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Wow people really forgot that privacy is all about privacy with respect to the government because they are the ones with the monopoly on violence. It is tragic

Wow people really forgot that privacy is all about privacy with respect to the government because they are the ones with the monopoly on violence. It is tragic that people think private firms could ever be as evil as governments

matheusmoreira 4y ago
At this very moment there are corporations worth trillions of dollars. More money than the worth of many countries combined. The people in charge of these companies command so much capital, they can more or less run the world if they so wish. All they need to do is set policies on loans and the entire world will literally change itself to conform. Corporations are no stranger to violence. They're no stranger to organized crime dealings and tight relationships with governments. Coca-Cola for example has straight up assassinated union leaders.
- scatters 4y ago
  GDP != market cap.
bobthepanda 4y ago
Government certainly doesn't have a monopoly on violence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinkerton_(detective_agency)#Homestead_Strike https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinkerton_(detective_agency)#H...
- missedthecue 4y ago
  If you have to go back a two centuries to prove a point, you're probably not right.
  - guerrilla 4y ago
    They're called Securitas today and are very much active, they're often contracted out to by states. They're also notoriously corrupt and abusive.[1] 1. https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Securitas#Kritik https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Securitas#Kritik
    - missedthecue 4y ago
      Securitas is contracted by the state to run background checks and do other paper-pushing activities. They do not kill people under their own prerogative.
      - guerrilla 4y ago
        Nope, that is absolutely false. They fulfill police duties in Sweden. Prior to that they were ubiquitous security guards and engaged in violence daily.
        missedthecue 4y ago
        Even as police/security, they are not permitted to go out and kill people. They can act in a lethal manner if their life is in immediete danger, just like you or I can as normal citizens. That is not unique. The CEO of Securitas cannot decide to kill you and have his henchmen go do it. The leaders of governments can and do act like that.
        guerrilla 4y ago
        Uhh the same rules go for them as police when they are employed so...
ceejayoz 4y ago
It’s tragic that people think companies like Equifax can’t have government-level negative impacts on people.
zerox7felf 4y ago
Hard-power violence is mostly exclusive to governments, but don't underestimate the power of soft-power "violence" and coercion. Another thing that sets the government and private sector apart is that the government is under (mostly, even if indirect) democratic control, or otherwise accountable to the public, whereas the private sector can get by with bad press, so long as they can continue to operate. As an individual of average wealth, it is far less difficult to influence government policy and politicians as opposed to doing the same to a private organization. Really, this is not about choosing between "good" and "evil", it is about choosing which evil you are most likely to be able to contain.
- kjeetgill 4y ago
  As an American who also feels that privacy from the government is more important from private corporations: I'm not a hard disagree, but I think it's easier (though not easy!) to democratically will your government to regulate private companies than it is regulate itself.
chupy 4y ago
Check out the Dole corporation to see how evil can they actually be - https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/the-dark-and-bloody-history-behind-bananas-158ad29af5ff https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/the-dark-and-bloody-hist.... Nestle with the classic baby formula marketing to 2nd/3rd world countries, chinese milk scandal etc and probably most other multinationals are in the same league.
cgriswald 4y ago
The government only has a monopoly on legal violence, but violence is beside the point. (And never mind that a bad government could simply steal the data or compel a corporation to hand it over.) Imagine living in a state where abortion laws now allow individuals to sue other individuals who have had abortions. A corporation could use grocery data to find and sue individuals who are likely to have had an abortion. The analysis would be a bit more complex than this, but just looking at grocery data, scan for people who bought pregnancy tests, bought fewer tampons than usual, and aren't buying baby food a year later. No violence, totally legal, and absolutely devastating to the individuals involved.
- temptemptemp111 4y ago
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
hgomersall 4y ago
If your government is untrustworthy, then you're screwed in any case. Reasonable interpretation of data was never an authoritarian regime's strong point.
ako 4y ago
If you consider all the school shootings in the US the claim that government has a monopoly on violence is nonsense. There’s plenty of non governmental violence.
- vetinari 4y ago
  He meant the legal one. It is a core concept of law and statehood; if you consider it nonsense, you consider statehood of your country to be the same.
- wrycoder 4y ago
  School shootings are an tiny part of the overall violence in the US, a country of 330 million people. We just keep hearing about it, way out of proportion, because it’s in the interest of the media (“if it bleeds, it leads”) and some politicians to keep pushing it.
- mdp2021 4y ago
  "Monopoly" in this context is an elision of "[legal] monopoly": it means that legislation excludes other parties from entitlement to something. It is said that in (typical) societies some law enforcement branches are given "monopoly of violence" (and again, "violence" as /fair/ coercion) - nobody else is in general entitled to exercising "violence" (a random citizen cannot deprive another of freedom, but the law enforcement, under fitting circumstances, can).
baq 4y ago
at sufficient scale the difference between governments and corporations is negligible. east india company would be the most obvious example, but there's plenty nowadays.
jltsiren 4y ago
That attitude makes sense if you come from a low-trust society where the state apparatus thinks it's running an empire. Especially if the country is large and actively trying to reshape the world. Things look different in a small high-trust country with multiple political parties. Because the country is too weak and insignificant to change the world, the government tends to focus on administering the country. Because there is a lot of trust in the society, the people who want to serve in the government are usually ideologically motivated to serve the best interests of the public. It's not a particularly lucrative or high-status career, so people with other motivations tend to go elsewhere. And while people may disagree on what exactly are the best interests of the public, there are many viable political parties to choose from. Private firms are allowed to be evil in the sense that they can put their private interests ahead of public interests. Most of them are. And because they are private, the public has only limited means to regulate them when they misbehave blatantly. They can't, for example, vote the directors and shareholders out and replace them with people who promise to serve public interests.
- pjlegato 4y ago
  Even if one happens to approve of the conditions under which personal data is being managed _right now_, even if one happens to approve of the current administrators and thinks they're entirely benevolent, there is no way to know who will be in charge of that data in the future, or what ends it will be used for. Once it's out there, it's out there forever.
  - salt-thrower 4y ago
    I think the argument is that it's already out there. Companies, with no directive to even pretend to serve the public interest, already have all that data. The government does too, because security agencies mandate that they get backdoor access. "Once it's out there, it's out there forever" - that already happened. Given that it's already out there, there's not much more to fear in terms of a slippery slope. All that's left is to at least force the public sector to disclose more of what's going on and regulate how private interests are allowed to use it. Otherwise, we already have the dystopia you're imagining, we just don't see it as well.
ModernMech 4y ago
Maybe people forgot because in recent times, corporate malfeasance has been a far bigger problem in people's lives than government overreach.
mejutoco 4y ago
I do not understand the tragic aspect. Private firms have had similar powers in specific contexts, and may partner with the government, so they seem to have the same potential consequences.

matheusmoreira 4y ago

At this very moment there are corporations worth trillions of dollars. More money than the worth of many countries combined. The people in charge of these companies command so much capital, they can more or less run the world if they so wish. All they need to do is set policies on loans and the entire world will literally change itself to conform. Corporations are no stranger to violence. They're no stranger to organized crime dealings and tight relationships with governments. Coca-Cola for example has straight up assassinated union leaders.

scatters 4y ago
GDP != market cap.

bobthepanda 4y ago

Government certainly doesn't have a monopoly on violence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinkerton_(detective_agency)#Homestead_Strike https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinkerton_(detective_agency)#H...

missedthecue 4y ago
If you have to go back a two centuries to prove a point, you're probably not right.
- guerrilla 4y ago
  They're called Securitas today and are very much active, they're often contracted out to by states. They're also notoriously corrupt and abusive.[1] 1. https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Securitas#Kritik https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Securitas#Kritik
  - missedthecue 4y ago
    Securitas is contracted by the state to run background checks and do other paper-pushing activities. They do not kill people under their own prerogative.
    - guerrilla 4y ago
      Nope, that is absolutely false. They fulfill police duties in Sweden. Prior to that they were ubiquitous security guards and engaged in violence daily.
      - missedthecue 4y ago
        Even as police/security, they are not permitted to go out and kill people. They can act in a lethal manner if their life is in immediete danger, just like you or I can as normal citizens. That is not unique. The CEO of Securitas cannot decide to kill you and have his henchmen go do it. The leaders of governments can and do act like that.
        guerrilla 4y ago
        Uhh the same rules go for them as police when they are employed so...

ceejayoz 4y ago

It’s tragic that people think companies like Equifax can’t have government-level negative impacts on people.

zerox7felf 4y ago

Hard-power violence is mostly exclusive to governments, but don't underestimate the power of soft-power "violence" and coercion. Another thing that sets the government and private sector apart is that the government is under (mostly, even if indirect) democratic control, or otherwise accountable to the public, whereas the private sector can get by with bad press, so long as they can continue to operate. As an individual of average wealth, it is far less difficult to influence government policy and politicians as opposed to doing the same to a private organization. Really, this is not about choosing between "good" and "evil", it is about choosing which evil you are most likely to be able to contain.

kjeetgill 4y ago
As an American who also feels that privacy from the government is more important from private corporations: I'm not a hard disagree, but I think it's easier (though not easy!) to democratically will your government to regulate private companies than it is regulate itself.

chupy 4y ago

Check out the Dole corporation to see how evil can they actually be - https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/the-dark-and-bloody-history-behind-bananas-158ad29af5ff https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/the-dark-and-bloody-hist.... Nestle with the classic baby formula marketing to 2nd/3rd world countries, chinese milk scandal etc and probably most other multinationals are in the same league.

cgriswald 4y ago

The government only has a monopoly on legal violence, but violence is beside the point. (And never mind that a bad government could simply steal the data or compel a corporation to hand it over.) Imagine living in a state where abortion laws now allow individuals to sue other individuals who have had abortions. A corporation could use grocery data to find and sue individuals who are likely to have had an abortion. The analysis would be a bit more complex than this, but just looking at grocery data, scan for people who bought pregnancy tests, bought fewer tampons than usual, and aren't buying baby food a year later. No violence, totally legal, and absolutely devastating to the individuals involved.

temptemptemp111 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

hgomersall 4y ago

If your government is untrustworthy, then you're screwed in any case. Reasonable interpretation of data was never an authoritarian regime's strong point.

ako 4y ago

If you consider all the school shootings in the US the claim that government has a monopoly on violence is nonsense. There’s plenty of non governmental violence.

vetinari 4y ago
He meant the legal one. It is a core concept of law and statehood; if you consider it nonsense, you consider statehood of your country to be the same.
wrycoder 4y ago
School shootings are an tiny part of the overall violence in the US, a country of 330 million people. We just keep hearing about it, way out of proportion, because it’s in the interest of the media (“if it bleeds, it leads”) and some politicians to keep pushing it.
mdp2021 4y ago
"Monopoly" in this context is an elision of "[legal] monopoly": it means that legislation excludes other parties from entitlement to something. It is said that in (typical) societies some law enforcement branches are given "monopoly of violence" (and again, "violence" as /fair/ coercion) - nobody else is in general entitled to exercising "violence" (a random citizen cannot deprive another of freedom, but the law enforcement, under fitting circumstances, can).

baq 4y ago

at sufficient scale the difference between governments and corporations is negligible. east india company would be the most obvious example, but there's plenty nowadays.

jltsiren 4y ago

That attitude makes sense if you come from a low-trust society where the state apparatus thinks it's running an empire. Especially if the country is large and actively trying to reshape the world. Things look different in a small high-trust country with multiple political parties. Because the country is too weak and insignificant to change the world, the government tends to focus on administering the country. Because there is a lot of trust in the society, the people who want to serve in the government are usually ideologically motivated to serve the best interests of the public. It's not a particularly lucrative or high-status career, so people with other motivations tend to go elsewhere. And while people may disagree on what exactly are the best interests of the public, there are many viable political parties to choose from. Private firms are allowed to be evil in the sense that they can put their private interests ahead of public interests. Most of them are. And because they are private, the public has only limited means to regulate them when they misbehave blatantly. They can't, for example, vote the directors and shareholders out and replace them with people who promise to serve public interests.

pjlegato 4y ago
Even if one happens to approve of the conditions under which personal data is being managed _right now_, even if one happens to approve of the current administrators and thinks they're entirely benevolent, there is no way to know who will be in charge of that data in the future, or what ends it will be used for. Once it's out there, it's out there forever.
- salt-thrower 4y ago
  I think the argument is that it's already out there. Companies, with no directive to even pretend to serve the public interest, already have all that data. The government does too, because security agencies mandate that they get backdoor access. "Once it's out there, it's out there forever" - that already happened. Given that it's already out there, there's not much more to fear in terms of a slippery slope. All that's left is to at least force the public sector to disclose more of what's going on and regulate how private interests are allowed to use it. Otherwise, we already have the dystopia you're imagining, we just don't see it as well.

ModernMech 4y ago

Maybe people forgot because in recent times, corporate malfeasance has been a far bigger problem in people's lives than government overreach.

mejutoco 4y ago

I do not understand the tragic aspect. Private firms have had similar powers in specific contexts, and may partner with the government, so they seem to have the same potential consequences.