.
In reality, what happens is that the dominant companies win out anyway, because people just have to accept what they are offering, and they can afford to lose more money than the smaller companies, even if what they are offering sucks.
This isn't a desirable outcome, is it? But it's the logical outcome of your scenario.
There is this thing called silicon valley startups --- somebody somewhere is going to bet on something that nobody else is working on at the moment. If the whole establishment comes down in flames, you still have the start-ups. But if the government interferes with making technology bets and the whole industry comes down in flames --- there won't be any start-ups to rely on, because those startups would have never gotten venture capitalist firms to give them the money to start the firm.
We don't live in the perfect world --- while there may be some outcomes that are not desirable in my scenario, it is still a lot better than your scenario. In your scenario, it's going to be dominant national companies that will call the shots behind the protection of their national governments, and if they are wrong, then everybody in the country goes down with them.
Europe learned their lesson the hard way --- now European governments auctioning their spectrum licenses for the last 3-4 years --- totally technology neutral.
There is this thing called silicon valley startups --- somebody somewhere is going to bet on something that nobody else is working on at the moment.
This really doesn't have anything to do with Silicon Valley startups. None of the currently dominant Wireless carriers was ever a Silicon Valley startup, so please don't confuse the issue. These are/were all large, well established companies who out-competed smaller companies by using exactly the tactics I, and many others, are arguing against: by leveraging their size and technological incompatibilities to their advantage.
The point you are trying to make that by allowing these same companies to continue to leverage their size and technological incompatibilities we will somehow magically have the most marvelous technologies (at low cost, you would no doubt attempt to argue) provided by a legion of startups is, quite frankly, utterly absurd and fantastic.
And, apparently, Europe has learned the wrong lesson. There's nothing wrong with the 3G technology itself. It's the particular way rollouts were done in Europe, before there was the basis for consumer demand, that caused problems for the phone companies. So, although you keep harping on this point, it's really completely irrelevant to the issue of whether standards are good or bad. Establishing standards is not the same as dictating when companies deploy them. Let them feel free to make that decision on their own and compete on that basis. But there's no reason to allow them to lock consumers in by using incompatible technology.
This really doesn't have anything to do with Silicon Valley startups. None of the currently dominant Wireless carriers was ever a Silicon Valley startup, so please don't confuse the issue. These are/were all large, well established companies who out-competed smaller companies by using exactly the tactics I, and many others, are arguing against: by leveraging their size and technological incompatibilities to their advantage.
The point you are trying to make that by allowing these same companies to continue to leverage their size and technological incompatibilities we will somehow magically have the most marvelous technologies (at low cost, you would no doubt attempt to argue) provided by a legion of startups is, quite frankly, utterly absurd and fantastic.
And, apparently, Europe has learned the wrong lesson. There's nothing wrong with the 3G technology itself. It's the particular way rollouts were done in Europe, before there was the basis for consumer demand, that caused problems for the phone companies. So, although you keep harping on this point, it's really completely irrelevant to the issue of whether standards are good or bad. Establishing standards is not the same as dictating when companies deploy them. Let them feel free to make that decision on their own and compete on that basis. But there's no reason to allow them to lock consumers in by using incompatible technology.
Whether they are big or small companies --- if the government said we are allocating all the spectrum to WCDMA and WCDMA bombed big time, then there is no plan B, because no company (big or small) would invest on alternative technology like wimax.
WCDMA was designed in committee to mininize the amount of Qualcomm patents involved --- only problem is that those Qualcomm patents turned out to be really useful. It was designed with a vision of video calling --- which Qualcomm thought it was the stupidest idea ever. The only 3G killer app that survives is --- location based service --- again Qualcomm has the lead on.
Dictating the deployment schedule for 3G networks in Europe certainly added pain to the European carriers. But those deployment schedules were renegotiated again and again with millions of delays. And if European governments gave zero deployment schedules --- it would still hurt the European consumers, because WCDMA was designed WRONG in the first place --- concentrating on video calling and missing the location based services.
How are Europeans NOT locked to the iphone --- in most of these European countries, they are still stucked in a 2 year contract, with a simlocked iphone that would never be given the unlocking code.
You switch carriers and your new carriers give you a brand new cell phone for free --- there isn't any problem with incompatible technology.
Your way of thinking only works on paper, never works in reality. You may as well live in a communist country because on paper, their citizens have the most constitutional rights.
Supporters of the Euro system are finding out that their emperor has no clothes --- the three pillars of their system:
(1) All their faith in European simlocking laws was killed by the iphone.
(2) Europe setting GSM as the continental standard was a complete fluke and then complete disaster struck with WCDMA. Now all subsequent European spectrum auctions are technology neutral.
(3) Free incoming calls are the way to go. Charging incoming calls in the US is evil. Yet European Commission is actively studying plans to change to the American system of mobile call charging right now.
This is like George Costanza in Seinfeld finding out that every decision he made in his whole life is wrong. If you want to make a better system --- just look at the European system and then do the exact opposite.
"I always have tuna on toast. Nothing's ever worked out for me with tuna on toast. I want the complete opposite of tuna on toast. Chicken salad on rye, untoasted, with a side of potato salad and a cup of tea."
Why would Apple approve an app for the iPhone that conflicts with or otherwise encroaches upon the service AT&T provides? Apple and AT&T have a relationship, and the user really has no business using an app that enables them to circumvent AT&T's service. It would be odd for Apple to allow one.
If you want a Google Voice app then ask Google to subsidize your phone.
Why would Apple approve an app for the iPhone that conflicts with or otherwise encroaches upon the service AT&T provides? Apple and AT&T have a relationship, and the user really has no business using an app that enables them to circumvent AT&T's service. It would be odd for Apple to allow one.
If you want a Google Voice app then ask Google to subsidize your phone.
Those who REALLY REALLY want a google voice app- Magic, Dream or Hero.
Why would Apple approve an app for the iPhone that conflicts with or otherwise encroaches upon the service AT&T provides? Apple and AT&T have a relationship, and the user really has no business using an app that enables them to circumvent AT&T's service. It would be odd for Apple to allow one.
If you want a Google Voice app then ask Google to subsidize your phone.
Do you have any idea what google voice is? I am just asking because your questions and statements make no sense from someone that does.
Care to expand on how the GV services 'conflict', 'encroach' or 'circumvent' AT&T's services? How do they differ from the dozens of other apps on the iPhone that provide the identical services?
If it would be odd for Apple to allow one, imagine how odd it is that they approved dozens of various calling card, call forwarding, SMS type apps.
Have you ever made a long distance call using a LD service other than the one provider by the local telco? If so, did you feel shame for 'circumventing' the local telco's LD service? I hope not, because it is well within the law. For the carrier to try to block these alternative services would actually put them outside the law, as consumers are allowed to choose long distance providers other than the local telco...just as you are allowed to use calling cards on your cell line.
Supporters of the Euro system are finding out that their emperor has no clothes --- the three pillars of their system:
(1) All their faith in European simlocking laws was killed by the iphone.
(2) Europe setting GSM as the continental standard was a complete fluke and then complete disaster struck with WCDMA. Now all subsequent European spectrum auctions are technology neutral.
(3) Free incoming calls are the way to go. Charging incoming calls in the US is evil. Yet European Commission is actively studying plans to change to the American system of mobile call charging right now.
--- just look at the European system and then do the exact opposite.
"
There's nothing like making over-reaching, broad statements!
What you fail to realize is that models need to change and evolve. I don't know the Euro system, but I think you don't give it credit for creating a technological and business "space" with which a variety of companies could compete and themselves evolve without having to waste time and money on marketing campaigns for basic technology adoption.
In some ways this is how Microsoft gave the pc industry at least a starting point for the initial bout of innovation to occur. Unfortunately and predictably MS was wholey monopolistic and acquisitive and soon became the source of stifling innovation.
Blaming Europe is a lazy persons way of making a point, while ignoring history.
Yes, just like our country has benefited from the massive explosion of government post WWII
/sarcasm
So you don't like the GI bill, the interstate highway system, the clean air and clean water acts, the fire departments, police departments, public university system that attracts people from all over the world, the national parks, regulations that has allowed Los Angeles to almost double in size and actually improve its air quality, the Apollo program, the military spending that was the foundation for the boom of the 1950's, the V A hospital system that has a higher ranking than any private hospital system, the CDC that helped eradicate or prevent how many infectious diseases, etc.....
It is so easy to blame government, it is a favorite American indoor sport, and I am firmly a Jeffersonian democrat who only wants just the right amount of government, no more no less, but I've also lived in places without a strong central government and a strong sense of common interests (I assume the flag waving, holier than thou anti-government folks still have a sense of common national pride that isn't merely a desire for Bud Light and the freedom to tell other people what to do.).
Without post WW2 government programs, we would look a lot more like India - states that don't get along, laws that don't get enforced, rich families with monopolies that run everyone else like they are serfs, pollution that makes breathing painful, etc. It wouldn't be a 1920's fantasy or the days just post V-Day.
Corporate power needs to be balanced with political power. Capitalism needs Democracy.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DocNo42
Ha! There is no magical entity called "government". This is your first and greatest logical fallicy.
Government is an institution, and it's run by humans - not this nebulous entity with mythical powers. Humans that have all the same qualities that are often ascribed to those "evil" corporations. Except with government it's worse.
Doc, you demonstrate your own greatest logical fallicies quite well. You seem to think "corporations" are magical entities run by wise, compassionate titans of industry!
Corporations are institutions, run by humans - not nebulous entities with mythical powers of efficiency and wealth creation.
Your problem is that you are convinced government is worse. My family lost more from Enron than from any 5% tax hike on our incomes.
Corporations long ago lost the sheen of personal responsibility. Corporations are just as bad as government, except you can't vote the CEO of Exxon out of office, at least I can vote my senator out. And don't tell me the free market gets bad CEO's out of their jobs. No, boards of directors do, but wait! How did that work out for Lehman Bros., AIG, GM, etc. Oops, I guess corporate efficiency and the free market didn't quite fix those problems!
Corporations are even more difficult to change than politicians. Just try to honestly answer this question: which is more likely - that I would run for office and change government or start my own oil company and change Exxon?
Freedom ain't free, but neither is the "free" market.
There's nothing like making over-reaching, broad statements!
What you fail to realize is that models need to change and evolve. I don't know the Euro system, but I think you don't give it credit for creating a technological and business "space" with which a variety of companies could compete and themselves evolve without having to waste time and money on marketing campaigns for basic technology adoption.
There is no credit to be given --- because the largest mobile technology company in the world is Qualcomm, an American company that "lost" the GSM vs. CDMA war and was shut out of Europe. Qualcomm is larger than Nokia, larger than Siemens, larger than Ericsson, larger than Texas Instrument.... The real smartphone king is the RIM Blackberry --- a Canadian company that wasn't a product of the Euro system. The most profitable device is the iphone --- again American made.
You are supposed to use anti-trust laws to protect consumers, not to protect industries.
Of course, models need to change and evolve --- that's why the FCC changed their mobile termination rate system in 2001-2002 to the "bill and keep" system. Now 7 years later, Europe is talking about adopting the American system. It was the FCC that first adopted game theory in designing their spectrum auction --- some of the European regulators didn't, so a few 3G auctions were disasters in their design (not counting external factors like the internet bubble burst).
Laissez faire libertarianism like communism? You're really pushing it, Gomer. You may as well say "Obamism" is like Communism. An equally inane comparison.
At any rate, your answer indicates to me that you need a little more information on what Libertarians really stand for.
Your point about most not understanding "libertarianism" is well made and the link is a pretty good overview.
Unfortunately your comparison that "laissez faire libertarianism like communism" is like "'Obamism' is like communism" doesn't make sense. First there is no such thing as "Obamism" but also you and the other poster did not really specify where the comparison is. But that's the problem with discussing soio-political theory in a tech forum.
A better comparison is between laissez faire capitalism and centrally controlled communism - and that comparison needs to be given parameters or needs to be based upon some sort of economic model. For example a popular model for comparing economic systems is the sustainability based triple bottom line model (TBL) where business decisions are defined by three co-equal parameters or "bottom lines" - the economic, the social and the ecological. The best businesses and policies should be not only economically viable and profitable, but also socially just and ecologically healthy - otherwise they are not truly sustainable.
The problem with classical Marxist socialism is that it over-emphasizes the social side of the equation and ignores the economic (people don't make money) and the ecological (the Aral Sea and China's air pollution) - thus it is not sustainable.
The problem with laissez faire capitalism (that many libertarians may advocate) is that it over-emphasizes the economic capital to the detriment of social capital (the free market created the slave trade) and ecological capital (fisheries and forest practices destroy long term economic health of rural communities) - thus it is not sustainable.
It, of course, is possible to over-emphasize the ecological side of the equation to the detriment of the economy and society and this is seen with radical environmental groups. However those groups have historically had little impact on world systems.
So you are right libertarians are not well understood by many, they should be studied and appreciated, but also their theories need to be seen in practical ways. Objectivist like Ayn Rand have a very narrow view of society and ignore the environment as anything beyond a source of resources and anyone whose motto is to "never live for others," has never had a child. Political libertarian-leaners like Thomas Jefferson also lived in an age where keeping militiamen out of your house was more important than freeing slaves or regulating mercury in drinking water, so I think it is intellectually dishonest to think that he would agree with many libertarian views of today.
My point is that libertarianism is more theory and ideology than it is practical or pragmatic. Coercion for the good of the state or corporations or religion should be the focus of contempt by all free thinking people, but unfortunately a libertarian economic and political system would not do much to solve those problems.
Comments
It might be if we were not talking about communications infrastructure or those were the only options.
What happens according to your theories if all of your telecom companies make the wrong choice? Isn't your industry dead then anyway? And according to your description of how perilous the process is, this seems like a likely outcome.
In reality, what happens is that the dominant companies win out anyway, because people just have to accept what they are offering, and they can afford to lose more money than the smaller companies, even if what they are offering sucks.
This isn't a desirable outcome, is it? But it's the logical outcome of your scenario.
There is this thing called silicon valley startups --- somebody somewhere is going to bet on something that nobody else is working on at the moment. If the whole establishment comes down in flames, you still have the start-ups. But if the government interferes with making technology bets and the whole industry comes down in flames --- there won't be any start-ups to rely on, because those startups would have never gotten venture capitalist firms to give them the money to start the firm.
We don't live in the perfect world --- while there may be some outcomes that are not desirable in my scenario, it is still a lot better than your scenario. In your scenario, it's going to be dominant national companies that will call the shots behind the protection of their national governments, and if they are wrong, then everybody in the country goes down with them.
Europe learned their lesson the hard way --- now European governments auctioning their spectrum licenses for the last 3-4 years --- totally technology neutral.
http://www.fiercebroadbandwireless.c...ies/2008-05-19
http://www.rethink-wireless.com/inde...article_id=701
http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2009/08/04/4306451.htm
There is this thing called silicon valley startups --- somebody somewhere is going to bet on something that nobody else is working on at the moment.
This really doesn't have anything to do with Silicon Valley startups. None of the currently dominant Wireless carriers was ever a Silicon Valley startup, so please don't confuse the issue. These are/were all large, well established companies who out-competed smaller companies by using exactly the tactics I, and many others, are arguing against: by leveraging their size and technological incompatibilities to their advantage.
The point you are trying to make that by allowing these same companies to continue to leverage their size and technological incompatibilities we will somehow magically have the most marvelous technologies (at low cost, you would no doubt attempt to argue) provided by a legion of startups is, quite frankly, utterly absurd and fantastic.
And, apparently, Europe has learned the wrong lesson. There's nothing wrong with the 3G technology itself. It's the particular way rollouts were done in Europe, before there was the basis for consumer demand, that caused problems for the phone companies. So, although you keep harping on this point, it's really completely irrelevant to the issue of whether standards are good or bad. Establishing standards is not the same as dictating when companies deploy them. Let them feel free to make that decision on their own and compete on that basis. But there's no reason to allow them to lock consumers in by using incompatible technology.
This really doesn't have anything to do with Silicon Valley startups. None of the currently dominant Wireless carriers was ever a Silicon Valley startup, so please don't confuse the issue. These are/were all large, well established companies who out-competed smaller companies by using exactly the tactics I, and many others, are arguing against: by leveraging their size and technological incompatibilities to their advantage.
The point you are trying to make that by allowing these same companies to continue to leverage their size and technological incompatibilities we will somehow magically have the most marvelous technologies (at low cost, you would no doubt attempt to argue) provided by a legion of startups is, quite frankly, utterly absurd and fantastic.
And, apparently, Europe has learned the wrong lesson. There's nothing wrong with the 3G technology itself. It's the particular way rollouts were done in Europe, before there was the basis for consumer demand, that caused problems for the phone companies. So, although you keep harping on this point, it's really completely irrelevant to the issue of whether standards are good or bad. Establishing standards is not the same as dictating when companies deploy them. Let them feel free to make that decision on their own and compete on that basis. But there's no reason to allow them to lock consumers in by using incompatible technology.
Whether they are big or small companies --- if the government said we are allocating all the spectrum to WCDMA and WCDMA bombed big time, then there is no plan B, because no company (big or small) would invest on alternative technology like wimax.
WCDMA was designed in committee to mininize the amount of Qualcomm patents involved --- only problem is that those Qualcomm patents turned out to be really useful. It was designed with a vision of video calling --- which Qualcomm thought it was the stupidest idea ever. The only 3G killer app that survives is --- location based service --- again Qualcomm has the lead on.
Dictating the deployment schedule for 3G networks in Europe certainly added pain to the European carriers. But those deployment schedules were renegotiated again and again with millions of delays. And if European governments gave zero deployment schedules --- it would still hurt the European consumers, because WCDMA was designed WRONG in the first place --- concentrating on video calling and missing the location based services.
How are Europeans NOT locked to the iphone --- in most of these European countries, they are still stucked in a 2 year contract, with a simlocked iphone that would never be given the unlocking code.
You switch carriers and your new carriers give you a brand new cell phone for free --- there isn't any problem with incompatible technology.
Your way of thinking only works on paper, never works in reality. You may as well live in a communist country because on paper, their citizens have the most constitutional rights.
(1) All their faith in European simlocking laws was killed by the iphone.
(2) Europe setting GSM as the continental standard was a complete fluke and then complete disaster struck with WCDMA. Now all subsequent European spectrum auctions are technology neutral.
(3) Free incoming calls are the way to go. Charging incoming calls in the US is evil. Yet European Commission is actively studying plans to change to the American system of mobile call charging right now.
http://www.mobileeurope.co.uk/featur..._rates%3F.html
This is like George Costanza in Seinfeld finding out that every decision he made in his whole life is wrong. If you want to make a better system --- just look at the European system and then do the exact opposite.
"I always have tuna on toast. Nothing's ever worked out for me with tuna on toast. I want the complete opposite of tuna on toast. Chicken salad on rye, untoasted, with a side of potato salad and a cup of tea."
If you want a Google Voice app then ask Google to subsidize your phone.
Why would Apple approve an app for the iPhone that conflicts with or otherwise encroaches upon the service AT&T provides? Apple and AT&T have a relationship, and the user really has no business using an app that enables them to circumvent AT&T's service. It would be odd for Apple to allow one.
If you want a Google Voice app then ask Google to subsidize your phone.
Those who REALLY REALLY want a google voice app- Magic, Dream or Hero.
Why would Apple approve an app for the iPhone that conflicts with or otherwise encroaches upon the service AT&T provides? Apple and AT&T have a relationship, and the user really has no business using an app that enables them to circumvent AT&T's service. It would be odd for Apple to allow one.
If you want a Google Voice app then ask Google to subsidize your phone.
Do you have any idea what google voice is? I am just asking because your questions and statements make no sense from someone that does.
Care to expand on how the GV services 'conflict', 'encroach' or 'circumvent' AT&T's services? How do they differ from the dozens of other apps on the iPhone that provide the identical services?
If it would be odd for Apple to allow one, imagine how odd it is that they approved dozens of various calling card, call forwarding, SMS type apps.
Have you ever made a long distance call using a LD service other than the one provider by the local telco? If so, did you feel shame for 'circumventing' the local telco's LD service? I hope not, because it is well within the law. For the carrier to try to block these alternative services would actually put them outside the law, as consumers are allowed to choose long distance providers other than the local telco...just as you are allowed to use calling cards on your cell line.
I can't believe you guys really want the friggin' FCC in charge of approving apps for smartphones.
I can't believe you can be so narrow minded to actually think that that is what anyone, even the FCC, wants to do?!?!?!?!
You shouldn't fight perceived self-righteousness, by being even more self-righteous.
Supporters of the Euro system are finding out that their emperor has no clothes --- the three pillars of their system:
(1) All their faith in European simlocking laws was killed by the iphone.
(2) Europe setting GSM as the continental standard was a complete fluke and then complete disaster struck with WCDMA. Now all subsequent European spectrum auctions are technology neutral.
(3) Free incoming calls are the way to go. Charging incoming calls in the US is evil. Yet European Commission is actively studying plans to change to the American system of mobile call charging right now.
--- just look at the European system and then do the exact opposite.
"
There's nothing like making over-reaching, broad statements!
What you fail to realize is that models need to change and evolve. I don't know the Euro system, but I think you don't give it credit for creating a technological and business "space" with which a variety of companies could compete and themselves evolve without having to waste time and money on marketing campaigns for basic technology adoption.
In some ways this is how Microsoft gave the pc industry at least a starting point for the initial bout of innovation to occur. Unfortunately and predictably MS was wholey monopolistic and acquisitive and soon became the source of stifling innovation.
Blaming Europe is a lazy persons way of making a point, while ignoring history.
Yes, just like our country has benefited from the massive explosion of government post WWII
/sarcasm
So you don't like the GI bill, the interstate highway system, the clean air and clean water acts, the fire departments, police departments, public university system that attracts people from all over the world, the national parks, regulations that has allowed Los Angeles to almost double in size and actually improve its air quality, the Apollo program, the military spending that was the foundation for the boom of the 1950's, the V A hospital system that has a higher ranking than any private hospital system, the CDC that helped eradicate or prevent how many infectious diseases, etc.....
It is so easy to blame government, it is a favorite American indoor sport, and I am firmly a Jeffersonian democrat who only wants just the right amount of government, no more no less, but I've also lived in places without a strong central government and a strong sense of common interests (I assume the flag waving, holier than thou anti-government folks still have a sense of common national pride that isn't merely a desire for Bud Light and the freedom to tell other people what to do.).
Without post WW2 government programs, we would look a lot more like India - states that don't get along, laws that don't get enforced, rich families with monopolies that run everyone else like they are serfs, pollution that makes breathing painful, etc. It wouldn't be a 1920's fantasy or the days just post V-Day.
Corporate power needs to be balanced with political power. Capitalism needs Democracy.
Ha! There is no magical entity called "government". This is your first and greatest logical fallicy.
Government is an institution, and it's run by humans - not this nebulous entity with mythical powers. Humans that have all the same qualities that are often ascribed to those "evil" corporations. Except with government it's worse.
Doc, you demonstrate your own greatest logical fallicies quite well. You seem to think "corporations" are magical entities run by wise, compassionate titans of industry!
Corporations are institutions, run by humans - not nebulous entities with mythical powers of efficiency and wealth creation.
Your problem is that you are convinced government is worse. My family lost more from Enron than from any 5% tax hike on our incomes.
Corporations long ago lost the sheen of personal responsibility. Corporations are just as bad as government, except you can't vote the CEO of Exxon out of office, at least I can vote my senator out. And don't tell me the free market gets bad CEO's out of their jobs. No, boards of directors do, but wait! How did that work out for Lehman Bros., AIG, GM, etc. Oops, I guess corporate efficiency and the free market didn't quite fix those problems!
Corporations are even more difficult to change than politicians. Just try to honestly answer this question: which is more likely - that I would run for office and change government or start my own oil company and change Exxon?
Freedom ain't free, but neither is the "free" market.
There's nothing like making over-reaching, broad statements!
What you fail to realize is that models need to change and evolve. I don't know the Euro system, but I think you don't give it credit for creating a technological and business "space" with which a variety of companies could compete and themselves evolve without having to waste time and money on marketing campaigns for basic technology adoption.
There is no credit to be given --- because the largest mobile technology company in the world is Qualcomm, an American company that "lost" the GSM vs. CDMA war and was shut out of Europe. Qualcomm is larger than Nokia, larger than Siemens, larger than Ericsson, larger than Texas Instrument.... The real smartphone king is the RIM Blackberry --- a Canadian company that wasn't a product of the Euro system. The most profitable device is the iphone --- again American made.
You are supposed to use anti-trust laws to protect consumers, not to protect industries.
Of course, models need to change and evolve --- that's why the FCC changed their mobile termination rate system in 2001-2002 to the "bill and keep" system. Now 7 years later, Europe is talking about adopting the American system. It was the FCC that first adopted game theory in designing their spectrum auction --- some of the European regulators didn't, so a few 3G auctions were disasters in their design (not counting external factors like the internet bubble burst).
Laissez faire libertarianism like communism? You're really pushing it, Gomer. You may as well say "Obamism" is like Communism. An equally inane comparison.
At any rate, your answer indicates to me that you need a little more information on what Libertarians really stand for.
Your point about most not understanding "libertarianism" is well made and the link is a pretty good overview.
Unfortunately your comparison that "laissez faire libertarianism like communism" is like "'Obamism' is like communism" doesn't make sense. First there is no such thing as "Obamism" but also you and the other poster did not really specify where the comparison is. But that's the problem with discussing soio-political theory in a tech forum.
A better comparison is between laissez faire capitalism and centrally controlled communism - and that comparison needs to be given parameters or needs to be based upon some sort of economic model. For example a popular model for comparing economic systems is the sustainability based triple bottom line model (TBL) where business decisions are defined by three co-equal parameters or "bottom lines" - the economic, the social and the ecological. The best businesses and policies should be not only economically viable and profitable, but also socially just and ecologically healthy - otherwise they are not truly sustainable.
The problem with classical Marxist socialism is that it over-emphasizes the social side of the equation and ignores the economic (people don't make money) and the ecological (the Aral Sea and China's air pollution) - thus it is not sustainable.
The problem with laissez faire capitalism (that many libertarians may advocate) is that it over-emphasizes the economic capital to the detriment of social capital (the free market created the slave trade) and ecological capital (fisheries and forest practices destroy long term economic health of rural communities) - thus it is not sustainable.
It, of course, is possible to over-emphasize the ecological side of the equation to the detriment of the economy and society and this is seen with radical environmental groups. However those groups have historically had little impact on world systems.
So you are right libertarians are not well understood by many, they should be studied and appreciated, but also their theories need to be seen in practical ways. Objectivist like Ayn Rand have a very narrow view of society and ignore the environment as anything beyond a source of resources and anyone whose motto is to "never live for others," has never had a child. Political libertarian-leaners like Thomas Jefferson also lived in an age where keeping militiamen out of your house was more important than freeing slaves or regulating mercury in drinking water, so I think it is intellectually dishonest to think that he would agree with many libertarian views of today.
My point is that libertarianism is more theory and ideology than it is practical or pragmatic. Coercion for the good of the state or corporations or religion should be the focus of contempt by all free thinking people, but unfortunately a libertarian economic and political system would not do much to solve those problems.
What a mealy-mouthed evasion that was. Does anyone believe that the
agreement between AT&T and Apple does not require Apple to reject
applications which direct money away from AT&T on AT&T's behalf?
+1! I just noticed that when you pointed it out.