That is indeed a better way to ask it. The answer to both your questions and to the question in the article title is "no". Don't deny connectivity, don't guarantee connectivity, just get out of the way and let people connect.
No. People need food, clothing, shelter, a job to survive. On the other hand, humanity has done just fine without the Internet or computers for most of its history.
Now, if Facebook is willing to pay the cost of providing every single human being with an Internet connection, they should be allowed to. But if they are implicitly suggesting every state in the world should make it easier for them to increase their user base by making it a top priority to provide everyone with Internet access (because "connectivity is a human right", right?), then someone ought to wake them up from their daydreaming.
The thing is, food and shelter are the only two beginning rights humans had - if you can call them rights. Clothing wasn't around the entire time humans were, in fact some tribes and pockets of humanity don't wear clothing or at least not much of it to be on the same playing field as the Western world. A job - now that's practically modern if we're talking about the entirety of homo sapiens walking the Earth.
Those are meta-rights that have been appended on; those are privileges that make sense in contemporary, first-world culture. The access to knowledge is the prime candidate for being added to that list, if anything else should be added at all. I don't see why this isn't an important discussion.
Sure. Human rights are not universal laws in the same sense the laws of physics are. And, as our ability to provide well-being and comfort for ourselves increases, we can expand the notion of what the bare minimum is that everyone ought to be able to afford. [edit] But in a world where there are still people who die of starvation, it is immoral to talk about making connectivity a human right. [/edit]
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By "a job", I did not mean "working for some company". Rather, I meant the opportunity to do something society considers valuable, and be rewarded in return.
I have recently reversed my stance, which was similar to yours.
> No. People need food, clothing, shelter, a job to survive.
They also need information. If you have food clothing shelter in an abandoned field that's radioactive, the former elements do not matter. You die. Information is something taken for granted, because we expect other humans to share. That isn't always practical or possible.
There is a vast amount of critically pertinent information that becomes available on the net in realtime. Saying people don't have the right to access it, is a death sentence for many.
Wow ... That's very clever, I'm impressed. I'm not trying to criticize you, specifically, but it just seems so odd to see such a constant barrage of unmitigated pedantry. What's funny is why, if our sole goal is show how clever we are, do we focus on such a laughable matter but instead question the very notion of rights themselves rather than some barely sophomoric clothing not being a right because of tribe this that or the other ... I mean I don't know, some tribes in the past decided a great many strange things but I'm not sure there is really a "meta" point to be made of it.
As increasing automation concentrates capital in the hands of fewer and fewer during the coming century, that viewpoint will become increasingly untenable.
> No. People need food, clothing, shelter, a job to survive. On the other hand, humanity has done just fine without the Internet or computers for most of its history.
The implication of this statement being that we have a right to survive, and only a right to survive.
> The implication of this statement being that we have a right to survive, and only a right to survive.
More precisely, I would say we have a right to survive and to an opportunity to achieve more. But we have no intrinsic right to have a computer and an Internet connection handed down to us.
My interpretation of the rights granted by the Constitutions of various countries is that you have those rights primarily against the government, and only secondarily against other people or institutions. In other words, the government cannot force you to have certain beliefs, or silence you, or throw you in jail arbitrarily. I say this thinking of the US Constitution, which was written in a time when kings actually did many of these things.
Applied to modern times, the police first have an obligation to not attack you for your beliefs. That doesn't make them your slaves. After that, they'll defend your beliefs if there's a law forcing them to (which is a positive law).
> ...we can make internet access more affordable by making it more efficient to deliver data...
They are planning to work on data compression. Then, internet would be more affordable for people who already have internet connectivity. So, their work will essentially depend on the current and existing way internet connectivity is spreading to the 2/3rds that don't have internet connectivity now. But, are spinning it off as a moral / humanitarian ambition.
Besides, even if they come up with the next revolutionary data compression technique, I would be very surprised if it would be made available as an open standard to the internet to help make internet cheaper/affordable to everyone. I am sure their IP lawyers will have a part to play then.
I wonder how many of those 2/3 have access to Internet connectivity (i.e. they are within range of a tower) but haven't signed up due to costs. Facebook's initiative could help such people.
Considering the fat in typical systems, I think their goal of 10x compression can be met with only public-domain techniques.
I'm kind of surprised at the amount of hostility in this thread. Sure, Internet access isn't on the same level of need as food or water or shelter or medical care, but it's still one of the most empowering things in our society. There are many different levels of and aspects to aid; it's not a negative if an organization decides to focus its efforts in an area it knows best.
Providing aid is good and should indeed be welcome. Enshrining connectivity as a "human right" is what I take issue with. It is an insult to those people who die of starvation or lack of shelter in places with extreme weather.
The fight is simply about freedom. I don't think it's logical or moral for anyone to be able to restrict another human being in anyway. Justice would of course be the only exception -- and justice is the grayest shade I know, so enter debate. I think we live in a completely backwards world thinking anything needs to be granted as a right first, rather than things starting as innate parts of freedom.
We've overcome the fight for physical survival. Now we are faced with fighting off the chains of our peers. That is in no way insulting to those still fighting for survival.
I do not disagree about the importance of freedom and blablabla, but, have you ever met anyone whose primary concern is whether they will be able to survive today, tomorrow be damned? I have.
I have as well, and it is a very powerful thing to see. It actually hurts me to know what people around the world have to struggle for.
That being said, I think you are only hurting your own reputation by getting mad that other people are fighting for a different, less primitive or dire, cause. We want people to be fighting for all of the great causes in the world, don't criticize them for not fighting the one most important to you, commend them for their effort to bring more good into the world.
I am going to give you the benefit of doubt and assume your reading comprehension is poor. Quoting oneself is usually in bad taste, but I think this situation warrants it:
> Providing aid is good and should indeed be welcome. Enshrining connectivity as a "human right" is what I take issue with.
In other words, I am not getting mad at anyone for trying to make the word a better place. What I do find annoying (to say the least) is the conflation of something that is good (Internet access) with something that is essential for human life (food, shelter and anything worthy of being called a "human right"). Fast transportation makes the world a better place, yet no reasonable person would argue cars or airplane tickets are a human right.
Personally, I do not think freedom of speech is a human right. It is a cornerstone of modern civilization, and, where we have it, we ought to protect it, but restricting freedom of speech is not at the same level of "wrong" as systematically allowing people to die.
then you have a different definition of "right" than most of the rest of us.
If systematically allowing people to die is a wrong, then everyone is guilty of an original sin, given that to date no one has found a way to prevent death.
I admit I expressed myself terribly. What I meant is "systematically allowing people to die of non-natural causes". This excludes dying of illness or old age.
Asserting that something is a right implies that it will be guaranteed by coercive means, (usually by a government). Provision of positive rights has historically been problematic and rife with abuse.
We get that the NSA and PRISM is a big deal. But not every single thread that has anything to do with technology or the internet needs to include a reference to it. See... the Nazis were a big deal back then but we don't want every thread to bring that up. ;)
Rights do not exist. "Human Right" is a modern synonym for power. In absence of power, a right is meaningless. In the presence of power, a right is superfluous.
Legal rights and human (natural) rights are different things. Legal rights are provided by the use of force. Human rights are ideals, there is no guarantee about them.
So-called positive rights are on even shakier ground. To say that someone has a right to something means somebody else has the duty to pay for it. Well... who?
it's a little bit more subtle than that. Generally speaking a 'human right' is the acknowledgement that someone or some agent can do something to you, but is relinquishing the power/promising not to use their power.
For example, 'the right to free speech': The government could use its vast power, military, authority to muzzle you, but it promises not to.
'the right to a trial by jury': The government could use its array of police forces to lock you up with no recourse, but it promises not to, without some level of due process.
They are not synonymous - a government certainly has the POWER to levy war, but that is generally not considered a 'right'.
Because some of these negative rights seem to be positive (like the right to a trial jury, although in earlier times, jury duty was not mandatory - or the right to vote, which is better thought of as the government promising not have governors that are unelected) - in recent times, they have been conflated with other things that have been labelled 'rights' like 'the right to water' or 'the right to the internet', or 'the right to a living wage', which are certainly categorically different from the negative rights, unless the promise is much more limited than what most of these additional rights advocates are lobbying for.
48 comments
[ 1.9 ms ] story [ 161 ms ] threadDoes anyone have the right to deny a person connectivity?
Or more generally:
Does anyone have the right to deny a person access to knowledge?
And I continue by thinking about the question:
Does a government have the right to limit anyone's freedom without a fair and open judicial process?
Now, if Facebook is willing to pay the cost of providing every single human being with an Internet connection, they should be allowed to. But if they are implicitly suggesting every state in the world should make it easier for them to increase their user base by making it a top priority to provide everyone with Internet access (because "connectivity is a human right", right?), then someone ought to wake them up from their daydreaming.
Those are meta-rights that have been appended on; those are privileges that make sense in contemporary, first-world culture. The access to knowledge is the prime candidate for being added to that list, if anything else should be added at all. I don't see why this isn't an important discussion.
===
By "a job", I did not mean "working for some company". Rather, I meant the opportunity to do something society considers valuable, and be rewarded in return.
> No. People need food, clothing, shelter, a job to survive.
They also need information. If you have food clothing shelter in an abandoned field that's radioactive, the former elements do not matter. You die. Information is something taken for granted, because we expect other humans to share. That isn't always practical or possible.
There is a vast amount of critically pertinent information that becomes available on the net in realtime. Saying people don't have the right to access it, is a death sentence for many.
The implication of this statement being that we have a right to survive, and only a right to survive.
More precisely, I would say we have a right to survive and to an opportunity to achieve more. But we have no intrinsic right to have a computer and an Internet connection handed down to us.
Right to religious freedom/political beliefs etc then the police who defend you if attacked because of you're beliefs are then also slaves.
This is why many people object to so-called positive rights. Positive rights oblige others to action. Negative rights oblige inaction.
Applied to modern times, the police first have an obligation to not attack you for your beliefs. That doesn't make them your slaves. After that, they'll defend your beliefs if there's a law forcing them to (which is a positive law).
They are planning to work on data compression. Then, internet would be more affordable for people who already have internet connectivity. So, their work will essentially depend on the current and existing way internet connectivity is spreading to the 2/3rds that don't have internet connectivity now. But, are spinning it off as a moral / humanitarian ambition.
Besides, even if they come up with the next revolutionary data compression technique, I would be very surprised if it would be made available as an open standard to the internet to help make internet cheaper/affordable to everyone. I am sure their IP lawyers will have a part to play then.
Considering the fat in typical systems, I think their goal of 10x compression can be met with only public-domain techniques.
Can connectivity give people things that should be human rights?
I'd say probably not a efficient use of resources, but perhaps.
If this is the best Facebook has to offer I'll take it.
The fight is simply about freedom. I don't think it's logical or moral for anyone to be able to restrict another human being in anyway. Justice would of course be the only exception -- and justice is the grayest shade I know, so enter debate. I think we live in a completely backwards world thinking anything needs to be granted as a right first, rather than things starting as innate parts of freedom.
We've overcome the fight for physical survival. Now we are faced with fighting off the chains of our peers. That is in no way insulting to those still fighting for survival.
That being said, I think you are only hurting your own reputation by getting mad that other people are fighting for a different, less primitive or dire, cause. We want people to be fighting for all of the great causes in the world, don't criticize them for not fighting the one most important to you, commend them for their effort to bring more good into the world.
> Providing aid is good and should indeed be welcome. Enshrining connectivity as a "human right" is what I take issue with.
In other words, I am not getting mad at anyone for trying to make the word a better place. What I do find annoying (to say the least) is the conflation of something that is good (Internet access) with something that is essential for human life (food, shelter and anything worthy of being called a "human right"). Fast transportation makes the world a better place, yet no reasonable person would argue cars or airplane tickets are a human right.
If systematically allowing people to die is a wrong, then everyone is guilty of an original sin, given that to date no one has found a way to prevent death.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6248089
Given what you know, you may recuse yourself. Others are not afforded that decision. Even at a cost.
(see what I just did there?)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_and_legal_rights
For example, 'the right to free speech': The government could use its vast power, military, authority to muzzle you, but it promises not to.
'the right to a trial by jury': The government could use its array of police forces to lock you up with no recourse, but it promises not to, without some level of due process.
They are not synonymous - a government certainly has the POWER to levy war, but that is generally not considered a 'right'.
Because some of these negative rights seem to be positive (like the right to a trial jury, although in earlier times, jury duty was not mandatory - or the right to vote, which is better thought of as the government promising not have governors that are unelected) - in recent times, they have been conflated with other things that have been labelled 'rights' like 'the right to water' or 'the right to the internet', or 'the right to a living wage', which are certainly categorically different from the negative rights, unless the promise is much more limited than what most of these additional rights advocates are lobbying for.