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Sadly, I think the "free market" system of voting with your wallet is also broken, if not moreso. Everyone hates Nestle, yet they're doing better than ever. If

Sadly, I think the "free market" system of voting with your wallet is also broken, if not moreso. Everyone hates Nestle, yet they're doing better than ever. If I don't like what Amazon is doing, how can I possibly boycott a company that has meshed itself into the backbone of the internet at almost every level? As a Texan, at least I can vote in the next election. I have virtually no power over these big companies.

tablespoon 5y ago
>> The “vote” system has been broken badly, which is why the “free market” system needs to be used instead until it’s fixed - and to help fix it. And if you don’t like a company acting on some social value, don’t buy their products. > Sadly, I think the "free market" system of voting with your wallet is also broken, if not moreso. It's definitely more broken, at least from a democratic perspective. In the free market, you vote with your dollars and shares, and those with more money have more votes (sometimes many orders of magnitude more). One man one vote it ain't.
rsj_hn 5y ago
Very few people hate Nestle. I certainly don't. Nestle is the fifth most loved brand in the world (whatever that means): https://www.nestleusa.com/media/news-and-features/nestle-5th-most-beloved-brand- https://www.nestleusa.com/media/news-and-features/nestle-5th... This idea that you can put yourself into an ideological bubble and just assume that the world outside the bubble is the same as the world inside the bubble is a form of self-deception. Most people don't hate Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, etc. All these companies have huge user/customer bases. Even when the whole Microsoft is Evil thing was going on, most people were sufficiently self-aware to understand that this was a niche view. For some reason, that connection with reality became unhinged and many people really think they are in the majority now, and that's when they experience these types of coginitive shocks such as realizing that most people in Texas are pro-life or that most Brits voted for Brexit. For some, the shock of reality is so devastating that it deeply wounds them and they start massively freaking out when they see a tear in the fabric of their self-constructed reality. Note that I am not arguing against self-constructed realities. It's necessary, but you have to keep in mind that 1) odds are most people don't share your views 2) odds are that you yourself will change your mind later in life as you become wiser. 3) odds are very good that your grandchildren will repudiate your views. The number of views that we have that we can think are truly universal and will stand the test of time is very small, and almost all of them already have existed for a very long time.

tablespoon 5y ago

>> The “vote” system has been broken badly, which is why the “free market” system needs to be used instead until it’s fixed - and to help fix it. And if you don’t like a company acting on some social value, don’t buy their products. > Sadly, I think the "free market" system of voting with your wallet is also broken, if not moreso. It's definitely more broken, at least from a democratic perspective. In the free market, you vote with your dollars and shares, and those with more money have more votes (sometimes many orders of magnitude more). One man one vote it ain't.

rsj_hn 5y ago

Very few people hate Nestle. I certainly don't. Nestle is the fifth most loved brand in the world (whatever that means): https://www.nestleusa.com/media/news-and-features/nestle-5th-most-beloved-brand- https://www.nestleusa.com/media/news-and-features/nestle-5th... This idea that you can put yourself into an ideological bubble and just assume that the world outside the bubble is the same as the world inside the bubble is a form of self-deception. Most people don't hate Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, etc. All these companies have huge user/customer bases. Even when the whole Microsoft is Evil thing was going on, most people were sufficiently self-aware to understand that this was a niche view. For some reason, that connection with reality became unhinged and many people really think they are in the majority now, and that's when they experience these types of coginitive shocks such as realizing that most people in Texas are pro-life or that most Brits voted for Brexit. For some, the shock of reality is so devastating that it deeply wounds them and they start massively freaking out when they see a tear in the fabric of their self-constructed reality. Note that I am not arguing against self-constructed realities. It's necessary, but you have to keep in mind that 1) odds are most people don't share your views 2) odds are that you yourself will change your mind later in life as you become wiser. 3) odds are very good that your grandchildren will repudiate your views. The number of views that we have that we can think are truly universal and will stand the test of time is very small, and almost all of them already have existed for a very long time.