Does Lit have the slows?

[Roxanne Appleby]

Pages are taking forever to download. I've rebooted, and other web sites seem to be OK. It's been going on for at least 24 hours, I think.

 

[mismused]

delete

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

It has become just about unuseable for me (which might not be a bad thing.) On a DSL line, pages are taking 30-60 seconds to load. As I say, other web pages seem to be working OK.

 

[scheherazade_79]

Lit's been having funny moments with me over the last few days, too. You're not alone, Roxanne

 

[Aurora Black]

Yesterday I was posting in a thread when Manu put up a "Temporarily Down" notice on the site. 15 minutes later I was back on, but my one posted reply turned into five.

 

[Guest]

Yesterday I was posting in a thread when Manu put up a "Temporarily Down" notice on the site. 15 minutes later I was back on, but my one posted reply turned into five.

how many fingers do ya see infront of you?

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

It fixed itself sometime in the last three hours.

Someday we will look back on the current era of the Internet in the same way we view the dawn of the auto age - unbelievably crude and unreliable, but still so much better that what existed before that we put up it.

 

[cantdog]

We may also remember when we had free speech on here. Already the days when it was free (money-wise) are damn near gone.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

We may also remember when we had free speech on here. Already the days when it was free (money-wise) are damn near gone.

Yeah, yeah - freedom ends when someone figures out how to make a buck, but we'll all be liberated when the government starts regulating. Here, Canty Brown, I'll hold the foot ball and you kick it . . .

Powerful special interests engaged in a turf war have been trying to get the federal government to regulate the internet. If they succeed, it will most likely be looked back on as the end of the initial explosive growth phase of the Internet. We will instead enter an era in which powerful special interests seek to compete not in the market in ways the benefit consumers, but in the political arena for new regulations that limit market competition and ultimately harm consumers. Consumers and society will lose; special interests will build dynasties.

And those "consumer advocates" who are terrified that someone will make a profit are paving the way.

The issue was raised in this thread. Amazingly, not one person ever seriously engaged the real dangers described in the article pasted into the opening post there.

I understand "left brained" thinking when we're talking about things like human suffering. I may think much of it is misguided, but I understand it. What I don't understand is rank statism - the desire for more government control for control's sake, or the seemingly wilful blindness of many on the left to who really benefits from government regulations designed to "manage competition." It's not the little guy, you can count on that

 

[cantdog]

I beg your pardon, Rox, but the people who are killing free speech here are not making a buck, they're religious nutballs. It was free when I started on it, and people laughed at you if you had paid to get on. It was text-based, then, and most portals were libraries or colleges.

God, you must have an odious image of me, darlin'. What'd I do?

 

[cantdog]

As far as the other controversy goes, yeah, I know about it. There was more than one thread about it. But you can't explain it to anyone. It doesn't hold their interest. A lost cause, and it's too bad.

I could care about the bucks. I got as much right brain as the next guy. I been in the business of working with poor people for a long time, though it doesn't pay the bills. What's so misguided about building a hospital in La Romana?

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

I beg your pardon, Rox, but the people who are killing free speech here are not making a buck, they're religious nutballs. It was free when I started on it, and people laughed at you if you had paid to get on. It was text-based, then, and most portals were libraries or colleges.

God, you must have an odious image of me, darlin'. What'd I do?

Oh, sorry Cant. I saw the reference to "money based" and leaped to conclusions. No, I don't think badly of you. You are one of those who are left-brained for all the right reasons. Misguided as can be in some of your policy prescriptions, of course (not all of them, though), but certainly not a statist for statism's sake.

Yeah, I hope the religious nuts don't mess it up either. I'm less worried about them than about the special interests who will dupe those who care about consumers and rely on those who like government to take the "wild west, laissez faire" away from the net.

 

[cantdog]

I'd hate that, too, but we are in strange waters right now. The agency responsible has to make a positive move to crush the net, because of the idea that bandwidth belongs to all, and they are not loath to do that. The current pack of yahoos has no principles but Mammon. Mammon changes its tack frequently, because of its own lack of guiding principle, so that it occasionally comes down on the correct side of an issue. In the case of the 'net, I'm afraid, the correct side has lost.

We, you and I, actually have quite a bit in common. I am not as leftist as some folks imagine; I simply end up there, sometimes, due to circumstance. In fact, I was raised anarchist. Statism is the furthest thing from my mind, ordinarily. I don't even believe a state is good for people, in any way. If we have to have one, I want it to be out of my hair. I want it out of everyone's hair.

A feeble and pointless hope, of course. There are so many laws! I spoke with a candidate for the state legislature, the other day. I make the meetings in the same way as I make the demos. He was proud, he said, of the productivity, as he called it, of the Legislature this last biennium. Hundreds of laws passed! I was appalled. This is what they call productivity!

There are so many laws, now, about so many things, that I defy anyone to know them all. You almost have to break one, every day; it would be next to impossible not to. It's odious.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

I'd hate that, too, but we are in strange waters right now. The agency responsible has to make a positive move to crush the net, because of the idea that bandwidth belongs to all, and they are not loath to do that. The current pack of yahoos has no principles but Mammon. Mammon changes its tack frequently, because of its own lack of guiding principle, so that it occasionally comes down on the correct side of an issue. In the case of the 'net, I'm afraid, the correct side has lost.

We, you and I, actually have quite a bit in common. I am not as leftist as some folks imagine; I simply end up there, sometimes, due to circumstance. In fact, I was raised anarchist. Statism is the furthest thing from my mind, ordinarily. I don't even believe a state is good for people, in any way. If we have to have one, I want it to be out of my hair. I want it out of everyone's hair.

A feeble and pointless hope, of course. There are so many laws! I spoke with a candidate for the state legislature, the other day. I make the meetings in the same way as I make the demos. He was proud, he said, of the productivity, as he called it, of the Legislature this last biennium. Hundreds of laws passed! I was appalled. This is what they call productivity!

There are so many laws, now, about so many things, that I defy anyone to know them all. You almost have to break one, every day; it would be next to impossible not to. It's odious.

"Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We *want* them broken. You'd better get it straight That it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against– then you'll know that this is not the age for beautiful gestures. We're after power and we mean it. You fellows were pikers, but we know the real trick, and you'd better get wise to it. There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted – and you create a nation of law-breakers – and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Rearden, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with."
-- Ayn Rand, _Atlas Shrugged , Ch. III, "White Blackmail"