3 ms·

Calling out a megacorporation for not defending your rights is oxymoronic by the extreme. You didn't stop other products from killing people by asking Walmart n

by izacus 4y ago

Calling out a megacorporation for not defending your rights is oxymoronic by the extreme. You didn't stop other products from killing people by asking Walmart nicely to make sure it's safe. Isn't there a small thing called "regulators" for this? Or is US government now so fundamentally broken that it can't even provide its basic function anymore and has to be replaced by "pretty-please" appeals to megacorporations?

aychedee 4y ago
It's broken by design. AKA regulatory capture by business. Ever since America made corruption (paying money to politicians) legal it's just been downhill. Enjoy!
- fallingknife 4y ago
  Regulatory capture has nothing to do with corruption. Regulatory capture is when businesses benefit from complex regulation because the competitive moat that the regulation gives them is more valuable than the cost (so high that only huge companies can afford it) to comply. Large businesses like moats and regulators like to regulate. No coordination required. Actual corruption, at least in the US, is much less common.
bell-cot 4y ago
> Isn't there a small thing called "regulators" for this? Or is the US... The latter, partly. But a bigger problem is that actually-functional government is no longer part of the worldview of most of the public. Ditto for serious consequences for the responsible elected officials, when government fails at its basic functions. Without those things, it is really not possible to sustain a high-functioning government.
- sneak 4y ago
  Nevermind that if you are relying primarily on agents of the state to prevent fraud, your society is already fundamentally broken. The state enforcing laws using the threat of violence (the only enforcement mechanism they have) is a last resort, not a first. Institutions having the desire to not create a broken world should be the first line of defense. Google doesn't give a fuck anymore, and are fine watching the world burn now. I personally speculate that most Googlers today are simply there for the paycheck, and their apathy about the way their products work reflects that.
  - jtode 4y ago
    I've had a few conversations with Google employees, and every one of them had a faint tinge of koolaid on their breath.
  - bell-cot 4y ago
    Okay. Society is fundamentally broken. Our "last resort" seems to be completely dysfunctional. And the institutions you want as the first line of defense mostly don't exist. Now what?
  - cool_dude85 4y ago
    >Nevermind that if you are relying primarily on agents of the state to prevent fraud, your society is already fundamentally broken. Huh? Why's this? It seems like a core component of a functional state to me, and if the state is doing a decent job, why should a bunch of private parties be sticking their noses in too?
    - jstarfish 4y ago
      The same argument comes up in atheism-- "if you don't believe in [eternal damnation], what stops you from just killing people indiscriminately?" It reflects the sad state of the asker's moral compass. Same with Catholics and confession-- another broken system in which you are free to sin arbitrarily through confession and repentance. The point of the doctrine itself is to transcend the cycle and be better than that. (I know little about it but I'm told there is a similar mechanism in Hinduism re: karma.) Fear of god/state/consequence keeps people in line, but it's a failsafe, not the governor. The only thing preventing fraud in your tribe should not be the intangible threat of later consequence from a greater authority. You're supposed to respect each other enough to not prey on your own kind. Another take is looking at crimes like CSA. The state punishes it when it is brought to their attention, but that does not absolve the community from necessarily participating in its policing ahead of that-- the community are the ones best positioned to detect, intervene, and enforce social norms around it in the first place.
      - agubelu 4y ago
- izacus 4y ago
  Yeah... but replacing it with a corporation that doesn't even pretend to have an incentive to help you (especially when its monopolistic in their field like Google/Apple/Microsoft are) doesn't make things better. You can't even vote. More importantly, it makes them irreplaceable since competing products from smaller companies simply cannot afford policing at such level while the bad actors are running around unpunished.
  - bell-cot 4y ago
    Quite true. But a huge number of people seem to believe in the mega-corporate "government is the problem" capitalist dystopia. Where you can - at most - vote your purchasing dollars for corporations which have managed to convince you that they are somewhat less evil. So long as the people believe that their only choice is "which king will rule over us?", their society will remain a monarchy.

by izacus 4y ago

aychedee 4y ago

It's broken by design. AKA regulatory capture by business. Ever since America made corruption (paying money to politicians) legal it's just been downhill. Enjoy!

fallingknife 4y ago
Regulatory capture has nothing to do with corruption. Regulatory capture is when businesses benefit from complex regulation because the competitive moat that the regulation gives them is more valuable than the cost (so high that only huge companies can afford it) to comply. Large businesses like moats and regulators like to regulate. No coordination required. Actual corruption, at least in the US, is much less common.

bell-cot 4y ago

> Isn't there a small thing called "regulators" for this? Or is the US... The latter, partly. But a bigger problem is that actually-functional government is no longer part of the worldview of most of the public. Ditto for serious consequences for the responsible elected officials, when government fails at its basic functions. Without those things, it is really not possible to sustain a high-functioning government.

sneak 4y ago
Nevermind that if you are relying primarily on agents of the state to prevent fraud, your society is already fundamentally broken. The state enforcing laws using the threat of violence (the only enforcement mechanism they have) is a last resort, not a first. Institutions having the desire to not create a broken world should be the first line of defense. Google doesn't give a fuck anymore, and are fine watching the world burn now. I personally speculate that most Googlers today are simply there for the paycheck, and their apathy about the way their products work reflects that.
- jtode 4y ago
  I've had a few conversations with Google employees, and every one of them had a faint tinge of koolaid on their breath.
- bell-cot 4y ago
  Okay. Society is fundamentally broken. Our "last resort" seems to be completely dysfunctional. And the institutions you want as the first line of defense mostly don't exist. Now what?
- cool_dude85 4y ago
  >Nevermind that if you are relying primarily on agents of the state to prevent fraud, your society is already fundamentally broken. Huh? Why's this? It seems like a core component of a functional state to me, and if the state is doing a decent job, why should a bunch of private parties be sticking their noses in too?
  - jstarfish 4y ago
    The same argument comes up in atheism-- "if you don't believe in [eternal damnation], what stops you from just killing people indiscriminately?" It reflects the sad state of the asker's moral compass. Same with Catholics and confession-- another broken system in which you are free to sin arbitrarily through confession and repentance. The point of the doctrine itself is to transcend the cycle and be better than that. (I know little about it but I'm told there is a similar mechanism in Hinduism re: karma.) Fear of god/state/consequence keeps people in line, but it's a failsafe, not the governor. The only thing preventing fraud in your tribe should not be the intangible threat of later consequence from a greater authority. You're supposed to respect each other enough to not prey on your own kind. Another take is looking at crimes like CSA. The state punishes it when it is brought to their attention, but that does not absolve the community from necessarily participating in its policing ahead of that-- the community are the ones best positioned to detect, intervene, and enforce social norms around it in the first place.
    - agubelu 4y ago
izacus 4y ago
Yeah... but replacing it with a corporation that doesn't even pretend to have an incentive to help you (especially when its monopolistic in their field like Google/Apple/Microsoft are) doesn't make things better. You can't even vote. More importantly, it makes them irreplaceable since competing products from smaller companies simply cannot afford policing at such level while the bad actors are running around unpunished.
- bell-cot 4y ago
  Quite true. But a huge number of people seem to believe in the mega-corporate "government is the problem" capitalist dystopia. Where you can - at most - vote your purchasing dollars for corporations which have managed to convince you that they are somewhat less evil. So long as the people believe that their only choice is "which king will rule over us?", their society will remain a monarchy.