4 ms·

Hypothetically, we could base it on revenue.

by shadowgovt 4y ago

scarface74 4y ago
You think it’s a good idea to give the government more surveillance power?
- sitkack 4y ago
  Over corporations, yes please!
  - scarface74 4y ago
    Yes because the minute that someone from the “other” (whichever side you don’t like) party gets in control do you think they are going to do things that you want? Desantis just tried to push through a law that said you have to register with the state if you report on politicians. Do you like that proposed law? Do you want the government to have access to all communications between you and your coworkers? Do you want to be questioned every time that you tell a coworker over Slack “maybe we should talk about this at lunch?” It amazes me that people want the only organization that has a “monopoly on violence” to have more power.
    - shadowgovt 4y ago
      Does that amaze you? Because you should look at the unanswerable moneyed interests that got DeSantis elected in the first place. There's currently an investigation going on about how one particular former President may have broken the reporting law. But for that law, his "catch-and-bury" agreement to keep unpalatable stories about him out of the public eye was perfectly legal. So yes, I do want the organization with a monopoly on violence to have more power of oversight of people with power through money. Especially as long as who has control of those levers changes with the frequency it does.
      - scarface74 4y ago
        And we see what the people with “over site” do in Florida. Do you also believe that it was right that the government in Florida went after Disney because the company spoke out against the “Don’t Say Gay” law? Do you think the government has any right to try to have “over site” because the (Democratic) VPs wife got in a tizzy in the 80s because her little ears couldn’t handle NWA releasing a song called “Fuck the Police”? Are you one of those people in power? Because the scenario that someone said was that I financial firms that are highly regulated was that if any employee said on chat to a friend at work, “hey give me call on my cellphone and let’s talk about where we are going after work”, you could be talked to by legal. You are saying that you want an increase by the surveillance state. Have people learned nothing about how the government abuses power from the “War on $x”?
        shadowgovt 4y ago
        > Do you think the government has any right to try to have “over site” because the (Democratic) VPs wife got in a tizzy in the 80s because her little ears couldn’t handle NWA releasing a song called “Fuck the Police”? Sure. I was there; I remember. I think it was a waste of time but ultimately harmless; it resulted in a few (private, moneyed) corporations deciding not to sell some music that the government had mandated be labeled (which, to be clear, is a wide power the government has; perhaps overused here, but it's no a violation of anyone's rights that they make companies put the ingredient lists on food). Then the Internet happened and that whole thing became irrelevant. Florida is a great example to study these money-power-vs-political-power effects, because were the tables reversed people currently supporting Disney would be horrified. Imagine it was Rupert Murdoch and Fox World with an ultra-right-white-national enclave utterly immune to legal oversight, and the duly-elected Democratic government trying impotently to reign them in. Much as I like the result of Disney;s pushback, the means are deeply disquieting and speak to a completely-dysfunctional corporate-power-vs-state-power relationship that is ripe for abuse. And the wheels of corporate power turn glacially relative to government power; DeSantis, barring a state constitutional amendment, is gone in 2024 as a state governor, but Rupert Murdoch was CEO of News Corp / Fox for 36 years. I'm not 100% for corporate power or 100% for government power. I'm for balancing and pitting the two against each other because they're both effective tools for checking the worst abuses of the other. And make no mistake: when it comes to the FAANGs, what we're seeing is patterns of abuse that need to be reigned in. Requirements for auditing and oversight can be overdone, but in practice, in 2023, the tech sector has been allowed to run with a laissez-faire attitude for decades and has become a vital piece of the modern societal fabric; as a general principle, anything that vital to daily human experience for most citizens needs government oversight to ensure its legal compliance before it becomes Standard Oil or Bell Telephone or Microsoft or Fox Media or, indeed, Disney... Something unanswerable to all but itself. This era of existence is marked by humanity trying to forge a path between a 1984 future and a Brave New World future. There are no simple answers for power allocation.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
seanmcdirmid 4y ago
So if we take the top 10 companies by revenue, we get Apple, Google, Amazon, but also Walmart, CVS Health, UnitedHealth Group, Exon Mobil, Berkshire, McKesson, AmerisourceBergen. It still feels pretty random to me.
- sitkack 4y ago
  It is literally a scalar with an easy comparison operator. These companies have too much power just by their size. If we won't make them smaller and not "too big to fail" we should make them operate better.
- shadowgovt 4y ago
  FWIW, there's no company on that list that I think shouldn't be held up to financial-firm-level scrutiny as regards their internal communications.

Hypothetically, we could base it on revenue.

scarface74 4y ago

You think it’s a good idea to give the government more surveillance power?

sitkack 4y ago
Over corporations, yes please!
- scarface74 4y ago
  Yes because the minute that someone from the “other” (whichever side you don’t like) party gets in control do you think they are going to do things that you want? Desantis just tried to push through a law that said you have to register with the state if you report on politicians. Do you like that proposed law? Do you want the government to have access to all communications between you and your coworkers? Do you want to be questioned every time that you tell a coworker over Slack “maybe we should talk about this at lunch?” It amazes me that people want the only organization that has a “monopoly on violence” to have more power.
  - shadowgovt 4y ago
    Does that amaze you? Because you should look at the unanswerable moneyed interests that got DeSantis elected in the first place. There's currently an investigation going on about how one particular former President may have broken the reporting law. But for that law, his "catch-and-bury" agreement to keep unpalatable stories about him out of the public eye was perfectly legal. So yes, I do want the organization with a monopoly on violence to have more power of oversight of people with power through money. Especially as long as who has control of those levers changes with the frequency it does.
    - scarface74 4y ago
      And we see what the people with “over site” do in Florida. Do you also believe that it was right that the government in Florida went after Disney because the company spoke out against the “Don’t Say Gay” law? Do you think the government has any right to try to have “over site” because the (Democratic) VPs wife got in a tizzy in the 80s because her little ears couldn’t handle NWA releasing a song called “Fuck the Police”? Are you one of those people in power? Because the scenario that someone said was that I financial firms that are highly regulated was that if any employee said on chat to a friend at work, “hey give me call on my cellphone and let’s talk about where we are going after work”, you could be talked to by legal. You are saying that you want an increase by the surveillance state. Have people learned nothing about how the government abuses power from the “War on $x”?
      - shadowgovt 4y ago
        > Do you think the government has any right to try to have “over site” because the (Democratic) VPs wife got in a tizzy in the 80s because her little ears couldn’t handle NWA releasing a song called “Fuck the Police”? Sure. I was there; I remember. I think it was a waste of time but ultimately harmless; it resulted in a few (private, moneyed) corporations deciding not to sell some music that the government had mandated be labeled (which, to be clear, is a wide power the government has; perhaps overused here, but it's no a violation of anyone's rights that they make companies put the ingredient lists on food). Then the Internet happened and that whole thing became irrelevant. Florida is a great example to study these money-power-vs-political-power effects, because were the tables reversed people currently supporting Disney would be horrified. Imagine it was Rupert Murdoch and Fox World with an ultra-right-white-national enclave utterly immune to legal oversight, and the duly-elected Democratic government trying impotently to reign them in. Much as I like the result of Disney;s pushback, the means are deeply disquieting and speak to a completely-dysfunctional corporate-power-vs-state-power relationship that is ripe for abuse. And the wheels of corporate power turn glacially relative to government power; DeSantis, barring a state constitutional amendment, is gone in 2024 as a state governor, but Rupert Murdoch was CEO of News Corp / Fox for 36 years. I'm not 100% for corporate power or 100% for government power. I'm for balancing and pitting the two against each other because they're both effective tools for checking the worst abuses of the other. And make no mistake: when it comes to the FAANGs, what we're seeing is patterns of abuse that need to be reigned in. Requirements for auditing and oversight can be overdone, but in practice, in 2023, the tech sector has been allowed to run with a laissez-faire attitude for decades and has become a vital piece of the modern societal fabric; as a general principle, anything that vital to daily human experience for most citizens needs government oversight to ensure its legal compliance before it becomes Standard Oil or Bell Telephone or Microsoft or Fox Media or, indeed, Disney... Something unanswerable to all but itself. This era of existence is marked by humanity trying to forge a path between a 1984 future and a Brave New World future. There are no simple answers for power allocation.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

seanmcdirmid 4y ago

So if we take the top 10 companies by revenue, we get Apple, Google, Amazon, but also Walmart, CVS Health, UnitedHealth Group, Exon Mobil, Berkshire, McKesson, AmerisourceBergen. It still feels pretty random to me.

sitkack 4y ago
It is literally a scalar with an easy comparison operator. These companies have too much power just by their size. If we won't make them smaller and not "too big to fail" we should make them operate better.
shadowgovt 4y ago
FWIW, there's no company on that list that I think shouldn't be held up to financial-firm-level scrutiny as regards their internal communications.