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Your questions are valid. But you could pick holes about any party trying to bring about change, right? For example, you say "let's be real here: Google doesn't

by zaidf 6y ago

Your questions are valid. But you could pick holes about any party trying to bring about change, right? For example, you say "let's be real here: Google doesn't exist to make the world a better place"...my question to you is, which org does exist purely to make the world a better place? And moreover, how are those orgs doing in terms of impact and scale?

ocdtrekkie 6y ago
Plenty of orgs exists purely to make the world a better place: They're nonprofits. And many nonprofits work at a wide, international scale. Have you looked at how Disney built Disney World, and the way they... govern... Disney World? There's a lot of similarities in Google's plan and their requests with what Disney built with the Reedy Creek Improvement District[0]. Essentially a company territory with government, policing, and regulation all managed by the company. And did EPCOT actually create a world of tomorrow? No. But Disney World has made Disney a lot of money. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reedy_Creek_Improvement_District https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reedy_Creek_Improvement_Distri...
- theklub 6y ago
  Nonprofits are bogus in a lot of cases. They make tons of profit and make their founders/ceos rich.
  - marcinzm 6y ago
    Non profit CEOs make a fraction of what they’d make at a comparably sized for profit company.
    - andrekandre 6y ago
      that may be true, but it doesnt mean they cant be corrupt or inept (just look at mother teresa for example) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Mother_Teresa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Mother_Teresa
CPLX 6y ago
Democratically elected governments exist to make the world a better place, at least in the views of those who vote in their leaders. Businesses exist to make money. That's the distinction being drawn. Pretending there's not a fundamental distinction between the two types of entities is disingenuous.
- true_religion 6y ago
  Democratic governments exist to make their territories a better place, often at the expense of anyone who isn’t a resident of their territory.
- marris 6y ago
  If you start from "democratically elected governments exist to make the world a better place," then you're going to end up somewhere wrong. Even in the best of times, democratically elected governments exist to give the majority power over the minority. This is considered an improvement over other forms of government, where often a minority had power over a majority and treated them poorly. There are actually some "fundamental distinctions" between government and business. For example, most governments (democratic or not) are slow, monolithic, and effectively immortal. Since governments have tax and police authority, they can survive bad periods, including those caused by their own errors, for longer periods of time. Most businesses do not have tax and police authority and must face the market test on a daily basis. The businesses that fail the test typically die and new businesses replace them.
  - andrekandre 6y ago
    > Most businesses do not have tax and police authority and must face the market test on a daily basis. they would if they could... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_India_Company https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_India_Company
  - Analemma_ 6y ago
    > Most businesses do not have tax and police authority and must face the market test on a daily basis. The only thing that keeps businesses from claiming tax and police authority is the government monopoly on violence; they'd happily take if they could. Same goes for having to face the "market test": businesses certainly don't want to that and would happily get rid of it if governments allowed them to (or did not exist).
monadic2 6y ago
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say maybe privately owned capital explains why most orgs fail to do good.
- seneca 6y ago
  > I’m going to go out on a limb here and say maybe privately owned capital explains why most orgs fail to do good. Nonsense. Efforts to eliminate private ownership have lead to many of the largest events of mass human suffering in history. Spouting empty political claptrap like this degrades the conversation.
save_ferris 6y ago
> which org does exist purely to make the world a better place? I think the idea that one organization existing to make the entire world a better place is utopian, but governments are much better equipped to bring positive change than private companies are because citizens are the direct beneficiaries of government resources. For example, a municipal government’s purpose is to administer public services, and a municipal government answers to its citizens. A private company, on the other hand, has a fiscal duty to its shareholders. I’m not arguing that any organization is perfect because such an organization does not exist, and that’s true for companies and governments. > how are those orgs doing in terms of impact and scale? Let’s use various governments response to the coronavirus outbreak as an example. The US government opted to defer much of it’s responsibility to private companies and state governments, which has resulted in less testing, less access to PPE, and more reported deaths than any other country. Testing hasn’t scaled, and there have been numerous reports of corruption and interference in the medical community, some of which was alleged to have come directly from the White House. Contrast that response with countries like Taiwan, who moved quickly to provide necessary resources and communicate effectively to mitigate the transmission of the virus. The US has operated one of the most private-industry focused responses to this outbreak, and we’re likely to see 3k deaths per day by June. That’s a 9/11 death toll every single day.
- zaidf 6y ago
  I could not disagree with you more. Are you in the Bay Area? The Bay Area avoided a calamity primarily because of private companies taking action long before the city and state. I'd counter that if private companies were completely left in charge, the response may have been better (I would not have said this in January). Private companies were called in because our public efforts failed. If private companies were leading the charge from day 1, I struggle to see how our response could have been worse than it is today. And I completely disagree that our poor response can be attributed to involvement of private companies.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - 6y ago

by zaidf 6y ago

ocdtrekkie 6y ago

Plenty of orgs exists purely to make the world a better place: They're nonprofits. And many nonprofits work at a wide, international scale. Have you looked at how Disney built Disney World, and the way they... govern... Disney World? There's a lot of similarities in Google's plan and their requests with what Disney built with the Reedy Creek Improvement District[0]. Essentially a company territory with government, policing, and regulation all managed by the company. And did EPCOT actually create a world of tomorrow? No. But Disney World has made Disney a lot of money. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reedy_Creek_Improvement_District https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reedy_Creek_Improvement_Distri...

theklub 6y ago
Nonprofits are bogus in a lot of cases. They make tons of profit and make their founders/ceos rich.
- marcinzm 6y ago
  Non profit CEOs make a fraction of what they’d make at a comparably sized for profit company.
  - andrekandre 6y ago
    that may be true, but it doesnt mean they cant be corrupt or inept (just look at mother teresa for example) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Mother_Teresa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Mother_Teresa

CPLX 6y ago

Democratically elected governments exist to make the world a better place, at least in the views of those who vote in their leaders. Businesses exist to make money. That's the distinction being drawn. Pretending there's not a fundamental distinction between the two types of entities is disingenuous.

true_religion 6y ago
Democratic governments exist to make their territories a better place, often at the expense of anyone who isn’t a resident of their territory.
marris 6y ago
If you start from "democratically elected governments exist to make the world a better place," then you're going to end up somewhere wrong. Even in the best of times, democratically elected governments exist to give the majority power over the minority. This is considered an improvement over other forms of government, where often a minority had power over a majority and treated them poorly. There are actually some "fundamental distinctions" between government and business. For example, most governments (democratic or not) are slow, monolithic, and effectively immortal. Since governments have tax and police authority, they can survive bad periods, including those caused by their own errors, for longer periods of time. Most businesses do not have tax and police authority and must face the market test on a daily basis. The businesses that fail the test typically die and new businesses replace them.
- andrekandre 6y ago
  > Most businesses do not have tax and police authority and must face the market test on a daily basis. they would if they could... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_India_Company https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_India_Company
- Analemma_ 6y ago
  > Most businesses do not have tax and police authority and must face the market test on a daily basis. The only thing that keeps businesses from claiming tax and police authority is the government monopoly on violence; they'd happily take if they could. Same goes for having to face the "market test": businesses certainly don't want to that and would happily get rid of it if governments allowed them to (or did not exist).

monadic2 6y ago

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say maybe privately owned capital explains why most orgs fail to do good.

seneca 6y ago
> I’m going to go out on a limb here and say maybe privately owned capital explains why most orgs fail to do good. Nonsense. Efforts to eliminate private ownership have lead to many of the largest events of mass human suffering in history. Spouting empty political claptrap like this degrades the conversation.

save_ferris 6y ago

> which org does exist purely to make the world a better place? I think the idea that one organization existing to make the entire world a better place is utopian, but governments are much better equipped to bring positive change than private companies are because citizens are the direct beneficiaries of government resources. For example, a municipal government’s purpose is to administer public services, and a municipal government answers to its citizens. A private company, on the other hand, has a fiscal duty to its shareholders. I’m not arguing that any organization is perfect because such an organization does not exist, and that’s true for companies and governments. > how are those orgs doing in terms of impact and scale? Let’s use various governments response to the coronavirus outbreak as an example. The US government opted to defer much of it’s responsibility to private companies and state governments, which has resulted in less testing, less access to PPE, and more reported deaths than any other country. Testing hasn’t scaled, and there have been numerous reports of corruption and interference in the medical community, some of which was alleged to have come directly from the White House. Contrast that response with countries like Taiwan, who moved quickly to provide necessary resources and communicate effectively to mitigate the transmission of the virus. The US has operated one of the most private-industry focused responses to this outbreak, and we’re likely to see 3k deaths per day by June. That’s a 9/11 death toll every single day.

zaidf 6y ago
I could not disagree with you more. Are you in the Bay Area? The Bay Area avoided a calamity primarily because of private companies taking action long before the city and state. I'd counter that if private companies were completely left in charge, the response may have been better (I would not have said this in January). Private companies were called in because our public efforts failed. If private companies were leading the charge from day 1, I struggle to see how our response could have been worse than it is today. And I completely disagree that our poor response can be attributed to involvement of private companies.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- 6y ago