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"Principle: a fundamental truth or proposition that serves as the foundation for a system of belief or behavior or for a chain of reasoning." These aren't 150

"Principle: a fundamental truth or proposition that serves as the foundation for a system of belief or behavior or for a chain of reasoning." These aren't 150 "principles" - more like "150 feel-good marketing statements". Or perhaps I should say, "virtue-signalling statements" Taking just one example : "Make business human to human instead of b2b or b2c - let's build companies that have humans at the core" Consumers are human, and businesses are made up of humans, so what exactly is this saying? It seems like "humanity" and "humans" are bing used as a synonym for "good", which makes the whole thing trivial. If we were serious about something like this, we would try and find 1, 3 or 5 "principles" out of the 150, then we would actually be doing some real thinking in terms of what things mean, relative importance etc

Guthur 7y ago
That was my feeling as well. There may be some gems in there but so much of it comes with such political overtones that it's hard to read without becoming increasingly cynical.
mola 7y ago
Humans are also consumers. Modern businesses think about people as consumers first and human second. This paves the way to many perversions, such as, huge industries bases on exploiting human weaknesses (e.g. addiction based online gaming) . This is enabled morally by marginalizing the concept of a human to consumer first. In this moral outlook, as long as you get costumers to buy your product, everything is AOK morally. Being human oriented means you don't create a product that which manipulate humans into self or social harm even if it'll turn a profit.
- icebraining 7y ago
  The problem with generic principles like that is that they'll be used against you by anyone who doesn't share your opinions on what "manipulate" or "social harm" mean. You'll be harangued for being an hypocrite and going against your own principles, despite never having intended the principle to be applied that way.
sonnyblarney 7y ago
Concur. I got a very 'Upworthy' or 'TED Talk' itch reading this. I don't think it's an agenda to sign up to, but worth a read and reminder from time to time. The most problematic issue with these statements is that they miss the underlying reality of what makes up the bulk of the difficult decisions: You want to reduce CO2? Buy an electric car, to start. Wait, almost nobody wants to pay $20K more for their car (!), and would rather just drive a gas engine? Whoops! Nobody wants to pay for double for electricity? We can also reduce C02 substantially with Nuclear. Whoops, to spooky! And the ultimate: I detest Facebook, but it's the only channel that comes even close to giving my businesses the ability to target as I need to. And it's not invasive: just basic demographics! It's surprisingly inefficient to do elsewhere. So as much as I hate Facebook as a product, it's the 'only game in town'. The equilibrium of all of these dilemmas is why we are where we are - there are very few easy hanging fruit that we can just go and fix.
hjk05 7y ago
> Consumers are human, and businesses are made up of humans, so what exactly is this saying? True, corporations are made of humans, and therefore corporate goals are axiomatically aligned with human goals right? Like when nestle started indirectly increasing child mortality in Africa to peddle baby formula, that must have been because they put humans first right? It’s not as difficult to understand as you try to make it sound. The principle is simple: In cases where there is a disconnect between what is good for humans vs what is good for corporations, side with the humans.
- brigandish 7y ago
  Nestle's goals were aligned with their own (or some of their own) humans, not all humans. There's the rub, and that's why it seems vapid, the moment you dig into the detail there's nothing behind it and somehow it still manages to ignore the reality - businesses are already human to human with humans at the core.

Guthur 7y ago

That was my feeling as well. There may be some gems in there but so much of it comes with such political overtones that it's hard to read without becoming increasingly cynical.

mola 7y ago

Humans are also consumers. Modern businesses think about people as consumers first and human second. This paves the way to many perversions, such as, huge industries bases on exploiting human weaknesses (e.g. addiction based online gaming) . This is enabled morally by marginalizing the concept of a human to consumer first. In this moral outlook, as long as you get costumers to buy your product, everything is AOK morally. Being human oriented means you don't create a product that which manipulate humans into self or social harm even if it'll turn a profit.

icebraining 7y ago
The problem with generic principles like that is that they'll be used against you by anyone who doesn't share your opinions on what "manipulate" or "social harm" mean. You'll be harangued for being an hypocrite and going against your own principles, despite never having intended the principle to be applied that way.

sonnyblarney 7y ago

Concur. I got a very 'Upworthy' or 'TED Talk' itch reading this. I don't think it's an agenda to sign up to, but worth a read and reminder from time to time. The most problematic issue with these statements is that they miss the underlying reality of what makes up the bulk of the difficult decisions: You want to reduce CO2? Buy an electric car, to start. Wait, almost nobody wants to pay $20K more for their car (!), and would rather just drive a gas engine? Whoops! Nobody wants to pay for double for electricity? We can also reduce C02 substantially with Nuclear. Whoops, to spooky! And the ultimate: I detest Facebook, but it's the only channel that comes even close to giving my businesses the ability to target as I need to. And it's not invasive: just basic demographics! It's surprisingly inefficient to do elsewhere. So as much as I hate Facebook as a product, it's the 'only game in town'. The equilibrium of all of these dilemmas is why we are where we are - there are very few easy hanging fruit that we can just go and fix.

hjk05 7y ago

> Consumers are human, and businesses are made up of humans, so what exactly is this saying? True, corporations are made of humans, and therefore corporate goals are axiomatically aligned with human goals right? Like when nestle started indirectly increasing child mortality in Africa to peddle baby formula, that must have been because they put humans first right? It’s not as difficult to understand as you try to make it sound. The principle is simple: In cases where there is a disconnect between what is good for humans vs what is good for corporations, side with the humans.

brigandish 7y ago
Nestle's goals were aligned with their own (or some of their own) humans, not all humans. There's the rub, and that's why it seems vapid, the moment you dig into the detail there's nothing behind it and somehow it still manages to ignore the reality - businesses are already human to human with humans at the core.