See highlighted text below. To follow up on the previous posting on “amoral capitalism”, the tincture of mercury was being promoted by those with mercury to sell, while a good blood-letting was being promoted by leech farmers trying to generate a market for their products! The analogy is surprisingly tight! :-) Cheers, RR -----Original Message----- From: Nnagain [mailto:nnagain-bounces@lists.bufferbloat.net] On Behalf Of rjmcmahon via Nnagain Sent: Wednesday, October 4, 2023 12:41 PM To: Network Neutrality is back! Let´s make the technical aspects heard this time! Cc: rjmcmahon; bloat Subject: Re: [NNagain] A good question - do you know how a toilet works? Some books I found worth reading https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674416833 Eden on the Charles The Making of Boston Michael Rawson Eden on the Charles explores how Bostonians channeled country lakes through miles of pipeline to provide clean water; dredged the ocean to deepen the harbor; filled tidal flats and covered the peninsula with houses, shops, and factories; and created a metropolitan system of parks and greenways, facilitating the conversion of fields into suburbs. The book shows how, in Boston, different class and ethnic groups brought rival ideas of nature and competing visions of a “city upon a hill” to the process of urbanization—and were forced to conform their goals to the realities of Boston’s distinctive natural setting. The outcomes of their battles for control over the city’s development were ultimately recorded in the very fabric of Boston itself. In Boston’s history, we find the seeds of the environmental relationships that—for better or worse—have defined urban America to this day. https://upittpress.org/books/9780822961475/#:~:text=Jacobson's%20Ties%20That %20Bind%20is,the%20course%20of%20two%20centuries. Ties That Bind By Charles Jacobson In the early days of utility development, municipalities sought to shape the new systems in a variety of ways even as private firms struggled to retain control and fend off competition. In scope and consequence, some of the battles dwarfed the contemporary one between local jurisdictions and cable companies over broadband access to the Internet. In this comparative historical study, Jacobson draws upon economic theory to shed light on relationships between technology, market forces, and problems of governance that have arisen in connection with different utility networks over the past two hundred years. He focuses on water, electric, and cable television utility networks and on experiences in four major American cities — Boston, Seattle, San Francisco, and Pittsburgh, arguing that information and transactions costs have played decisive roles in determining how different ownership and regulatory arrangements have functioned in different situations.Using primary sources and bold conceptualizations, Jacobson begins his study by examining the creation of centralized water systems in the first half of the nineteenth century, moves to the building of electric utilities from the 1880s to the 1980s, and concludes with an analysis of cable television franchising from the 1960s to the 1980s. Ties That Bind addresses highly practical questions of how to make ownership, regulatory, and contracting arrangements work better and also explores broader concerns about private monopoly and the role of government in society. Bob > Sometimes I liken this debate about the internet, to 1906-era > partisans arguing about the right cures for syphilis. One side, > intoning with great authority: "Tinctures of mercury, yes a good dose > of mercury, is just what you need... " and the other side, insisting > that "Leeches, leeches will help... all you need is a good > blood-letting... and everything will be fine..." > > While those few that had embraced germ theory and were pointing at > little squiggly things in microscopes as the root causes of so much > disease, were laughed at and ignored. > _______________________________________________ > Nnagain mailing list > Nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net > https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/nnagain _______________________________________________ Nnagain mailing list Nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/nnagain