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This short text from Charles Stross is incredibly relevant: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/12/invaders-from-mars.html http://www.antipope.org/

by rinze 11y ago

This short text from Charles Stross is incredibly relevant: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/12/invaders-from-mars.html http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/12/invaders... > Corporations do not share our priorities. They are hive organisms constructed out of teeming workers who join or leave the collective: those who participate within it subordinate their goals to that of the collective, which pursues the three corporate objectives of growth, profitability, and pain avoidance. (The sources of pain a corporate organism seeks to avoid are lawsuits, prosecution, and a drop in shareholder value.)

maxerickson 11y ago
Yeah, having read his writings certainly contributed to my articulating the thought.
dragonbonheur 11y ago
When I think about his Accelerando novel and how he describes the Vile Offspring as the descendants of mankind who ultimately inherit the Solar System, I sometimes wonder if Excel Spreadsheets describing every aspect of a Corporation could in a way become minimally self-aware and compete for resources with each other. If there were automated ways to create a corporation and give it legal personhood, along with an offshore bank account, the possibility of the emergence of self-sustaining autonomous corporations may become more of a certainty. In fact, most of the pieces are available: lots of servers offer some free bandwidth and some free hosting space, bitcoin wallets can be opened, ready to receive donations from people all over the world... There just needs to be a software engine that can create content people want in an autonomous way and here come the Vile Offspring.
- pipermerriam 11y ago
  > If there were automated ways to create a corporation and give it legal personhood, along with an offshore bank account, the possibility of the emergence of self-sustaining autonomous corporations may become more of a certainty. Take a look at the [DAO](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decentralized_autonomous_organization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decentralized_autonomous_organ...) concept. These are currently being built and deployed on the Ethereum platform. Sounds like a real world version of what you are theorizing.
  - dragonbonheur 11y ago
    Thanks for the link. The Wetube project looks promising. Just placing a server at the disposal of that decentralized corporation, one becomes a worker for that corporation. Very interesting.

by rinze 11y ago

maxerickson 11y ago

Yeah, having read his writings certainly contributed to my articulating the thought.

dragonbonheur 11y ago

When I think about his Accelerando novel and how he describes the Vile Offspring as the descendants of mankind who ultimately inherit the Solar System, I sometimes wonder if Excel Spreadsheets describing every aspect of a Corporation could in a way become minimally self-aware and compete for resources with each other. If there were automated ways to create a corporation and give it legal personhood, along with an offshore bank account, the possibility of the emergence of self-sustaining autonomous corporations may become more of a certainty. In fact, most of the pieces are available: lots of servers offer some free bandwidth and some free hosting space, bitcoin wallets can be opened, ready to receive donations from people all over the world... There just needs to be a software engine that can create content people want in an autonomous way and here come the Vile Offspring.

pipermerriam 11y ago
> If there were automated ways to create a corporation and give it legal personhood, along with an offshore bank account, the possibility of the emergence of self-sustaining autonomous corporations may become more of a certainty. Take a look at the [DAO](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decentralized_autonomous_organization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decentralized_autonomous_organ...) concept. These are currently being built and deployed on the Ethereum platform. Sounds like a real world version of what you are theorizing.
- dragonbonheur 11y ago
  Thanks for the link. The Wetube project looks promising. Just placing a server at the disposal of that decentralized corporation, one becomes a worker for that corporation. Very interesting.