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What's more disturbing and I simply can't get my head around is that Americans feel that they can trust big corporations more than their own government. I don'

What's more disturbing and I simply can't get my head around is that Americans feel that they can trust big corporations more than their own government. I don't trust US corporations at all and I thought that there was some kind of corporate conspiracy to discredit the US government to allow corporations to gain more power... Now I'm thinking that the situation in the US is even worse than that; not only are corporations trying to discredit the government, but the government is working hard to discredit itself as well.

op03 7y ago
I dont know what kind of Americans you are running into but thats just not true -> https://www.people-press.org/2019/09/19/why-americans-dont-fully-trust-many-who-hold-positions-of-power-and-responsibility/ https://www.people-press.org/2019/09/19/why-americans-dont-f...
- schrodinger 7y ago
  Thanks for sharing, that was a very interesting read!
sneak 7y ago
There aren't many/any instances of single corporations causing >10M deaths, or oppressing millions of people. There are lots of recorded occasions of single governments doing this. Governments are seen as having authorities that corporations do not, and thus are to be viewed much more skeptically as a general policy. Companies can't raid your house with machine guns, or toss you in jail for publishing an integer on your website. It's not that corporations are trusted more; it's that the maximum possible damage by corporate evil is much, much, much, much less than the maximum possible damage by government evil. IBM participated in the holocaust, but they didn't directly cause it. That needed governmental authority. It's prudent to maintain several orders of magnitude higher suspicion and/or skepticism of government activities; corporations are basically sandboxed (e.g. no armies, for the most part) in this model.
- iKevinShah 7y ago
  > There aren't many/any instances of single corporations causing >10M deaths, or oppressing millions of people. Sure. But that doesn't mean they dont have a say / influence in it. Take any social network for example, with a small change in their respective feed / discovery algorithm , it could clearly influence it. > the maximum possible damage by corporate evil is much, much, much, much less than the maximum possible damage by government evil In my opinion, it definitely is NOT that less. Sure governments can cause wars and all that but the corporations right now have a lot more control over the mind / general public view of things than the government.
- robin_reala 7y ago
  “Smoking was the second leading risk factor for early death and disability worldwide in 2015. It has claimed more than 5 million lives every year since 1990.” [1] “6 Mega Corporations Control Almost the Entire Global Cigarette Industry” [2] 25 years × 5M people / 6 corporations = 20.83M deaths per corporation (leaving out pre-1990 / post-2015 deaths). [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5439023/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5439023/ [2] https://www.mic.com/articles/81365/6-mega-corporations-control-almost-the-entire-global-cigarette-industry https://www.mic.com/articles/81365/6-mega-corporations-contr...
  - scarface74 7y ago
    No corporation has the force of law to make me smoke. The government however does have the ability to invade my privacy and take away my liberty via the “War on Drugs”.
    - aspenmayer 7y ago
      Does it count when EPA allows itself to be co-opted by corporations to repeal environmental regulations and air quality standards that were already in place? That seems like all parties are actually doing less than nothing.
      - 7y ago
choward 7y ago
> What's more disturbing and I simply can't get my head around is that Americans feel that they can trust big corporations more than their own government. Government and corporations are merging to become the same thing. I just assume any data I give to a corporation or government is public since they share your data anyway.
- jjoonathan 7y ago
  Which is prudent, but let's be clear: it doesn't make it right for them to do so.
  - choward 7y ago
    Correct. I'm just saying it's naive to think that once your data is shared that it will only remain with the party initially shared with.
notmarkus 7y ago
Corporate power comes, largely, through government power. Corporations coopt the government and use its power to protect or enrich themselves. Why would corporations want to weaken that?
- scarface74 7y ago
  I am much less worried about corporations corrupting government than the “moral majority.” Corporations have never lobbied to pass laws against interracial marriage - which was illegal in some states until the 60s. Nor did they try to make it felony for adults of the same sex to be in relationships. There were laws against “sodomy” in some states until the 80a.
  - aspenmayer 7y ago
    I’m worried about both. The moral majority was invented from whole cloth by wealthy individuals usually affiliated with large companies. It’s a farce that benefits corporations and their owners and lends them political support for their economic actions that does not logically follow. One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America (Basic Books, 2015) http://kevinmkruse.com/book/one-nation-under-god/ http://kevinmkruse.com/book/one-nation-under-god/ https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/04/corporate-america-invented-religious-right-conservative-roosevelt-princeton-117030 https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/04/corporate-am... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_M._Kruse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_M._Kruse
  - notmarkus 7y ago
    No, they just push for infinitely increasing military spending, which leads to needless wars resulting in millions of deaths. Both are horrible, let's be real.
jsjddbbwj 7y ago
You can stop using Twitter, you can't stop using your government.
- ken 7y ago
  Can you? By all accounts, you can’t stop Facebook. They’ll keep using you.
  - codegladiator 7y ago
    What do you mean ? I am not using facebook, and facebook is not using me. All their domains resolve to 0.0.0.0
ghettoimp 7y ago
> Now I'm thinking that the situation in the US is even worse than that; not only are corporations trying to discredit the government, but the government is working hard to discredit itself as well. Of course it is. Powerful and motivated interests have long been working to overturn basically every social program and every protection for labor, discrimination, environment, voting, etc. The goal is to "starve the beast," privatize everything to work toward a government that only runs the military and police, and to make sure it stays that way once it gets there. Insidiously, they can win support by pushing the government to be more wasteful, more corrupt, less effective, more intrusive, more bumbling, and more frustrating to work with. The moment of victory is when they convince you that government fundamentally is a bad idea that cannot work well, all those taxes you are paying are just going to be squandered, and we'd be better off getting rid of the whole thing. They have been at work for decades through groups like the Heritage Foundation, CATO institute, etc., to push this into the mainstream. They reached new heights of legitimacy with FOX news & co., and have made great progress with the Trump presidency so far.
scarface74 7y ago
Because corporations don’t have the power to take away my property or liberty.

op03 7y ago

I dont know what kind of Americans you are running into but thats just not true -> https://www.people-press.org/2019/09/19/why-americans-dont-fully-trust-many-who-hold-positions-of-power-and-responsibility/ https://www.people-press.org/2019/09/19/why-americans-dont-f...

schrodinger 7y ago
Thanks for sharing, that was a very interesting read!

sneak 7y ago

There aren't many/any instances of single corporations causing >10M deaths, or oppressing millions of people. There are lots of recorded occasions of single governments doing this. Governments are seen as having authorities that corporations do not, and thus are to be viewed much more skeptically as a general policy. Companies can't raid your house with machine guns, or toss you in jail for publishing an integer on your website. It's not that corporations are trusted more; it's that the maximum possible damage by corporate evil is much, much, much, much less than the maximum possible damage by government evil. IBM participated in the holocaust, but they didn't directly cause it. That needed governmental authority. It's prudent to maintain several orders of magnitude higher suspicion and/or skepticism of government activities; corporations are basically sandboxed (e.g. no armies, for the most part) in this model.

iKevinShah 7y ago
> There aren't many/any instances of single corporations causing >10M deaths, or oppressing millions of people. Sure. But that doesn't mean they dont have a say / influence in it. Take any social network for example, with a small change in their respective feed / discovery algorithm , it could clearly influence it. > the maximum possible damage by corporate evil is much, much, much, much less than the maximum possible damage by government evil In my opinion, it definitely is NOT that less. Sure governments can cause wars and all that but the corporations right now have a lot more control over the mind / general public view of things than the government.
robin_reala 7y ago
“Smoking was the second leading risk factor for early death and disability worldwide in 2015. It has claimed more than 5 million lives every year since 1990.” [1] “6 Mega Corporations Control Almost the Entire Global Cigarette Industry” [2] 25 years × 5M people / 6 corporations = 20.83M deaths per corporation (leaving out pre-1990 / post-2015 deaths). [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5439023/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5439023/ [2] https://www.mic.com/articles/81365/6-mega-corporations-control-almost-the-entire-global-cigarette-industry https://www.mic.com/articles/81365/6-mega-corporations-contr...
- scarface74 7y ago
  No corporation has the force of law to make me smoke. The government however does have the ability to invade my privacy and take away my liberty via the “War on Drugs”.
  - aspenmayer 7y ago
    Does it count when EPA allows itself to be co-opted by corporations to repeal environmental regulations and air quality standards that were already in place? That seems like all parties are actually doing less than nothing.
    - 7y ago

choward 7y ago

> What's more disturbing and I simply can't get my head around is that Americans feel that they can trust big corporations more than their own government. Government and corporations are merging to become the same thing. I just assume any data I give to a corporation or government is public since they share your data anyway.

jjoonathan 7y ago
Which is prudent, but let's be clear: it doesn't make it right for them to do so.
- choward 7y ago
  Correct. I'm just saying it's naive to think that once your data is shared that it will only remain with the party initially shared with.

notmarkus 7y ago

Corporate power comes, largely, through government power. Corporations coopt the government and use its power to protect or enrich themselves. Why would corporations want to weaken that?

scarface74 7y ago
I am much less worried about corporations corrupting government than the “moral majority.” Corporations have never lobbied to pass laws against interracial marriage - which was illegal in some states until the 60s. Nor did they try to make it felony for adults of the same sex to be in relationships. There were laws against “sodomy” in some states until the 80a.
- aspenmayer 7y ago
  I’m worried about both. The moral majority was invented from whole cloth by wealthy individuals usually affiliated with large companies. It’s a farce that benefits corporations and their owners and lends them political support for their economic actions that does not logically follow. One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America (Basic Books, 2015) http://kevinmkruse.com/book/one-nation-under-god/ http://kevinmkruse.com/book/one-nation-under-god/ https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/04/corporate-america-invented-religious-right-conservative-roosevelt-princeton-117030 https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/04/corporate-am... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_M._Kruse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_M._Kruse
- notmarkus 7y ago
  No, they just push for infinitely increasing military spending, which leads to needless wars resulting in millions of deaths. Both are horrible, let's be real.

jsjddbbwj 7y ago

You can stop using Twitter, you can't stop using your government.

ken 7y ago
Can you? By all accounts, you can’t stop Facebook. They’ll keep using you.
- codegladiator 7y ago
  What do you mean ? I am not using facebook, and facebook is not using me. All their domains resolve to 0.0.0.0

ghettoimp 7y ago

> Now I'm thinking that the situation in the US is even worse than that; not only are corporations trying to discredit the government, but the government is working hard to discredit itself as well. Of course it is. Powerful and motivated interests have long been working to overturn basically every social program and every protection for labor, discrimination, environment, voting, etc. The goal is to "starve the beast," privatize everything to work toward a government that only runs the military and police, and to make sure it stays that way once it gets there. Insidiously, they can win support by pushing the government to be more wasteful, more corrupt, less effective, more intrusive, more bumbling, and more frustrating to work with. The moment of victory is when they convince you that government fundamentally is a bad idea that cannot work well, all those taxes you are paying are just going to be squandered, and we'd be better off getting rid of the whole thing. They have been at work for decades through groups like the Heritage Foundation, CATO institute, etc., to push this into the mainstream. They reached new heights of legitimacy with FOX news & co., and have made great progress with the Trump presidency so far.

scarface74 7y ago

Because corporations don’t have the power to take away my property or liberty.