[arin-ppml] Spectrum and IP address reservations / More from NERA

[tvest at eyeconomics.com]

On Jul 21, 2009, at 3:43 AM, Milton L Mueller wrote:

>
>> I'm not even sure what you're trying to imply here.
>> NERA is the authority that *you* first chose to recommend,
>> when (as you explained) their findings indirectly supported
>> the position that you've clearly staked out in all of the
>> IPv4 transfer/market/privatization debates (and perhaps
>
> Tom,
> On the NERA report, it makes some interesting points, and has some  
> relevance to current ip address debates about reservations for "new  
> entrants" as the free pool shrinks. And generally, I think it useful  
> to use spectrum allocation as a pool of policy experience with  
> relevance to ip addressing.
>
> That's all.
>
> I am not citing NERA as an unqualified authority; I did not say that  
> it supported "my position" on anything; this particular report has  
> nothing to do with the transfer market debate; the fact that you see  
> anyone who uses economic theory as being a monolithic school of  
> anarcho-objectivists is your problem, not mine.
>
> I do remain genuinely shocked at the fact that you displayed  
> ignorance of basic perfect competition theory, and that you are  
> unaware of how people have been debating its limitations and uses  
> for decades. That's something we can take up later.

Skipping past the diversionary chaff, I'll just observe that  
"disinclination to use" does not imply "ignorance of" (e.g., a  
particular family of theories). You may notice that I also don't  
reference phlogiston or phrenology-based theories to justify or  
criticize address policy, nor do I feel compelled to reference critics  
of those theories to justify my general inattention to them in this  
context. In all three cases, there's not much of use that can be  
constructively applied here, so why waste everybody's time?

> I can' resist one OT response:
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>>
>> looking belief, your  textbook Cato / von Mises / anarcho-objectivist
>
> So many errors. You are really stuck in an ideological bog. I don't  
> have time to clear it up for you on a public list, and besides, it  
> would be boring if not downright rude to subject the rest of the  
> list to extended talk about that when it's connection to address  
> policy is tangential.
>
> Mises wasn't an anarchist, and the Cato folks are more like Milton  
> Friedman than von Mises, and neither are anarchists. You've got me  
> misidentified, too. Ask the Misesians and anarcho-objectivists  
> whether I am one of them. Better yet, ask Paul Vixie, a longtime  
> devotee of Ayn Rand. If you don't understand the difference between  
> Hayek/Popper-style empirical skepticism and von Mises/Rand deductive  
> rationalism, it's your problem. Don't make it my problem, and above  
> all, don't make it ARIN's. Do your homework.

I understand the differences, and am aware of your drift between the  
various schismatic political movements. I was summarizing, not  
conflating.
Regardless, in the end the vast (methodological) differences that you  
would prefer to focus on -- e.g., between the Miseans and the  
Friedmanites et al. -- make little difference in terms of  
(substantive, pragmatic) policy differences that are relevant to this  
discussion. To most people (i.e., probably all but the members of one  
of the other schismatic quasi-libertarian groups) it's not going to  
matter much in the end whether you reject all non-market decision  
making mechanisms because the pursuit of pure freedom or the will to  
power compels you to do so, or because you know a priori that all  
other institutions are always inherently (more) corrupt, or because  
you can produce a simple model that shows that in, all cases, even the  
worst market-imposed abuse could never be as bad as even the best  
possible nonmarket-based alternative. In the end, it doesn't matter  
what precise point within that range of views you currently occupy,  
because all of them exist at the far extreme of the spectrum of  
political (or if you prefer, the "policy sympathetic") orientations,  
separated by a vast gulf from the range of views that allow for some  
(maybe a little, maybe a lot) legitimate scope for coordinated, non  
market-based decision making.

> Maybe it's a cultural difference, but researchers generally send  
> papers around that are "of interest" and these actions do not imply  
> general agreement with worldview or even the findings. If this is  
> really a public policy list it might behoove you to get more into  
> that culture of sharing and exchanging ideas about public policy  
> rather than professing shock when you come up against something that  
> differs from your own ideology and then engaging in stereotyping  
> campaigns.


Your recurring faith in the forgetfulness of other list members never  
fails to surprise me. But I'm game (again).

I am happy to resume our stereotyping-free discussion of address  
policy by thanking you for responding to the questions that I posed  
earlier. I would have been happy for more direct responses, but no  
matter...

Regards,

TV