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Crazy that we need big corporations to protect us from the government. It was supposed to be the other way around.

fsflover 3y ago
They don't really protect from the government. NGOs like https://eff.org https://eff.org, https://edri.org https://edri.org do.
thatguy0900 3y ago
The corporations just want to stake their claim of keeping our data to themselves away from other corporations. Crazy were in a situation where corporations and governments are at war over who gets the looting rights.
sneak 3y ago
Corporations serve at the pleasure of the government. Big corporations serve as single chokepoints for extortion or blackmail (via threats to business, legal via regulation or otherwise) to put in backdoors. All power structures are your enemy. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-fbi-icloud-exclusive/exclusive-apple-dropped-plan-for-encrypting-backups-after-fbi-complained-sources-idUSKBN1ZK1CT https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-fbi-icloud-exclusiv... For the purposes of privacy and human rights, corporations and the state are integrated in almost all large industrialized nations. Businesses are too busy being businesses to fight city hall.
- FredPret 3y ago
  Not everything is a “power structure”. Some people actually like to get shit done and organizations are a means to that end.
  - sneak 3y ago
    If you get a million people together, you'll get a million different ways to "get shit done". Deciding which ways to do things and who does what is a power structure. Add in billions of dollars in quarterly revenue, and you have a power structure that will willingly integrate itself with the state to preserve those cash flows. This is why iMessage is backdoored and isn't really e2ee.
dylan604 3y ago
Gov't is just a special case of corporation. Every city within a state has a charter just like a corporation.
- pessimizer 3y ago
  More the opposite. Corporations are granted charters (and limited-liability) by governments because they are extensions of governments. They're either meant to 1) take risks to accomplish goals that would be beneficial to government, but that government does not want to risk itself, [e.g. if there were no grocery stores, government would have to feed you, but government doesn't have the information to choose locations and stock stores effectively, which competition provides] 2) allow the government to do things that government isn't allowed to do directly [e.g. censor content, cut off undesirables from financial services, pay lower than their current government union contracts or legislation], or to 3) aid the transfer of wealth from government to insiders through either government overpayment for services it could more cheaply provide itself, or by having looser labor/materials sourcing/pollution regulation or monitoring than government does, providing self-dealers a margin built from externalities.
  - dylan604 3y ago
    A city files a charter with the state to be recognized as a city. A business files a charter with the same state (not a city) to be recognized as a business. It's like instantiating the same base class, but extending each one with specific properties that identify them as different objects. Whether it is A->B or B->A doesn't really matter. It's all a method of operating as a defined entity to the state with minor differences. It would not be hard to define something like Apple with it's corporate campus as a city. That would blur the lines pretty significantly. They could create an actual Apple Police. I'm guessing that would do some heads in.

They don't really protect from the government. NGOs like https://eff.org https://eff.org, https://edri.org https://edri.org do.

thatguy0900 3y ago

The corporations just want to stake their claim of keeping our data to themselves away from other corporations. Crazy were in a situation where corporations and governments are at war over who gets the looting rights.

sneak 3y ago

Corporations serve at the pleasure of the government. Big corporations serve as single chokepoints for extortion or blackmail (via threats to business, legal via regulation or otherwise) to put in backdoors. All power structures are your enemy. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-fbi-icloud-exclusive/exclusive-apple-dropped-plan-for-encrypting-backups-after-fbi-complained-sources-idUSKBN1ZK1CT https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-fbi-icloud-exclusiv... For the purposes of privacy and human rights, corporations and the state are integrated in almost all large industrialized nations. Businesses are too busy being businesses to fight city hall.

FredPret 3y ago
Not everything is a “power structure”. Some people actually like to get shit done and organizations are a means to that end.
- sneak 3y ago
  If you get a million people together, you'll get a million different ways to "get shit done". Deciding which ways to do things and who does what is a power structure. Add in billions of dollars in quarterly revenue, and you have a power structure that will willingly integrate itself with the state to preserve those cash flows. This is why iMessage is backdoored and isn't really e2ee.

dylan604 3y ago

Gov't is just a special case of corporation. Every city within a state has a charter just like a corporation.

pessimizer 3y ago
More the opposite. Corporations are granted charters (and limited-liability) by governments because they are extensions of governments. They're either meant to 1) take risks to accomplish goals that would be beneficial to government, but that government does not want to risk itself, [e.g. if there were no grocery stores, government would have to feed you, but government doesn't have the information to choose locations and stock stores effectively, which competition provides] 2) allow the government to do things that government isn't allowed to do directly [e.g. censor content, cut off undesirables from financial services, pay lower than their current government union contracts or legislation], or to 3) aid the transfer of wealth from government to insiders through either government overpayment for services it could more cheaply provide itself, or by having looser labor/materials sourcing/pollution regulation or monitoring than government does, providing self-dealers a margin built from externalities.
- dylan604 3y ago
  A city files a charter with the state to be recognized as a city. A business files a charter with the same state (not a city) to be recognized as a business. It's like instantiating the same base class, but extending each one with specific properties that identify them as different objects. Whether it is A->B or B->A doesn't really matter. It's all a method of operating as a defined entity to the state with minor differences. It would not be hard to define something like Apple with it's corporate campus as a city. That would blur the lines pretty significantly. They could create an actual Apple Police. I'm guessing that would do some heads in.