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Railways and telecoms worked out just fine. Sure, in many countries, train tickets have been getting overly expensive under government control but high costs ar

Railways and telecoms worked out just fine. Sure, in many countries, train tickets have been getting overly expensive under government control but high costs are not such a huge concern in the grand scheme of things. On the other hand, the break up of AT&T in the US had huge benefits for consumers in terms of lowering costs. If Facebook is nationalized, at least they will not manipulate people to serve corporate interests (that is the main threat). Sure, in the worst case, under government ownership, social media might be used to manipulate elections to give preference to the incumbent party over the other, but that is infinitely better than manipulating elections based on the financial interests of a tiny minority and allow it to drive an increase in surveillance and restrictions of public freedoms. Eventually, even the tiny minority of shareholders (the smaller ones) will end up being harmed at the expense of the bigger shareholders. It's not going to stop at non-shareholders.

pjc50 6y ago
> Sure, in the worst case, under government ownership, social media might be used to manipulate elections to give preference to the incumbent party over the other, but that is infinitely better than manipulating elections based on the financial interests of a tiny minority These are the same thing.
- cryptica 6y ago
  I totally disagree. They look like the same thing today, but this is merely a consequence of the fact that everyone is under Facebook's thumb and Facebook works in the interest of corporations/big money who pay for their ads. If you shift the control to government, the dynamics change fundamentally. The power will once again start at the government (like it should) and not at the corporations. Money will still influence things, but not nearly as much as it does today. We need to take steps to decouple money from political power, decouple state from economics. Like guns, Facebook is not inherently evil. It mostly depends on who is holding it.
  - cloverich 6y ago
    > decouple state from economics. Nationalizing businesses is the literal opposite of decoupling the state from economics isn't it?
    - cryptica 6y ago
      Government intervention is unavoidable. It's just a matter of choosing the right kind of intervention. Facebook wouldn't exist without government support and expansionary monetary policy. We can go to an extreme and point out that to properly decouple state from economics, we'd have to abolish corporate personhood first. We would need to abolish 'limited liability' legal entities; the real purpose of these entities is to allow individuals to repudiate responsibility for their actions by deflecting blame towards these abstract legal entities. This doesn't make any sense aside from facilitating criminal activity. Whenever a corporation commits a crime and isn't shut down (which is 100% of the time), that is government interference of the worst kind.
kapuasuite 6y ago
> Railways and telecoms worked out just fine. Sure, in many countries, train tickets have been getting overly expensive under government control but high costs are not such a huge concern in the grand scheme of things. On the other hand, the break up of AT&T in the US had huge benefits for consumers in terms of lowering costs. If Facebook is nationalized, at least they will not manipulate people to serve corporate interests (that is the main threat). You should read up on: 1. The history of railroads and regulation in the United States, including their collapse and resurgence in the 20th Century. 2. The history of Bell as a government-sanctioned monopoly, their breakup and subsequent industry consolidation. 3. The disastrous environmental damage caused by state-owned energy companies.

pjc50 6y ago

> Sure, in the worst case, under government ownership, social media might be used to manipulate elections to give preference to the incumbent party over the other, but that is infinitely better than manipulating elections based on the financial interests of a tiny minority These are the same thing.

cryptica 6y ago
I totally disagree. They look like the same thing today, but this is merely a consequence of the fact that everyone is under Facebook's thumb and Facebook works in the interest of corporations/big money who pay for their ads. If you shift the control to government, the dynamics change fundamentally. The power will once again start at the government (like it should) and not at the corporations. Money will still influence things, but not nearly as much as it does today. We need to take steps to decouple money from political power, decouple state from economics. Like guns, Facebook is not inherently evil. It mostly depends on who is holding it.
- cloverich 6y ago
  > decouple state from economics. Nationalizing businesses is the literal opposite of decoupling the state from economics isn't it?
  - cryptica 6y ago
    Government intervention is unavoidable. It's just a matter of choosing the right kind of intervention. Facebook wouldn't exist without government support and expansionary monetary policy. We can go to an extreme and point out that to properly decouple state from economics, we'd have to abolish corporate personhood first. We would need to abolish 'limited liability' legal entities; the real purpose of these entities is to allow individuals to repudiate responsibility for their actions by deflecting blame towards these abstract legal entities. This doesn't make any sense aside from facilitating criminal activity. Whenever a corporation commits a crime and isn't shut down (which is 100% of the time), that is government interference of the worst kind.

kapuasuite 6y ago

> Railways and telecoms worked out just fine. Sure, in many countries, train tickets have been getting overly expensive under government control but high costs are not such a huge concern in the grand scheme of things. On the other hand, the break up of AT&T in the US had huge benefits for consumers in terms of lowering costs. If Facebook is nationalized, at least they will not manipulate people to serve corporate interests (that is the main threat). You should read up on: 1. The history of railroads and regulation in the United States, including their collapse and resurgence in the 20th Century. 2. The history of Bell as a government-sanctioned monopoly, their breakup and subsequent industry consolidation. 3. The disastrous environmental damage caused by state-owned energy companies.