5 ms·

The elephant in the room is the concept of the State. Bad corporations flurish in the shadow of bad government. Governments are supposed to safeguard the inter

The elephant in the room is the concept of the State. Bad corporations flurish in the shadow of bad government. Governments are supposed to safeguard the interests of the many. Over decades they used collective resources to advance the research that made IT/AI possible. They granted corporates (private interests) the license to operate, a financial system to oil them, a security system to protect them. If current IT has the shape it does (oligopolistic, unaccountable, abusive, potentially a runaway disaster) it is entirely due to complicit, captured governments and malfunctioning political systems.

pastacacioepepe 4y ago
Corporations lobby and bribe governments officials to keep the status quo as is. Egg or chicken first? With your framing of the issue, I wonder what would be the solution. Smaller government? That just gives more power to corporations.
- nologic01 4y ago
  Empirically we know that practically any sector that is left "to the markets" will evolve to be dominated by 2-3 conglomerates / gatekeepers that will choke all competition, replace regulation with "self-regulation" and eventually hold society hostage as too-big-to-fail etc. That dynamic is not intrinsic to private enterprize, for-profit entities or corporate structure. You can, e.g. as a crude thought experiment, keep everything else equal, add a simple line to the tax code that the corporate rate goes up with market share and thus change monetary incentives for investors and executives. The main difficulty is not lack of solutions (there are hordes of very sharp economists out there) but moral confusion about what a good, sustainable society looks like. You might argue: what's new. Its always been a struggle to suppress our worst behaviors and "progress" only seemed to ever work over the long term (even that is under dispute now). The risk is that technology is an accretive, exponential process and our collective ability to adopt governance that mitigates its risks is practically non-existent. It is based on trial-and-error (regulate or change behaviors under overwhelming social anger and pressure after the inevitable disasters). The novelty of our condition is that one of the next "errors" might be the last.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
bsenftner 4y ago
I believe this is an issue of scale: humans need to operate at a smaller scale for fairness to exist at all. We do not have any evolutionary preparation for operating collectively at global scale. Our small minds try to take advantage of our situation when in positions of power, while being incapable of realizing the mass unfairness that behavior actualizes. This is an issue with human nature itself. We have to change our innate nature, and we all know... that is not going to happen.
- lib-dev 4y ago
  All nature is in constant flux including human nature. I wouldn’t say “we all know”.
  - nologic01 4y ago
    I believe both these comments hold part of the truth. Famously we can only relate to 100 or so real people, but over millenia we developed culture that helps us identify and relate, e.g, to our village, city, company, country etc. All of them virtual entities that help us organize at scale. That process has not stopped. One fascinating development that should be celebrated much more but alas is still subject to nationalistic attacks is the European Union and the concept of "fellow Europeans". Its the first manifestation of super-national identity, built on the ruins of WWII. Another equally fascinating thing are open source communities that span the globe. Large scale collaboration is possible and by all accounts will be necessary for our survival. Unfortunately that cultural process might not be evolving fast enough. From the pandemic experience to the current geopolitical situation its pretty clear adversarial modes are still on the driving seat.

pastacacioepepe 4y ago

Corporations lobby and bribe governments officials to keep the status quo as is. Egg or chicken first? With your framing of the issue, I wonder what would be the solution. Smaller government? That just gives more power to corporations.

nologic01 4y ago
Empirically we know that practically any sector that is left "to the markets" will evolve to be dominated by 2-3 conglomerates / gatekeepers that will choke all competition, replace regulation with "self-regulation" and eventually hold society hostage as too-big-to-fail etc. That dynamic is not intrinsic to private enterprize, for-profit entities or corporate structure. You can, e.g. as a crude thought experiment, keep everything else equal, add a simple line to the tax code that the corporate rate goes up with market share and thus change monetary incentives for investors and executives. The main difficulty is not lack of solutions (there are hordes of very sharp economists out there) but moral confusion about what a good, sustainable society looks like. You might argue: what's new. Its always been a struggle to suppress our worst behaviors and "progress" only seemed to ever work over the long term (even that is under dispute now). The risk is that technology is an accretive, exponential process and our collective ability to adopt governance that mitigates its risks is practically non-existent. It is based on trial-and-error (regulate or change behaviors under overwhelming social anger and pressure after the inevitable disasters). The novelty of our condition is that one of the next "errors" might be the last.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

bsenftner 4y ago

I believe this is an issue of scale: humans need to operate at a smaller scale for fairness to exist at all. We do not have any evolutionary preparation for operating collectively at global scale. Our small minds try to take advantage of our situation when in positions of power, while being incapable of realizing the mass unfairness that behavior actualizes. This is an issue with human nature itself. We have to change our innate nature, and we all know... that is not going to happen.

lib-dev 4y ago
All nature is in constant flux including human nature. I wouldn’t say “we all know”.
- nologic01 4y ago
  I believe both these comments hold part of the truth. Famously we can only relate to 100 or so real people, but over millenia we developed culture that helps us identify and relate, e.g, to our village, city, company, country etc. All of them virtual entities that help us organize at scale. That process has not stopped. One fascinating development that should be celebrated much more but alas is still subject to nationalistic attacks is the European Union and the concept of "fellow Europeans". Its the first manifestation of super-national identity, built on the ruins of WWII. Another equally fascinating thing are open source communities that span the globe. Large scale collaboration is possible and by all accounts will be necessary for our survival. Unfortunately that cultural process might not be evolving fast enough. From the pandemic experience to the current geopolitical situation its pretty clear adversarial modes are still on the driving seat.