People like me, who have been participating in discussions on this site for years, have no need to engage in such foolishness.

Actually, I have been with Slashdot since near the beginning; I still have a four digit UID that I don't use anymore.

You're part of the group of the "bottom-feeding scum" that has turned it from a technical site into a crappy progressive propaganda site. It's what "bottom-feeding scum" like you do: you take over forums, denounce people, and spread hatred and intolerance.

The tactic you suggest is deeply dishonest

My point exactly.

and the fact that you would accuse somebody of behaving that way says a lot more about you than it does about me.

What it says is that I have a very low opinion of you.

But if you want to claim that he is the opposite of what the citation shows him doing then please be so kind as to give a reason for someone to think you didn't just pull that line out of your own posterior.

No, I'm saying that the very fact that "In June 2016 John Oliver bought up $15M of medical debt and forgave it." makes him a "champion of wealthy doctors, pharmaceutical companies, and excessive medical costs in America."

The fact that you don't understand why makes you a gullible fool.

John Oliver literally has made incredibly vocal and public attacks against all those groups.

So have Obama and Clinton.

He is literally the exact opposite of what you just described.

He doesn't understand! Explain as you would a child!

Switching from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake does not mean abandoning bitcoin. It means a software update to bitcoin.

Well, and if Bitcoin users want to do that, they will do that. You're welcome to try to convince people.

In addition to wasting less energy it would also correct a current problem with bitcoin.

So, Bitcoin's future will be determined by economic, technical, and political forces, not by clean energy. The fact that that may or may not use lowering energy usage is just something that makes you happy but that hardly anybody else gives a f*ck about.

Agreed. What does that have to do with federal net neutrality rules?

Because you bring up lack of competition as the justification for net neutrality rules. Obviously, if there is enough competition among ISPs, then we don't need net neutrality regulation

Trying to improve the lives of the poor. Everyone knows that people shouldn't have any rights, hopes or dreams if they didn't start life with a $million grant from their daddy. Shut up and go back to your drudgery, poor people!

Yup, that's pretty much what sums up your attitude towards poor people. Thanks for being honest about it. It's why I think you are an evil prick.

Per capita what? Per population? Per taxpayer?

Per American. Thatâ(TM)s what âoeper capitaâ means. Geez, did your education end in the third grade?

But what about in terms of healthcare received, or in terms of assessing the costs of healthcare?

Of course, Americans receive very little healthcare for that enormous amount of money spent. Thatâ(TM)s my point: the problem isnâ(TM)t that we arenâ(TM)t spending enough money, the problem is that healthcare in the US costs too much.

Then cite your sources. I'm sure you realize that hand-waved declarations of vague assertions are not especially persuasive when we know how easy it is to lie with statistics.

Spare me your platitutdes, and look up the numbers yourself: there are numerous sources.

Indeed, among other things, it's lack of coverage. And bankruptcies.

No, not âoeamong other thingsâ; lack of coverage is the result of excessive prices, and so are bankruptcies.

Net neutrality doesn't require engineers to work harder. It is the default configuration of standard network equipment. It requires less equipment

Yeah, sure, if youâ(TM)re running your $25 router in your momâ(TM)s basement with one connection coming in, that is true.

For an ISP, itâ(TM)s not at all true. ISPs have many connections coming in, and âoenet neutralityâ is largely about how they exchange money with other ISPs over the traffic they exchange.

ISPs will âoemilk some more moneyâ from rich techies, which is why rich techies are up in arms about this.

But how can market competition regulate an industry when more than a third of the market has no competition at all, and even those that do have to choose between options that don't uphold net neutrality?

Without product differentiation, you wonâ(TM)t get much competition. So, âoenot having competitionâ is a fairly natural result of net neutrality. On top of that, of course, many local jurisdictions restrict competition.

But note also the manipulative language of the article: âoecan only get Internet Service from companies that have violated net neutralityâ. Does that mean they canâ(TM)t get unrestricted service from those companies? Of course not! Most ISPs are already happy to provide you completely unrestricted service, including allowing you to run servers, for the right price.

In a healthy Internet provider market, you would expect every company to offer low-cost Internet service that violates net neutrality in some way, and you would expect most companies to offer expensive âoenet neutralâ service. The âoenet neutralityâ fight is over forcing the people who would be happy with the low-cost limited service to subsidize the people who want expensive âoenet neutralâ service.

I hope there will be plenty of ISPs in my area that will âoeviolate net neutralityâ: thatâ(TM)s the way towards cheaper service and more competition.

The US Govt, just prioritizes healthcare for its citizens less than it prioritizes, say, defence, tax cuts, naval exercises and so on.

The US government spends more per capita on healthcare than almost any other nation. Yes, the US government, excluding the private sector.

The problem with the US healthcare system isn't excessive stinginess by the government, it is excessive costs and excessive prices. And the ACA did nothing to address excessive costs and prices (because drug companies, lawyers, and doctors tend to be big donors), instead it simply tried to force Americans to pay those excessive prices in perpetuity, which ensures that this will never get fixed.

So if the money allocated to the border wall is unused, it does not go to healthcare

And by "healthcare", you mean the yachts and estates of wealthy doctors, insurance company executives, and pharmaceutical companies.

The AC post sounds like what the typical progressive imagines a conservative to say.

Come on, admit it, "hyades1": you wrote the AC post yourself, just so that you could respond to it in self-righteous indignation.

"John Oliver, champion of wealthy doctors, pharmaceutical companies, and excessive medical costs in America."

Right now, the federal government is working to pour billions of your tax dollars into building a wall between the United States and Mexico, despite the fact that walls have been militarily obsolete since the advent of gunpowder.

A border wall with Mexico isn't a wall against a military assault, it's a wall against illegal migrants and drug smugglers. Can such walls work? You bet. They presented a big obstacle to the millions trying to flee from the socialist East Bloc into the capitalist West. That's why people trying to escape socialism hid in car trunks or even built hot air balloons.

Of course, before building a wall, the US should do what other civilized nations do, which is to ensure every American can easily prove their citizenship and requiring proof of legal presence in the US for government benefits, employment, schooling, housing, taxation, and banking.

But I don't think an unregulated internet is going to go very well.

The Internet worked well for decades without net neutrality.

There's no competition in many areas

94% of US census blocks have more than one residential fixed provider, 75% have three or more providers. Many rural areas also have various forms of wireless. If you need good Internet service, don't move to a backwards, remote part of the country. It's not the job of the federal government to ensure that every part of the country has all the infrastructure you deem necessary. Heck, nearly 10% of US households have no sewer service; are you going to legislate access to sewage treatment next?

And a lot of the local monopolies are due to government regulations in the first place; the way to fix that is to eliminate those regulations. Many of those exist at the local level, so if residents of Hicksville want more Internet competition, it's for them to change their laws restricting it.

Furthermore, net neutrality decreases competition in the ISP market because it leaves price as the only differentiating factor, and that's winner-take-all.

And make no mistake about it: the primary effect of net neutrality will be to perpetuate the monopolies Google, Facebook, Netflix, and YouTube are creating, because their business models crucially depend on it.

The entire net neutrality debate is absurd. It's the kind of ignorant, self-serving stupidity wealthy techies come up with again and again and that uses the poor and the underserved as little pawns in political games. The people arguing for net neturality couldn't care less about households with only one ISP; what they care about is the big corporations they work for and being able to binge on streaming video while making others pay for it.