Quote:
Originally Posted by DMcCunney
Freedom from fear is the most beguiling of freedoms, and some folks will give up a lot to get it, because they don't see it as constricting their lives if it happens.
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That's a rough way of putting it... but from one point of view, essentially correct.
We have already seen examples of technologies that ran rampant upon being introduced, but was later reined in by government regulation when perceived to be in the public or national good: Automobiles/traffic; telephones (and think about that one: The basic backbone of the internet is
already on a regulated technology); electricity; banking; etc. And with each one of these technologies, the public has lost a measure of anonymity, privacy, and control, but accepted that in the name of safer streets, lit-up homes, phones that could call anyone in the world, and credit cards usable anywhere we went.
We've also seen governments exercise their sovereign right to secure and protect themselves by regulating international access to many common services, like telephones (same notation as above), transportation, banking, etc.
What makes you think the Internet can't be regulated?
There is absolutely nothing to prevent the Internet ending up like that, if governments decide it needs to be done. And you might even learn to like it, when you don't have to sweat viruses, hackers, spam, DDOS attacks, and botnets anymore.
And yes, for the record, I'm saying that I believe that wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing. Though obviously, idealism can greatly suffer upon execution, the potential to solve most of the web's most nagging problems is worth at least the consideration of the idea.
Because, frankly, the whole Anarchy thing we have now isn't solving any of those problems.