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This kind of corruption in the case of the USA seems quite simple to solve. You've made it legal to buy politicians, how about changing that back? It's a start.

This kind of corruption in the case of the USA seems quite simple to solve. You've made it legal to buy politicians, how about changing that back? It's a start...

jakeogh 9y ago
How do you propose to do it? Limit contributions by corporations? I don't see the distinction, corporations are people, I can become a one man corporation by clicking a few buttons. Money like code, is ultimately speech. I'll take that any day over the alternative limitations as long as we have legit voting and non-forced spending of money.
- fwdpropaganda 9y ago
  > Money like code, is ultimately speech Money is speech and bribes are just conversations, right? "Money is speech" is a propaganda talking point pushed by those who benefit from having a lot of people eating it up. People like you. > I don't see the distinction, corporations are people Your idealogical zeal prevents you from seeing the distinction. Corporations have the buying power that people don't have, and are able to position themselves to take advantage of individual pieces of legislation to a degree that covers their politician buying plus profit. Isn't this obvious?
  - jakeogh 9y ago
    If there is a legit distinction between speech and conversations, you didn't make it or I missed it. I could start throwing labels about your POV, but that would be a good indication that I don't have a real point to make. Saying corporations are different because they have buying power that people don't have is incorrect. There are plenty of people that can and do vastly outspend most corporations. They do this by making many corporations and using those to socially engineer the target population instead of contributing directly (this is why money is speech). It also ignores the point that corporations are made of people, and people have one vote. Politicians that do what a small group wants (a corp) vs their larger constituency get voted out (Cantored' in recent US lingo).
    - fwdpropaganda 9y ago
      > If there is a legit distinction between speech and conversations, you didn't make it or I missed it. Ok, lets try again: Money: something generally accepted as a medium of exchange, a measure of value, or a means of payment. Speech: the communication or expression of thoughts in spoken words Is that clear? Listen, I love these conversations but you already convinced me that you're not in good faith, which makes this a waste of time. Stay cool.
      - jakeogh 9y ago
        I even gave the mechanism, you can use money to generate speech. I don't think you are commenting in bad faith, and I don't think talking to you is a waste of time.
        tdehnel 9y ago
        You can use wood to generate heat but no one would plant a tree and call it a campfire.
        fwdpropaganda 9y ago
        I knew there was a one-liner in here somewhere but you worded that just perfect :-)
        jakeogh 9y ago
        Why? It's a nonsense analogy. Speech is to conversation as wood is to fire? Does two people talking somehow make it conceptually different than speech?
      - rectang 9y ago
        > you already convinced me that you're not in good faith We're irreconcilably opposed, but I have no doubt that everyone on this thread is advocating their true thoughts. Please reconsider this mode of argumentation in the future.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - dang 9y ago
    I agree that ideological talking points like "money is speech" are a poor fit for substantive discussion, but you made the thread still worse by crossing into name-calling and being personally abrasive. Would you please re-read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and not do those things here?
- clort 9y ago
  > corporations are people that may be an accepted legal viewpoint in the USA but it is not the truth > I can become a one man corporation In truth you can't, because you will still be a person. Its just that in addition there will be a corporation consisting solely of one person. You may notice that when you incorporate, the corporation does not get a vote and neither does your vote get removed. You may notice that you can incorporate several times and this still does not affect your status as a person.
  - jakeogh 9y ago
    "corporation does not get a vote and neither does your vote get removed" Exactly. It's pretty hard to argue being a corporation is somehow special, our courts correctly recognized that. I agree with your second paragraph completely.
  - msla 9y ago
    Without corporate personhood, how do I sue a company for a harm it did to me? I can't prove the CEO, the human being who does administrative jobs, did the harm, and I certainly can't prove any other employee did, either, so who do I sue? Do I try to sue everyone from the board on down to the janitor? That kinda screws the janitor, to be named in a suit for something the low-level employees had no control over. So how does it work?
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - Retra 9y ago
      You sue the company, not a person. Why would you assume companies can't be sued if they're not 'people?'
      - msla 9y ago
        > Why would you assume companies can't be sued if they're not 'people?' Because that's literally why corporate personhood exists: To be able to sue companies. And I find it very illuminating that the only response demonstrates ignorance.
- pjc50 9y ago
  > as long as we have legit voting Not really, no. It's frequently gerrymandered and considerable effort is put into making it harder for some people to vote than others. The count is probably legitimate, except where questionable machine voting systems are in place.
- dang 9y ago
  Please don't take HN threads further into generic ideological tangents. They're all more or less the same, which means they contain no new information, which means we don't learn from them, which means they're not interesting in HN's sense of "gratifying intellectual curiosity" (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html), which means they're roundly off topic here. What makes HN topics and discussions interesting are the diffs from other topics and discussions. Therefore the generic is what we're most trying to avoid. More here if anyone wants it: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0&query=by:dang%20generic https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme....

This kind of corruption in the case of the USA seems quite simple to solve. You've made it legal to buy politicians, how about changing that back? It's a start...

jakeogh 9y ago

How do you propose to do it? Limit contributions by corporations? I don't see the distinction, corporations are people, I can become a one man corporation by clicking a few buttons. Money like code, is ultimately speech. I'll take that any day over the alternative limitations as long as we have legit voting and non-forced spending of money.

fwdpropaganda 9y ago
> Money like code, is ultimately speech Money is speech and bribes are just conversations, right? "Money is speech" is a propaganda talking point pushed by those who benefit from having a lot of people eating it up. People like you. > I don't see the distinction, corporations are people Your idealogical zeal prevents you from seeing the distinction. Corporations have the buying power that people don't have, and are able to position themselves to take advantage of individual pieces of legislation to a degree that covers their politician buying plus profit. Isn't this obvious?
- jakeogh 9y ago
  If there is a legit distinction between speech and conversations, you didn't make it or I missed it. I could start throwing labels about your POV, but that would be a good indication that I don't have a real point to make. Saying corporations are different because they have buying power that people don't have is incorrect. There are plenty of people that can and do vastly outspend most corporations. They do this by making many corporations and using those to socially engineer the target population instead of contributing directly (this is why money is speech). It also ignores the point that corporations are made of people, and people have one vote. Politicians that do what a small group wants (a corp) vs their larger constituency get voted out (Cantored' in recent US lingo).
  - fwdpropaganda 9y ago
    > If there is a legit distinction between speech and conversations, you didn't make it or I missed it. Ok, lets try again: Money: something generally accepted as a medium of exchange, a measure of value, or a means of payment. Speech: the communication or expression of thoughts in spoken words Is that clear? Listen, I love these conversations but you already convinced me that you're not in good faith, which makes this a waste of time. Stay cool.
    - jakeogh 9y ago
      I even gave the mechanism, you can use money to generate speech. I don't think you are commenting in bad faith, and I don't think talking to you is a waste of time.
      - tdehnel 9y ago
        You can use wood to generate heat but no one would plant a tree and call it a campfire.
        fwdpropaganda 9y ago
        I knew there was a one-liner in here somewhere but you worded that just perfect :-)
        jakeogh 9y ago
        Why? It's a nonsense analogy. Speech is to conversation as wood is to fire? Does two people talking somehow make it conceptually different than speech?
    - rectang 9y ago
      > you already convinced me that you're not in good faith We're irreconcilably opposed, but I have no doubt that everyone on this thread is advocating their true thoughts. Please reconsider this mode of argumentation in the future.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- dang 9y ago
  I agree that ideological talking points like "money is speech" are a poor fit for substantive discussion, but you made the thread still worse by crossing into name-calling and being personally abrasive. Would you please re-read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and not do those things here?
clort 9y ago
> corporations are people that may be an accepted legal viewpoint in the USA but it is not the truth > I can become a one man corporation In truth you can't, because you will still be a person. Its just that in addition there will be a corporation consisting solely of one person. You may notice that when you incorporate, the corporation does not get a vote and neither does your vote get removed. You may notice that you can incorporate several times and this still does not affect your status as a person.
- jakeogh 9y ago
  "corporation does not get a vote and neither does your vote get removed" Exactly. It's pretty hard to argue being a corporation is somehow special, our courts correctly recognized that. I agree with your second paragraph completely.
- msla 9y ago
  Without corporate personhood, how do I sue a company for a harm it did to me? I can't prove the CEO, the human being who does administrative jobs, did the harm, and I certainly can't prove any other employee did, either, so who do I sue? Do I try to sue everyone from the board on down to the janitor? That kinda screws the janitor, to be named in a suit for something the low-level employees had no control over. So how does it work?
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - Retra 9y ago
    You sue the company, not a person. Why would you assume companies can't be sued if they're not 'people?'
    - msla 9y ago
      > Why would you assume companies can't be sued if they're not 'people?' Because that's literally why corporate personhood exists: To be able to sue companies. And I find it very illuminating that the only response demonstrates ignorance.
pjc50 9y ago
> as long as we have legit voting Not really, no. It's frequently gerrymandered and considerable effort is put into making it harder for some people to vote than others. The count is probably legitimate, except where questionable machine voting systems are in place.
dang 9y ago
Please don't take HN threads further into generic ideological tangents. They're all more or less the same, which means they contain no new information, which means we don't learn from them, which means they're not interesting in HN's sense of "gratifying intellectual curiosity" (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html), which means they're roundly off topic here. What makes HN topics and discussions interesting are the diffs from other topics and discussions. Therefore the generic is what we're most trying to avoid. More here if anyone wants it: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0&query=by:dang%20generic https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme....