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I see so many comments on HN arguing that being outraged about this type of thing and pedantically hammering on it even unto the detriment of your personal life

by mlthoughts2018 8y ago

I see so many comments on HN arguing that being outraged about this type of thing and pedantically hammering on it even unto the detriment of your personal life is not worth it. Comments arguing the opposite get sanctimoniously downvoted, whether it’s prolonged outrage about police brutality, abuses of political power, unpunished fraud or privacy breaches, and so on. But truly it just seems like sustained outrage is just not high enough to bring about justice.

whatshisface 8y ago
A politician could probably sweep the board picking up all of this unresolved outrage laying around, I don't understand why nobody is trying to do it.
- darkmighty 8y ago
  It's about balances of power. There's unfortunately a strong tendency for corporate power to overwhelm all other institutions, given how centrally organized, self-optimizing, evolving it is. Government ideally should offer a balancing power, an equally intelligent, evolving structure safeguarding individuals (and humanity vs economics). The problem is corporations have found ways to control governments and will use their power to terminate impacts on their productivity, which will inevitably include human rights, quality of life, human values. The only solution I can see is through legislation, strictly forbidding and creating institutions to prevent corporate interferance in government. Some measures: 1) Outlawing lobbying more broadly, improving campaign financing, etc. 2) Reforming the government to promote greater adaptability and efficiency, mimicking how companies improve themselves through competition. There are quite a few examples of countries with good control over corporations (Japan I think is quite strict at least in terms of election financing and advertising), and good alignment of government and human values. But many others, notably by the US, turn more and more the opposite way towards corporate/economic absolutism. It's been said before, but people put a little too much fear into AI takeover when gigantic, scalable, self-improving systems with trivial values (economic output) are already almost taking over the world. Fear The Corporation.
- kodablah 8y ago
  Well, they wouldn't have enough money to market themselves. Or if they were independently wealthy and leveraged people's outrages to get elected, well that worked last presidential election. Seriously though, internet + mass-media-driven outrage on a topic like this is probably much smaller than people think whereas less squeaky outrages (e.g. the ACA) have huge angry-yet-silent bases.
- aerotwelve 8y ago
  Some are (in the US at least), but not enough of them are in power right now to do much about it. Luckily, there's an election in November...

whatshisface 8y ago

A politician could probably sweep the board picking up all of this unresolved outrage laying around, I don't understand why nobody is trying to do it.

darkmighty 8y ago
It's about balances of power. There's unfortunately a strong tendency for corporate power to overwhelm all other institutions, given how centrally organized, self-optimizing, evolving it is. Government ideally should offer a balancing power, an equally intelligent, evolving structure safeguarding individuals (and humanity vs economics). The problem is corporations have found ways to control governments and will use their power to terminate impacts on their productivity, which will inevitably include human rights, quality of life, human values. The only solution I can see is through legislation, strictly forbidding and creating institutions to prevent corporate interferance in government. Some measures: 1) Outlawing lobbying more broadly, improving campaign financing, etc. 2) Reforming the government to promote greater adaptability and efficiency, mimicking how companies improve themselves through competition. There are quite a few examples of countries with good control over corporations (Japan I think is quite strict at least in terms of election financing and advertising), and good alignment of government and human values. But many others, notably by the US, turn more and more the opposite way towards corporate/economic absolutism. It's been said before, but people put a little too much fear into AI takeover when gigantic, scalable, self-improving systems with trivial values (economic output) are already almost taking over the world. Fear The Corporation.
kodablah 8y ago
Well, they wouldn't have enough money to market themselves. Or if they were independently wealthy and leveraged people's outrages to get elected, well that worked last presidential election. Seriously though, internet + mass-media-driven outrage on a topic like this is probably much smaller than people think whereas less squeaky outrages (e.g. the ACA) have huge angry-yet-silent bases.
aerotwelve 8y ago
Some are (in the US at least), but not enough of them are in power right now to do much about it. Luckily, there's an election in November...