Doctor Recommended
100% All Natural

EE Times is reporting that many biologists-cum-engineers are excited about the future uses of nanotechnology in their field. No surprises there.

Oddly enough, economist Arnold Kling points to another study suggesting the trade-offs that both disciplines have and will to continue to encounter. His prediction, biotech will eventually overtake nanotech.

Again, the main reason I am frustrated with geeks pushing for “net neutrality” is that they are misidentifying the problems and creating straw-men.

Problem #1, the only reason the telco’s and cable companies have the leveraging power today is that they were granted regional monopolies that still exist today. By removing their subsidies and monopolies, free enterprise could make short work of their antiquated rent-seeking business model.

Problem #2, fortunately the FCC does not currently regulate much of the Internet service infrastructure. This would completely change if “net neutrality” becomes a reality. In order to enforce bit non-discrimination, gobs of resources would need to be used to track where all the data is moving to and fro. If you think the revelation of the NSA operating inside each telco was a violation of your privacy (you do know that they literally spliced the fiber into two parts, right?), then your head will twist off after discovering that the FCC will need some kind of hardware point-of-presence within every ISP across the country. Not only is this going to cost a lot of taxpayer money, but so would the continued maintenance and analysis.

Problem #3, not to belittle your economic knowledge, but there is this concept of supply and demand and how mankind utilizes scarce resources. As they currently stand, these Internet providers are by-in-large privately run. The tens of thousands of routers, switches and modems interconnecting various networks across the country are the private property of someone or something. With ownership comes the principle of exclusion, they do not have to serve everyone or every bit the same way, as it is their property. Long story short: they can discriminate how they want, even if it is a seemingly stupid business decision. And by allowing the State to regulate how they operate you would, in effect, be nationalizing their property. One must not also forget the notion of peek-traffic and throttling throughput as well (i.e. charging higher prices during peek times).

I mention all these issues in an article published two weeks ago and posted another follow-up to it yesterday on the Mises blog. Today, The Wall Street Journal noted that net neutrality was one of the most hair-brained schemes that is being proposed: The Web’s Worst Idea. In addition, Declan McCullagh published a new wrinkle to this ongoing drama: Hardware firms oppose Net neutrality laws.

Thanks to DJC for the WSJ link.

Last year, The New Yorker published a detailed article on how the Ivy League has built up a world-class reputation/brand name. I quoted it extensively in a piece earlier this year regarding the future of Higher Education. Today David Skarbek sent me an interesting study done suggesting that in fact, for the most part, due to near-universal access to state-of-the-art material and resources, research salaries have become an even playing field.

If you haven’t done so, be sure to read Kevin Kelly’s excellent piece on how several web-based firms are ushering in an era of relatively inexpensive access to the collective works of humanity. Talk about disruptive technology…