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The company is set up to deliver a lie, even if the last person telling it is doing so unintentionally.

by LanceH 8y ago

baldfat 8y ago
Mailchip seems to be in the wrong, but ignorance isn't the same as a lie. I bet you people just assume or their manager doesn't know either. Why was my account suspended - https://mailchimp.com/help/why-accounts-get-suspended/ https://mailchimp.com/help/why-accounts-get-suspended/
- brewdad 8y ago
  The first level support person isn't lying if he/she doesn't truly know whether the data is recoverable. A manager higher up, who approved the script and knows better, is lying however. To the end user it makes no difference who the liar is, only the the lie is being told.
- mirimir 8y ago
  But that end with: > If we suspended your account, we'll contact you as soon as possible to let you know why, and to give you details on how to fix the situation. And that's clearly a lie, based on OP's experience, and those of other commenters.
ergothus 8y ago
That's...fascinating. While we have lots of corporate personhood, I normally disregard blaming specific actions on a company because at the end of the day a person makes the call. But here you've pointed out that a company, operating as a collection of people, can "act" in ways that may be unintentional or may be deliberate, but are hard to pin down to a specific person. Definitely worth considering in more depth, thanks for the perspective.
- pavel_lishin 8y ago
  Charles Stross has posited that we've invented Artificial Intelligence with the advent of corporations.
  - lukifer 8y ago
    http://omniorthogonal.blogspot.com/2013/02/hostile-ai-youre-soaking-in-it.html http://omniorthogonal.blogspot.com/2013/02/hostile-ai-youre-...
- politician 8y ago
  Does your tongue know when it's used to lie?
- ams6110 8y ago
  It's the main reason for corporate structure in the first place. To shield individuals from personal liability. CEO tell VP who tells Senior Manager who tells Department Manager who tells worker bee to do something. Everyone has an out. They either were "misunderstood" or they were "following instructions"
- nwellnhof 8y ago
  "Corporation: An ingenious device for obtaining profit without individual responsibility." -- The Cynic's Word Book (1906), by Ambrose Bierce
- black6 8y ago
  Check out The Myth of the Machine by Lewis Mumford, specifically the second volume The Pentagon of Power, which gets into the idea of the modern "megamachine"
- vokep 8y ago
  Yknow the paperclip maximizer? The thing where a paperclip company makes an AI that takes over everything, making it into paperclips? Well, actually you don't need any fancy AI. The paperclip company is already a [Local Currency] maximizer from the start.
pasbesoin 8y ago
Exactly. Corporate structures, governance, and regulation have been formulated to treat corporations as "persons". Well, that "person" lied. Regardless of the specific agency it employed in doing so. (And, this type of banning and cut-off from data is obviously -- just look at the comments here -- not a one-off scenario. I find it difficult to believe that the consequences, including the customer's lost access to their data, were not thought about by MailChimp, as an organization and by people in their official roles within MailChimp.) P.S. As I've grown older and observed and thought about things, I've come to see this as a primary role of the corporation or other such entity: To "dilute" responsibility and accountability to the extent that no member -- or, no member who has sufficient influence, who "matters" -- is ever held personally accountable for their actions within and on behalf of the corporation. [Addendum: And, in turn, the corporation is never truly held accountable, because the employees involved "lacked knowledge". Nicely circular, eh? By the way, I don't consider paying a dollar amount that is often a fraction of the gains realized by the behavior, to be "being held accountable".] I've stopped letting people in such corporate or institutional roles off the hook, just because "they didn't know". Or rather, I've stopped letting the corporations and institutions off the hook because employee X didn't know. All too often, it's set up precisely that way and on purpose.
lozaning 8y ago
I once had a job where I eventually figured out this was implicitly was I was hired to do, be the guy who gets lied to so it's not a lie when you tell the customer. I didnt last long.
mirimir 8y ago
It goes lots deeper than that. It's not uncommon for corporations to be setup to prevent leaking or discovery of sensitive information. Military intelligence agencies are notorious for that. Top executives maintain ignorance of operational unpleasantness. Technical staff know operational specifics, but little about business design and usage. Intermediate management know pieces of business design and usage, but nothing about technical implementation. Nobody needs to lie, and still there's often no way to know for sure what happened.

The company is set up to deliver a lie, even if the last person telling it is doing so unintentionally.

by LanceH 8y ago

The company is set up to deliver a lie, even if the last person telling it is doing so unintentionally.

Mailchip seems to be in the wrong, but ignorance isn't the same as a lie. I bet you people just assume or their manager doesn't know either. Why was my account suspended - https://mailchimp.com/help/why-accounts-get-suspended/ https://mailchimp.com/help/why-accounts-get-suspended/

brewdad 8y ago
The first level support person isn't lying if he/she doesn't truly know whether the data is recoverable. A manager higher up, who approved the script and knows better, is lying however. To the end user it makes no difference who the liar is, only the the lie is being told.
mirimir 8y ago
But that end with: > If we suspended your account, we'll contact you as soon as possible to let you know why, and to give you details on how to fix the situation. And that's clearly a lie, based on OP's experience, and those of other commenters.

ergothus 8y ago

That's...fascinating. While we have lots of corporate personhood, I normally disregard blaming specific actions on a company because at the end of the day a person makes the call. But here you've pointed out that a company, operating as a collection of people, can "act" in ways that may be unintentional or may be deliberate, but are hard to pin down to a specific person. Definitely worth considering in more depth, thanks for the perspective.

pavel_lishin 8y ago
Charles Stross has posited that we've invented Artificial Intelligence with the advent of corporations.
- lukifer 8y ago
  http://omniorthogonal.blogspot.com/2013/02/hostile-ai-youre-soaking-in-it.html http://omniorthogonal.blogspot.com/2013/02/hostile-ai-youre-...
politician 8y ago
Does your tongue know when it's used to lie?
ams6110 8y ago
It's the main reason for corporate structure in the first place. To shield individuals from personal liability. CEO tell VP who tells Senior Manager who tells Department Manager who tells worker bee to do something. Everyone has an out. They either were "misunderstood" or they were "following instructions"
nwellnhof 8y ago
"Corporation: An ingenious device for obtaining profit without individual responsibility." -- The Cynic's Word Book (1906), by Ambrose Bierce
black6 8y ago
Check out The Myth of the Machine by Lewis Mumford, specifically the second volume The Pentagon of Power, which gets into the idea of the modern "megamachine"
vokep 8y ago
Yknow the paperclip maximizer? The thing where a paperclip company makes an AI that takes over everything, making it into paperclips? Well, actually you don't need any fancy AI. The paperclip company is already a [Local Currency] maximizer from the start.

pasbesoin 8y ago

Exactly. Corporate structures, governance, and regulation have been formulated to treat corporations as "persons". Well, that "person" lied. Regardless of the specific agency it employed in doing so. (And, this type of banning and cut-off from data is obviously -- just look at the comments here -- not a one-off scenario. I find it difficult to believe that the consequences, including the customer's lost access to their data, were not thought about by MailChimp, as an organization and by people in their official roles within MailChimp.) P.S. As I've grown older and observed and thought about things, I've come to see this as a primary role of the corporation or other such entity: To "dilute" responsibility and accountability to the extent that no member -- or, no member who has sufficient influence, who "matters" -- is ever held personally accountable for their actions within and on behalf of the corporation. [Addendum: And, in turn, the corporation is never truly held accountable, because the employees involved "lacked knowledge". Nicely circular, eh? By the way, I don't consider paying a dollar amount that is often a fraction of the gains realized by the behavior, to be "being held accountable".] I've stopped letting people in such corporate or institutional roles off the hook, just because "they didn't know". Or rather, I've stopped letting the corporations and institutions off the hook because employee X didn't know. All too often, it's set up precisely that way and on purpose.

lozaning 8y ago

I once had a job where I eventually figured out this was implicitly was I was hired to do, be the guy who gets lied to so it's not a lie when you tell the customer. I didnt last long.

mirimir 8y ago

It goes lots deeper than that. It's not uncommon for corporations to be setup to prevent leaking or discovery of sensitive information. Military intelligence agencies are notorious for that. Top executives maintain ignorance of operational unpleasantness. Technical staff know operational specifics, but little about business design and usage. Intermediate management know pieces of business design and usage, but nothing about technical implementation. Nobody needs to lie, and still there's often no way to know for sure what happened.