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The only reason anybody would install one is if it was desirable to have one, and it's definitely true you can't save people from themselves. With political aut

The only reason anybody would install one is if it was desirable to have one, and it's definitely true you can't save people from themselves. With political authority as it stands though, you jump right to the absolute worst case scenario at the end there, they're simply coercively installed by force and there's no possibility of an opt out, they will then be used to do whatever the holder of political authority wants them to do to you, because just as you say, who is going to stop them? Look at the world we actually live in, this is the way it works, the only thing which actually restrains wielders of political authority is the things they can't do. Not the things they're "restricted by law" from doing. If they're still around when this is possible, the worst case outcome is inevitable. That doesn't mean that if they're not things can still get bad, by the way. Merely that the combination of the two things taken together is a surefire recipe for dystopia.

xg15 7y ago
> and it's definitely true you can't save people from themselves. That's too easy to dismiss if we - already today - have major industries that only exist because people act against their own interests - and we have armies of marketers and advertisers that work 40 hours a week to undermine peoples' capabilities of rational descision making. Even if they didn't, market failures are real, the "invisible hand" a lot less so. We know that if everyone acts only in their own interest, the end result can end up bad for everyone. (Or good only for a small elite) The market needs guiding principles and I'd very much prefer those principles being enacted by a democratic, law-bound government than some oligarch who is responsible to no one but himself. > Look at the world we actually live in, this is the way it works, the only thing which actually restrains wielders of political authority is the things they can't do. Not the things they're "restricted by law" from doing. And yet if leaders of private companies had the same powers, they'd magically restrict themselves. Why? By the way, that isn't even true: Take Trump: You have a political leader with openly authoritarian views at the most popular position on earth, a party ready to follow wherever he wants to go and democratic institutions weakened by regulatory capture - and he still has to frequently backpedal because people defend the laws and don't just bend to his will. In a private company, where the only law is "the boss is right", who should do that?

xg15 7y ago

> and it's definitely true you can't save people from themselves. That's too easy to dismiss if we - already today - have major industries that only exist because people act against their own interests - and we have armies of marketers and advertisers that work 40 hours a week to undermine peoples' capabilities of rational descision making. Even if they didn't, market failures are real, the "invisible hand" a lot less so. We know that if everyone acts only in their own interest, the end result can end up bad for everyone. (Or good only for a small elite) The market needs guiding principles and I'd very much prefer those principles being enacted by a democratic, law-bound government than some oligarch who is responsible to no one but himself. > Look at the world we actually live in, this is the way it works, the only thing which actually restrains wielders of political authority is the things they can't do. Not the things they're "restricted by law" from doing. And yet if leaders of private companies had the same powers, they'd magically restrict themselves. Why? By the way, that isn't even true: Take Trump: You have a political leader with openly authoritarian views at the most popular position on earth, a party ready to follow wherever he wants to go and democratic institutions weakened by regulatory capture - and he still has to frequently backpedal because people defend the laws and don't just bend to his will. In a private company, where the only law is "the boss is right", who should do that?