Yo, Tech Answer Guy,
The world is a chaotic system where anything Liberals want to do results in unintended consequences (I read that on the back of a cereal box, so I know it must be true). You know how it works: you give poor people food stamps on the flimsy pretext of keeping them from starving and before you know it 50 years later they’re shooting each other in the streets over a $700 pair of sneakers. Don’t ask me to show how the two are directly connected – I said it was a chaotic system, didn’t I?
So, now Liberals want to regulate the Internet. What could possibly go wrong? (Did you get the sarcasm? Did you get it? Hunh? The sarcasm? Obviously, I think everything will go wrong. That’s how sarcasm works.) They call the policy “Net Neutrality” – how Orwellian! (Burt Orwell – I see him sometimes when I go drinking at the Pompous Publican Peahen and Peaches Pub.) It has something to do with making telecommunications companies treat all traffic on their digital networks the same, because giving preferential treatment to their own content is “bad.” (Are you scared? By the quotes, I mean. You should be! That was the whole point of using them – to scare you!)
So, unintended consequence-wise, do you think Net Neutrality laws will lead to the extinction of the humpbacked whale, or will they merely trigger a war with Blarghistan?
Sincerely,
Sitsbath Dimbulbous from Clueless, North Carolina
Yo, Sitsy,
Uhh, yeah. Politics. Okay. I can do this. <big breath /> Sooooo, Net Neutrality…mumble mumble…something to do with fairness…been scared of quotes ever since I tried to read Mason and Dixon…uhh, I can’t seem to find Blarghistan on a map (but, then, I have been a little atlas-impaired ever since an incident in grade seven geography class involving a compass, the Earth’s magnetic core and two live squids)…so, err, yeah.
Umm, okay. Politics. Yeah, I can’t do that. So, I asked Phil, the mechanic from the shop down the street your question. This was his reply:
“The law of unintended consequences applied to the idea of Net neutrality? Seriously? Well, okay, it’s marginally more interesting than the wheel alignment on the 2011 Ford Excrement that I’m supposed to be doing right now, but, honestly, I could probably deal with both at the same time without working up an intellectual sweat!”
Five grumbly minutes later, Phil, the mechanic from the shop down the street got to the point:
“Imagine you go into a grocery store wanting to buy peas and carrots, but they only sell turnips and squash because they only stock vegetables grown on farms owned by their parent company. Okay, I happen to like turnips and squash, but that’s not the point. I’m sure a lot of people prefer turnips and squash to peas and carrots, but that’s even less the point. The point – the point is that when companies control both the means of production and distribution, consumer choice becomes the punchline of a middling to fair joke in the monologue of a late late late night talk show host.
“And, for the metaphor-impaired among you, that’s just not good.
“Are there unintended consequences to regulating corporations so they don’t rig the telecom market to their benefit? Was Gandhi randy? Did Stalin drink by the gallon? Was Marco Polo okay with doing it solo? Umm…yes. The answer is: yes, there will be unintended consequences. So?
“Every human action has unintended consequences. When I got out of bed this morning, I bonked my head on a low ceiling. Okay, it wasn’t my bed. For that matter, it wasn’t my ceiling. The point is, I didn’t go to bed last night thinking, I really want to bonk my head on the ceiling when I wake up tomorrow morning. It could be fun! Life is too complicated, with too many variables, to be predictable.
“Still, short of staying in bed for the rest of our lives (which has its appeal, it is true, but I could never forgive myself for doing it while there was an engine anywhere in the world that needed to be tuned), we all do things. And, when our decisions have unintended consequences, we deal with them. And, when our actions in response to the unintended consequences of our original actions themselves have unintended consequences, we deal with them. And, so on. Or, at least, this is what friends of mine who are actual adults tell me.
“Oh, and Conservatives: do you remember starting a war on terror that actually increased the number of terrorist attacks? Unintended consequence much yourselves?”
The Tech Answer Guy
If you are a dude with a question about the latest technology, ask The Tech Answer Guy by sending it to questions@lespagesauxfolles.ca. Just remember: Gezundheit. You didn’t sneeze? No problem – just keep it for the next time you have a cold and apply as necessary.