3 ms·

I don't use Google, and prefer they not keep tabs on me all the time...but I think governments have a much...much worse track record on suppressing people than

I don't use Google, and prefer they not keep tabs on me all the time...but I think governments have a much...much worse track record on suppressing people than corporations. Google can be wiped from the earth by merely a new invention or a shift in the market to a better product...or financial fraud. Pretty hard to up root an entire legal structure and apparatus that grows every single year and has the ability to jail you or kill you. What I find terrifying is corporations like Google that have all of this data working hand in hand with the government. This creates two problems, a) the government now has tons more data they shouldn't have giving them more authoritarian abilities and b) that company now has immense lobbying power and can stifle competition for its mere deep relationship with the government. Basically, fascism.

optforfon 10y ago
I don't use google either! But I've gotta say, every year it gets more and more frustrating as people ask me to use their google spreadsheets and chat with them on google hangouts etc. etc. Google might not have an account of mine, but I'm 100% sure they know who I am, what I'm interested in and what I'd be interested in in the future! Thanks to cookies, their ads and snippets of JavaScript on every webpage, my friends uploading contacts lists with my name in them etc. etc. they must have a profile built for me. With the current state of things it actually doesn't really bother me (other than it's monopolistic market distorting effects, but whatever), but you brought up the possibility of them falling part! A very interesting scenario. Google is playing nice and placating people while they make boatloads of cash. When Firefox and IE natively implement adblock or some technounicorn clobbers them they'll get a lot less nice! And we checked enough End User Agreements to let them With the government we have some recourse
eli_gottlieb 10y ago
>I think governments have a much...much worse track record on suppressing people than corporations. Ever heard of the East India Company? Pinkerton National Detective Agency?
- partiallypro 10y ago
  Ever heard of Communist China, Communist Russia, Nazi Germany, North Korea, North Vietnam, Serbian Genocide, Iraqi slaughter of the Kurds, Trail of Tears, East Germany, Bulgaria, The Sudan. I can keep going. Just in the past few years ~200,000 people have been killed by the Syrian government. Of the list of people responsible for those atrocities, none of them were CEOs. Mao alone killed 45 Million people, that's still less than half of the list. So again, let me know when corporations have even 1/10th of that number, even 1/20th. Governments have a much worse track record win killing people. Just as I was typing this it's very likely that a government murdered someone, statistically speaking. Perhaps even the U.S. government. I didn't say corporations were blameless...just that governments have a much much worse track record.

optforfon 10y ago

I don't use google either! But I've gotta say, every year it gets more and more frustrating as people ask me to use their google spreadsheets and chat with them on google hangouts etc. etc. Google might not have an account of mine, but I'm 100% sure they know who I am, what I'm interested in and what I'd be interested in in the future! Thanks to cookies, their ads and snippets of JavaScript on every webpage, my friends uploading contacts lists with my name in them etc. etc. they must have a profile built for me. With the current state of things it actually doesn't really bother me (other than it's monopolistic market distorting effects, but whatever), but you brought up the possibility of them falling part! A very interesting scenario. Google is playing nice and placating people while they make boatloads of cash. When Firefox and IE natively implement adblock or some technounicorn clobbers them they'll get a lot less nice! And we checked enough End User Agreements to let them With the government we have some recourse

eli_gottlieb 10y ago

>I think governments have a much...much worse track record on suppressing people than corporations. Ever heard of the East India Company? Pinkerton National Detective Agency?

partiallypro 10y ago
Ever heard of Communist China, Communist Russia, Nazi Germany, North Korea, North Vietnam, Serbian Genocide, Iraqi slaughter of the Kurds, Trail of Tears, East Germany, Bulgaria, The Sudan. I can keep going. Just in the past few years ~200,000 people have been killed by the Syrian government. Of the list of people responsible for those atrocities, none of them were CEOs. Mao alone killed 45 Million people, that's still less than half of the list. So again, let me know when corporations have even 1/10th of that number, even 1/20th. Governments have a much worse track record win killing people. Just as I was typing this it's very likely that a government murdered someone, statistically speaking. Perhaps even the U.S. government. I didn't say corporations were blameless...just that governments have a much much worse track record.