Streaming quality is inversely related to video consumption. For example, at 2am when hardly anybody is online, you can get great streaming quality. I agree that it's confusing, since it should really be "Video consumption and streaming quality problem/contention level" or something.

I agree (as a regular VS, Xcode, and Eclipse user, in addition to Xamarin Studio and others) that Visual Studio is the awesomest IDE, but it's only fair to add that the "E" part has actually regressed a little in recent years. For example, they dropped support for macro recording/playback. I'm guessing their excuse was that they rewrote everything and didn't get around to it, but still... *grump* *grump*

I suggest you ask evolutionary biologists. Specifically, go ask that group of evolutionary biologists standing over there lamenting their inability to connect with females, who somehow prefer muscularly ripped albeit less cranially endowed surfer dudes.

Am I kidding? I'm not sure.

Wasn't intentionally trolling, thanks for taking the time to write out your thoughts. I actually debated somebody else on Slashdot who took your argument to another level and said that no company should be allowed to engage in political advocacy. I raised the example of the NYT and asked if he would axe their editorial department (as far as political commentary/advocacy goes), and was shocked that he said he would. Of course, it wasn't fair to paint you with that brush...

... except ... that to me the freedom for corporations to engage in political advocacy flows from the 1st Amendment, so in a sense I do believe that if you chop down that tree, then the NYT loses its legal protection from further government censorship. If people working together as a corporation don't have the right to speak (with a single voice) as that corporation, that's a big problem to me under the 1st Amendment and also on purely philosophical/ethical/civic grounds.

OK, I admit to a few fallacies; thanks for useful links. :p

There's nothing wrong with you having an opinion, but the owners of a company get to decide what that company does and says.

I certainly hear you on the monopoly thing. When a company gets that big and ubiquitous it enters a gray area where I will not be so quick to a libertarian analysis of their right to do whatever they want within the law.

I think this will change the problem, but most likely not solve it. They will just shift the money to the fringes and advocate indirectly, which they are already doing in many ways. ("See, we're not working for Joe, we're just attacking Mary!")

Anyway, enjoyed the exchange!

Really? Two people working together lose their freedom of speech just because they happen to be working together? You will next suggest shutting down the NYT editorial department, I suppose?

Yawn, straw man fallacy.

You don't own the company you work for, so this is irrelevant. The rights of the company to freedom of speech should be equivalent to the rights of the owners of the company, since the company does what they say and speaks for them.

Who cares? Private companies are owned and run by people. Those people should decide what the companies do and say. If you want the company to do or say something different, start your own business and spend your own money. What is this, communism? :p

Obviously it depends on the sense in which you use the phrase. In the sense in which I use it, every company is people. You can list out their names -- the owners or stockholders of the company who decide what that company will do.

English lesson time: the word "company" refers to a "company of people", i.e. more than one person joined together to do something together. In this context, a non-owning employee (like yourself) is not a member of that company.

No it wouldn't be. Once Lessig's crowd drills it into everybody's heads that it's OK for the government to block expenditure of money for political ends, then the government will proceed to do so whenever and wherever it can get away with it -- that is, whenever it's to the advantage of the current administration. This is giving government a new avenue to restrict people's political freedoms, and it will certainly be abused.

Raising money to make a political documentary that we don't like? We're gonna shut you down. Gotta get all that dirty money out of politics, you know. It's for the people's good.

So where do you think this would stop? What administration since that of Cincinattus and a few others has ever been anything other than the camel's nose in the tent?

OK, you are giving some fine analogies. But really, we're not talking about making it illegal to explicitly buy out a politician, because that is already illegal. You are suggesting that it should be illegal (by analogy) to pay money to a woman at all, whether or not there is sleeping with oneself involved. Or that there should be limits as to how much money a man can pay a woman. You want to cut out the gold digger girlfriends, and don't care whether you destroy legitimate gift giving freedoms between couples in the process (again, all by analogy). Right?

I don't have a problem with scrutinizing politicians and making sure they aren't selling their legislative votes, because that's a basic corruption issue. And I appreciate that you're trying to catch the more obscure cases of this. But the government isn't going to stop there. Politicians in power will use an ill-conceived campaign finance law like this as a hammer to silence political dissent, whether it's films, newspapers, bloggers, etc. They'll say "money, money!" and violate 1st Amendment rights to freedom of speech. Losses of liberties like this need to be nipped in the bud before they grow into a full Broadway person-eating plant.

You are refuting your own point by that line of argument. Everyone has the right to speak, but not everybody has the same persuasiveness/loudness/venue/charisma for speaking. And it would be a horrible idea for the government to try to equalize people's speech. Similarly, everyone has the right to spend their money to advance a political cause, but not everyone has the same amount of money to spend.

So money and speech are very similar there, and what you perceive as "unfair" really just boils down to the same thing as whining because you can't sway the men in the forum like Cicero can. Some people have always had more effective speech than others, and some people have always had more money than others.

So you are saying that when people band together to accomplish something, they no longer have rights as people. Banded together, they may be censored by the government. They may have their property arbitrarily seized. All the normal rights of people are taken away, right?

I don't think you've thought this through. Corporations are people. They are not owned or run by robots. If you disagree with that, then you're not thinking deeply about it yet.

You are such an idiom. And a maroon. (Just kidding, of course, but there must be a numbered Fundamental Internet Law that says that online insults of other people's intelligence always contain a misspelling of some sort.)

Fallacy 1: "Because one politician got his money from ripping off Medicare, all money in politics is corrupt."
(Many other people get their money through legitimate means.)

Fallacy 2: "There is a discernable moral difference between a blogger's disproportionately large audience due to writing skill versus a rich person's disproportionately large audience due to purchasing power."
(Both can only be described as morally neutral in the general case. If you're trying to "level the playing field", there is no reason to restrict it to money -- you might as well consider speaking or writing skill, physical attractiveness, etc. Science fiction has been written on the subject.)

You spoke of "egregious twisting of the intent of the 1st amendment". It's interesting -- originally voting rights were much more restricted than today. You had to be a white male, and you also had to own 50 acres of land in many states before you could vote. I'm not aware of any restriction on political donations back then, though.

No, I think I just put my finger on a fallacy on your part. You've made it very clear that it's the disproportionate influence of one person versus lesser influence of the masses of other people on elections that you can't tolerate.

But you still haven't given any reason why Sheldon Adelson's money is any different here than Famous Q. PolitiBlogger's virtual soapbox. In both cases, one person has drastically larger influence on the political debate than the masses of people around them. Why is this imbalance of power OK for Famous Q, but not for Adelson? Why? Why? Why?

Very unconvinced over here.... :p

OK, if it's so desirable to "level the playing field" so some people don't influence more than others, why not censor some highly influential political bloggers? Why not mandate surgically created speech impediments for the most charismatic political speakers? You still haven't gotten away from my accusation that your core goal is a bad goal. Looking at the money aspect and saying, "See! Dirty money!" doesn't change the fact that "leveling the playing field" is a bad goal to start with, and really a misunderstanding of democratic ideals.

Perhaps you're oversimplifying this. It's not that "money equals speech"; the problem is that suppressing certain kinds of donations means preventing people from "getting the word out" about something important to them, and thus prevents them from joining in unison with their peers in an act of aggregate, unison political speech. Or something.