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Honestly it’s just 2 different versions of reduced freedom. Public vs private reduced freedom. On one side freedom is reduced directly via government on get oth

by rdtwo 5y ago

Honestly it’s just 2 different versions of reduced freedom. Public vs private reduced freedom. On one side freedom is reduced directly via government on get other indirectly via corporations

aeternum 5y ago
People can do great harm or completely eliminate a corporation via many methods: - Investors/banks can refuse to finance a bad corp - Legislatures can regulate it into oblivion - Justice departments can break it up - Employees can refuse to work there - Consumers/Advertisers can refuse to purchase/use its products Overthrowing a government in contrast typically has a single method: a bloody revolution.
elsewhen 5y ago
Maybe, but if so, the versions are very different. Corporations cannot imprison you or tax you with the threat of imprisonment If you don’t comply.
rektide 5y ago
The personal computing revolution hasn't happened yet (2002) & is only just starting to grapple with how we might connect & network with each other. Projects like the fediverse are so new, & so so so much under-funded/under-worked on compared to everything else. But still so promising for leading us out of the corporate computer control tarpit. At least unlike the sick Thatcher "There Is No Alternative" world, it's clear that there are elements of light & good & caring. There's undercurrents of caring & nothing really emerging but there's a lot of tendrils out searching, there's vision & reason for hope. Open source is doing great things, runs the world- but yes is mostly industrialized at this point. Still, there's such great hope embodied by Fediverse/p2p/sovereign aspirations. I do fret that we're kind of entering a dangerous territory where computers themselves might become unaffordable, where the only computers that make sense to run are hyperscaler computers. Connectivity seems pretty good- plenty of folks with 100Mbps or more both ways that they can use- but it feels like there's so much intense cost optimization happening in the industry & so so little trickling down. The enterprise market is still filled with fat margins and support contracts, or vast margin multi-$1k chassis+motherboard barebones systems. We see price volatility like crazy: ram in 2017, hard drives in 2021, gpus in ~2018 & again now-ish. It feels like the cloud folk have enough volume to just build chips & slap them onto very low component/simpler motherboards, and there's no mainstream marketization of this obvious/logical/superior path.

by rdtwo 5y ago

Honestly it’s just 2 different versions of reduced freedom. Public vs private reduced freedom. On one side freedom is reduced directly via government on get other indirectly via corporations

aeternum 5y ago

People can do great harm or completely eliminate a corporation via many methods: - Investors/banks can refuse to finance a bad corp - Legislatures can regulate it into oblivion - Justice departments can break it up - Employees can refuse to work there - Consumers/Advertisers can refuse to purchase/use its products Overthrowing a government in contrast typically has a single method: a bloody revolution.

elsewhen 5y ago

Maybe, but if so, the versions are very different. Corporations cannot imprison you or tax you with the threat of imprisonment If you don’t comply.

rektide 5y ago

The personal computing revolution hasn't happened yet (2002) & is only just starting to grapple with how we might connect & network with each other. Projects like the fediverse are so new, & so so so much under-funded/under-worked on compared to everything else. But still so promising for leading us out of the corporate computer control tarpit. At least unlike the sick Thatcher "There Is No Alternative" world, it's clear that there are elements of light & good & caring. There's undercurrents of caring & nothing really emerging but there's a lot of tendrils out searching, there's vision & reason for hope. Open source is doing great things, runs the world- but yes is mostly industrialized at this point. Still, there's such great hope embodied by Fediverse/p2p/sovereign aspirations. I do fret that we're kind of entering a dangerous territory where computers themselves might become unaffordable, where the only computers that make sense to run are hyperscaler computers. Connectivity seems pretty good- plenty of folks with 100Mbps or more both ways that they can use- but it feels like there's so much intense cost optimization happening in the industry & so so little trickling down. The enterprise market is still filled with fat margins and support contracts, or vast margin multi-$1k chassis+motherboard barebones systems. We see price volatility like crazy: ram in 2017, hard drives in 2021, gpus in ~2018 & again now-ish. It feels like the cloud folk have enough volume to just build chips & slap them onto very low component/simpler motherboards, and there's no mainstream marketization of this obvious/logical/superior path.