ControlsFreak
No bio...
User ID: 1422
ControlsFreak
2yr ago
One-sided billing went out when uni-directional communication went out
Let's start our story with the physical precursor to all this digital stuff - mail. Party A pays a company to transport Item X to Party B. (Or, at least the agreement is to transport it to a location believed to be Party B.) The exchange of money agreed upon between Party A and the company may have depended on how large Item X was or the distance it needed to travel. Bulk/bundled pricing could be possible. In any event, for this story, Party B does not pay the company anything. If the company turned around and said to Party B, "Actually, I got yo' shit; pay me more if you want it," that would be double billing and without checking, probably illegal (unless, of course, in certain scenarios where Party A's agreement specified that Party B would be providing some compensation; COD does exist).
One might mistakenly view one's relationship with a package service as, "I pay you for your service, and the charges apparently include the amount that I send out as well as unlimited reception of goods." Perhaps this misunderstanding could be amplified by having a bulk/bundled billing, say, you pay an $Y "service fee" that includes being able to send out up to Z letters per month or something. "I pay you plenty and don't always send out the maximal amount I'm allowed; clearly, the extra must cover things like how much it costs for me to receive stuff." But this is clearly misleading and wrong.
Sears used to sell a ton of stuff via mail-order. This sort of thinking could result in folks concluding, "Yo, we the people already pay the mail service, like $Y/month! That clearly compensates them for both sending and receiving! The companies shouldn't have to pay them more! That would be double billing!" And while the companies shouldn't have to pay more to receive the letters that contain your orders, they sure as hell are going to have to pay them more to mail you back a fridge.
Intermediate conclusion: if the only things that ever traversed the internet were UDP packets, perhaps a sensible pricing scheme could be devised that only charged one of the sender/receiver. (I kind of kid, because you could still plausibly charge each side for just the packets they send for other types of connections.)
Enter telephones. Telephones are inherently a two-way communication medium. Suppose I want to talk to Bob down the street. I could go run my own telephone line directly connecting us, then use it for free, but I'm probably going to instead pay a company to hook me up to their centralized telephone service, so that I can talk to lots of different people. Bob is also likely to do the same. Now, when I call Bob, is it "double billing", because we both paid for such service? Probably not. There are special cases here, of course. Say, what if it's an especially expensive call to make (long distance/international)? It could get complicated, because there might be multiple companies involved, and they might be trying different pricing schemes. Maybe the telecom company in my country lets me receive international calls for free, but charges to initate them; maybe the telecom company in Bob's country charges either way. I remember exactly these sorts of things happening in the early days of cell phones and just having to plan out, "Hey, you should call me instead," or like, "We were talking on a call that you started, but now that it's 7pm, we should hang up and I should call you, because it'll be cheaper."
In any event, in a telephone network, you might have nodes which primarily receive or primarily send, and these things might affect how much it costs to build the infrastructure/run the network. You should expect that companies will try out different pricing schemes. With telephony, Sears can now take orders via telephone. "Customers" would pay Sears for products. "Customers" would pay the phone company for phone service. Would it have been a stable system for Sears to go to the phone company and say, "Yeah, dude, the 'customers' pay you for phone service. Set us up a connection with 1,000 lines for free, otherwise it's 'double billing'." Then the next year, Sears' sales go up, and they come back, "Make it 10,000. Free. Don't care how much trouble you have to go to. Actually, ya know what? Christmas time is busy; make it 50,000, just in case. Make sure it's free or we'll sic the press on you."
"Company" and "customer" are not categories that attach to packets on the internet.
So, I'm calling Bob down the street. What about? Who knows. The telephone company can't listen in without a wiretap warrant; they don't know. Maybe Bob set up a little business, and I'm buying something from him. Maybe the thing I'm buying is actually being sent to me via the telephone conversation we're having (I give him a credit card number over the phone, and he like, tells me his stock picks or something). At what point does Bob get to go to the telephone company and say, "Yo! This here a 'company', not a 'customer'! The 'customers' pay you so that we can talk. FREE!" (Nevermind that Bob is an asshole that is actually just a customer of Jane's Stock Tips that he repackages and sells for more money. The telephone company can't know this either, because again, no wiretap warrant.)
Bob makes enough money off his shitty stock picking business that he decides to buy a ranch in the middle of nowhere, like he's always dreamed of. He contacts the telephone company, "Yeah, hi! I'm gonna need you to go ahead and run like fifteen telephone lines a few hundred miles out to my little compound. Business is booming, and I have the whole family answering calls and giving stock tips. I have a big family. So, if you could just go ahead and do that on Saturday, that'd be great. Thanks! ....oh, and remember... FREE!"
Would this system be stable and sane? I think already it appears not quite sane. How about stable? In this system, there appears to be a hell of a great incentive to gain the 'company' label. I might look like a customer at first glance, but I'm going to start up just enough of a business, host just enough content in my house (send just enough stock tips of my own out on the phone). I'm a "business" now. Can I go to the ISP/phone company and say, "Yo dawg, I'm not a businessman, I'm a business, maaaaan. FREE." What is the minimal level of business/hosting that I need to do to qualify? Can everyone on the block attain this minimal level? We'll all do it, and we'll all stop paying. Who pays now?
The internet is just a bunch of endpoints
A variety of big companies help connect up those endpoints, forming a massive morass in the middle of everything. Endpoints get charged by the company that helps them get into that morass. (Companies which set up that morass negotiate with each other to price traffic between their respective networks when they traffic to each other.) Endpoints get charged according to how much traffic they want to get in to and out of said morass. Large, heavily-used endpoints probably pay a lot. Small, slightly-used endpoints probably pay a little.
While packets don't come with a "company" or "customer" label, in reality, telephone companies and ISPs do have "business class" service. It costs more, not less. It recognizes that there may be differences in service needs. Individuals might be happy with cheaper service that doesn't come with the fifteen lines that Bob needs or better guarantees like that at least ten of them need to be functional 100% of the time. The usage demands of individuals can often be rounded off to "within some small bucket", and bulk/bundled prices can be easier for everyone than metering out every call/packet. Bob's business needs more than this small bucket, and he's going to pay more. Sears needs even more, and they're probably going to pay even more. Neither of them can be like, "Yo, the 'customers' already pay you; FREE."
This general story makes sense, and lots of academic ink has been spilled on "two-sided markets" with different features along these lines. In some cases, there may be benefits to providers; in some cases, there are some things we can do to reduce concerns. In the basic story, things mostly work out okay given some measure of competition. Of course, the basic story doesn't preclude the possibility that anti-competitive behavior could arise or that such behavior should be dealt with. Below, people describe Comcast as vertically-integrating their own streaming service and behaving anti-competitively toward Netflix; that particular anti-competitive behavior can and should be dealt with, but the solution is not some weird distinction between 'customers' and 'companies', where 'companies' can magically demand FREE no matter what their demands are.
ControlsFreak
3mo ago
SMBC gets this close.
I've been thinking about the Grossman-Stiglitz Paradox recently. From the Wiki, it
argues perfectly informationally efficient markets are an impossibility since, if prices perfectly reflected available information, there is no profit to gathering information, in which case there would be little reason to trade and markets would eventually collapse.
That is, if everyone is already essentially omniscient, then there's no real payoff to investing in information. I was even already thinking about AI and warfare. The classical theory is that, in order to have war, one must have both a substantive disagreement and a bargaining friction. SMBC invokes two such bargaining frictions, both in terms of limited information - uncertainty involved in a power rising and the intentional concealment of strength.
Of course, SMBC does not seem to properly embrace the widely-held prediction that AI is going to become essentially omniscient. This is somewhat of a side prediction of the main prediction that it will be a nearly perfectly efficient executor. The typical analogy given for how perfectly efficient it will be as an executor, especially in comparison to humans, is to think about chess engines playing against Magnus Carlsen. The former is just so unthinkably better than the latter that it is effectively hopeless; the AI is effectively a perfect executor compared to us.
As such, there can be no such thing as a "rising power" that the AI does not understand. There can be no such thing as a human country concealing its strength from the AI. Even if we tried to implement a system that created fog of war chess, the perfect AI will simply hack the program and steal the information, if it is so valuable. Certainly, there is nothing we can do to prevent it from getting the valuable information it desires.
So maybe, some people might think, it will be omniscient AIs vs omniscient AIs. But, uh, we can just look at the Top Chess Engine Competition. They intentionally choose only starting positions that are biased enough toward one side or the other in order to get some decisive results, rather than having essentially all draws. Humans aren't going to be able to do that. The omniscient AIs will be able to plan everything out so far, so perfectly, that they will simply know what the result will be. Not necessarily all draws, but they'll know the expected outcome of war. And they'll know the costs. And they'll have no bargaining frictions in terms of uncertainties. After watching enough William Spaniel, this implies bargains and settlements everywhere.
Isn't the inevitable conclusion that we've got ourselves a good ol' fashioned paradox? Omniscient AI sure seems like it will, indeed, end war.
ControlsFreak
4mo ago
All this is, is taking away the grants which include the praise of Stalin.
If that were all that it was, we would be in a good place. I think a majority of hard sciencers would be completely fine with that. Maybe some small set of gatekeepers at some set of institutions would be unhappy, but kinda who cares? But yeah, that's not all that it is.
ControlsFreak
5mo ago
I believed that the government was monitoring all domestic communications - and then Mark Klein reported on it, which was also considered a conspiracy theory until Edward Snowden just released the details.
...but that's like... not at all what the documents Edward Snowden released said?
ControlsFreak
5mo ago
From your link:
Officials have stressed that the NSA and DEA telephone databases are distinct. The NSA database, disclosed by Snowden, includes data about every telephone call placed inside the United States. An NSA official said that database is not used for domestic criminal law enforcement.
The DEA database, called DICE, consists largely of phone log and Internet data gathered legally by the DEA through subpoenas, arrests and search warrants nationwide. DICE includes about 1 billion records, and they are kept for about a year and then purged, DEA officials said.
Regardless of controversies about parallel construction (which is already illegal), your own cite doesn't even purport to show what you claim it shows.
he's a far-out third (fourth?) positionist calling 80% of the political spectrum progressives.
Not a bannable offense. In fact, plausibly true, given some conceptual understanding of those words and the concepts underlying many people's positions. Kinda funny that this is what comes top-of-mind when thinking about why he was banned. Really bolsters jkf's claim.
ControlsFreak
1yr ago
I don't follow your line of reasoning. Can you speak plainly, please?
ControlsFreak
1yr ago
I'm here for a discussion where people actually read each other and respond in a way that is, uh, responsive to what they have said. That's kind of the purpose of this place. Ah, I do see that you're new here.
ControlsFreak
1yr ago
I just hope there'd be some consistency from the moderators.
Try it and see. Try calling atheists delusional or saying that they're treated with kid gloves. You might be surprised, and then you might not make such silly claims as your original comment.
ControlsFreak
1yr ago
I see. You seem to have just imagined me saying something about my personal beliefs. Moreover, you have some weird post-modernist idea that your perception of my beliefs/identity has some bearing on the validity of the form of my argument. Also, you struggle with "greater than or equal to".
ControlsFreak
1yr ago
Any stick'll do.
I've said it before and I'll say it again...
But I don't give Christianity a pass. When people tell me that they are Christian, I have pretty much the same reaction as I have when people try to convince me that a trans woman is a real woman. In both cases, I think that their beliefs are ludicrous and deeply irrational.
ControlsFreak
1yr ago
I said that your argument was a non sequitur, not someone else's argument. I'm well aware that there are well-formed "problems of evil". You haven't got one here yet. You have:
- Ichthyosis vulgaris exists.
- ??? [something coming from reality]
- Therefore, the person allowing it to exist isn't omnibenevolent or at least not that and capable of doing anything about it.
At the very least, maybe you could check out wikipedia and see if they can help you fill in the question marks. Otherwise, I can only shrug, and say you're potentially being obtuse or simply can't construct a clear argument.
ControlsFreak
1yr ago
if I ever meet the Omnibenevolent loving Creator who created ichthyosis vulgaris, I'll kick them in the Holy Nuts. Until then, my sheer disdain for Him
Do you hold it as a general belief that such a Creator could not create a physical universe where even a single bad thing happens? Which part of your materialism or rationalism does that belief come from?
ControlsFreak
1yr ago
My position (half of which I agree is unsupported by the linked article) is that maintaining a caloric deficit OR maintaining a low weight will cause lethargy and therefore reduced energy expenditure in people who are disposed to obesity.
Clearly, the latter half is supported by the linked article, and my contention is clearly with the former half. Do you have any evidence to marshal for this proposition? Any estimate of the magnitude of this effect? What assumptions are you using? Like, "An X Age, Y Sex, Zlb individual has a maintenance calorie requirement of A. They plan for a calorie budget of B, meaning an A-B deficit. At the moment that they start eating at that deficit, before they lose any weight, their body suddenly shifts to having a maintenance requirement of C, where, plausibly, C<=B." What numbers are you using, and where are you getting them from?
EDIT: Moreover, does this work in the other direction, too? If they start eating D calories, where D>A, does their body suddenly adjust to using more energy, so that their new caloric requirement is E, where, plausibly, E>=D?
ControlsFreak
1yr ago
I asked about this time. But just like when you mod comments, you sometimes make notes about how there is parsimony with prior comments by the offender... when we "litigate" this modding, it would be helpful if the mod comments are parsimonious with prior mod comments.
ControlsFreak
2yr ago
ControlsFreak
2yr ago
I don't disagree at all. I would be curious to see where the current balance lies if we actually just asked them, "Is there an objective morality?" We might be so far along that we'll get blank stares to that, too.
ControlsFreak
2yr ago
Not really. It's more that science is built with assumptions that make it only relevant for certain types of evidence, certain types of objects, certain types of physical theories, etc. Within those constraints, the tool is extremely useful. The problem is that many people casually mistake those constraints on a particular tool as being the same thing as a complete theory of everything.
ControlsFreak
2yr ago
if you assume that operationalizes as a low initial credence in any metaphysical theory, until reasons to believe it over other metaphysical theories are offered
I don't think that assumption holds for the pithy Hitchens quote. I'm pretty confident we're supposed to interpret it in a different way. In any event, I agree with a lot of what you have to say.
ControlsFreak
2yr ago
Thanks! I have what I need to know about your position.
ControlsFreak
2yr ago
Oh honey, techdirt was embarrassing itself by constantly lying about tech/intelligence/surveillance law long before 2016.
ControlsFreak
3mo ago
Even simple sounding ideas, like "don't murder, or steal from your neighbors" will have people arguing ad-nauseum what counts murder or stealing or even a neighbor.
If I pity people who want to be the opposite of the sex they were at birth, then I pity people who genuinely believe in natural law or "objective" morality even more.
Hooo buddy, have I got some news to break to you about natural science. People debate conceptual primitives and what "counts" as them all the bloody time. I presume that you pity people who genuinely believe in natural physical law or "objective" reality, too?
I'm a moral relativist and a moral chauvinist. I know my values are just as valid (or not) as anyone else's.
These sentences contradict one another and result in something that is conceptually incoherent.
ControlsFreak
3mo ago
If you pit two top engines against each other, you won't have any idea who will win. You know it'll be a coin toss but you won't know who will win.
Emphasis added. I don't need to know in order for the AI to tell me that the best outcome is a negotiated settlement within certain parameters.
the opponent's moves are still unknown.
Agreed, but sort of irrelevant. The chess engine is still executing perfectly, even though it doesn't actually know what moves the opponent will ultimately make.
Playing a game well is one thing, but solving a game (determining if a player can force a win) is entirely harder. Checkers, tic-tac-toe, and connect four are solved, while chess is not.
I think the answer here is again that it is ultimately irrelevant. We didn't need to solve chess or diplomacy to have an engine become a nearly perfect executor or to narrow the range of outcomes significantly (>90% draws unless you extremely bias the starting positions, for example).
ControlsFreak
3mo ago
I think the response would be that you don't need arbitrary precision. You just need enough to get within a pretty wide range of bargaining solutions. That may be doable at a higher level of abstraction, and a perfect executing AI can find that proper level of abstraction.
Of course, this process might not even look like finding the right level of abstraction to our eyes. In chess, grandmasters sometimes look at computer moves, and they struggle to contextualize it within a level of abstraction that makes sense to them. Sometimes, they're able to, and they have an, "OHHHHHHHH, now I see what it's saying," even though it's not "saying".
Proof text much? Colossians 2:16 goes on into verse 17. Pay attention to your translation, and notice which word isn't present in the Greek. Romans 4:15 is written by the same guy who went on to write chapter 6 of that same book. And Galatians 4:10? I mean, I don't even know if I have a complaint. It's straight impressive how magically you read something into here that isn't remotely present. Like, kudos for whatever kool-aid you've got in your cup. And man, 1 Corinthians 6:12? This guy wrote the previous three verses; what do you make of them? Do they imply that nothing is forbidden? Did you just skip the first part of the chapter of Romans 14, where it indicated the types of things it was talking about, rather than being a free-floating license to do literally anything. I mean, you can't really believe that. You can't really believe that if Paul was standing in front of you right now, and you asked him, "Hey yo, this passage here. This be where it says that it's totes cool to rape, murder, and pillage, right?" that he would say, "Abso-toot-o-lutely! Hop in my ride! We're heading for a rape off right now!"
More options
Context Copy link