7 ms·

What is even more terrifying is that this is being done by Facebook which has a person like Mark Zuckerberg, who has again and again shown that he has no moral

by yumraj 7y ago

What is even more terrifying is that this is being done by Facebook which has a person like Mark Zuckerberg, who has again and again shown that he has no moral compass and has complete disregard for people privacy rights and by extension other rights, as its dictator, with no real board oversight due to how stocks are structured.

viscanti 7y ago
> this is being done by Facebook which has a person like Mark Zuckerberg, who has again and again shown that he has no moral compass and has complete disregard for people privacy rights Sure. But think about all the money they can make from selling ads if they know everything that people buy. Doesn't he have a fiduciary responsibility to maximize shareholder value?
- colpabar 7y ago
  You forgot the `/s`.
- plesner 7y ago
  No he doesn't, that is not what fiduciary responsibility means. See https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2012/06/26/the-shareholder-value-myth/ https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2012/06/26/the-shareholder-v...
  - alasdair_ 7y ago
    This seemed like fairly clear sarcasm to me.
    - mpoteat 7y ago
      The problem with using sarcasm as a vehicle for genuine discussion is that not everybody gets the joke.
      - alasdair_ 7y ago
        >The problem with using sarcasm as a vehicle for genuine discussion is that not everybody gets the joke. That's fine, assuming "everybody" is not the target audience.
    - samcday 7y ago
      Sarcasm or not, I found the follow-up response with the Harvard Law School article quite interesting!
    - plesner 7y ago
      Implied sarcasm and irony is a troll's game. Not to imply that the poster is a troll, I have no reason to think that, but that's why I never assume sarcasm if it's not explicitly stated.
      - alasdair_ 7y ago
        >Implied sarcasm and irony is a troll's game. Not to imply that the poster is a troll, I have no reason to think that, but that's why I never assume sarcasm if it's not explicitly stated. Sarcasm and irony have been used in an enormous amount of major English-language texts since, well, there WERE English-language texts. Most of these texts don't take the time to spell things out to their less observant readers. Not assuming sarcasm will lead you to miss the point entirely. (This sounds terribly rude and elitist but it's true. And of course, little heed was given to those learning English as a second, or third, language, when these texts were written.) Take the King James bible, for example. In Exodus, Moses is asked "Were there a lack of graves in Egypt, that you took us away to die in the wilderness?" Hopefully this doesn't need to be explicitly flagged as sarcasm for you to understand its meaning.
    - ghostbrainalpha 7y ago
      * From the Hacker News Operators Manual - Hacker News Principle 3.7 states no amount of sarcasm, no matter how extreme, will be clear to the majority of hacker news readers. Thus sarcasm in commenting should be avoided as much as possible, and if deemed absolutely necessary, clearly signaled with the "/s" mark at the end of the comment. Edit - It's actually Principle 4.1
  - viscanti 7y ago
    That's a reasonable critique against an implementation of short term shareholder value maximization. That said, it doesn't show a different definition for fiduciary responsibility. It does, however, illustrate my original point that fiduciary responsibility is a silly justification for lots of things it's used to justify.
- cicero 7y ago
  I assume you are joking, but your statement highlights the problem with a "moral" system rooted in maximizing shareholder value. I think free enterprise markets have many advantages, but there has to be a better grounding for ethical decisions.
  - Torwald 7y ago
    One part of a better grounding could be a free market as opposed to a system where the tax payer bails out the banks.
logfromblammo 7y ago
Every mortal may be ousted from their offices; the wisest will provide a peaceful means for doing so. As Zuckerberg has obviated any lawful means of removing him, by structuring the stock classes such that he holds the majority of votes, he should probably hire more personal security. If he's going to be someone that's completely unaccountable for his actions as head of the company from within the accepted structures, he should anticipate that someone will try to go outside those structures to get to him. Ordinary people protect themselves from such attacks by not being untouchable jerkwads. He has already left that particular stratagem far behind.
- pyronite 7y ago
  With comments like this, I can understand why he would need personal security. I feel like this rhetoric is dangerous. It sounds to me as if you might be suggesting this sort of "solution" has some legitimacy. I apologize if that's not how you meant it.
  - liopleurodon 7y ago
    Perhaps The French Revolution was illegitimate and the royal family should be ruling France right now.....
    - GuiA 7y ago
      Well, the French Revolution certainly was illegitimate in that it was “not authorized by the law; not in accordance with accepted standards or rules“. And it’s one of the best things that ever happened in human history.
  - zergblush 7y ago
    He’s providing an economics type analysis.
  - logfromblammo 7y ago
    It is not "legitimate". That word shares a root with "legal". But we should not pretend that some people do not do illegal things when the stakes are high enough. Rich people get kidnapped and held for ransom to fund rebellions or criminal cartels. It's a thing that happens. Even heads of state get assassinated from time to time. It's a thing that happens. At the level of super-rich that Zuckerberg inhabits, I'd guess he already gets at least 2 attempts at theft, robbery, blackmail, or extortion per year, and some of them might even be successful. It's a thing that happens. People don't like to talk about it, because the successes encourage further attempts. There were even GTA 5 missions entirely about manipulating public stock prices by criminally compromising or killing a company's CEO. That's how the player can make all three of their player-characters multi-billionaires. I'm simply saying that if the only way someone can get to you is via criminality, then that is the way someone will get to you. Most people would always try the "legitimate", peaceful option first, if there is one. That's the primary reason why people choose to leave themselves open to the law. Surrendering to the marshals or getting arrested by state professionals is a more favorable alternative than getting caught by an angry mob. Just ask Qaddafi. It's just engineering. If your structure is designed to fail at one weak point, then you can monitor that possibility more carefully, and predict the behavior following that particular failure. You can purposefully put in a weak element, so that if the structure collapses at all, it will do so more slowly and in a safer direction. In a corporate structure, you allow yourself to be removed by majority vote, and the failure mode is that you get paid off and live on in semi-retirement. Remove that option, and you don't know how you'll leave your office. It might be a memento-mori-scale heart attack, or complete failure of the company, or a sudden black screen as "Don't Stop Believing" plays on the jukebox. In the wake of the vote to remove him, Zuckerberg could either step down voluntarily, or increase his security. He won't do the former, so he should do the latter.
otakucode 7y ago
I would not say Zuckerberg has no moral compass. He definitely has one. Hell, he started only eating meat that he personally killed. What I would say is that his moral compass points in a VERY different direction than the vast majority of society is familiar with. He's a kook, basically. His views on privacy are not that he 'doesn't care'. He made it clear early on what his viewpoint was. He sees privacy as an antiquated, outdated notion that everyone will benefit from the death of. He believes that once everything is out in the open, people will grow up and stop being judgemental about things that are statistically normal despite being in contravention of social norms. He is, of course, completely wrong on that point and gives the majority of society far too much credit. But it's wrong to say he has no opinion on the matter.
- layoutIfNeeded 7y ago
  Interesting... I wonder whether he holds the same views about his own privacy?
  - nikhilgk 7y ago
    Of course not : http://money.com/money/4346766/mark-zuckerberg-houses/ http://money.com/money/4346766/mark-zuckerberg-houses/

by yumraj 7y ago

viscanti 7y ago

> this is being done by Facebook which has a person like Mark Zuckerberg, who has again and again shown that he has no moral compass and has complete disregard for people privacy rights Sure. But think about all the money they can make from selling ads if they know everything that people buy. Doesn't he have a fiduciary responsibility to maximize shareholder value?

colpabar 7y ago
You forgot the `/s`.
plesner 7y ago
No he doesn't, that is not what fiduciary responsibility means. See https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2012/06/26/the-shareholder-value-myth/ https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2012/06/26/the-shareholder-v...
- alasdair_ 7y ago
  This seemed like fairly clear sarcasm to me.
  - mpoteat 7y ago
    The problem with using sarcasm as a vehicle for genuine discussion is that not everybody gets the joke.
    - alasdair_ 7y ago
      >The problem with using sarcasm as a vehicle for genuine discussion is that not everybody gets the joke. That's fine, assuming "everybody" is not the target audience.
  - samcday 7y ago
    Sarcasm or not, I found the follow-up response with the Harvard Law School article quite interesting!
  - plesner 7y ago
    Implied sarcasm and irony is a troll's game. Not to imply that the poster is a troll, I have no reason to think that, but that's why I never assume sarcasm if it's not explicitly stated.
    - alasdair_ 7y ago
      >Implied sarcasm and irony is a troll's game. Not to imply that the poster is a troll, I have no reason to think that, but that's why I never assume sarcasm if it's not explicitly stated. Sarcasm and irony have been used in an enormous amount of major English-language texts since, well, there WERE English-language texts. Most of these texts don't take the time to spell things out to their less observant readers. Not assuming sarcasm will lead you to miss the point entirely. (This sounds terribly rude and elitist but it's true. And of course, little heed was given to those learning English as a second, or third, language, when these texts were written.) Take the King James bible, for example. In Exodus, Moses is asked "Were there a lack of graves in Egypt, that you took us away to die in the wilderness?" Hopefully this doesn't need to be explicitly flagged as sarcasm for you to understand its meaning.
  - ghostbrainalpha 7y ago
    * From the Hacker News Operators Manual - Hacker News Principle 3.7 states no amount of sarcasm, no matter how extreme, will be clear to the majority of hacker news readers. Thus sarcasm in commenting should be avoided as much as possible, and if deemed absolutely necessary, clearly signaled with the "/s" mark at the end of the comment. Edit - It's actually Principle 4.1
- viscanti 7y ago
  That's a reasonable critique against an implementation of short term shareholder value maximization. That said, it doesn't show a different definition for fiduciary responsibility. It does, however, illustrate my original point that fiduciary responsibility is a silly justification for lots of things it's used to justify.
cicero 7y ago
I assume you are joking, but your statement highlights the problem with a "moral" system rooted in maximizing shareholder value. I think free enterprise markets have many advantages, but there has to be a better grounding for ethical decisions.
- Torwald 7y ago
  One part of a better grounding could be a free market as opposed to a system where the tax payer bails out the banks.

logfromblammo 7y ago

Every mortal may be ousted from their offices; the wisest will provide a peaceful means for doing so. As Zuckerberg has obviated any lawful means of removing him, by structuring the stock classes such that he holds the majority of votes, he should probably hire more personal security. If he's going to be someone that's completely unaccountable for his actions as head of the company from within the accepted structures, he should anticipate that someone will try to go outside those structures to get to him. Ordinary people protect themselves from such attacks by not being untouchable jerkwads. He has already left that particular stratagem far behind.

pyronite 7y ago
With comments like this, I can understand why he would need personal security. I feel like this rhetoric is dangerous. It sounds to me as if you might be suggesting this sort of "solution" has some legitimacy. I apologize if that's not how you meant it.
- liopleurodon 7y ago
  Perhaps The French Revolution was illegitimate and the royal family should be ruling France right now.....
  - GuiA 7y ago
    Well, the French Revolution certainly was illegitimate in that it was “not authorized by the law; not in accordance with accepted standards or rules“. And it’s one of the best things that ever happened in human history.
- zergblush 7y ago
  He’s providing an economics type analysis.
- logfromblammo 7y ago
  It is not "legitimate". That word shares a root with "legal". But we should not pretend that some people do not do illegal things when the stakes are high enough. Rich people get kidnapped and held for ransom to fund rebellions or criminal cartels. It's a thing that happens. Even heads of state get assassinated from time to time. It's a thing that happens. At the level of super-rich that Zuckerberg inhabits, I'd guess he already gets at least 2 attempts at theft, robbery, blackmail, or extortion per year, and some of them might even be successful. It's a thing that happens. People don't like to talk about it, because the successes encourage further attempts. There were even GTA 5 missions entirely about manipulating public stock prices by criminally compromising or killing a company's CEO. That's how the player can make all three of their player-characters multi-billionaires. I'm simply saying that if the only way someone can get to you is via criminality, then that is the way someone will get to you. Most people would always try the "legitimate", peaceful option first, if there is one. That's the primary reason why people choose to leave themselves open to the law. Surrendering to the marshals or getting arrested by state professionals is a more favorable alternative than getting caught by an angry mob. Just ask Qaddafi. It's just engineering. If your structure is designed to fail at one weak point, then you can monitor that possibility more carefully, and predict the behavior following that particular failure. You can purposefully put in a weak element, so that if the structure collapses at all, it will do so more slowly and in a safer direction. In a corporate structure, you allow yourself to be removed by majority vote, and the failure mode is that you get paid off and live on in semi-retirement. Remove that option, and you don't know how you'll leave your office. It might be a memento-mori-scale heart attack, or complete failure of the company, or a sudden black screen as "Don't Stop Believing" plays on the jukebox. In the wake of the vote to remove him, Zuckerberg could either step down voluntarily, or increase his security. He won't do the former, so he should do the latter.

otakucode 7y ago

I would not say Zuckerberg has no moral compass. He definitely has one. Hell, he started only eating meat that he personally killed. What I would say is that his moral compass points in a VERY different direction than the vast majority of society is familiar with. He's a kook, basically. His views on privacy are not that he 'doesn't care'. He made it clear early on what his viewpoint was. He sees privacy as an antiquated, outdated notion that everyone will benefit from the death of. He believes that once everything is out in the open, people will grow up and stop being judgemental about things that are statistically normal despite being in contravention of social norms. He is, of course, completely wrong on that point and gives the majority of society far too much credit. But it's wrong to say he has no opinion on the matter.

layoutIfNeeded 7y ago
Interesting... I wonder whether he holds the same views about his own privacy?
- nikhilgk 7y ago
  Of course not : http://money.com/money/4346766/mark-zuckerberg-houses/ http://money.com/money/4346766/mark-zuckerberg-houses/