Thread: The future of free speech
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mmurfin87 is offline mmurfin87
2010-07-06 , 20:49
Posts: 307 | Thanked: 157 times | Joined on Jul 2009 @ Illinois, USA
#19
Originally Posted by Texrat View Post
That's what I want to believe, but don't.

Free markets just don't work. Take regulation away, and monopolies always emerge. A sad testament to human nature.
Hence my emphasis on Education at the end of my post. Americans today are a bunch of idiots. If we don't put lots of emphasis on educating not only our youth but our adults as well then our capitalism will fail us (as it already does from time to time). Not only that, but our federalist democracy will fail us.

Education is the most important component in everything anyone does ever.

If we have a society of well educated people, I think you would find the free market truly would regulate itself, monopolies or not.

Originally Posted by Laughingstok View Post
As with anything, it would start small. I never said it would be easy or straight forward, but the bottom line is, it would exist. [...] It's nothing for a group of people to start running wire and getting people on board to join the new "Free Net" or whatever if such censorship occurred. [...] Luckily ISP's are almost literally a dime a dozen. Comcast tried to do the whole "We're monitoring you!" b.s. and people drop from the and go to Insight, Windstream and others quite regularly. Free market in effect.
Originally Posted by jnwi View Post
With venture capital, no doubt...

The real problem is not that we'd be unable to communicate. It's that most people would be unable to communicate. Right now, the average user isn't going to get off Facebook or Google no matter how much they start censoring themselves.
Having done extensive research on starting up an ISP in my old rural hometown, I can tell you its incredibly easy. Depending on the scale of what you're trying to accomplish, Venture capital may or may not be needed.

Hooking up ~1000 customers in a 150 sq mile area: no venture capital required. Bootstrap all of it.

Hooking up ~50,000 customers in a municipal environment: Venture capital probably required.