The Internet is a Series of Tubes
or How I learned to Stop Caring and Love my Local Senator
Firstly, I’d like to state that this is not a political blog. While politics is certainly an interesting topic that I’m sure one can find dozens of millions of existing blogs on, this is not one of them. This is a blog about technology, and its impact on society; and though it would be naive to believe that the two, technology and politics, are not implicitly related, at times I really, honestly, desperately wished that they weren’t.
Last year the Federal Communications Committee quite literally redefined the internet by asserting that the title of broadband internet access applied only to internet that met speeds of 25 megabytes per second. I could talk about how this is a groundbreaking landmark in technology, but frankly, it’s about as boring as it sounds. Yes it sets excellent precedent for future internet speeds and holds service providers to some basic standard, but the average consumer was likely not affected by the ruling at all. What is interesting, however, is the response from a select group of senators that perfectly illustrates my disillusionment with the role of politics in science and technology.
In January, six senators signed a letter addressed to FCC chairman Tom Wheeler expressing their dissatisfaction with the new standard for broadband internet. Again, this is all well and good, people are bound to disagree with change; except when you read the list of grievances that these six senators have on the broadband changes, you realize, these people have no idea what they’re talking about.
“we are aware of few applications that require download speeds of 25 Mbps.” This statement alone lends credence to the level of misinformation that these publicly elected officials are willing to spread for God knows what reason. The internet isn’t the same place it was a decade ago. People don’t just go online to read words, they go online and watch YouTube, Netflix, Hulu, play games, download music, stream movies, the list goes on and on, and you can bet that faster internet speeds are damn well necessary now, and in the future. But my point on this topic is not about the FCC ruling at all, its about the incompetence of our publicly elected officials.
“we are aware of few applications that require download speeds of 25 Mbps.”
The level of incompetence at the congressional level when it comes to technology and science rulings is simply baffling. Time and time again our senators and representatives have shown how little they actually know about technology and science, oftentimes with hilarious results. Take, for example, the time when Senator Ted Stevens(R-Alaska) described the internet as “a series of tubes”, or the time Senator Jim Inhofe (R-Oklahoma) brought a snowball on to the Senate floor in order to prove that climate change was a myth.
The climate change one, by the way, is particularly horrifying because Senator Inhofe is the Chairman for the Environment and Public Works Committee.
And again, the Internet is not something that you just dump something on. It’s not a big truck. It’s a series of tubes.
My point is, our elected officials are terrifyingly misinformed about current issues in technology, and yet we trust them to pass legislature that could very well reshape technology and innovation for the future. Either these senators are too stubborn, unwilling, or unable to actually inform themselves on the issues that they are supposed to be passing legislature for; or they do know the truth about these issues and willfully spread misinformation for whatever reason. Whatever the case, it’s quite clear that the status quo is not sustainable. At some point people must realize that having an uninformed representative is not only irresponsible, but potentially dangerous. These people were elected into office to represent the best interests of those who elected them; and if they are unwilling, or unable to do their duty as public representatives, then it is up to us as citizens to realize this and have them replaced.