8 ms·

My take on this is exactly the opposite. I much prefer companies and individuals voluntarily using their resources to help those in need vs the government forci

by Ajedi32 10y ago

My take on this is exactly the opposite. I much prefer companies and individuals voluntarily using their resources to help those in need vs the government forcibly extracting those resources in order to do the same.

accountyaccount 10y ago
Then you're always at the will of corporate whims rather than general human decency.
- jaredklewis 10y ago
  Because modern governments are the epitome of human decency? I'm as cynical as about corporations as the next guy , but what makes you so rosy eyed about the government? Is it because governments invade foreign countries and subjugate their people? That they incarcerate millions of their own people for abusing the wrong kind of drug? That they surveil all of our communications? For sure private philanthropy is not perfect, but neither are government programs.
  - losteric 10y ago
    Are you being serious? That's the most absurd argument I have ever heard. "The government" is not an entity, it's a collection of separate organizations run by democratically elected officials. Military and law enforcement agencies have no relation to domestic programs. Furthermore, it could be argued that your examples actually demonstrate the effectiveness of government programs... I oppose surveillance and warfare, but citizens keep voting those politicians into office, and those programs are achieving their results with astoundingly undesirable effectiveness. I suspect our domestic problems would be resolved overnight if they had similar funding levels.
  - accountyaccount 10y ago
    Government behavior isn't immediately tied to profit (bear with me). Profit's tied to government (in the US especially), but there's at least a single degree of separation (maybe less so recently). Our democracy still has the theoretical power to change it. When it's corporate it's entirely inflexible, directly tied to profit (and the economy), and there's little to no requirement for transparency. It's all the downsides of government, with an included layer of obscurity... and also some more downsides. I think our current administration makes this pretty clear. If left to corporate interests major assets like Planned Parenthood, National Parks, and The National Endowment for the Arts would likely not exist at all (that's just the tip of the iceberg). Corporate funded initiatives can be completely ejected on a whim when profits are down. With the federal government you can't just remove these things without some level of checks & balances...
  - piva00 10y ago
    Modern governments != your government. No government is perfect but there are a lot of examples of governments taking good care of their citizens, just look at Netherlands or Scandinavia for some inspiration.
- Ajedi32 10y ago
  Individuals and corporations voluntarily using their resources to help others _is_ general human decency. If they're instead being forced to help against their will I find that to be a much less desirable circumstance (though perhaps still preferable to those in need not being helped at all).
  - accountyaccount 10y ago
    I think capitalism has fully explored the concept that most corporations will do the minimum allowable to protect human decency.
simplehuman 10y ago
The government is not some alien organization. It represents the people (or atleast is intended to)
- noobiemcfoob 10y ago
  Corporations are made of people and supported by people (customers). Are they not representative of those people? With all the arcane rules and policies of any government, you could probably make a case that corporations are more representative than a corrupted political process.
  - lenkite 10y ago
    Corporations are made of people and supported by people and ruled by investors.
  - burkaman 10y ago
    They are only representative of their employees. Democratic governments are representative of everyone who votes.
  - Jtsummers 10y ago
    They represent some of those people. But only if they're considered stakeholders. See cutting of pensions, layoffs, poor benefits, golden parachutes, planned obsolescence. If corporations actually represented all the stakeholders, salaries would be higher, retirement plans would be better, products would be designed to last longer, and golden parachutes wouldn't exist or be as big. Right now, CxO's get an outsized representation compared to their actual role within the organization; same for members of corporate boards.
- marssaxman 10y ago
  That's the theory, sure, but it's never actually worked that way in practice, so far as my experience has gone. In practice, I find that I am less frequently disappointed or confused, and more frequently able to accomplish my goals and make sense of the world I live in, when I think of levels of government above that of the city as increasingly alien organizations. The US federal government might as well be a foreign occupying imperial power.
Frondo 10y ago
I would much rather trust a regularly-changing collection of my fellow citizens, who we've all voted on on some regular basis, to put together laws that reflect our will. Trusting a wealthy company or individual to keep giving a hand-out? Nope, no interest in begging for scraps. I prefer the self-determination of a government by the people, for the people, etc.
api 10y ago
Unfortunately this would mean such services are segregated by race, religion, culture, and location. It also leads to extreme abuses. In feudal times support was often available in exchange for a night with your wife, daughter, or child.
- noobiemcfoob 10y ago
  WAT!? Oh noes, in the feudal times, they had PRIMA NOCTA AND EVERYONE SUPPORTED IT!!! Yeah, there were abuses. Seems more then than there are now. Western Ethics have evolved and are now reflected in ALL of our institutions in some capacity or another. It's not your government protecting you from evil corporations. It's people. Always people who believe things. Change those beliefs and you change everything else.
  - api 10y ago
    That's an extreme example. There are many less extreme ones. If you trust a self-selected random sampling of "people," I suggest that you participate in a jury trial... or just read some YouTube comments. Government assistance is subject to the rule of law. The rules are public, relatively objective, and codified. The rule of law as implemented by people is by no means perfect, but it's vastly superior to the rule of random emotionally-driven whim.
    - noobiemcfoob 10y ago
      You chose the example, not me. Governments are subject to the whims of the people as the modern US continues to show. It doesn't matter what fancy rules you have written in a dusty drawer, when people want something to happen, it happens. Though as an aggregate of what everyone involved wanted to happen. Our society follows those rules today largely because we were taught and learned to believe in them. As those rules fail, people will learn and believe in other things.
- chimeracoder 10y ago
  > Unfortunately this would mean such services are segregated by race, religion, culture, and location. These services are already segregated by race, religion, culture, and location - yes, even in Western European countries - both explicitly and implicitly. In fact, pretending that these problems don't exist and that the government effectively supports and protects all citizens equally is exactly how systemic racism, sexism, and bigotry persist and propagate.
losteric 10y ago
That mindset worked well when our towns and businesses were smaller and tight knit. We live in a different world of global corporations with far larger areas of responsibility and externalities. Helping Seattle is great. However, people throughout Washington deserve help... you won't find Amazon, much less Seattle individuals, taking a 5 hour drive to volunteer. As a shareholder, I don't expect or want Amazon to take ownership of community help. Their work is admirable but ultimately limited in scope and efficiency. Adding in overhead for accounting, tax enforcement, these issues would received more money and higher ROI if we funded them through higher taxes.
- jriot 10y ago
  You want your money, as shareholder, to return a profit and don't want the company focused elsewhere. However, you want the government to step in to solve this problem using other people's money. That is the problem with America, greed oversee everything else and when it impeded on our greed we automatically fall to the government to the solve the current issue. Communities are still perfectly capable of taking care of their own. Smaller towns throughout the US do this but you don't see those from the larger cities and/or coasts doing this. I live in Eastern WA/Western ID, and the community is still very much involved in these types of projects without the government stepping.
  - lazyasciiart 10y ago
    What a pile of nonsense. Tell us more, in this thread abut a charity for homeless people in Seattle that runs on an enormous level of community and volunteer support, how big city people are evil and soulless.

by Ajedi32 10y ago

accountyaccount 10y ago

Then you're always at the will of corporate whims rather than general human decency.

jaredklewis 10y ago
Because modern governments are the epitome of human decency? I'm as cynical as about corporations as the next guy , but what makes you so rosy eyed about the government? Is it because governments invade foreign countries and subjugate their people? That they incarcerate millions of their own people for abusing the wrong kind of drug? That they surveil all of our communications? For sure private philanthropy is not perfect, but neither are government programs.
- losteric 10y ago
  Are you being serious? That's the most absurd argument I have ever heard. "The government" is not an entity, it's a collection of separate organizations run by democratically elected officials. Military and law enforcement agencies have no relation to domestic programs. Furthermore, it could be argued that your examples actually demonstrate the effectiveness of government programs... I oppose surveillance and warfare, but citizens keep voting those politicians into office, and those programs are achieving their results with astoundingly undesirable effectiveness. I suspect our domestic problems would be resolved overnight if they had similar funding levels.
- accountyaccount 10y ago
  Government behavior isn't immediately tied to profit (bear with me). Profit's tied to government (in the US especially), but there's at least a single degree of separation (maybe less so recently). Our democracy still has the theoretical power to change it. When it's corporate it's entirely inflexible, directly tied to profit (and the economy), and there's little to no requirement for transparency. It's all the downsides of government, with an included layer of obscurity... and also some more downsides. I think our current administration makes this pretty clear. If left to corporate interests major assets like Planned Parenthood, National Parks, and The National Endowment for the Arts would likely not exist at all (that's just the tip of the iceberg). Corporate funded initiatives can be completely ejected on a whim when profits are down. With the federal government you can't just remove these things without some level of checks & balances...
- piva00 10y ago
  Modern governments != your government. No government is perfect but there are a lot of examples of governments taking good care of their citizens, just look at Netherlands or Scandinavia for some inspiration.
Ajedi32 10y ago
Individuals and corporations voluntarily using their resources to help others _is_ general human decency. If they're instead being forced to help against their will I find that to be a much less desirable circumstance (though perhaps still preferable to those in need not being helped at all).
- accountyaccount 10y ago
  I think capitalism has fully explored the concept that most corporations will do the minimum allowable to protect human decency.

simplehuman 10y ago

The government is not some alien organization. It represents the people (or atleast is intended to)

noobiemcfoob 10y ago
Corporations are made of people and supported by people (customers). Are they not representative of those people? With all the arcane rules and policies of any government, you could probably make a case that corporations are more representative than a corrupted political process.
- lenkite 10y ago
  Corporations are made of people and supported by people and ruled by investors.
- burkaman 10y ago
  They are only representative of their employees. Democratic governments are representative of everyone who votes.
- Jtsummers 10y ago
  They represent some of those people. But only if they're considered stakeholders. See cutting of pensions, layoffs, poor benefits, golden parachutes, planned obsolescence. If corporations actually represented all the stakeholders, salaries would be higher, retirement plans would be better, products would be designed to last longer, and golden parachutes wouldn't exist or be as big. Right now, CxO's get an outsized representation compared to their actual role within the organization; same for members of corporate boards.
marssaxman 10y ago
That's the theory, sure, but it's never actually worked that way in practice, so far as my experience has gone. In practice, I find that I am less frequently disappointed or confused, and more frequently able to accomplish my goals and make sense of the world I live in, when I think of levels of government above that of the city as increasingly alien organizations. The US federal government might as well be a foreign occupying imperial power.

Frondo 10y ago

I would much rather trust a regularly-changing collection of my fellow citizens, who we've all voted on on some regular basis, to put together laws that reflect our will. Trusting a wealthy company or individual to keep giving a hand-out? Nope, no interest in begging for scraps. I prefer the self-determination of a government by the people, for the people, etc.

api 10y ago

Unfortunately this would mean such services are segregated by race, religion, culture, and location. It also leads to extreme abuses. In feudal times support was often available in exchange for a night with your wife, daughter, or child.

noobiemcfoob 10y ago
WAT!? Oh noes, in the feudal times, they had PRIMA NOCTA AND EVERYONE SUPPORTED IT!!! Yeah, there were abuses. Seems more then than there are now. Western Ethics have evolved and are now reflected in ALL of our institutions in some capacity or another. It's not your government protecting you from evil corporations. It's people. Always people who believe things. Change those beliefs and you change everything else.
- api 10y ago
  That's an extreme example. There are many less extreme ones. If you trust a self-selected random sampling of "people," I suggest that you participate in a jury trial... or just read some YouTube comments. Government assistance is subject to the rule of law. The rules are public, relatively objective, and codified. The rule of law as implemented by people is by no means perfect, but it's vastly superior to the rule of random emotionally-driven whim.
  - noobiemcfoob 10y ago
    You chose the example, not me. Governments are subject to the whims of the people as the modern US continues to show. It doesn't matter what fancy rules you have written in a dusty drawer, when people want something to happen, it happens. Though as an aggregate of what everyone involved wanted to happen. Our society follows those rules today largely because we were taught and learned to believe in them. As those rules fail, people will learn and believe in other things.
chimeracoder 10y ago
> Unfortunately this would mean such services are segregated by race, religion, culture, and location. These services are already segregated by race, religion, culture, and location - yes, even in Western European countries - both explicitly and implicitly. In fact, pretending that these problems don't exist and that the government effectively supports and protects all citizens equally is exactly how systemic racism, sexism, and bigotry persist and propagate.

losteric 10y ago

That mindset worked well when our towns and businesses were smaller and tight knit. We live in a different world of global corporations with far larger areas of responsibility and externalities. Helping Seattle is great. However, people throughout Washington deserve help... you won't find Amazon, much less Seattle individuals, taking a 5 hour drive to volunteer. As a shareholder, I don't expect or want Amazon to take ownership of community help. Their work is admirable but ultimately limited in scope and efficiency. Adding in overhead for accounting, tax enforcement, these issues would received more money and higher ROI if we funded them through higher taxes.

jriot 10y ago
You want your money, as shareholder, to return a profit and don't want the company focused elsewhere. However, you want the government to step in to solve this problem using other people's money. That is the problem with America, greed oversee everything else and when it impeded on our greed we automatically fall to the government to the solve the current issue. Communities are still perfectly capable of taking care of their own. Smaller towns throughout the US do this but you don't see those from the larger cities and/or coasts doing this. I live in Eastern WA/Western ID, and the community is still very much involved in these types of projects without the government stepping.
- lazyasciiart 10y ago
  What a pile of nonsense. Tell us more, in this thread abut a charity for homeless people in Seattle that runs on an enormous level of community and volunteer support, how big city people are evil and soulless.