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Just a person who enjoys controlling other people's lives sulking. I'll gladly take a billionaire controlled public square. Why? Because I can walk away form i
by exabrial 5y ago
Just a person who enjoys controlling other people's lives sulking.
I'll gladly take a billionaire controlled public square. Why? Because I can walk away form it. I'm far more worried about: when your "public square" is government controlled, they can do things like, I dunno, invade Ukraine. Have a different opinion? Too bad. Government also has all of the guns.
- droopyEyelids 5y agoAre you thinking that private companies & individuals are more moral than governments, or just happy that private companies don't generally have the ability to wage war? I'm having trouble interpreting what you mean
- gmadsen 5y agothe latter. monopoly on force and all that
- troyvit 5y agoSocial media has/had the potential to break the monopoly on force[1]. Granted it was the the form of assembling large groups of cannon fodder into one place to basically absorb ammo and abuse, but it did have some positive effects as well in terms of political change. It could again. I guess what I'm saying is that a monopoly on force doesn't always mean a monopoly on power. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Spring https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Spring
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- jayd16 5y agoWe could just use federated tech like the open web. No one is asking for some government run facebook.
- emteycz 5y agoSo what's the problem anyways? One platform is changing ownership, the open web doesn't care.
- jayd16 5y agoThere's some lack of diversity in popular platforms. Would be nice to see $43B invested in popularizing Mastodon or some such thing.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- troyvit 5y agoPeople keep saying this and they keep getting ignored. I don't get it because to me it ticks all the boxes.
- exabrial 5y agoI actually don't see any issue with this either. The 1995-2008 web was sorta like this and it was quite beautiful. The problem these days is people, for better or worse, walk towards platforms.
- notacoward 5y agoWhen the billionaires control the public square, you can be pretty sure they're controlling the government too. So there's no difference between these two scenarios.
- willnonya 5y agoThats a bit detached from reality. Conflating a billionaire spending their money for something that as far as youre co cerned is a different proposition to something the governement can madate and control through their monopoly on force.
- gibolt 5y agoEspecially when the government is actively working against this specific billionaire, promoting and funneling money only to their competitors (even foreign ones, via tax credit) They only work happily with SpaceX because it saves them potentially billions per year (and often there is no other option).
- kevingadd 5y agoPlenty of the laws passed by American legislatures are literally written by corporate lobbyists and promoted by the corporate media, yeah.
- CWuestefeld 5y agoIs the corollary to this that if we ever see some faction largely controlling that public square, we can assume that they're also controlling the government?
- emteycz 5y agoNot at all. To me it seems like what people on Twitter say has basically zero relevance to what's happening IRL.
- forty 5y agoI wonder how long it will take for Musk to run for the Whitehouse. Such a good way to have people talk about him even more, he cannot not do it.
- jimkleiber 5y agoWell if a billionaire controls a public square, I wouldn't consider it a public square. Edit: one thing that bothers me about HN is the context-less downvoting. I wish people would reply with why they're downvoting. For me, it wouldn't be a public square because it is privately owned, it would be more like a shopping mall or an amusement park. Just because a shopping mall has free admission to the public doesn't mean it is a public space.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- timdev2 5y agoCareful with the shopping mall analogy. Someone will inevitably bring up Pruneyard[0] and derail things. I think "a bar" is probably the best analogy out there. There might only be one in town. It's open to the (adult) public. People discuss issues. The barkeep can 86 you if he doesn't like your behavior, or shoes, or politics, and your rights will not have been violated. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pruneyard_Shopping_Center_v._Robins https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pruneyard_Shopping_Center_v._R...
- jimkleiber 5y agoYes I like the bar analogy better, thank you!
- natch 5y agoSounds like Twitter is already government controlled. Not the US government though… rather, the Saudi government, who hold an unknown but presumably massive portion of the shares.