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The trend has been more openness in this sort of behavior. After all, the public hasn’t seemed to respond to it with much negativity other than people occasiona

The trend has been more openness in this sort of behavior. After all, the public hasn’t seemed to respond to it with much negativity other than people occasionally complaining about these sorts of behaviors online. The highest level complaint seems to be public protest, which don’t seem to garner enough momentum to push change. If there’s no repercussions, why not be transparent? Scary indeed, as it’s quite telling of the direction we’re headed in, IMHO.

pinkmuffinere 2y ago
Honestly I think I prefer openness, although I'll admit it's hard to be precise about what's ok and what isn't. In the spirit of free speech, "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." At the same time, defending somebody's right to speech does _not_ mean that individuals can't embargo / "cancel" that person -- I think this behavior is itself speech of a sort. What would you change about the present situation? I feel that public protest is roughly all that can be allowed in response to speech (ie, speech in response to speech). Surely he shouldn't be jailed/fined/doxxed for this speech? What more should be allowed? Or is it just that the public protest isn't as strong as you'd want?
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  Speech and thought are interlinked. Encouraging our society's most powerful to pander to social media in what they say undoubtedly affects how they think.
  - pinkmuffinere 2y ago
    Sure but what’s the alternative? Are you going to decide what people can say? This is all very 1984, if you haven’t read it you might find it interesting
- danielheath 2y ago
  The thing that makes any given arrangement of society work (or not work) is how quickly/cheaply it removes decision-making power from people who demonstrate poor judgement. This is a difficult task, because people with decision-making power tend use that power to alter the system to solidify their position. Capitalism, at its finest, does this by letting people make bad decisions with their money until they haven't got any. This was an improvement on, say, holding wars until enough people decision-makers get killed off. However, a variety of long-term policy shifts have meant this no longer appears to happen - merely possessing capital is so profitable that even astonishingly poor decisions cannot reduce your wealth enough to matter. IMO, through this statement Larry Ellison has demonstrated the kind of poor judgement which a functional society cannot tolerate in a decision-maker, and lacking an effective way to remove this from the decision-maker pool is the primary cause of societal trouble today.
  - pinkmuffinere 2y ago
    Are you saying that we/some govt org should seize his assets because he had a bad opinion? Fwiw I agree with you in disliking the “eternal power“ dynamic that seems to come with being rich. I’d prefer to solve this by requiring more disclosure in lobbying efforts, restricting the kinds of donations you can make, etc. Money shouldn’t lead to political power IMO.
    - danielheath 2y ago
      > Are you saying that we/some govt org should seize his assets because he had a bad opinion? I'm saying that a system in which someone with poor judgement manages to accrue his level of assets is broken somewhere. Policy settings under which "having capital" allows you to grow your wealth while making terrible decisions are bad policy settings. Various alternative policies exist, the most obvious of which is adjusting taxation settings such that growing your wealth requires consistently making good judgement calls.
      - pinkmuffinere 2y ago
        I’m not trying to be obtuse, my best guess is that I’m in favor of what you’re proposing. Can you add more details though? I’m certainly in favor of progressive taxation, which kindof matches the spirit of what you’re saying by reducing the profit margin for those who have massive amounts to “play with”. Maybe there’s a more direct method though? Maybe a wealth tax? Something else?
        danielheath 2y ago
        I'm explicitly not claiming any particular proposal is right; my background is not in public policy. I'm pointing out that across a great many economic nations, times, and economic systems, the core problem of every social system is not the obvious stuff like "how do we allocate resources" - it's "how do we remove bad decision-makers" - because those people are implementing "how we allocate resources". There's a great many ways to solve this problem, but there's little evidence that _anything_ is currently being tried. I'd support any policy that seemed reasonably likely to improve this situation.
beloch 2y ago
If you're a billionaire today, you might be forgiven for thinking the current state of extreme wealth inequality is completely normal. You will obviously want to lock in a system that has benefited you and ensure that nothing ever changes. Historically speaking though, wealth inequality in developed nations is reaching a point at which, as often as not, revolutions happen. Sometimes they're bloody. Sometimes not. There are two approaches to avoid a revolution: 1. Back off from controlling government and let reform happen gradually. Your wealth will be lessened, but you'll probably remain one of the richest people alive. 2. Lock everything in with a totalitarian panopticon state that you control. AI surveillance offers a huge advantage over surveillance networks used by past totalitarian regimes. e.g. East Germany's Stasi showed the limitations of surveillance in an age where humans had to do it themselves. With AI to do it, you can avoid employing a large portion of the population to watch the rest, and you can keep the power of that surveillance network concentrated in just a few hands, preferably yours. It's clear which approach is being attempted in the U.S.. I'd just point out that #2 is inherently high-risk. If you lock in wealth inequality at today's levels (or make them worse) and then use repressive means to prevent any form of push-back, the state becomes brittle. If it breaks, the result could be a bloodbath. Approach #1 is much safer. Yet, here we are.
- andrekandre 2y ago
  > If you lock in wealth inequality at today's levels (or make them worse) and then use repressive means to prevent any form of push-back, the state becomes brittle. well, not only the state, but how does capitalism survive that, who can buy anything (be a consumer) except for the essentials in that scenario, where do investments/growth go towards?
  - ben_w 2y ago
    It doesn't need to. We had oligarchs before capitalism.
- bryanrasmussen 2y ago
  >Approach #1 is much safer. Yet, here we are. I do not believe Approach #1 has ever been attempted without quite a bit of blood leading up to its attempt, and I think it has only been attempted a few times even so, approach #2 - oppression, with resulting bloodiness - seems to be the norm.
ThrowawayR2 2y ago
> "...trend has been toward more openness... No offense but you're just injecting a trendy opinion without knowing anything about the man's history. Ellison was notorious even in the '90s-'00s and never made any real effort to hide it. The book "The Difference Between God and Larry Ellison: God Doesn't Think He's Larry Ellison" (yes, that's its actual title) came out all the way back in 2003, the title being a quip that had already been circulating for many years by that time.

pinkmuffinere 2y ago

Honestly I think I prefer openness, although I'll admit it's hard to be precise about what's ok and what isn't. In the spirit of free speech, "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." At the same time, defending somebody's right to speech does _not_ mean that individuals can't embargo / "cancel" that person -- I think this behavior is itself speech of a sort. What would you change about the present situation? I feel that public protest is roughly all that can be allowed in response to speech (ie, speech in response to speech). Surely he shouldn't be jailed/fined/doxxed for this speech? What more should be allowed? Or is it just that the public protest isn't as strong as you'd want?

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
Speech and thought are interlinked. Encouraging our society's most powerful to pander to social media in what they say undoubtedly affects how they think.
- pinkmuffinere 2y ago
  Sure but what’s the alternative? Are you going to decide what people can say? This is all very 1984, if you haven’t read it you might find it interesting
danielheath 2y ago
The thing that makes any given arrangement of society work (or not work) is how quickly/cheaply it removes decision-making power from people who demonstrate poor judgement. This is a difficult task, because people with decision-making power tend use that power to alter the system to solidify their position. Capitalism, at its finest, does this by letting people make bad decisions with their money until they haven't got any. This was an improvement on, say, holding wars until enough people decision-makers get killed off. However, a variety of long-term policy shifts have meant this no longer appears to happen - merely possessing capital is so profitable that even astonishingly poor decisions cannot reduce your wealth enough to matter. IMO, through this statement Larry Ellison has demonstrated the kind of poor judgement which a functional society cannot tolerate in a decision-maker, and lacking an effective way to remove this from the decision-maker pool is the primary cause of societal trouble today.
- pinkmuffinere 2y ago
  Are you saying that we/some govt org should seize his assets because he had a bad opinion? Fwiw I agree with you in disliking the “eternal power“ dynamic that seems to come with being rich. I’d prefer to solve this by requiring more disclosure in lobbying efforts, restricting the kinds of donations you can make, etc. Money shouldn’t lead to political power IMO.
  - danielheath 2y ago
    > Are you saying that we/some govt org should seize his assets because he had a bad opinion? I'm saying that a system in which someone with poor judgement manages to accrue his level of assets is broken somewhere. Policy settings under which "having capital" allows you to grow your wealth while making terrible decisions are bad policy settings. Various alternative policies exist, the most obvious of which is adjusting taxation settings such that growing your wealth requires consistently making good judgement calls.
    - pinkmuffinere 2y ago
      I’m not trying to be obtuse, my best guess is that I’m in favor of what you’re proposing. Can you add more details though? I’m certainly in favor of progressive taxation, which kindof matches the spirit of what you’re saying by reducing the profit margin for those who have massive amounts to “play with”. Maybe there’s a more direct method though? Maybe a wealth tax? Something else?
      - danielheath 2y ago
        I'm explicitly not claiming any particular proposal is right; my background is not in public policy. I'm pointing out that across a great many economic nations, times, and economic systems, the core problem of every social system is not the obvious stuff like "how do we allocate resources" - it's "how do we remove bad decision-makers" - because those people are implementing "how we allocate resources". There's a great many ways to solve this problem, but there's little evidence that _anything_ is currently being tried. I'd support any policy that seemed reasonably likely to improve this situation.

beloch 2y ago

If you're a billionaire today, you might be forgiven for thinking the current state of extreme wealth inequality is completely normal. You will obviously want to lock in a system that has benefited you and ensure that nothing ever changes. Historically speaking though, wealth inequality in developed nations is reaching a point at which, as often as not, revolutions happen. Sometimes they're bloody. Sometimes not. There are two approaches to avoid a revolution: 1. Back off from controlling government and let reform happen gradually. Your wealth will be lessened, but you'll probably remain one of the richest people alive. 2. Lock everything in with a totalitarian panopticon state that you control. AI surveillance offers a huge advantage over surveillance networks used by past totalitarian regimes. e.g. East Germany's Stasi showed the limitations of surveillance in an age where humans had to do it themselves. With AI to do it, you can avoid employing a large portion of the population to watch the rest, and you can keep the power of that surveillance network concentrated in just a few hands, preferably yours. It's clear which approach is being attempted in the U.S.. I'd just point out that #2 is inherently high-risk. If you lock in wealth inequality at today's levels (or make them worse) and then use repressive means to prevent any form of push-back, the state becomes brittle. If it breaks, the result could be a bloodbath. Approach #1 is much safer. Yet, here we are.

andrekandre 2y ago
> If you lock in wealth inequality at today's levels (or make them worse) and then use repressive means to prevent any form of push-back, the state becomes brittle. well, not only the state, but how does capitalism survive that, who can buy anything (be a consumer) except for the essentials in that scenario, where do investments/growth go towards?
- ben_w 2y ago
  It doesn't need to. We had oligarchs before capitalism.
bryanrasmussen 2y ago
>Approach #1 is much safer. Yet, here we are. I do not believe Approach #1 has ever been attempted without quite a bit of blood leading up to its attempt, and I think it has only been attempted a few times even so, approach #2 - oppression, with resulting bloodiness - seems to be the norm.

ThrowawayR2 2y ago

> "...trend has been toward more openness... No offense but you're just injecting a trendy opinion without knowing anything about the man's history. Ellison was notorious even in the '90s-'00s and never made any real effort to hide it. The book "The Difference Between God and Larry Ellison: God Doesn't Think He's Larry Ellison" (yes, that's its actual title) came out all the way back in 2003, the title being a quip that had already been circulating for many years by that time.