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Name a dot-com with $1bn+ in liability and we can talk about regulating it.

by silentOpen 16y ago

waterlesscloud 16y ago
I see. It's all those other people that need to be regulated. Got it.
- CamperBob 16y ago
  No, just the ones who have the ability to destroy vast amounts of resources they don't own.
- Vivtek 16y ago
  This is a pretty straw-mannish argument. It's clear to me that if a company is big enough that its irresponsible actions can cause this much harm, it should be regulated. (I note you haven't actually named a dot-com with more than a billion in liability.) Capitalism is not a suicide pact.
  - waterlesscloud 16y ago
    I see nothing here that explains why dot coms should not be regulated.
    - Vivtek 16y ago
      I see you've shifted your argument. What happened to "Right, just the other guys should be regulated?" I'm not sure what's not clear about the notion that large risk should be regulated. If a company is capable, due to size or what have you, of harming a large number of people due to malice or incompetence on the part of its corporate governance, then sanity demands it should be regulated. However, small companies should be regulated as little as possible. I mean, assuming you want a working economy. I'm not sure you do - actually, I'm not sure what you want, but from the standpoint of pattern recognition of your strawman attacks, I'd assume you want to regulate all business as little as possible. Where I suspect we differ is the degree of "possible". In my opinion, any business that can destroy hundreds of miles of coastline for other people while still having a banner profit year? Yeah, that should probably be regulated, since the Invisible Hand ain't gonna do it. Look up the Tragedy of the Commons sometime; you might find it instructive. (Or perhaps not. It's hard to tell how honestly you're approaching this.)
      - waterlesscloud 16y ago
        There's no shifting here. It's the same topic. The original subject was that large corporations can't be trusted to regulate themselves. But of course that's exactly what we're doing with the large dot coms. They're minimally regulated, certainly in comparison with the oil industry, which is in fact highly regulated. Why do we trust large dot coms to regulate themselves? Because we think their leadership is somehow more trustworthy? Are they just naturally better people? On what basis do we make that judgement? If Apple or Amazon or Facebook or Microsoft or Google had malicious, greedy, or incompetent leadership do you not believe they could cause massive harm? Sure, it wouldn't make ugly pictures on tv (or would it? I can imagine ways in which it could), but that doesn't mean the potential damage is any less real. Why do we trust them to regulate themselves? If you trust present leadership, what about the next generation, those that are just MBAs from the same schools that turned out the leadership of BP, Shell, and Exxon? So, again, why do we think they shouldn't be regulated?
        binspace 16y ago
        There's more information and more distribution of power to citizens, thus more checks and balances. Also, technology is evolving quickly, with much disruption, which means there is less entrenchment. The oil industry, has only the government (which has been bought out) as it's check and balance. This is not a case of the free market at all, but a corrupt and closed one.
        Ivatar 16y ago
        Regulated in what way? Something like Europe's data protection laws, with limits on information sharing without permission and duration of data retention? Or something else?
        silentOpen 16y ago
        What is the specific liability you are claiming these companies share? Privacy breaches? Manipulation? What does corrupt dot com look like? I don't know, I'm not sure I've really known of one. Do you know of one? What do they do that is a $1bn+ liability?
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]

Name a dot-com with $1bn+ in liability and we can talk about regulating it.

waterlesscloud 16y ago

I see. It's all those other people that need to be regulated. Got it.

CamperBob 16y ago
No, just the ones who have the ability to destroy vast amounts of resources they don't own.
Vivtek 16y ago
This is a pretty straw-mannish argument. It's clear to me that if a company is big enough that its irresponsible actions can cause this much harm, it should be regulated. (I note you haven't actually named a dot-com with more than a billion in liability.) Capitalism is not a suicide pact.
- waterlesscloud 16y ago
  I see nothing here that explains why dot coms should not be regulated.
  - Vivtek 16y ago
    I see you've shifted your argument. What happened to "Right, just the other guys should be regulated?" I'm not sure what's not clear about the notion that large risk should be regulated. If a company is capable, due to size or what have you, of harming a large number of people due to malice or incompetence on the part of its corporate governance, then sanity demands it should be regulated. However, small companies should be regulated as little as possible. I mean, assuming you want a working economy. I'm not sure you do - actually, I'm not sure what you want, but from the standpoint of pattern recognition of your strawman attacks, I'd assume you want to regulate all business as little as possible. Where I suspect we differ is the degree of "possible". In my opinion, any business that can destroy hundreds of miles of coastline for other people while still having a banner profit year? Yeah, that should probably be regulated, since the Invisible Hand ain't gonna do it. Look up the Tragedy of the Commons sometime; you might find it instructive. (Or perhaps not. It's hard to tell how honestly you're approaching this.)
    - waterlesscloud 16y ago
      There's no shifting here. It's the same topic. The original subject was that large corporations can't be trusted to regulate themselves. But of course that's exactly what we're doing with the large dot coms. They're minimally regulated, certainly in comparison with the oil industry, which is in fact highly regulated. Why do we trust large dot coms to regulate themselves? Because we think their leadership is somehow more trustworthy? Are they just naturally better people? On what basis do we make that judgement? If Apple or Amazon or Facebook or Microsoft or Google had malicious, greedy, or incompetent leadership do you not believe they could cause massive harm? Sure, it wouldn't make ugly pictures on tv (or would it? I can imagine ways in which it could), but that doesn't mean the potential damage is any less real. Why do we trust them to regulate themselves? If you trust present leadership, what about the next generation, those that are just MBAs from the same schools that turned out the leadership of BP, Shell, and Exxon? So, again, why do we think they shouldn't be regulated?
      - binspace 16y ago
        There's more information and more distribution of power to citizens, thus more checks and balances. Also, technology is evolving quickly, with much disruption, which means there is less entrenchment. The oil industry, has only the government (which has been bought out) as it's check and balance. This is not a case of the free market at all, but a corrupt and closed one.
      - Ivatar 16y ago
        Regulated in what way? Something like Europe's data protection laws, with limits on information sharing without permission and duration of data retention? Or something else?
      - silentOpen 16y ago
        What is the specific liability you are claiming these companies share? Privacy breaches? Manipulation? What does corrupt dot com look like? I don't know, I'm not sure I've really known of one. Do you know of one? What do they do that is a $1bn+ liability?
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]