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Slippery slope is an informal fallacy. Why not legislation? It’s THE way for organizing our society. Do you really think it’s a free market and meritocracy? No

Slippery slope is an informal fallacy. Why not legislation? It’s THE way for organizing our society. Do you really think it’s a free market and meritocracy? No. There are laws that incentivize and offer protection for starting corporations. Our society is not built on objective principles but on what’s good for it. And it’s never lurched forward in ways that move the needle to the benefit of the masses without top down rejiggering. Here’s an objective fact: neoliberalism and so-called free market capitalism are not owed deference and fealty by the masses. Either it works well enough for enough people or it encounters a tipping point where it needs dramatic change in guiding principles. What you’re arguing for is not increased freedom for the masses an accountability, but sitting still politically. Same old same old. How’s that working out? Pretty well for the privileged crowd on HN. Better not mess with it!

jm4 7y ago
The people who work at Google who wanted to stage a walkout are free to leave for another job. They are free to start their own companies. We are free to use other products or create our own. How is legislation the best solution here? People need to stop with the excuses and the expectation that someone else will change the rules to fix their problem and be the change they want to see in the world. Google will eventually be displaced by someone else who does a better job just like every other toxic company that came before them. Anybody can do it. Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft all started (and in some cases reinvented themselves) that way. And if the newcomer sticks around long enough they'll probably become toxic too. It's the way the world works. We don't need legislation to fix this. We need someone to do a better job. They're not out killing people. Just stop using their shit.
- jjdjr0odo7 7y ago
  You’re talking about free as in libre, but the world runs on costly beer. Are they free to just inflate their bank accounts to cover the expenses? You’re also completely forgetting biology as a science, while focusing strictly on peddling the same cable news level rhetoric that’s been debunked by neuroscience over and over: our brains prevent us from upending our reality. You’re forgetting how easy it is to fail at such endeavors. That is some anxiety inducing stuff, and even people like Bezos didn’t bet THEIR money alone on it: he had 22 rich investors prop him up. You’re not the sort of person I will ever agree with politically, and that’s fine. That’s great actually; your apathy for engaging the political system means more room for voices like mine that engages my elected officials and others across state lines, weekly. Please, continue sitting online debating into the void. It keeps you out of our way.
- britch 7y ago
  Get a non-techie android owner off Google, even for just a week. I dare you. No search, No Maps, No calendar, No search, No gmail, No YouTube, no drive, no docs. Do you really think they can function? Even if they switch to Apple they still have to interface with calendar and gmail to function in society. Can they even avoid sites hosted by Google? You make it sound like it's all easy choices. "Just don't buy brand X." These companies are so large and so ingrained the the web and modern society that they are unavoidable.
  - jm4 7y ago
    You’re right about non-techies switching from Android. They don’t like trying to switch. Many of them like the products. Many of them don’t care that Google is in the business of sucking up data because they place more value on the fact that the products work better for them as a result. There are plenty of people who don’t mind some highly targeted, unobtrusive ads because it’s better than the shitty banners and pop ups that used to be all over the place. Why are they supposed to switch? Because their nerd friend says Google is evil? This is like convincing someone to use Linux back in the day because Microsoft is bad. To each their own I guess. We have more choices in technology than we’ve ever had. I haven’t used Google search in 10 years. It’s been longer since I used gmail. I used Android on and off and got rid of it permanently after downloading my google archive and seeing what’s in there. I watch videos on YouTube because there isn’t anything better. It’s not just a philosophical choice to avoid Google. That’s part of it but I think many of Google’s products are pretty lackluster as well. Search and gmail are the only ones that they really nailed. Both are phenomenal. The rest of them are mediocre defensive moves to protect the brand from a competitor, neat experiments that don’t become a must-have product, acquisitions or just another thing they’ll kill off. I used search and gmail until the the invasive tracking wasn’t worth it. I avoid Google web properties when I can. I know they still track me as much as they can. I make efforts to minimize the ability for someone to effectively build a profile and I make larger efforts to prevent them from successfully delivering targeting ads or converting. If enough people stop using Google products, even if they can’t avoid indirectly touching something, Google will eventually want to figure out why and start making things that sell better. They don’t do what they do because they decided to be evil. They do it because it makes money. And people don’t continue to use it because they can’t switch. They use it because they like it or because they don’t have enough of a problem that they’re willing to switch. Instead, they bitch and moan a little bit and then go about their business. Maybe the more vocal ones are clamoring for regulation. That group is essentially saying they don’t like the way the product works even though they’re not the target market and we should make a law to change the product to their liking. The reality is there is a a huge market where people are willing to trade information for product. I don’t like it but is it that bad that we need to break up companies? It’s put smartphones in places where they wouldn’t be otherwise. It’s connected people. It’s done more to level the playing field in terms of technical literacy and availability than anything anyone has ever done. There are homeless people who still have an android phone and everything that comes with it and that opens doors which would otherwise be shut. Would the world be a better or worse place if none of that came into existence? We need to start with education. If the masses don’t understand it and the lawmakers don’t understand it we can’t exactly expect them to fix it. Apple is doing a little bit on this front with privacy-oriented products and requiring clear privacy policies from developers. I’d like to see more of this. If they truly differentiate themselves as the privacy (even at a premium) company then we’ve got a couple decent models to choose from. That’s really the key because more than the size or scope of these companies, it’s the homogenization of the industry that concerns me. But first, people need to understand enough about how it works that a company can effectively differentiate their product. If there has to be legislation then I’d like to see something that requires more transparency of what is collected, how it’s used, give the individual some more control, etc. Something in the spirit of GDPR that isn’t such s shit show.
- jjdjr0odo7 7y ago
  Welp here’s the thing: that’s your political opinion. And you don’t run anything important. No fealty or deference owed to it. See, imo, we do need legislation. Because economically stingy attitudes are built into the species and repeated in society: countless narratives out there are repeating what you’re saying: don’t bother competing with Google. DRY and all that right? The tech works great, but we hate the business aspects. Society isn’t obliged to put up new competition to satisfy your US libertarian fetishism for game theory. And to fix the business aspects of it, is going to require laws to change because LAWS PROTECT THAT BUSINESS INTEREST. Look, repeat after me: no one is owed by any physical law of nature a free market and a big business. These are social norms. Not social obligations and they can and must change. Thomas Jefferson wrote the same damn thing hundreds of years ago. To paraphrase, he wrote in plain English: Laws and Constitutions MUST change to keep up with the advances in human wisdom. Google is a business propped up by laws. Sorry you’re so confused you think businesses just miraculously exist, and anything resembling real competition can just sprout from the ground. We’ll just leave it up to some rich VCs to fund a serious competitor and save us. This is ... you were raised traditional values weren’t you? Afflicted with “just world fallacy”? Cause you’re emotional position that some hero will do the work for us, despite the common social narrative of not bothering and how we mock people with delusions of grandeur about taking on the big guys, is laughable, and terribly out of touch with how society works. But no we have to solve this within the framework the aristocracy tells us over and over, after very careful measure by their laid experts, is the only appropriate way for resolving this. Basically we’re just gladiators in their ephemeral colosseum.
- jjdjr0odo7 7y ago
  Oh and another thing: why should I have to compete with Google by building a new search engine? That’s just repeating the past. This is what legislation should be fixing: burning down the tacit obligation to defer to entrenched management. Market capture by powerful players ALWAYS... ALWAYS... leads to stagnant development of possibly better solutions. We won’t do much to change CPU designs because Intel and Microsofts of the world would lose out. So we have to compete but that usually means hewing close to their discovery as the costs are too high to support a wholly new way. So it becomes copy and slightly tweak to gain market share. Not actually make something novel. And so we barely adapt and modify anything and society stagnates from lack of flexibility for novel ideas of depth. Preferring shallow novelty and tweaks in some misguided belief it shouldn’t be allowed to reinvent itself. No, it must simply compete against it’s tried and true. As if these fools at Google are village wise men we must kowtow to. Sorry, but America is in the position it’s in because of sycophants to traditional economic theory folks like yourself have had their brains wired to believe in. No one asks to be born and no one should be obliged to satisfy competitive goals of private power. To suggest we live in a culture with a fondness for a market of free ideas and then so willingly accept the only reasonable option is kowtow to acceptable norms is the sign of a very confused mind.

jm4 7y ago

The people who work at Google who wanted to stage a walkout are free to leave for another job. They are free to start their own companies. We are free to use other products or create our own. How is legislation the best solution here? People need to stop with the excuses and the expectation that someone else will change the rules to fix their problem and be the change they want to see in the world. Google will eventually be displaced by someone else who does a better job just like every other toxic company that came before them. Anybody can do it. Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft all started (and in some cases reinvented themselves) that way. And if the newcomer sticks around long enough they'll probably become toxic too. It's the way the world works. We don't need legislation to fix this. We need someone to do a better job. They're not out killing people. Just stop using their shit.

jjdjr0odo7 7y ago
You’re talking about free as in libre, but the world runs on costly beer. Are they free to just inflate their bank accounts to cover the expenses? You’re also completely forgetting biology as a science, while focusing strictly on peddling the same cable news level rhetoric that’s been debunked by neuroscience over and over: our brains prevent us from upending our reality. You’re forgetting how easy it is to fail at such endeavors. That is some anxiety inducing stuff, and even people like Bezos didn’t bet THEIR money alone on it: he had 22 rich investors prop him up. You’re not the sort of person I will ever agree with politically, and that’s fine. That’s great actually; your apathy for engaging the political system means more room for voices like mine that engages my elected officials and others across state lines, weekly. Please, continue sitting online debating into the void. It keeps you out of our way.
britch 7y ago
Get a non-techie android owner off Google, even for just a week. I dare you. No search, No Maps, No calendar, No search, No gmail, No YouTube, no drive, no docs. Do you really think they can function? Even if they switch to Apple they still have to interface with calendar and gmail to function in society. Can they even avoid sites hosted by Google? You make it sound like it's all easy choices. "Just don't buy brand X." These companies are so large and so ingrained the the web and modern society that they are unavoidable.
- jm4 7y ago
  You’re right about non-techies switching from Android. They don’t like trying to switch. Many of them like the products. Many of them don’t care that Google is in the business of sucking up data because they place more value on the fact that the products work better for them as a result. There are plenty of people who don’t mind some highly targeted, unobtrusive ads because it’s better than the shitty banners and pop ups that used to be all over the place. Why are they supposed to switch? Because their nerd friend says Google is evil? This is like convincing someone to use Linux back in the day because Microsoft is bad. To each their own I guess. We have more choices in technology than we’ve ever had. I haven’t used Google search in 10 years. It’s been longer since I used gmail. I used Android on and off and got rid of it permanently after downloading my google archive and seeing what’s in there. I watch videos on YouTube because there isn’t anything better. It’s not just a philosophical choice to avoid Google. That’s part of it but I think many of Google’s products are pretty lackluster as well. Search and gmail are the only ones that they really nailed. Both are phenomenal. The rest of them are mediocre defensive moves to protect the brand from a competitor, neat experiments that don’t become a must-have product, acquisitions or just another thing they’ll kill off. I used search and gmail until the the invasive tracking wasn’t worth it. I avoid Google web properties when I can. I know they still track me as much as they can. I make efforts to minimize the ability for someone to effectively build a profile and I make larger efforts to prevent them from successfully delivering targeting ads or converting. If enough people stop using Google products, even if they can’t avoid indirectly touching something, Google will eventually want to figure out why and start making things that sell better. They don’t do what they do because they decided to be evil. They do it because it makes money. And people don’t continue to use it because they can’t switch. They use it because they like it or because they don’t have enough of a problem that they’re willing to switch. Instead, they bitch and moan a little bit and then go about their business. Maybe the more vocal ones are clamoring for regulation. That group is essentially saying they don’t like the way the product works even though they’re not the target market and we should make a law to change the product to their liking. The reality is there is a a huge market where people are willing to trade information for product. I don’t like it but is it that bad that we need to break up companies? It’s put smartphones in places where they wouldn’t be otherwise. It’s connected people. It’s done more to level the playing field in terms of technical literacy and availability than anything anyone has ever done. There are homeless people who still have an android phone and everything that comes with it and that opens doors which would otherwise be shut. Would the world be a better or worse place if none of that came into existence? We need to start with education. If the masses don’t understand it and the lawmakers don’t understand it we can’t exactly expect them to fix it. Apple is doing a little bit on this front with privacy-oriented products and requiring clear privacy policies from developers. I’d like to see more of this. If they truly differentiate themselves as the privacy (even at a premium) company then we’ve got a couple decent models to choose from. That’s really the key because more than the size or scope of these companies, it’s the homogenization of the industry that concerns me. But first, people need to understand enough about how it works that a company can effectively differentiate their product. If there has to be legislation then I’d like to see something that requires more transparency of what is collected, how it’s used, give the individual some more control, etc. Something in the spirit of GDPR that isn’t such s shit show.
jjdjr0odo7 7y ago
Welp here’s the thing: that’s your political opinion. And you don’t run anything important. No fealty or deference owed to it. See, imo, we do need legislation. Because economically stingy attitudes are built into the species and repeated in society: countless narratives out there are repeating what you’re saying: don’t bother competing with Google. DRY and all that right? The tech works great, but we hate the business aspects. Society isn’t obliged to put up new competition to satisfy your US libertarian fetishism for game theory. And to fix the business aspects of it, is going to require laws to change because LAWS PROTECT THAT BUSINESS INTEREST. Look, repeat after me: no one is owed by any physical law of nature a free market and a big business. These are social norms. Not social obligations and they can and must change. Thomas Jefferson wrote the same damn thing hundreds of years ago. To paraphrase, he wrote in plain English: Laws and Constitutions MUST change to keep up with the advances in human wisdom. Google is a business propped up by laws. Sorry you’re so confused you think businesses just miraculously exist, and anything resembling real competition can just sprout from the ground. We’ll just leave it up to some rich VCs to fund a serious competitor and save us. This is ... you were raised traditional values weren’t you? Afflicted with “just world fallacy”? Cause you’re emotional position that some hero will do the work for us, despite the common social narrative of not bothering and how we mock people with delusions of grandeur about taking on the big guys, is laughable, and terribly out of touch with how society works. But no we have to solve this within the framework the aristocracy tells us over and over, after very careful measure by their laid experts, is the only appropriate way for resolving this. Basically we’re just gladiators in their ephemeral colosseum.
jjdjr0odo7 7y ago
Oh and another thing: why should I have to compete with Google by building a new search engine? That’s just repeating the past. This is what legislation should be fixing: burning down the tacit obligation to defer to entrenched management. Market capture by powerful players ALWAYS... ALWAYS... leads to stagnant development of possibly better solutions. We won’t do much to change CPU designs because Intel and Microsofts of the world would lose out. So we have to compete but that usually means hewing close to their discovery as the costs are too high to support a wholly new way. So it becomes copy and slightly tweak to gain market share. Not actually make something novel. And so we barely adapt and modify anything and society stagnates from lack of flexibility for novel ideas of depth. Preferring shallow novelty and tweaks in some misguided belief it shouldn’t be allowed to reinvent itself. No, it must simply compete against it’s tried and true. As if these fools at Google are village wise men we must kowtow to. Sorry, but America is in the position it’s in because of sycophants to traditional economic theory folks like yourself have had their brains wired to believe in. No one asks to be born and no one should be obliged to satisfy competitive goals of private power. To suggest we live in a culture with a fondness for a market of free ideas and then so willingly accept the only reasonable option is kowtow to acceptable norms is the sign of a very confused mind.