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==To assume unquestioningly the intelligence of our rulers during the Trump era is just, wow.== Who did this? I laid out the case that modern large corporation

==To assume unquestioningly the intelligence of our rulers during the Trump era is just, wow.== Who did this? I laid out the case that modern large corporations (no need to bring politics into it) are some of the most effective moneymaking machines in history. We can observe them investing heavily into customer surveillance/tracking. We can also observe the primary players in this industry thriving from a revenue and market cap perspective (Google, Facebook, Amazon). The hypothesis is that both main street (through revenues) and wall street (through outrageous P/E ratios) are signaling that the data being collected does, in fact, have value.

deleted 6y ago
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protonfish 6y ago
At first I wasn't going to reply because you are clearly not discussing in good faith (you neglected to address my evidence to the contrary or the flaw in your reasoning but instead focused on my random afterthought.) But others might read this so I decided to elaborate a bit. I was once misinformed with the belief that business' primary goal is to make money. But when you have the experience of explaining data to a CEO that clearly shows that their customer surveillance has a negative ROI and that the conclusions they are drawing from the data are not warranted. (For example, if you want to claim that your initiative increased sales, you need to compare an equivalent data point before and after the initiative, not just afterward.) If you say this and then look into the cold, dead eyes of a sociopath you'll know how foolish you were to ever assume the point of tracking customer data is to make money. I felt dumb ever believing that business leaders care directly about money. I knew that to be false in high school when they made me read 1984. The lesson that O'Brien teaches Winston is one that we clearly have not learned. > The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. We can add to that list "The object of unrelenting invasive surveillance is unrelenting invasive surveillance."
- mellavora 6y ago
  > We can add to that list "The object of unrelenting invasive surveillance is unrelenting invasive surveillance." yes, and/or that unrelenting invasive surveillance is an enabler and an aspect of persecution, torture, and power.
- take_a_breath 6y ago
  I think you are misunderstanding my point, so apologies for being unclear. I am not questioning the actual validity of the data collection or ROI of the projects themselves. I am saying that the market can award value to companies who just signal they are making efforts to "digitally transform" or "invest in data assets" or "monetize data". It doesn't matter if they accomplish them tomorrow, the market is giving value today. Thanks for sharing your CEO experience, that is not a data point I have encountered. I do think money and power are closely linked, although maybe not as closely as I assumed. ==I felt dumb ever believing that business leaders care directly about money.== Today, what do you believe they care directly about? Power? Ego?

deleted 6y ago

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protonfish 6y ago

At first I wasn't going to reply because you are clearly not discussing in good faith (you neglected to address my evidence to the contrary or the flaw in your reasoning but instead focused on my random afterthought.) But others might read this so I decided to elaborate a bit. I was once misinformed with the belief that business' primary goal is to make money. But when you have the experience of explaining data to a CEO that clearly shows that their customer surveillance has a negative ROI and that the conclusions they are drawing from the data are not warranted. (For example, if you want to claim that your initiative increased sales, you need to compare an equivalent data point before and after the initiative, not just afterward.) If you say this and then look into the cold, dead eyes of a sociopath you'll know how foolish you were to ever assume the point of tracking customer data is to make money. I felt dumb ever believing that business leaders care directly about money. I knew that to be false in high school when they made me read 1984. The lesson that O'Brien teaches Winston is one that we clearly have not learned. > The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. We can add to that list "The object of unrelenting invasive surveillance is unrelenting invasive surveillance."

mellavora 6y ago
> We can add to that list "The object of unrelenting invasive surveillance is unrelenting invasive surveillance." yes, and/or that unrelenting invasive surveillance is an enabler and an aspect of persecution, torture, and power.
take_a_breath 6y ago
I think you are misunderstanding my point, so apologies for being unclear. I am not questioning the actual validity of the data collection or ROI of the projects themselves. I am saying that the market can award value to companies who just signal they are making efforts to "digitally transform" or "invest in data assets" or "monetize data". It doesn't matter if they accomplish them tomorrow, the market is giving value today. Thanks for sharing your CEO experience, that is not a data point I have encountered. I do think money and power are closely linked, although maybe not as closely as I assumed. ==I felt dumb ever believing that business leaders care directly about money.== Today, what do you believe they care directly about? Power? Ego?