5 ms·

Why? One wants you to look at ads more relevant to you than random placement. The other wants you to stay in line, not question your leaders, accept the oligarc

Why? One wants you to look at ads more relevant to you than random placement. The other wants you to stay in line, not question your leaders, accept the oligarchy, and if you don't, your life will be made a living hell until you are rendered neutral. Yeah go government.

rayiner 10y ago
The government doesn't need to coerce the average person to stay in line. The government is the instrument through which the average person forces the fringe elements to stay in line. The average person, thus, has a lot more to fear from corporations than from the government.
- jflatow 10y ago
  Perhaps you are mistaking the ideal government from the actual government. Governments are repeat offenders, and they lie to the public constantly. Its no secret - look it up. Yet they are so powerful, that it happens anyway. Its also no secret that the people who control the government have interests in retaining power and accumulating wealth. Politicians don't even deny that they can be bought, money is free speech after all (http://www.amendmentgazette.com/how-spending-money-became-a-form-of-speech/ http://www.amendmentgazette.com/how-spending-money-became-a-...). Congressmen spend more than half of their time fundraising for a reason. The policies and actions of the government are not intended to protect you, even though sometimes your interests are aligned.
  - rayiner 10y ago
    I'm not describing the ideal, I'm describing the reality. Digression: my mom loves Hillary Clinton. She's an immigrant, consumes very little American media, but she is a staunch Clinton supporter. Clinton recites all the buzzwords she likes: children, education, security. She views politically radical ideas with deep suspicion and views nonconformity as a character flaw. I look at the government we have, and can't help but think it's exactly what she would do if she were in charge: lots of benefits for retirees, enormous spending on education, vigorous enforcement of drug laws, long punishments for criminals. What exactly would we do differently if my mom were in charge instead of the shadowy cabal of rich people and purchased politicians? Very little. And the fact is, she is in charge. She's who votes, without fail, in every election. The government doesn't need to keep her in line. The government is what she uses to keep everyone else in line.
    - jflatow 10y ago
      What Clinton tells her is not what Clinton actually does. Campaign promises are exactly that. The government lies to your mom to get her support and 'keep her in line'.
      - throwawaykf05 10y ago
        Are you saying the government does not do "vigorous enforcement of drug laws, long punishments for criminals"? These are topics that are the source of perennial complaints on HN. I think rayiner's point is that outside the HN echo chamber, there is a lot of implicit support for all kinds of empowerment of government and law enforcement agencies to "keep people in line". These same people may possibly even condone surveillance if it helps catch some small fry drug dealers. I see the same thing when it comes to TSA threads. I know people who actually want the TSA around, and when stories of TSA ineffectiveness come out, their reaction is not "security theatre!", it's "fund them more!" The point is, the government is literally doing what most of the populace wants it to do. The opinions on HN are in the minority.
        jflatow 10y ago
        The original point was that people should fear corporations more than the government, because the government is the instrument of the people, whereas corporations have other less savory motives. But its not true - the government is not to be trusted. It has a monopoly on military / police force, which it abuses incessantly. Moreover, it is effectively controlled by a private duopoly (Democrats + Republicans), with the same motives as any corporate coalition. What's more, corporations effectively control the duopoly. Just look at what happened with TTIP (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/04/secrets-ttip-corporations-not-citizens-transatlantic-trade-deal http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/04/secrets...). And it is not doing what most of the populace wants, if that's not clear from the current election, look at the Congress approval ratings (http://www.gallup.com/poll/1600/congress-public.aspx http://www.gallup.com/poll/1600/congress-public.aspx). It's barely gone above 20% in the last 6 years. And has only once briefly gone above 50% in the past 30 years.
- Mendenhall 10y ago
  The average person has way more to fear from government. Ever known a company that started a world war? or genocided people ? concentration camps etc etc etc. Governments have killed way more people than corporations and statistics prove it, thus the average person has a lot more to fear from government.
  - Teever 10y ago
    You may want to learn more about the East India Company. If you don't think that an company can start a war then their history may surprise you. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_India_Company https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_India_Company
    - Mendenhall 10y ago
      Oh I was not disputing they can start wars or even kill, there are examples of such through history. I chose world war as an example of scale and because I was familiar with smaller wars and battles fought by companies. I would still stand by the vast amount of body count difference that government is much more to be feared.
      - Teever 10y ago
        We haven't yet seen a corporation start a world war because multinationals the scale of google and samsung are a relatively recent phenomenon. With that said I agree that we're unlikely to see a world war started by a corporation. I think we're far more likely to see an interplanetary conflict started by a corporation however. It will be quite an easy thing for an asteroid mining venture to turn into an arms manufacturer the likes of which we have never seen.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- waterhouse 10y ago
  The government as an instrument of the average person? I find the notion absurd on the face of it. Maybe it's the instrument of a small group of people who originally came from a group of people you could call "average", and maybe it has some incentive to do visible things that make it appealing to a majority of the citizenry. But by no means can a random average person say, "I want the government to do X", and cause the government to do X for them, except in a very restricted class of X's (like "arrest this person who I see doing Y crime"). If it happens that a majority of average people want Z, maybe this will influence some politicians at some point, or maybe it won't. (It's sort of similar to the market incentive companies face, but worse in various ways.) Furthermore, just because you can use an institution to do some things for you (if you can call that "being your instrument") doesn't mean you have nothing to fear from it. It does not follow, especially not in the case of the government. More or less every person who's been oppressed by a government could nevertheless say it was providing police and other services to them. If the government were the average person's instrument, as in, a piece of machinery that didn't do anything unless an average person picked it up and used it, and in that case performed exactly the actions the person wanted, then your conclusion would follow [barring accidental misuse and such]. I'm tempted to imagine that you're deliberately giving HN readers an exercise in how to recognize the misleading use of language in a debate. While I'm on the subject, I'll volunteer that the social contract is a nice-looking facade made up after the fact; it's more like, the government does things to everyone, and afterward maybe a few people decide it was worth it and approve, while others may be displeased but usually lack any effective means of changing the situation, and shrug and put up with it. Further, I'll quote Nock: "The positive testimony of history is that the State invariably had its origin in conquest and confiscation. No primitive State known to history originated in any other manner. ... Moreover, the sole invariable characteristic of the State is the economic exploitation of one class by another. In this sense, every State known to history is a class-State. Oppenheimer defines the State, in respect of its origin, as an institution "forced on a defeated group by a conquering group, with a view only to systematizing the domination of the conquered by the conquerors, and safeguarding itself against insurrection from within and attack from without. This domination had no other final purpose than the economic exploitation of the conquered group by the victorious group.""
optforfon 10y ago
Google wants to manipulate you into buying things and hading them over more information. If you know even a little about marketing/sales you know how powerful these forces are especially when targeted at a whole nation. On an individual level we never feel like the CocaCola ad makes us buy more coke, but it does. "your life will be made a living hell until you are rendered neutral" ... sorry, but that just doesn't match up with reality. Maybe your fantasy of the future?
- iamnothere 10y ago
  Many journalists, lawyers, political activists, and civil rights advocates would disagree with your characterization. Just because you personally aren't aware of abuses doesn't mean that they don't occur. Bush-era antiwar groups, Occupy Wall Street, leftist political groups, security researchers, environmental activists, whistleblowers, lawyers representing "sensitive" clients, and MLK himself... all have faced some kind of illegal surveillance or intimidation tactics. (There are many known targets that I didn't list here, and likely many that we don't hear about, simply because the oppressed often lack access to media channels.) I would much rather be manipulated into buying more Coke than targeted for harassment, intimidation, no-fly lists, and smear campaigns because of my political beliefs. Not that marketers are angels, but they don't hold a candle to the type of abuse that the government can dish out when someone is "marked" as inconvenient.
  - optforfon 10y ago
    Yeah, but wouldn't you agree that each time the government does overstep it's authority there is a backlash and they stop? Society seems to keep the government in check. Things like the MLK scenario are a lot less likely now-a-days. If you're say prodrug legalization, it's very very unlikely you'll be blackmailed for your extramarital affairs by a government official (in fact that seems kinda absurd). Yes bad things happen on a small scale, I wouldn't deny that, but I just don't see it as something slipperyslopping anywhere. There isn't a direct mechanism keeping the government in check other than education (and the values that it fosters) along with citizen outrage. Government's fear of it's citizens seems to have worked everywhere in the 1st world.

rayiner 10y ago

The government doesn't need to coerce the average person to stay in line. The government is the instrument through which the average person forces the fringe elements to stay in line. The average person, thus, has a lot more to fear from corporations than from the government.

jflatow 10y ago
Perhaps you are mistaking the ideal government from the actual government. Governments are repeat offenders, and they lie to the public constantly. Its no secret - look it up. Yet they are so powerful, that it happens anyway. Its also no secret that the people who control the government have interests in retaining power and accumulating wealth. Politicians don't even deny that they can be bought, money is free speech after all (http://www.amendmentgazette.com/how-spending-money-became-a-form-of-speech/ http://www.amendmentgazette.com/how-spending-money-became-a-...). Congressmen spend more than half of their time fundraising for a reason. The policies and actions of the government are not intended to protect you, even though sometimes your interests are aligned.
- rayiner 10y ago
  I'm not describing the ideal, I'm describing the reality. Digression: my mom loves Hillary Clinton. She's an immigrant, consumes very little American media, but she is a staunch Clinton supporter. Clinton recites all the buzzwords she likes: children, education, security. She views politically radical ideas with deep suspicion and views nonconformity as a character flaw. I look at the government we have, and can't help but think it's exactly what she would do if she were in charge: lots of benefits for retirees, enormous spending on education, vigorous enforcement of drug laws, long punishments for criminals. What exactly would we do differently if my mom were in charge instead of the shadowy cabal of rich people and purchased politicians? Very little. And the fact is, she is in charge. She's who votes, without fail, in every election. The government doesn't need to keep her in line. The government is what she uses to keep everyone else in line.
  - jflatow 10y ago
    What Clinton tells her is not what Clinton actually does. Campaign promises are exactly that. The government lies to your mom to get her support and 'keep her in line'.
    - throwawaykf05 10y ago
      Are you saying the government does not do "vigorous enforcement of drug laws, long punishments for criminals"? These are topics that are the source of perennial complaints on HN. I think rayiner's point is that outside the HN echo chamber, there is a lot of implicit support for all kinds of empowerment of government and law enforcement agencies to "keep people in line". These same people may possibly even condone surveillance if it helps catch some small fry drug dealers. I see the same thing when it comes to TSA threads. I know people who actually want the TSA around, and when stories of TSA ineffectiveness come out, their reaction is not "security theatre!", it's "fund them more!" The point is, the government is literally doing what most of the populace wants it to do. The opinions on HN are in the minority.
      - jflatow 10y ago
        The original point was that people should fear corporations more than the government, because the government is the instrument of the people, whereas corporations have other less savory motives. But its not true - the government is not to be trusted. It has a monopoly on military / police force, which it abuses incessantly. Moreover, it is effectively controlled by a private duopoly (Democrats + Republicans), with the same motives as any corporate coalition. What's more, corporations effectively control the duopoly. Just look at what happened with TTIP (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/04/secrets-ttip-corporations-not-citizens-transatlantic-trade-deal http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/04/secrets...). And it is not doing what most of the populace wants, if that's not clear from the current election, look at the Congress approval ratings (http://www.gallup.com/poll/1600/congress-public.aspx http://www.gallup.com/poll/1600/congress-public.aspx). It's barely gone above 20% in the last 6 years. And has only once briefly gone above 50% in the past 30 years.
Mendenhall 10y ago
The average person has way more to fear from government. Ever known a company that started a world war? or genocided people ? concentration camps etc etc etc. Governments have killed way more people than corporations and statistics prove it, thus the average person has a lot more to fear from government.
- Teever 10y ago
  You may want to learn more about the East India Company. If you don't think that an company can start a war then their history may surprise you. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_India_Company https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_India_Company
  - Mendenhall 10y ago
    Oh I was not disputing they can start wars or even kill, there are examples of such through history. I chose world war as an example of scale and because I was familiar with smaller wars and battles fought by companies. I would still stand by the vast amount of body count difference that government is much more to be feared.
    - Teever 10y ago
      We haven't yet seen a corporation start a world war because multinationals the scale of google and samsung are a relatively recent phenomenon. With that said I agree that we're unlikely to see a world war started by a corporation. I think we're far more likely to see an interplanetary conflict started by a corporation however. It will be quite an easy thing for an asteroid mining venture to turn into an arms manufacturer the likes of which we have never seen.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
waterhouse 10y ago
The government as an instrument of the average person? I find the notion absurd on the face of it. Maybe it's the instrument of a small group of people who originally came from a group of people you could call "average", and maybe it has some incentive to do visible things that make it appealing to a majority of the citizenry. But by no means can a random average person say, "I want the government to do X", and cause the government to do X for them, except in a very restricted class of X's (like "arrest this person who I see doing Y crime"). If it happens that a majority of average people want Z, maybe this will influence some politicians at some point, or maybe it won't. (It's sort of similar to the market incentive companies face, but worse in various ways.) Furthermore, just because you can use an institution to do some things for you (if you can call that "being your instrument") doesn't mean you have nothing to fear from it. It does not follow, especially not in the case of the government. More or less every person who's been oppressed by a government could nevertheless say it was providing police and other services to them. If the government were the average person's instrument, as in, a piece of machinery that didn't do anything unless an average person picked it up and used it, and in that case performed exactly the actions the person wanted, then your conclusion would follow [barring accidental misuse and such]. I'm tempted to imagine that you're deliberately giving HN readers an exercise in how to recognize the misleading use of language in a debate. While I'm on the subject, I'll volunteer that the social contract is a nice-looking facade made up after the fact; it's more like, the government does things to everyone, and afterward maybe a few people decide it was worth it and approve, while others may be displeased but usually lack any effective means of changing the situation, and shrug and put up with it. Further, I'll quote Nock: "The positive testimony of history is that the State invariably had its origin in conquest and confiscation. No primitive State known to history originated in any other manner. ... Moreover, the sole invariable characteristic of the State is the economic exploitation of one class by another. In this sense, every State known to history is a class-State. Oppenheimer defines the State, in respect of its origin, as an institution "forced on a defeated group by a conquering group, with a view only to systematizing the domination of the conquered by the conquerors, and safeguarding itself against insurrection from within and attack from without. This domination had no other final purpose than the economic exploitation of the conquered group by the victorious group.""

optforfon 10y ago

Google wants to manipulate you into buying things and hading them over more information. If you know even a little about marketing/sales you know how powerful these forces are especially when targeted at a whole nation. On an individual level we never feel like the CocaCola ad makes us buy more coke, but it does. "your life will be made a living hell until you are rendered neutral" ... sorry, but that just doesn't match up with reality. Maybe your fantasy of the future?

iamnothere 10y ago
Many journalists, lawyers, political activists, and civil rights advocates would disagree with your characterization. Just because you personally aren't aware of abuses doesn't mean that they don't occur. Bush-era antiwar groups, Occupy Wall Street, leftist political groups, security researchers, environmental activists, whistleblowers, lawyers representing "sensitive" clients, and MLK himself... all have faced some kind of illegal surveillance or intimidation tactics. (There are many known targets that I didn't list here, and likely many that we don't hear about, simply because the oppressed often lack access to media channels.) I would much rather be manipulated into buying more Coke than targeted for harassment, intimidation, no-fly lists, and smear campaigns because of my political beliefs. Not that marketers are angels, but they don't hold a candle to the type of abuse that the government can dish out when someone is "marked" as inconvenient.
- optforfon 10y ago
  Yeah, but wouldn't you agree that each time the government does overstep it's authority there is a backlash and they stop? Society seems to keep the government in check. Things like the MLK scenario are a lot less likely now-a-days. If you're say prodrug legalization, it's very very unlikely you'll be blackmailed for your extramarital affairs by a government official (in fact that seems kinda absurd). Yes bad things happen on a small scale, I wouldn't deny that, but I just don't see it as something slipperyslopping anywhere. There isn't a direct mechanism keeping the government in check other than education (and the values that it fosters) along with citizen outrage. Government's fear of it's citizens seems to have worked everywhere in the 1st world.