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Is this obvious only to Europeans?
by michael-ax 7y ago
Is this obvious only to Europeans?
- feanaro 7y agoI'm not sure whether geography is a significant factor in this, but I've definitely noticed a trend against such thought on HN. For instance, whenever I mention the dangers of a single corporation owning everything, including money, and how indistinguishable it makes it from a government, it gets downvoted with no discussion.
- mehrdadn 7y agoI'm guessing this is because corporations will still obviously be different from governments. For one thing they won't have cops arresting you.
- zamazingo 7y agoThey do though.
- mehrdadn 7y agoWhat?
- tshanmu 7y agoHow can you be sure - if they almost become quasi-goverments - they will surely have quasi-law-enforcement? A ban by facebook could literally be lifethreatening?
- mehrdadn 7y ago> How can you be sure Same way I can be "sure" my bank is going to keep my money safe and give it to me when I need it?
- pbhjpbhj 7y agoCould you be more clear about your intended meaning. From this you might mean "I can't be sure", or you might mean "the government will step in to prevent it", or you might actually think your bank will keep your money safe, or ...
- rakoo 7y agoGovernments keep control on people by the usage of force, but corporations have the means to control people by the use of pleasure. You might not get in jail but if you're not allowed to go where you want/do what you want/talk to who you want, if your life revolves around a single thing and that is removed from you, would you still do it ? This comic about Orwell's and Huxley's vision of things really lays it in simple terms (https://twistedsifter.com/2010/06/the-saturday-strip-week-13/ https://twistedsifter.com/2010/06/the-saturday-strip-week-13...). The source is, of course, very interesting to read.
- mehrdadn 7y ago> would you still do it? Between "do it" and "don't do it"? Well obviously no. But compared to getting thrown in jail? Obviously it's better?
- rakoo 7y agoOf course the difference in "punishement" is huge, but the important and scary part is that corporations can have a huge control on how people behave without any threat other than "you won't be able to use our service". That was my point.
- empath75 7y agoDon’t be so sure.
- sharedfrog 7y agoWhile true now, remember that companies used to own armies[1] and territories[2]. Their motives -- shareholder profit -- have not changed. They do and will strive to grow their power. It's not a stretch from today to imagine living on company-built cities with private security, paying rent and utilities to the company, with contracts and EULAs serving as laws in all but name. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_East_India_Company https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_East_India_Company [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_rule_in_India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_rule_in_India
- empath75 7y ago> You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, reichmarks, rins, rubles, pounds, and shekels. It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today! And YOU have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and YOU WILL ATONE! Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale? You get up on your little twenty-one inch screen and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and ITT and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today. What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state -- Karl Marx? They get out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories, minimax solutions, and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments, just like we do. We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime. And our children will live, Mr. Beale, to see that perfect world in which there's no war or famine, oppression or brutality -- one vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock, all necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused. —- From the movie Network, 1976
- mantap 7y agoEuropean countries such as Sweden and the Netherlands are at the forefront of submitting themselves to a cashless economy, giving control of the payments infrastructure to Visa and MasterCard. So it's certainly not obvious to all Europeans.
- the-dude 7y agoIn NL creditcards are not very popular, but paying 'by PIN' is. The network is owned by the Dutch banks, which also provide the online payment platform iDeal. The fees are low and fixed. Offline, between 15cts and a couple of cents ( I don't know how low for the big retailers, 5cts ? ) The online fees are a bit higher, starting at 29cts. There are no variable fees. There is no 'refund' or 'insurance'. Lots of shops do not accept creditcards ( I know of no big retailer which does ).
- martin_a 7y agoThe same is true for Germany. We have a vast number of different systems for cashless payment, with every bank trying to push its own system. It's not like Visa and Master Card are the two major players.
- the-dude 7y agoExcept we don't have a vast number of systems. We have 1.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- martin_a 7y agoTalking about NL or DE?
- whereistimbo 7y agoNL of course. It's the same commenter.