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I work on criminal justice reform and this is SO true. I cringe every time I hear these kinds of stats being brandished without context as evidence of our socie

I work on criminal justice reform and this is SO true. I cringe every time I hear these kinds of stats being brandished without context as evidence of our society 'working'. Ben Thompson is a particularly bad example of this, but it certainly seems like it's the folks 'winning' the conflicts that love to cite 'reduced conflict'.

sanderjd 9y ago
I'm a Ben Thompson reader / listener, and I'm not sure which of his arguments you're referring to, but I'm intrigued by the premise. Would you mind throwing out some links and further commentary on this?
- zaksoup 9y ago
  Last week's (Friday, Jan 26) Exponent has a lot of this kind of conversation after his article about Amazon Go. Toward the end of the article is this gem [0]: > In fact, they are all gone, replaced by automation. And, in the meantime, nearly all of humanity has been lifted out of abject poverty. I think Ben is an incredibly intelligent and accurate commentator who constantly ignores the very real side-effects of tech on poverty and justice in favor of handwaving about potential side-effects of regulation that doesn't currently exist. > Still, what of those companies that can’t afford to pay for zero rating — the future startups for which net neutrality advocates are willing to risk the costs of heavy-handed regulations? [1] Meanwhile, 48% of America have only one broadband provider and 30% have no access to broadband at all [2]. Ben is scared of title II but strangely silent on the same cable companies he's so desperate to protect from scary scary 'regulation' spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to make municipal broadband in underserved locations illegal. [3] All this being said, I am a frequent reader of stratechery, an exponent subscriber. I think Ben gets it right more often than not, but I often find that he goes out of his way to defend 'capitalism' in ways that seem antithetical to his other espoused beliefs. All of his articles and their associated exponents on anti-trust take great pains to make the point that 'real capitalism' has competition [4,5,6]. He fails to address what, if 'real capitalism' means competition, our current economic situation is. Personally I'd describe myself as a socialist so perhaps this is just a pure idealogical divergence on our parts, but it seems like Ben is make the same arguments about capitalism that are so popular among people criticizing communism: "Sure, it works great on paper, but in practice it is an abject failure". I fail to see how Ben's points about capitalism and competition, which I agree with, are not the exact same critique of our current economic system. Sorry for the long and late reply, this sort of just became a bit of an unstructured rant about all the things I yell at exponent in my car on the way home Friday evenings... [0] https://stratechery.com/2018/amazons-go-and-the-future/ https://stratechery.com/2018/amazons-go-and-the-future/ [1] [https://stratechery.com/2017/pro-neutrality-anti-title-ii/ https://stratechery.com/2017/pro-neutrality-anti-title-ii/ [2] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/08/us-broadband-still-no-isp-choice-for-many-especially-at-higher-speeds/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/08/us-br... [3] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/11/voters-reject-cable-lobby-misinformation-campaign-against-muni-broadband/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/11/voters-reject-ca... [4] https://stratechery.com/2017/ends-means-and-antitrust/ https://stratechery.com/2017/ends-means-and-antitrust/ [5] https://stratechery.com/2017/facebook-and-the-cost-of-monopoly/ https://stratechery.com/2017/facebook-and-the-cost-of-monopo... [6] https://stratechery.com/2017/everything-is-changing-so-should-antitrust/ https://stratechery.com/2017/everything-is-changing-so-shoul...
  - sanderjd 9y ago
    This is a great reply! I consider myself far from a socialist, but have often had the same reaction to that argument about capitalism implying competition. Perhaps we draw different conclusions though: I conclude that this seems like a good framework for regulators to work within, ie. by writing regulations with an eye strongly toward fostering competition.
ryanwaggoner 9y ago
I rarely here them expressed as examples of society "working", but rather as examples of society progressing. And like most things, progress is rarely equally distributed, but that doesn't mean it's not being made overall.

sanderjd 9y ago

I'm a Ben Thompson reader / listener, and I'm not sure which of his arguments you're referring to, but I'm intrigued by the premise. Would you mind throwing out some links and further commentary on this?

zaksoup 9y ago
Last week's (Friday, Jan 26) Exponent has a lot of this kind of conversation after his article about Amazon Go. Toward the end of the article is this gem [0]: > In fact, they are all gone, replaced by automation. And, in the meantime, nearly all of humanity has been lifted out of abject poverty. I think Ben is an incredibly intelligent and accurate commentator who constantly ignores the very real side-effects of tech on poverty and justice in favor of handwaving about potential side-effects of regulation that doesn't currently exist. > Still, what of those companies that can’t afford to pay for zero rating — the future startups for which net neutrality advocates are willing to risk the costs of heavy-handed regulations? [1] Meanwhile, 48% of America have only one broadband provider and 30% have no access to broadband at all [2]. Ben is scared of title II but strangely silent on the same cable companies he's so desperate to protect from scary scary 'regulation' spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to make municipal broadband in underserved locations illegal. [3] All this being said, I am a frequent reader of stratechery, an exponent subscriber. I think Ben gets it right more often than not, but I often find that he goes out of his way to defend 'capitalism' in ways that seem antithetical to his other espoused beliefs. All of his articles and their associated exponents on anti-trust take great pains to make the point that 'real capitalism' has competition [4,5,6]. He fails to address what, if 'real capitalism' means competition, our current economic situation is. Personally I'd describe myself as a socialist so perhaps this is just a pure idealogical divergence on our parts, but it seems like Ben is make the same arguments about capitalism that are so popular among people criticizing communism: "Sure, it works great on paper, but in practice it is an abject failure". I fail to see how Ben's points about capitalism and competition, which I agree with, are not the exact same critique of our current economic system. Sorry for the long and late reply, this sort of just became a bit of an unstructured rant about all the things I yell at exponent in my car on the way home Friday evenings... [0] https://stratechery.com/2018/amazons-go-and-the-future/ https://stratechery.com/2018/amazons-go-and-the-future/ [1] [https://stratechery.com/2017/pro-neutrality-anti-title-ii/ https://stratechery.com/2017/pro-neutrality-anti-title-ii/ [2] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/08/us-broadband-still-no-isp-choice-for-many-especially-at-higher-speeds/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/08/us-br... [3] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/11/voters-reject-cable-lobby-misinformation-campaign-against-muni-broadband/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/11/voters-reject-ca... [4] https://stratechery.com/2017/ends-means-and-antitrust/ https://stratechery.com/2017/ends-means-and-antitrust/ [5] https://stratechery.com/2017/facebook-and-the-cost-of-monopoly/ https://stratechery.com/2017/facebook-and-the-cost-of-monopo... [6] https://stratechery.com/2017/everything-is-changing-so-should-antitrust/ https://stratechery.com/2017/everything-is-changing-so-shoul...
- sanderjd 9y ago
  This is a great reply! I consider myself far from a socialist, but have often had the same reaction to that argument about capitalism implying competition. Perhaps we draw different conclusions though: I conclude that this seems like a good framework for regulators to work within, ie. by writing regulations with an eye strongly toward fostering competition.

ryanwaggoner 9y ago

I rarely here them expressed as examples of society "working", but rather as examples of society progressing. And like most things, progress is rarely equally distributed, but that doesn't mean it's not being made overall.