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That sounds like flagship corporations have a horrible business model if employees are highly-payed to invade privacy. I'm sure, those companies have enough sm

That sounds like flagship corporations have a horrible business model if employees are highly-payed to invade privacy. I'm sure, those companies have enough smart people to figure out some way to create high-paying jobs that do not rely on invasion of privacy. [Added] ...if only they were incentivized to do so

seydor 2y ago
One could say that Norway's flagship corporation has a horrible business model. The Norwegians have never held a referendum whether they should stop drilling , but they are so environmentally conscious that it's not unlikely. Should Norway stop drilling and let its sovereign fund collapse (along with the value of many global companies where it invests)? Is there any State that is purely moral?
- eru 2y ago
  I see what you are trying to say, but I'm not quite sure why Norway's sovereign fund would collapse just because the Norwegians would stop adding more money to the fund? And why would the companies they invest in collapse? The companies in the S&P500 don't collapse, when I stop making regular new payments into my retirement fund.
  - benterix 2y ago
    I noticed this post was downvoted. Could anyone explain why? The fund is enormous so the question is pertinent.
    - jemmyw 2y ago
      Because the question didn't make sense. The fund wouldn't collapse if they stop adding oil funds to it, it will continue to exist as an investment. That's actually the point of it, to continue once the oil is gone.
  - Workaccount2 2y ago
    It would not collapse, but the inflows to the fund would. However, it would still likely provide for decades at least. Norway distributes the returns from the fund, not the fund money itself.
    - eru 2y ago
      > Norway distributes the returns from the fund, not the fund money itself. Is that adjusted for inflation? To explain, suppose I have a stock that went up 10% last year (and paid no dividends, to keep things simple). If inflation was also 10%, there was no real return from my investment, and nothing should be distributed. If inflation was 2%, my real return was about 8%, and we could distribute that without touching 'the fund money itself'.
      - Workaccount2 2y ago
        Inflation is usually priced pretty efficiently into securities on top of whatever growth. However, it gets a bit more complex when you are trading securities in multiple currencies. I am not sure how Norway handles that, but they almost certainly have a team of currency traders to manage it.
        eru 2y ago
        This wasn't a question about efficient pricing (they could just buy an index fund and be done with it), but it's a question about distributing returns vs principal.
- throw_pm23 2y ago
  Excellent example. In general, people's "revealed preferences" often contradict their stated preferences.
  - uoaei 2y ago
    Your "preferences" exist only in the context of the set of choices before you. Hence, Nash equilibria, etc. I don't think you can extrapolate very far morally in "golden handcuffs" situations. Or, at least, we should "hate the player not the game" when lamenting such outcomes.
- repelsteeltje 2y ago
  Wrt. privacy here at least, I don't think you need to be moral or ethical per se. It's more a matter of incentives: carrots and sticks. Regardless of what the rules are, corporations will react to them. So if regulation simply maximizes the greatest good for the greatest number of people the rules will likely end up protecting privacy. So what we see here is that some high paying jobs create a bunch of powerful groups that lobby to keep their current jobs, ie. against stronger regulation.
  - dylan604 2y ago
    You're conveniently leaving out the pressure from TLAs outside of corporate greed and lobbying. There's no way the intelligence community would allow for this vector of gathering information without a fight. Tapping into the take of the social platforms is a huge amount of money and work not needed to spend by the agencies. The greater good for the greater number of people is a nice concept, but I don't think it has been true for much of the US's history. The thing was started with lines like 3/5 of a person included in it while totally ignoring half of the population based on gender.
  - bilbo0s 2y ago
    This is exactly what happens with one exception, these groups don't have to lobby. The politicians know full well that many of the highest paid people in their respective districts are employees in tech. This is true across most of the US. No one, and I mean no one, is interested in becoming a new rust belt city. So politicians act to keep the money flowing and the tax coffers full so that they can then dole out projects. The doling out of projects is a necessary, some would even say foundational, basis of whatever corrupt extraction is able to be carried out.
- scarface_74 2y ago
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse
- Arnt 2y ago
  What? I'm Norwegian and very surprised at every assertion here. Not unlikely? It has never been seriously discussed (e.g. because others would simply increase production to compensate). The fund would collapse? Why?
  - seydor 2y ago
    It was a hypothetical scenario. It is true that most of the world considers Norwegians as very enviromentally forward people. If you assert that norwegians would not vote give up drilling , then that means they are more sensible than most. The fund wouldn't collapse, but would be severely hit , and would be entirely dependent on the valuations of tech companies over decades.
    - Arnt 2y ago
      A campaign to stop drilling would need to answer questions about the likely effect, not just about the intention. Since OPEC has cut production many times in the past 50 years, and generally other producers have increased their production to fill the void, what do you think the likely effect would be?
      - seydor 2y ago
        It doesn't matter because in virtue-politics like the OP post, consequences don't really matter . That's e.g. how germany found itself stuck in a pipeline-shaped hole. It may be that norwegians are not as moral as they are portrayed often (e.g. https://branko2f7.substack.com/p/is-norway-the-new-east-india-company https://branko2f7.substack.com/p/is-norway-the-new-east-indi...). In any case, i used the Fund to make a hypothetical argument that doesn't need to match with reality.
        Arnt 2y ago
        Oh, Norwegians are quite moral. I think you're making the mistake of considering intention-driven behaviour to be somehow moral and effect-driven behaviour not.
glitchc 2y ago
Except the ad market is a very lucrative source of revenue. Every corporation that owns/operates a platform is incentivized to exploit that market to bolster their overall revenues. We're talking about user privacy, so it's really about user privacy while being on the platform. Companies not participating are at a competitive disadvantage to their competitors in their respective markets. Even Apple collects data for ads now. They can't afford not to.

seydor 2y ago

One could say that Norway's flagship corporation has a horrible business model. The Norwegians have never held a referendum whether they should stop drilling , but they are so environmentally conscious that it's not unlikely. Should Norway stop drilling and let its sovereign fund collapse (along with the value of many global companies where it invests)? Is there any State that is purely moral?

eru 2y ago
I see what you are trying to say, but I'm not quite sure why Norway's sovereign fund would collapse just because the Norwegians would stop adding more money to the fund? And why would the companies they invest in collapse? The companies in the S&P500 don't collapse, when I stop making regular new payments into my retirement fund.
- benterix 2y ago
  I noticed this post was downvoted. Could anyone explain why? The fund is enormous so the question is pertinent.
  - jemmyw 2y ago
    Because the question didn't make sense. The fund wouldn't collapse if they stop adding oil funds to it, it will continue to exist as an investment. That's actually the point of it, to continue once the oil is gone.
- Workaccount2 2y ago
  It would not collapse, but the inflows to the fund would. However, it would still likely provide for decades at least. Norway distributes the returns from the fund, not the fund money itself.
  - eru 2y ago
    > Norway distributes the returns from the fund, not the fund money itself. Is that adjusted for inflation? To explain, suppose I have a stock that went up 10% last year (and paid no dividends, to keep things simple). If inflation was also 10%, there was no real return from my investment, and nothing should be distributed. If inflation was 2%, my real return was about 8%, and we could distribute that without touching 'the fund money itself'.
    - Workaccount2 2y ago
      Inflation is usually priced pretty efficiently into securities on top of whatever growth. However, it gets a bit more complex when you are trading securities in multiple currencies. I am not sure how Norway handles that, but they almost certainly have a team of currency traders to manage it.
      - eru 2y ago
        This wasn't a question about efficient pricing (they could just buy an index fund and be done with it), but it's a question about distributing returns vs principal.
throw_pm23 2y ago
Excellent example. In general, people's "revealed preferences" often contradict their stated preferences.
- uoaei 2y ago
  Your "preferences" exist only in the context of the set of choices before you. Hence, Nash equilibria, etc. I don't think you can extrapolate very far morally in "golden handcuffs" situations. Or, at least, we should "hate the player not the game" when lamenting such outcomes.
repelsteeltje 2y ago
Wrt. privacy here at least, I don't think you need to be moral or ethical per se. It's more a matter of incentives: carrots and sticks. Regardless of what the rules are, corporations will react to them. So if regulation simply maximizes the greatest good for the greatest number of people the rules will likely end up protecting privacy. So what we see here is that some high paying jobs create a bunch of powerful groups that lobby to keep their current jobs, ie. against stronger regulation.
- dylan604 2y ago
  You're conveniently leaving out the pressure from TLAs outside of corporate greed and lobbying. There's no way the intelligence community would allow for this vector of gathering information without a fight. Tapping into the take of the social platforms is a huge amount of money and work not needed to spend by the agencies. The greater good for the greater number of people is a nice concept, but I don't think it has been true for much of the US's history. The thing was started with lines like 3/5 of a person included in it while totally ignoring half of the population based on gender.
- bilbo0s 2y ago
  This is exactly what happens with one exception, these groups don't have to lobby. The politicians know full well that many of the highest paid people in their respective districts are employees in tech. This is true across most of the US. No one, and I mean no one, is interested in becoming a new rust belt city. So politicians act to keep the money flowing and the tax coffers full so that they can then dole out projects. The doling out of projects is a necessary, some would even say foundational, basis of whatever corrupt extraction is able to be carried out.
scarface_74 2y ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse
Arnt 2y ago
What? I'm Norwegian and very surprised at every assertion here. Not unlikely? It has never been seriously discussed (e.g. because others would simply increase production to compensate). The fund would collapse? Why?
- seydor 2y ago
  It was a hypothetical scenario. It is true that most of the world considers Norwegians as very enviromentally forward people. If you assert that norwegians would not vote give up drilling , then that means they are more sensible than most. The fund wouldn't collapse, but would be severely hit , and would be entirely dependent on the valuations of tech companies over decades.
  - Arnt 2y ago
    A campaign to stop drilling would need to answer questions about the likely effect, not just about the intention. Since OPEC has cut production many times in the past 50 years, and generally other producers have increased their production to fill the void, what do you think the likely effect would be?
    - seydor 2y ago
      It doesn't matter because in virtue-politics like the OP post, consequences don't really matter . That's e.g. how germany found itself stuck in a pipeline-shaped hole. It may be that norwegians are not as moral as they are portrayed often (e.g. https://branko2f7.substack.com/p/is-norway-the-new-east-india-company https://branko2f7.substack.com/p/is-norway-the-new-east-indi...). In any case, i used the Fund to make a hypothetical argument that doesn't need to match with reality.
      - Arnt 2y ago
        Oh, Norwegians are quite moral. I think you're making the mistake of considering intention-driven behaviour to be somehow moral and effect-driven behaviour not.

glitchc 2y ago

Except the ad market is a very lucrative source of revenue. Every corporation that owns/operates a platform is incentivized to exploit that market to bolster their overall revenues. We're talking about user privacy, so it's really about user privacy while being on the platform. Companies not participating are at a competitive disadvantage to their competitors in their respective markets. Even Apple collects data for ads now. They can't afford not to.