Comment by nonrandomstring | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nonrandomstring | Hacker News Reader

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nonrandomstring

In Finland, Internet access is considered a basic human right. When working there a few years ago I found that any homeless person in Helsinki has better connectivity than I have in the UK for £40/mo

Anyway according to TFA:

   Its so important for everyone to have broadband access for full
   participation in modern society and no one should be charged more
   based on their neighborhood

How very US American to interpret it only through the lens of cost.

We can do much better than talk about the "affordable internet".

That's why I wrote this:

https://news.tuxmachines.org/n/2023/03/06/Microsoft_is_Not_a...

Digital Discrimination is multi-faceted, and it applies to all kinds of groups who for reasons of mobility, neuro-diversity, ethics and more, are excluded or marginalised.

   Since Los Angeles has never codified exactly what digital
   discrimination means, the legislation asked city officials to
   strongly consider using the Federal Communication Commission's
   definition of the term.

Plenty of room there to include people who choose to protect their security and morals but are discriminated against for those choices.

Depending on where you live in the US, you can get free cell phone/internet if you're poor enough. E.g. https://www.assurancewireless.com/lifeline-services/states/d...

the lesser known Obama phone program provided cellphones to the poor because Internet access is requisite for access to government services in this day and age.

Yeah, I think that was the same logic in Finland, and Estonia who are both hot on digital governance.

>and no one should be charged more based on their neighborhood

Then the city should be obligated to lock up vandals and refined materials thieves. It's bullshit to tell a network provider they have to provide the same service at the same cost to an area where they have to re-lay hundreds of meters of copper every week.

>Plenty of room there to include people who choose to protect their security and morals but are discriminated against for those choices.

Society should not be obligated to adapt to a crazy person who is only willing to communicate by passing notes via dumbwaiter and only using pseudonyms.

> should not be obligated to adapt to a crazy person who is only willing to

Actually yes it should and that's why we have non-discriminatory laws (the subject of the article) in the first place. In civilised countries we do that in order to avoid what John Stuart-Mill called the tyranny of the majority. But since you already see these minorities as "crazy" I hold out scant hope for your love of other people. I even think the US even has some constitutional basis for the Protection of Minority Rights.

We're not talking about people with disabilities, we're talking about people who are choosing to not join the rest of society and using modern technologies to sustain modern life. Someone doesn't want to do banking online? Only wants to pay cash for everything? Doesn't want to carry a cellphone? That's their choice, it doesn't mean everyone else has to act like that too or even streamline their ability to behave that way. Shops can only accept cards, banks can have a reduced number of physical locations and hours, telephone companies can stop offering payphones.

> We're not talking about

I am talking about democracies where we grant people the right to freedom of opinion and lifestyle choices so long as that doesn't infringe on others. It's a precious thing we fought many wars for, and will no doubt fight many more to preserve.against a mentality that puts the convenience of bureaucratic machinery ahead of human needs and human diversity.

> Then the city should be obligated to lock up vandals and refined materials thieves.

Uh .. aren't these things illegal? Last time I checked people who do crimes are usually taken by the police.

And yet municipalities don't enforce these laws except in the most convenient cases.

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