In This World

Kentuckywired is a project to run fiber between cities in Kentucky, creating a high speed network for the state’s operations. It involves a lot of expensive public works – digging up streets and highways to lay down relatively cheap fiber and conduit (the digging is the expensive part).

A citizens’ group worked with Louisville Metro Council to take advantage of the public works project: they proposed to lay down some extra fiber during the buildout that could serve the people of Louisville, as well as laying the groundwork for a smarter city: connectivity to wire up traffic signals, public safety agencies, and so on.

Louisville is one of the most segregated cities in the country, and the poor people of West Louisville suffer all the maladies of poverty, like ill health. Not coincidentally, they are dramatically underserved by the telcoms monopolies of Kentucky.

By combining a municipal fiber network with the statewide effort, Louisville could shave the cost of running fiber from $15m to $5m, and jumpstart its new life as a city where the internet was truly world-class.

But as the plan started to move through the city council, it met stiff resistance from a mysterious group called “Taxpayers Protection Alliance,” who created a misinformation campaign suggesting – hilariously – that the whole idea of wiring up the city was a plot by Google to trick taxpayers into subsidizing its Google Fiber product.

This Taxpayers Protection Alliance is lavishly funded by Koch dark money, laundered through other groups the Kochs fund. The TPA spends that money in dirty fights to carry water for cable and phone company internet duopolies in cities across America, contributing to America’s status as one of the worst-provisioned countries in the OECD.

Once the TPA’s connection to the Kochs was revealed, Louisville council started paying attention to the substance of the debate, and voted to lay down the network.

eouz:

stfuconnor:

I know… I hate that I can’t have meaningful conversations with my friends about Barbra Streisand anymore

old ass cartoonists hate youth so much they will reach at great lengths to look like they’ve made a point it’s truly fascinating

i honestly thought at first that this was supposed to portray how smartphones have given us the ability to look up information we don’t know at a moment’s notice