From contract to tort to property law the railroads left an indelible stamp on American jurisprudence as they advanced and because of the tremendous natural endowment of the land of plenty, America, has presided over the most materially prosperous era of history. And the impact the railroads have had on humanity pale in comparison to the effect of the four decade old Internet. As H.R. 3458 Internet Preservation Act of 2009 and others show, the rules are still being written.

The Internet has already resulted in the most advanced monetary evolution the world has ever seen. From credit cards and cell phones to stock exchanges and ecommerce; from New York to Karachi and Frankfurt to Shanghai everyone has been impacted. And the surface has only been scratched with the most exciting advancements still in the future to be adopted like Apple’s iPad, digital gold currency, and other science fiction dreams of ancient year.

The net neutrality pros and cons which shape the debate are more complex than simple soundbites. In January 2009 I attended a presentation about disambiguating net neutrality. To provide a solid overview for you I invited the presenter, Jeff Turner, to prepare a guest post (Any persuasive views are his own and do not represent RunToGold’s position).

NET NEUTRALITY DEBATE:

PRACTICAL OR POLITICAL?

Over the past several months, I have spent time in Washington D.C. attempting to better understand the participants and issues at the center of the net neutrality debate. As in many Washington debates, while both sides are passionate about their positions, the challenge is to separate rhetoric from core concerns and identify specific areas where common ground exists as the basis to establish a consensus driven solution. Since reasons to be against net neutrality are not limited to within domestic boundaries, solutions designed to address net neutrality should work anywhere in the world.

This article seeks to engage commercial interests and public interest groups worldwide in meaningful discussion and work toward achievable consensus on “net neutrality” and “reasonable network management” practices. Achieving consensus definitions to these key terms is the first step in the process of arriving at workable solutions amongst all parties – domestic and international.

DEFINE NET NEUTRALITY

Internet neutrality attracts a wide spectrum of positions, from the more extreme and controversial, to the moderate that advocate reasonable practices through industry self-restraint or group consensus, which could be a starting point for consensus amongst Internet Service Provider (ISP) and public interest participants. Therefore, to define net neutrality or at least that portion being discussed is essential for there to be meaningful dialog in the net neutrality debate.

NET NEUTRALITY REGARDING PHYSICAL DEVICES

To help define net neutrality, the right side of the diagram above, depicts the broad agreement that exists to reaffirm a consumer or business’ right to connect an IP-based (i.e. IP as in Internet TCP/IP protocol) device to a wired or wireless network. In addressing the right to connect an IP device to the network, I take no position on concerns raised regarding any specific relationship and/or offering between a carrier and device manufacturer for example, between AT&T (T) and Apple (AAPL) – and whether such relationship or offering constitutes a violation of device exclusivity net neutrality principles.

This discussion’s focus is solely on IP-based connectivity and does not address ancillary wireless services that involve specific wireless carriers, hardware makers, or other value-added services above that Internet Protocol (IP) layer (this is not to say that wireless IP-based connectivity cannot or should not fall under the model). Communication services that offer IP-based connectivity should clearly allow for any IP-based device to access the Internet via a wired or wireless connection.

Therefore, a sustainable broadband solution need not address value-added relationships (e.g., the iPhone or new iPad) or specific carrier partnerships. Instead, our main focus is on preserving IP connectivity for end-to-end services across the network. When the diagram says any device on the network, we infer that any IP-connected device can access other IP-level services on the other side of the network.

NET NEUTRALITY PRICING

Continuing to define net neutrality, reading to the left, pricing transparency refers to giving consumers greater information and clarity regarding their service beyond providing more definition of “up to” speeds. For example, advertisements promise 10 Megabit per Second (Mbps) broadband services for consumers’ homes or offices. Yet, descriptions of the actual speeds contained in terms of service typically reveal why, in most cases, these connections represent “up to” speeds.

These “up to” speeds result from many homes and businesses that share an upstream connection to the Internet’s backbone networks, while also sharing downstream 10 Mbps connections all through a much smaller link with limited bandwidth. Under these network realities, American households and small businesses cannot possibly receive 10 Mbps everywhere, all the time, irrespective of what “up to” speed the broadband ISP represents in its marketing.

Therefore, the typical consumer or small business rarely receives the “advertised” 10 Mbps connection directly to the Internet, since the connection is shared amongst many in a neighborhood or region. This network configuration is actually similar to the old phone system, where many households and businesses shared common network equipment that supported the basic telephone.

While many consumers typically shared these phone connections, a high degree of reliability existed in getting a dial tone and making a call whenever you picked up the phone. This superior reliability is due in large part to the engineers who designed and operated the network based on the fact that every person would not make calls at the same time. To design the properly sized network, however, they used complex statistical models to predict peak call loads and call duration on how telephony connections were statistically shared.

NET NEUTRALITY LACKS AN ERLANG MODEL

The difference between the phone system and the Internet lies in the fact that an “Erlang model or formula” existed for the phone system. The Internet, however, lacks a similar formula because no stable and reliable statistics exist by which ISPs can easily ascertain how much capacity they must offer in order to guarantee objective measures for service quality and provide a customer experience that meets or exceeds expectations.

In the telephone network, it is commonly known that “Mothers Day” is the typical peak load period for use by residential consumers. During this day, calling volumes above the statistical norm would often result in higher rates of a lack of dial tone or blocked calls. Similarly, broadband networks can also be overwhelmed both on a daily and during certain peak usage hours. Without an Erlang formula for broadband, there is no way to quantitatively measure the broadband consumer’s quality of experience for the variety of applications they consume.

Achieving service transparency in the broadband world will require some form of statistical certainty. Any advertised residential or commercial Internet service offering should have a statistical probability. Formulating greater statistical certainty becomes more challenging as broadband networks become more tiered and manage.

NET NEUTRALITY AND BANDWIDTH HOGS

For example, there are certain applications, such as peer-to-peer (P2P), which may be throttled back during periods of congestion so that other users do not receive a degraded experience. Given these challenges, both consumers and the industry require specific proposals for offering quantifiable metrics for transparency under tiered (or network managed) service offerings.

We should encourage industry and public interest groups to support integrating simple best-effort transparency metrics with a more sophisticated tiered approach. Industry and public interest groups have recently been making good progress in this area and are attempting to reach consensus on how best to inform and represent the broadband consumer data and information on what they are purchasing in terms of performance, reliability, and application compatibility.

FCC NET NEUTRALITY LEGISLATION AND DISCRIMINATION

In addressing these issues, the topic of non-discrimination creates greater challenges– particularly in the context of the FCC net neutrality legislation such as FCC’s NPRM’s paragraph 106. Traditionally, non-discrimination refers to offering a customer the same rate, terms and conditions that was previously offered to a similar (e.g. residential or commercial) customer. During the net neutrality debate, certain proponents advocating FCC net neutrality legislation and regulation appear to conflate non-discrimination with a ban on access tiering.

FCC NET NEUTRALITY LEGISLATION AND ECONOMICS

How do these two issues with FCC net neutrality legislation overlap in the net neutrality debate when parties presume that the broadband networks and Internet in general will, going forward, remain “flat” under a best-effort service model? If broadband networks remain “flat” and no form of tiered (or network managed) services exist, then some would consider it discrimination if an application service provider (e.g. website operator) were to pay for enhanced or prioritized service to “speed up” one website over another.

Some FCC net neutrality legislation advocates have encapsulated this notion in a sound bite that it would be “unfair for some web sites to receive preferential treatment to reach consumers over others due to special behind-the-scenes business deals struck with their broadband providers.” However, the sound bite is inaccurate because site operators do not typically buy service directly from a broadband ISP.

In fact, they host their content at some data center, which, in turn, purchases bandwidth from another ISP that ultimately reaches the consumer’s broadband network. Only firms with significant IP traffic, like Google (GOOG) or Microsoft (MSFT) have direct service agreements with broadband networks.

On the other hand, small website operators that seek to distribute video from their sites typically buy content delivery network (CDN) services from providers such as Amazon (AMZN), Akamai (AKAM) or Limelight (LLNW). Those CDNs save costs in terms of bandwidth in addition to offering better performance due to the anomaly (or some might say “bug”) in the way the TCP protocol works over shorter latencies on the net today.

The average peer-to-peer downloads, whether the Superbowl, feature-length movies or Linux distribution consumes an enormous amount of bandwidth that can take hours if not days. During that period, a consumer initiating this type of peer-to-peer download would consume the existing limited bandwidth and would interfere with a neighbor’s web surfing experience.

NET NEUTRALITY DEBATE

The core issue is not whether speeding up one website over another is discriminatory, but rather how to offer service levels appropriate for different types of applications.

All consumers are entitled to receive their desired quality of experience for each application they wish to use via broadband. Does it not make sense that consumers may demand differing quality of services depending on the application, like watching the Superbowl live as opposed to reading email?

Neutral third party standards are a mechanism that can be implemented as a foundation to establish “non-discriminatory” tiered, managed networks, with bedrock rational industry practices that advance non-discrimination across all tiers of service. These practices must work hand-in-hand with the pricing and service level policies so that consumers and website owners alike are informed more transparently of their levels of service. By offering hard metrics for each application’s service level, and insuring that those metrics are reported via a neutral third party, the Internet’s current best-effort delivery model can bolster an objective means to prohibit discrimination.

NET NEUTRALITY PROS AND CONS

Many advocates for “keeping the net neutral” argue against byte metering or bandwidth caps. Some contend that if cable or telephone companies, for instance, could set overly low or restrictive limits on the amount of data consumed, then these same companies could directly encourage their subscribers to stick with their ordinary broadcast television service instead of seeking other competitive “over the top” Internet video offerings.

As industry analyst Colin Dixon recently pointed out with regard to Netflix (NFLX), bandwidth caps would “kill the[ir] streaming business overnight.” Caps, particularly small ones, as proposed by Time Warner cable last year, could represent a barrier or delay to pervasive Internet video adoption.

Countries like New Zealand and Australia already charge by the byte when it comes to Internet usage. The Internet consumption patterns in Australia and New Zealand of broadband applications is quite different from the rest of the world. Economics guide behavior and behavior guides culture. Since Internet video streams and files tend to be quite large the users tend not to consume as much.

Arguments against best-effort usage bandwidth caps or charges come fundamentally down to economics. Wired broadband and wireless networks both share the characteristic of having high fixed capital cost outlays with the traffic flowing across those networks having little to no incremental cost of operation.

Therefore, some net neutrality proponents make the case that charging for best-effort bandwidth under ordinary peering and transit agreements and infrastructure simply takes advantage of the consumer. However, charging for premium service (i.e. enhanced or prioritized such as being able to watch the Superbowl live in HD with very low latency) service might make sense since it involves deployment of new infrastructure and higher ongoing operational costs to guarantee those services.

DEFINE NET NEUTRALITY: ACCESS TIERING

Another area where we need to define net neutrality is with access tiering deserves a more detailed description of what it means and an explanation of how it has been conflated with some of the other network neutrality concerns. Some economists, most notably Hal Varian and Jeffrey Mackie-Mason, have done a substantial amount of work on the potential extraction of “monopoly rents” (i.e., higher prices) by carriers providing networks with access to subscribers. Thus the term “access network” describes networks with broadband or “last-mile” connections to consumers. “Tiering” refers to charging for different grades of service in order to reach those subscribers.

Speaking in broad terms, there are three pervasive viewpoints on the issue of access tiering.

• First, some economists argue that access tiering would harm the Internet by encouraging broadband and wireless network providers to promote congested networks in order to extract “monopoly rents.”
• Second, other economists argue that there has been no demonstration of harm to consumers or bandwidth buyers under the Internet’s current peering and transit regime. These arguments and econometric models that have been developed over the years do not reflect industry realities.
• Third, yet more economists, that must breed like rats, regard access tiering as a potentially harmful practice that may require regulation in the future; however, until economic harm has been demonstrated, they believe that proscriptive ex ante regulation via the FCC or congressional action is not warranted.

Access tiering appears to be the core issue of debate amongst the two opposing net neutrality camps. There are those that wish to push for a ban on access tiering prior to demonstration of monopoly rent extraction and those who either do not believe it is an issue or feel it should be dealt with on a jurisdiction by jurisdiction basis.

The issue, furthermore, has become tightly intertwined with the verbiage surrounding non-discrimination, transparency, network management practices, and tiering. The Internet is vastly different from telephony and today it is lightly regulated under Title I of the Communications Act. Hence, one of the key regulatory challenges is how to modernize the language used to define these concepts and shift focus to the technical realities that exist in today’s Internet using the Commission’s existing regulatory framework. The process to address some of these initial issues has already started within key groups and organizations including the FCC.

DEFINE NET NEUTRALITY: TIERING OR NETWORK MANAGEMENT

When they define net neutrality, some net neutrality advocates seek to ban or disallow tiering or network management. Advocates such as Timothy Wu and Susan Crawford have, in the past, taken a rather hard line.

Their philosophical position is akin to the argument that cities, counties, and states should be required to ever increase the width of their highways so as to ensure that traffic, even during rush hour, can move at some minimum acceptable speed.

Under this philosophy, “diamond lanes”, “truck lanes”, and toll-booths are inherently unfavorable to the common good. The Internet, as a whole, should be a managed public good whereby those traffic engineering standards are in place so that any new application or service can be on a level playing field with all of the others.

The goal in the net neutrality debate then seems to ignore the rather simple fact that the Internet is a network of networks which are all independently operated by cooperating and competing business interests. Thinking of it like a socialized interstate highway system is simply not apropos. In addition, certain applications do place different requirements on the network. Some applications require extremely low latency and packet loss, like gaming, digital gold currency payments or the Superbowl, while others can more robustly accommodate widely varying congestion conditions, such as email or text browsing.

In my opinion, a third party, comprised of various members of the entire Internet ecosystem, is needed to marry the new and proposed rules of the road with the technical realities of the Internet and its surrounding consumer marketplace. By allowing the competing and cooperative business, academic, and governmental interests who all operate their own portions of the Internet to have the freedom to innovate and improve Quality of Service (QoS) standards while experimenting with different business models, the Internet will continue to flourish with a whole new set of opportunities through entrepreneur spawned innovation.

RECONCILING TRANSPARENCY AND NON-DISCRIMINATION

The most controversial issue for both sides of the net neutrality debate is access tiering. This calls for a neutral party to begin the challenging process of creating a governance body that can effectively deal with the remaining issues of application compatibility, pricing, transparency and nondiscrimination.

This body must remain neutral on the policy issues related to the access tiering economic model, no matter which framework or frameworks emerge globally. Today, Inter-Stream has the unique opportunity of establishing a process for self-regulation and the development of a global brand enabling all market participants to support their business interests while also supporting new entrants to innovate in ways yet imagined.

Jeff Turner

Principal & CTO

InterStream

DISCLOSURES: Long physical gold, silver, platinum, GOOG, MSFT with no interest in AMZN, AKAM, LLNW, T, AAPL, NFLX, or the problematic SLV, Streettracks Gold ETF Trust Shares or the platinum ETFs.

Net Neutrality Debate

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Forewarned is forearmed and this article is both objective and persuasive.  But while the baton, taser, assault rifle or stealth bomber may be used in lieu of conversation words will always retain their power.

As Ludwig von Mises wrote in Socialism on page 460, ‘Only ideas can overcome ideas.’ and in Omnipotent Government on page 210, ‘Both force and money are impotent against ideas.’

Words proffer the instruments to meaning.  Equity, freedom, justice, peace and prosperity.  These are not mere words; they are vantage points.

OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE

One major trend with the Internet is the open source environment.  Open source software is where the original source code is made freely available and may be redistributed with or without modification.  There are many examples such as Linux, SourceForge or Wordpress.  The speed and adaptability of the open source environment cannot be ignored.

For example, in a memo from deputy CIO David Wennergren to top military officials he wrote,

To effectively achieve its missions, the Department of Defense must develop and update its software-based capabilities faster than ever, to anticipate new threats and respond to continuously changing requirements … The use of open source software can provide advantages in this regard.

The open source environment is the opposite of a classified environment.  The source code may be viewed by all.  Every single revision may be viewed by all.  Transparency is fundamental to the process much to the consternation of some parties.

For example, a researcher built at monitoring tool called Wikipedia Scanner for the online open source encyclopedia Wikipedia.

The BBC reports two examples:

An online tool that claims to reveal the identity of organisations that edit Wikipedia pages has revealed that the CIA was involved in editing entries.

Wikipedia Scanner allegedly shows that workers on the agency’s computers made edits to the page of Iran’s president. …

“The changes brand Mr Limbaugh as “idiotic,” a “racist”, and a “bigot”. An entry about his audience now reads: “Most of them are legally retarded.”  The IP address is registered in the name of the Democratic National Headquarters.

Once the taste of such freedom has been experienced it is difficult to extinguish the desire for more.  Additionally, the fundamental thinking process spreads over into other aspects of life.

OPEN SOURCE VOTING

The Wall Street Journal reported 9 September 2009 that Diebold (DBD) Election Services which provides proprietary non-publicly viewable voting software is selling their unit to Election Systems and Software.  Senator Schumer is concerned about the sale because it gives about 75% of the market share to a single company.

But Diebold Election Services, which has since changed their name to Premier Election Services, has been caught tinkering around with Wikipedia.  John Borland at Wired reports,

On November 17th, 2005, an anonymous Wikipedia user deleted 15 paragraphs from an article on e-voting machine-vendor Diebold, excising an entire section critical of the company’s machines. While anonymous, such changes typically leave behind digital fingerprints offering hints about the contributor, such as the location of the computer used to make the edits.

In this case, the changes came from an IP address reserved for the corporate offices of Diebold itself.

What could possibly be at issue?  Well, in 2003, Walden O’Dell, CEO and chairman of Diebold, was a top fundraiser for George W. Bush’s Presidential campaign. As Hacking Democracy’s documentary revealed a letter sent by O’Dell to Ohio Republicans stating that he is “committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year.“

Of course, this situation would be too funny,  if not so sad, for The Onion to leave it alone.

With the available technology and open source software why is voting not completely transparent and accountable?  Why is proprietary software, owned by private companies and not available for public review, used?

GOLD AND FIAT CURRENCIES

Fiat currencies are like the common stock of nations.  All fiat currencies are in long-term bear markets when compared against gold.  This portends civil unrest which has already broken out in Iceland, Greece, China, Iran, the United States and others.

Governments may have had a role and been able to function earlier.  When the economy was not very complex a thug could tell someone how much they could charge for a cow.  But in our current extremely complex society that is riddled with chaotic fingers of instability the distortions that come from government are extremely disrupted to a civil society.  At all times and in all circumstances gold remains money.  Thus, during this age of turbulence you will know that unlike Bear Stears, Fannie Mae or Washington Mutual stock or Zimbabwe Dollars; gold can never become worthless.

Remember, governments only consume wealth.  They are parasitic and produce nothing.  The only way they gain and maintain market share is through the threat or use of violence against innocent individuals.  For matters of morality is a robber’s costume material?  But governments, particularly the large Welfare States, are archaic and barbarous institutions that are no longer needed with our more advanced and civil society.  Statism is an ineffectual excuse for immoral behavior.  Statism is merely a human livestock management practice.

GOVERNMENTS LOSING THEIR WHUFFIE

Whuffie is the ephemeral reputation-based currency of Cory Doctorow’s science fiction novel Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom and current application to the Internet is explained in the fascinating The Whuffie Factor.

The primary goods and services that governments sell are theft, corruption, famine, pestilence and war.  Sure, the costumed criminal gangs strut around lying about how they are protecting markets through regulation but who can seriously believe them?  The smart kids in school go off and start business while the dumb kids become the regulators because it is the path of least resistance for the immoral.  Seriously, the dumb kids are going to regulate the smart kids?  After all, the dumb kids think they know how the series of tubes works.

As a result, the smart kids often just purchase the dumb kids through bribes, extortion, etc.  Is this deep capture any more plain than with Goldman Sachs (GS) and JP Morgan (JPM)?  There is a plethora of whistle-blowing that shows up on the open source Wikileaks.

Citizens, human livestock, are more productive for their farmers, the elite Wall Street bankers, when they believe the illusion that they are free.  Thus statecraft has evolved to be ‘of, by and for the people’.  But now the human livestock is realizing their true relationship to the State; they are good only for milk on April 15th and meat in Iraq, Afghanistan or H1N1.  They realize that if voting made any difference it would be illegal.  They begin to see governments more like an acne infection on the earth’s face that needs to be cleansed.

LIVESTOCK RUMBLINGS

And so the livestock, awaking to the reality of their being owned, are grumbling and mumbling.  Millions have marched on Washington DC.  The ideavirus is spreading from hive to hive.  What ideavirus?

That governments are costumed criminal gangs hired by bankers that are engaged in purely immoral and unethical behavior to lie, steal, cheat, defraud and murder.  That their little paper tickets issued by the unaccountable and close-source Federal Reserve are the primary way they fund these nefarious activities.  That the psychopathic bankers are able to privatize the gains and socialize the losses.  The best possible way to deal with these parastic vampire squids was enacted by the Founding Fathers in Section 19 of the 1792 Coinage Act that provided for ‘any of the officers or persons who shall be employed at the said mint, for the purpose of profit or gain, or otherwise with a fraudulent intent, * * * every such officer or person who shall be guilty of any * * * of the said offenses, shall be deemed guilty of felony, and shall suffer death.’

As Bloomberg reported on 15 September 2009,

James McDonald, chief executive officer of New York investment firm Rockefeller & Co., died Sunday from a single gunshot wound that was probably self- inflicted, officials in Massachusetts said.

CONCLUSION

Technology is rapidly moving forward.  It has enabled ideas to spread at rapid speeds.  The spread of these ideas is undermining the current power structures and revealing things are they really are.  The FRN$ and all other fiat currencies are evaporating before the heat of gold and the rise of digital commodity currency.

But all of the current machinations are nearly insignificant compared to the larger picture that soon a whole new level of species is likely to develop called the Homo Evolutis.  Governments have been a constant retardation for evolution and advancements as life struggles from the swamps to the stars.  Try to escape from being collateral damage as life will be what it was born to be:  FREE AND INDEPENDENT.

DISCLOSURES:  Long physical gold and silver and no position in DBD, JPM, GS or the problematic SLV or GLD ETFs.

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A more gloomy version of the ad was floating around:

Have you ever received an automated sales pitch,
while you were still in your pajamas?

Have you ever had thousands of calls all over
the world charged to your stolen account number?

Have you ever had your paycheck deleted
by faceless intruders from across the globe?

Have you ever had an employer know more about your
whereabouts and activities than your spouse?

Have you ever been snuffed to dust by a
satellite laser while lying on the beach?

YOU WILL

And the company that will bring this to you
is AT&T.

This was a post on rec.humor.funny on 20 April 1994. Everything in this dystopic vision came out true by 2009 too, other than the last one.

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Online trading

Writing in Hindu Business Line, Rajalakshmi Sivam has interesting information about the share of online trading on NSE:

	2006	Today
Number of trades	20%	33%
Rupee turnover	15%	25%

Railway tickets

Writing in Business Standard, Sharmishtha Mukherjee says that 34% of the tickets sold by Indian Railways were sold online.

Ordinarily we might have thought that the rich trade on the stock market, and have better Internet connectivity. So one might have expected a bigger share for Internet commerce with online trading. But it’s quite striking to see the proportion of online trading at NSE (33%) line up almost exactly with the proportion of online ticketing at IR (34%). IR users are likely to not have broadband at home: they’re probably using Internet cafes.

Three other areas are of interest to me in thinking about this:

• Does someone know about the extent to which banking transactions have shifted to the net?
• Does someone know about the extent to which airline tickets are purchased over the net. Speaking for me, perhaps 80% of my air travel gets done through cleartrip.
• Is there traction with craigslist in India? The few times that I have looked, I’ve not been impressed at the liquidity.

Turning to supply side concerns, there are two problems. The first is bandwidth. India does fairly badly on broadband, owing to policy impediments. We’re all waiting for the 3G rollout to get a quantum leap in bandwidth.

The data above, for NSE trading and Indian Railways, is the picture that we’re seeing in pre-broadband India. I think that in the coming five years, a full quarter of the households of India will have a broadband connection (either through a computer or through a smartphone), and that will generate profound change.

The second constraint is development talent. By and large, most websites done in India are just bad. It seems that computer programmers in India do not get the Internet. There’s probably too much of mechanical use of tools and techniques learned on Windows PCs; there’s probably too much Microsoft in the formative years of young people. More study of good quality systems is called for [link]. The best role model that I show all software developers, about a decent e-commerce website, is cleartrip. A bunch of people who get this need to start a hall of shame for badly designed web systems and e-commerce systems in India. My suggestion for the first case study to write up there is: `Bhuvan’ by ISRO.

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Is there a readable book about the neurology of human flourishing? The only book that I am aware of that comes close is “Iconoclast”, by Gregory Berns. This book discusses things that have probably happened at a neurological level when famous people have achieved extraordinary things. The brain functions and processes that Berns writes about, however, seem to me to be relevant to the character development and flourishing of all humans.

What are the factors most likely to prevent individuals from achieving according to their potential? Anyone writing a list from the top of their head would be likely to include such things as: getting one’s thinking stuck in a rut; being constrained by fear of the unknown or fear of ridicule; social environments that reward conformity rather than individuality; and lack of skills in social networking. Gregory Berns discusses these factors.

Points made by Berns include the following:

• In order to think creatively and imagine new possibilities it is necessary to break out of the cycle of experience-dependent categorization. We need novel experiences in order to see things differently.
• Constraints associated with conditioned fear responses can be inhibited through cognitive reappraisal (re-interpretation of information). For example, fear of uncertainty or ambiguity can be inhibited if the situation is viewed as an opportunity to gain additional knowledge by experimenting.
• People have a strong tendency to follow the herd in order to avoid activating their fear systems. But one dissenter is typically enough to break the herd effect.
• Important social networking skills include promoting familiarity with the goods you are selling (because familiarity defines what people like) and establishing a reputation for being trustworthy.

Do we need a neurologist to tell us such things? Probably not, but it is good to know that there is neurological evidence supporting at least some of the claims made by personal development practitioners.

There is a fair amount of discussion in the book relating to wisdom and knowledge, courage, humanity and justice, but I don’t think there is much discussion of temperance or transcendence. One could hardly have expected all the human virtues to be discussed in the book, however, because Greg Burns did not actually set out to write a book about the neurology of human flourishing.

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In India, Thomas K. Thomas has an article on price cuts by Airtel. My sense is that we’re in for a big crash in prices of bandwidth through a combination of improvements in prices of wired services and the rollout of 3G which is now a credible alternative to land lines.

The exciting new development on mobile bandwidth is the CDMA EVDO devices being sold by Reliance and Tata Indicom. Last night I did a bulky upload and it worked at 350 kb/s without interruptions. Naman Pugalia and Alok Parekh are measuring the performance of Reliance and Tata Indicom at locations all over India. The picture so far is that EVDO is a lot better than dialup (or CDMA 1.x) but it ain’t really fast.

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The happy planet index constructed by the New Economics Foundation (nef) doesn’t actually attempt to compare the happiness of different planets. What it attempts to do is to assess how happy our planet is with what is happening in different countries. I hope that makes you smile because if you take the happy planet index too seriously I think you are at risk of becoming unhappy – and that might make the planet unhappy!

The countries that are given the highest ratings in nef’s index are Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Guatemala and Vietnam. These places don’t seem to me to offer the ideal of a good life for the people who live in them, even though many of these people say they are satisfied with their lives.

The authors claim that the results show that a good life is possible without “costing the earth”. Andrew Norton has pointed out that the results do not support this conclusion. Average happiness levels are relatively low in several countries that are ranked among the top 50 in the happy planet index.

As defined by the nef the happy planet index is a productivity measure. The numerator (or output measure) is happy life years, measured by multiplying average life satisfaction levels by average life expectancy. The denominator (or input measure) is a linear function of the average “ecological footprint”, which is a measure of the total amount of land required to provide all resource requirements plus the amount of vegetated land required to absorb CO2 emissions.

The basic idea seems to be that “the planet” becomes happier when people in a particular country become happier without using more “land” or when people maintain their current happiness level while using less “land”.

How do we know that this is what makes the planet happier? How do we know that the planet cares whether or not humans are happy?

My point is that the happiness of the planet only exists in the mind of the human who thought up the idea of the happy planet index. There is nothing wrong with trying to imagine what it would be like to be a planet that has feelings, but this is a game that anyone can play. Some people could imagine, for example, that the happiness of the planet will rise if more CO2 is produced. After all, CO2 is food for plants and planets like plants. Don’t they?

It would be possible for everyone on earth to have their own happy planet index that takes account of the things that they imagine that the planet might value. It would probably be preferable, however, to come down to earth and acknowledge that there is potential for everyone on the planet to vary in the extent to which they value various things that are important to them.

If nef’s happy planet index serves a useful purpose I think it is to remind us that surveys that measure our subjective well-being do not necessarily take into account all the things that are important to us. When we report how satisfied we are with life we take account of the things that are most salient to us at the time. We don’t necessarily take into account our own future well-being and the well-being of future generations of family members, let alone the well-being of other relatives and friends, the well-being of other humans, the well-being of animal pets, the well-being of other living things, or other matters that might be important to us.

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1. Cell Phone Features: I want to be able to do three things with my phone; talk, text and store numbers. Beyond that I value battery life over every other damn thing that can be put on my phone. I don’t need to check email, take photos, look up restaurant reviews or play scrabble 24 hours a day. The best phone I have ever had was the first one I got for free with service in high school .

2. Kindle: I like reading books. Removed from electronic connections it allows the reader to spend hours immersed in the authors world experiencing the content as the author envisioned it. When reading from electronic content people want to customize the view, follow links, look up unfamiliar concepts etc. I just feel no desire to fold books into the broader spectrum of electronic media.

3. Twitter: Seriously, I don’t get it. Has anything so useless ever been so hyped. Have any of the throngs of reporters breathlessly declaring twitter the second coming of language ever actually read a twitter. We all have a stream of random thoughts running through our heads, but until now no one expected everyone they have ever met to care.

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Adopt feed-in tariffs to create demand. It’s not enough for people to want alternative energy; it must be economically viable, as well. No matter an individual’s level of belief in clean energy, global warming, or carbon footprint reduction, as long as entry costs remain prohibitive, most small investors such as homeowners will stay out of the market. Only by offering financial incentives to surmount those entry costs will governments, local or federal, entice homeowners into investing in their own solar panels or rooftop wind turbines, which will create long-term demand, increase production over time, and lower the entry costs naturally.

Accomplishing this goal in Europe, particularly Germany and Spain, has been the feed-in tariff, which mandates payments for homeowners who generate sufficient electricity from their RES-e systems to sell it back to the power companies. Using this system, in Germany between 2000 and 2007, the installed capacity of RES-e more than doubled, including within residential areas, meeting the 2010 goal (12.5% of electricity derived from alternative sources) three years ahead of schedule. At the same time, the entry cost of such systems fell 20% and 10,000 manufacturing and maintenance jobs were created, giving the RES-e industry viability and sustainability.

Aesthetics must be recognized as a luxury item. With homeowners associations (HOAs) wielding the power to refuse urban and suburban residents the ability to utilize solar panels, solar water heaters, or light-colored roofing materials for aesthetic reasons, RES-e production won’t extend into the most heavily populated parts of the nation, which is where the energy is most needed. The same holds true for local governments, which often block adoption of RES-e by refusing to issue building permits for such projects or by charging such high fees to issue permits that again the entry cost is raised beyond the small investor’s reach.

If RES-e production is going to survive and thrive, this trend must be reversed, and state laws and subsequently state courts are increasingly becoming battlegrounds between aesthetics and science. Currently eight states have enacted laws giving homeowners teeth against HOAs and local governments, while four more are considering them. Perhaps most well known is California’s “solar rights” law, which bars restrictions against solar panels and water-heating systems by HOAs and other public entities on the basis of appearances.

Additionally, similar bills have been introduced in both houses of Congress to move homeowners’ RES-e rights to the federal level. Although these bills received little support to date, the new administration’s drive toward green power could change that rapidly.

Not a luxury is the electrical transmission grid. Already aging, subject to brownouts and blackouts in some regions, and in desperate need of upgrades, the grid that stretches across the U.S. and Canada will control the rate of advance for RES-e systems.

Many transmission nodes within the grid require additional depth to handle the increased workload from the exponentially rising numbers of electrical devices—computers, entertainment systems, kitchen appliances, heating and cooling systems, even plug-in cars—in high population areas. In addition, the electrical inputs into the grid must be balanced against the demand load, with additional power needed during peak hours. Under the current system of generating electricity via a few hydrocarbon-based generation plants, grid managers can balance their loads relatively easily; but when a cityful of solar panels or rooftop turbines kick in, this task becomes much more difficult.

Without strengthening this necessary infrastructure, and without finding a means of balancing these inputs against demand loads, RES-e could cause more problems than it solves. The cost of grid upgrades, meanwhile, could eat a significant share of the new administration’s recently proposed economic stimulus plan.

There’s no easy solution to driving such a fundamental change within the world’s largest economy, particularly through established political fiefdoms and vested interests. Nobody should expect the process to be smooth or error-free; but then, neither is economics.

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Throughout history, major steps in the progress of nations have come about through landmark court cases. Whether we take the Dreyfus’s case in France, or the slew of court decisions in the United States in the 60s to end racial prejudice, we see that when public opinion reaches a boiling point, then the law itself changes in a rational way to accommodate the new sense of right and wrong.

The courts have always been at the forefront of detecting new ideas, concepts, and understandings of fundamental freedoms. With the advent of the Internet, a flood of new problems relating to data protection, communication, and privacy have come up, and one by one, the courts are having to decide the status of each one. For example, the recent decision on whether or not linking to a defamatory website is itself defamation decisively defends the freedom of a person to give their own views and cite another’s opinion.

Image Credit: sandrino

One such landmark case is on the horizon, and the end is predictable. The legality of p2p file sharing will soon be decided. And I’m willing to stick out my scrawny neck and say that p2p file sharing will have the stamp of legality. And with no restrictions. No patrolling, and no traffic shaping.

Why am I so sure? Because it makes sense. Even if the courts do not immediately agree to it, they will sooner or later. Because that is what history has shown us. The EU has already struck down France’s Three Strikes Proposal.

The RIAA is right to be worried. People often feel that CD’s are overpriced and that the Recording lables charge too much for each song. This is true. However, they are forced to do so. Recording Labels take huge risks when they support any new artist by publicizing them and promoting their albums. Most of these artists will be failures. To compensate for this, the labels simply have to charge high rates for songs that do succeed. Of course, this means that successful artists can holdup the lables and demand higher rates. To mitigate this, the labels bind their artists to them with contracts that prevent them from running off.

The RIAA does have some valid reason to feel that the p2p file sharing of mp3s is hurting them. No doubt there is some loss there, but not to the extent that it publicly cries out. We’ve already discussed earlier on how software piracy is not really theft.

The point however, is that the RIAA needs to recoup their losses that arise from supporting poorly performing artists by charging exorbitant prices from the public for the songs of the successful ones. This is the main reason for file sharing. Apple has shown using itunes that people can and do pay for songs and software if it is reasonably priced. Perhaps a day is coming when artists can bypass the recording labels and sell their songs directly to the public at a much lower price. This is obviously something that the labels are scared of since it undercuts their entire raison d’être.

The reason that file sharing will be legalized is simple. At the end of the day, you simply cannot place a restriction on what people do in the privacy of their homes without causing damage to anyone. Opportunity Costs don’t count as damage, unfortunately for the RIAA. If legislation dictating what people can and cannot do in the privacy of their homes is ever enforced, it will result in the creation of a police like atmosphere that will give people the feeling that they are being watched. And that is something that cannot be tolerated for long.

It’s obvious that the RIAA doesn’t understand this. That is why they are claiming that even ripping legally puchased CD’s is illegal! (See the first paragraph in the second heading). They are frustrated and clutching at straws, desperately trying to retain some authority when the very rules of the game have changed. It’s only a matter of time before they lost big time in court, and will have to accept the new environment as it is. Wait for that day. The US would have progressed once more.

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