4 ms·

Better defacto, unelected governments in the form of huge companies with armies of lobbyists and forced arbitration agreements.

scarface74 4y ago
Because of how both the electoral college works and gerrymandering, the elected officials don’t represent the majority. Besides, private companies don’t have the force of law to force people to do anything. Giving the government more power over your freedom is never the answer.
- paulryanrogers 4y ago
  > Besides, private companies don’t have the force of law to force people to do anything. As more and more consolidation happens I'm not so sure this is still true. If all grocery stores become zero-human Amazon markets and their AI decides your long forgotten, hobby EC2 instance is past due then can you buy food? Rent an apartment? Fly on a plane? Elections in the US need reformed, no doubt. And governments have a monopoly on legal violence. The answer isn't to keep handing the keys to the government over to whomever/whatever has the most money.
  - scarface74 4y ago
    Only 5% of all IT spend is on any cloud provider: https://accelerationeconomy.com/cloud/amazon-shocker-ceo-jassy-says-cloud-less-than-5-of-all-it-spending/ https://accelerationeconomy.com/cloud/amazon-shocker-ceo-jas... The grocery store market is definitely not a monopoly https://www.statista.com/statistics/818602/online-and-offline-grocery-market-share-of-leading-grocery-retailers-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/818602/online-and-offlin... And Whole Foods makes up less than 2% There is definitely not a “tech monopoly” on renting an apartment. On the other hand, the government can and does take away peoples property through both imminent domain and civil forfeiture. The government already controls who can fly and who can’t via “no fly lists” https://www.aclu.org/issues/national-security/grounded-life-no-fly-list https://www.aclu.org/issues/national-security/grounded-life-... So no, I have no desire to give government more power.

scarface74 4y ago

Because of how both the electoral college works and gerrymandering, the elected officials don’t represent the majority. Besides, private companies don’t have the force of law to force people to do anything. Giving the government more power over your freedom is never the answer.

paulryanrogers 4y ago
> Besides, private companies don’t have the force of law to force people to do anything. As more and more consolidation happens I'm not so sure this is still true. If all grocery stores become zero-human Amazon markets and their AI decides your long forgotten, hobby EC2 instance is past due then can you buy food? Rent an apartment? Fly on a plane? Elections in the US need reformed, no doubt. And governments have a monopoly on legal violence. The answer isn't to keep handing the keys to the government over to whomever/whatever has the most money.
- scarface74 4y ago
  Only 5% of all IT spend is on any cloud provider: https://accelerationeconomy.com/cloud/amazon-shocker-ceo-jassy-says-cloud-less-than-5-of-all-it-spending/ https://accelerationeconomy.com/cloud/amazon-shocker-ceo-jas... The grocery store market is definitely not a monopoly https://www.statista.com/statistics/818602/online-and-offline-grocery-market-share-of-leading-grocery-retailers-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/818602/online-and-offlin... And Whole Foods makes up less than 2% There is definitely not a “tech monopoly” on renting an apartment. On the other hand, the government can and does take away peoples property through both imminent domain and civil forfeiture. The government already controls who can fly and who can’t via “no fly lists” https://www.aclu.org/issues/national-security/grounded-life-no-fly-list https://www.aclu.org/issues/national-security/grounded-life-... So no, I have no desire to give government more power.