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Did you just make a strong argument for why these services ought to be “nationalized” like public infrastructure?

rwnspace 6y ago
It's a natural good like water at this point. And the psycho-social mechanistic designs which go into what you consume are much more dangerous than added fluoride.
QuercusMax 6y ago
That's a great idea! At this point, you could totally say that Larry, Sergey, Jeff, and Mark have all won at capitalism. Let's cash them out and give their shares to the people.
- ragona 6y ago
  I love this. Imagine, your company hits $1T. POTUS gets you on stage. They tell you you did SO GOOD. We're really proud of you. We're gonna make you a statue in the Hall of Really Good Capitalists, and we have the best news. You are SO GOOD at this that we're gonna let you do it again. You're poor now, but we're gonna put your name in history books! If you get this rich again on hardcore mode we will make your statue bigger!
  - QuercusMax 6y ago
    I'm not suggesting taking away their money. They built a trillion dollar company that's vital to the national economy. Yay! Now we (the people) buy it from them and it belongs to all of us.
  - zanderwohl 6y ago
    It's like a game of cookie clicker. Once you get all the cookies, you ascend and start clicking again.
ragona 6y ago
Well I'm glad you thought my argument was strong! Yes, that is what I believe. I see a path where after Amazon creates something that becomes a de facto public good they hand it over to a highly competent government agency full of the world's best operational engineers. Those people turn it into a public works project, and it has legendary 25-nines uptime. Amazon engineers are excited to see their work become part of the fabric of the Galactic Alliance of Good and Kind Beings and no one does oncall like a Quarkian, am I right, 700-hour sleep/wake cycles how cool is that, love working with them. Do I see a path to get there from here? Uh, not at the moment. We're still working on "hitting each other is bad" so I'm feeling pretty depressed about our outlook.
- philwelch 6y ago
  Yeah, in the real world nationalizing AWS would have the same effect as just tearing it down. Which is the opposite of what you want if you actually think of it as an essential service.
  - ragona 6y ago
    I don't know how to think about the idea that the government is totally useless for technological problems. If we just accept that I think we're probably just doomed to be overtaken by more advanced societies. Agreed that we can't just dump AWS on the USDS or whatever tomorrow, but if we never plan for public digital infrastructure we're screaming towards some kind of Gibsonian cyberpunk future where the tubes are privately controlled.
    - Nasrudith 6y ago
      If you worked for the Department of Defense having Windows Vista based computers at their oldest you would be a heroic figure in their IT. They earned their bad reputation all on their own. Calling it sclerotic is an insult to those with scoliosis, especially as obstinance and incompetence didn't cause their disease. The zeal to nationalize has gone from."theorerical improvement" to dogma to outright mental sickness. At this point just accept that partnerships where entities specialize in what they are good it can exist already instead of going full paranoid improbable worst case scenario. Amazon would not do well if they tried to occupy a small nation-state. It would be trivial to the US government. (Whether it would be wise for either to do is another question.) The treatment of "nationalizing being a bad idea" as a threat is a black and white insanity like equating being "unable to be murder someone without consequences" equates to the target automatically becoming the immortal god king eternal tyrant over all.

It's a natural good like water at this point. And the psycho-social mechanistic designs which go into what you consume are much more dangerous than added fluoride.

QuercusMax 6y ago

That's a great idea! At this point, you could totally say that Larry, Sergey, Jeff, and Mark have all won at capitalism. Let's cash them out and give their shares to the people.

ragona 6y ago
I love this. Imagine, your company hits $1T. POTUS gets you on stage. They tell you you did SO GOOD. We're really proud of you. We're gonna make you a statue in the Hall of Really Good Capitalists, and we have the best news. You are SO GOOD at this that we're gonna let you do it again. You're poor now, but we're gonna put your name in history books! If you get this rich again on hardcore mode we will make your statue bigger!
- QuercusMax 6y ago
  I'm not suggesting taking away their money. They built a trillion dollar company that's vital to the national economy. Yay! Now we (the people) buy it from them and it belongs to all of us.
- zanderwohl 6y ago
  It's like a game of cookie clicker. Once you get all the cookies, you ascend and start clicking again.

ragona 6y ago

Well I'm glad you thought my argument was strong! Yes, that is what I believe. I see a path where after Amazon creates something that becomes a de facto public good they hand it over to a highly competent government agency full of the world's best operational engineers. Those people turn it into a public works project, and it has legendary 25-nines uptime. Amazon engineers are excited to see their work become part of the fabric of the Galactic Alliance of Good and Kind Beings and no one does oncall like a Quarkian, am I right, 700-hour sleep/wake cycles how cool is that, love working with them. Do I see a path to get there from here? Uh, not at the moment. We're still working on "hitting each other is bad" so I'm feeling pretty depressed about our outlook.

philwelch 6y ago
Yeah, in the real world nationalizing AWS would have the same effect as just tearing it down. Which is the opposite of what you want if you actually think of it as an essential service.
- ragona 6y ago
  I don't know how to think about the idea that the government is totally useless for technological problems. If we just accept that I think we're probably just doomed to be overtaken by more advanced societies. Agreed that we can't just dump AWS on the USDS or whatever tomorrow, but if we never plan for public digital infrastructure we're screaming towards some kind of Gibsonian cyberpunk future where the tubes are privately controlled.
  - Nasrudith 6y ago
    If you worked for the Department of Defense having Windows Vista based computers at their oldest you would be a heroic figure in their IT. They earned their bad reputation all on their own. Calling it sclerotic is an insult to those with scoliosis, especially as obstinance and incompetence didn't cause their disease. The zeal to nationalize has gone from."theorerical improvement" to dogma to outright mental sickness. At this point just accept that partnerships where entities specialize in what they are good it can exist already instead of going full paranoid improbable worst case scenario. Amazon would not do well if they tried to occupy a small nation-state. It would be trivial to the US government. (Whether it would be wise for either to do is another question.) The treatment of "nationalizing being a bad idea" as a threat is a black and white insanity like equating being "unable to be murder someone without consequences" equates to the target automatically becoming the immortal god king eternal tyrant over all.