Interesting that you would pivot from a pro-market position into a social engineering one. Those two usually don't go together.

Look I've paid for the T-1 line to be ran 200 miles so I could have high-speed internet -- and I did this back when you could count the number of T-1s in my area on both hands. So I don't mind only having those who can afford it pay for it.

But I also understand that this country is huge, and spread out. And I don't want to encourage people to live anywhere. If you asked my druthers, I'd want them staying at home in rural America, on fiber, and living more of the agrarian life that the urban one. But that's not the point.

The point is that the community as a whole has a vested interest in infrastructure: roads, power lines, and communication. It's the same argument as national defense: government does really badly at some things, but there are some things that it's the only effective player to pool resources and common interests. That's not a license for socialism, that's just saying that a piece of wire to every home -- phone, power, or internet -- is a political issue much like how many aircraft carriers we need. If we left it up to individuals to decide the response wouldn't be uniform enough, and uniformity is the one requirement that these attributes need to have.

Communication and electric power aren't like pork bellies and automobiles -- they are extensions of our powers as individuals: our power to innovate, collaborate, discover, and create. Hell, it's more like gun ownership than buying pork-chops at the supermarket. They are a hell of a lot more critical than health care or consumer protection.

I'm absolutely for a maximized free market. But the argument here is that limited communication abilities reduces information in the market, stifles innovation, and limits choices. That's why I chose the greater freedom of universal high-speed connectivity -- not as a government bureaucracy, but as government defining the markets so that all the players meet all the needs.

1. All interventions in the market are social engineering, it may not be intentional, but subsidizing/taxing certain behaviors encourages/discourages them.

2. I'm all for getting fiber to every door step. I'm just disagreeing with the approach. There is no reason that individuals couldn't form a co-op, or some other nonprofit, or even for profit company together to provide their internet.

3. I'm going to disagree with the national defense thing on two points. A. The government's sole purpose is defend your rights, national defense is defending your rights from foreign enemies. B. The government has a monopoly on force (except for certain self-defensive purposes).

The community has a vested interest in infrastructure, but if you actually look at what goes on with it is ridiculous. The mass pike was supposed to have tolls removed years ago, but through all sorts tricks they manage to keep the tolls. The big dig, also in boston, cost Billions of dollars for a tiny tunnel.

So my final points: 1. Without competition and voluntary interaction we don't actually know what the value of something is -- high speed is important to some, while for others 56k is enough for them. 2. For almost anything people propose the government should do, a private nonprofit could be created to carry out the same task. 3. Organizations and nonprofits are more driven by results than politicsl they don't want to merely show that they're taking action. 4. Nonprofits/Foundations deal with many critical issues that most people don't realize/know about. For example, the Ford Foundation with regards to Russian studies & American foreign policy/defense. 5. It is very hard to compete against the government since they don't have to make a profit, can alter rules to their advantage, and lastly they don't pay taxes :)

I think I addressed your points above.

As for government protecting rights -- right on. But this gets to whether you view connectivity as an arbitrary service or product or something else. I think the problem we have is that the old metaphors are not descriptive enough. Access to the computer, the internet, and the electric grid are extensions of my person, not external entities. Of course the amount that I have of these things are dependent on my actions, but access to them should not be.

That's not an argument in favor of the government regulating or providing anything, btw. the market can and should provide value based on need -- once I have free and open access.

Computers and connectivity are extensions of our brains, and should not be controlled, even passively, by government. By ensuring connectivity and processing ability, the government is actually getting out of the way of citizens performing their daily lives, not intruding in on them.

We see the same "bad metaphor" problem with Digital Rights Management. If you view the computer as some sort of super record player that folks plays songs on, then perhaps the government has a say in what happens there? (because it is somewhat of a performance) But if you view computers as an extension to people's brains, as they surely are becoming, then controlling what goes on seems silly at best and evil at worst.