3 ms·

This is good and too little, too late. Tech giants have become more powerful than most governments, and that is a net negative for society. As much as this co

This is good and too little, too late. Tech giants have become more powerful than most governments, and that is a net negative for society. As much as this community might love to hate politics and government, and despite all their inefficiencies and corruption, they STILL operate with a set of fundamental incentives that are more aligned to the benefit of all society. Giant tech companies are only aligned to a set of incentives established by a small cadre of stakeholders, and in fact are the prime driver of the unsustainable growth in wealth disparity and inequality. In short: suck it up big tech; please go harder governments.

jajko 1y ago
[flagged]
- roenxi 1y ago
  I'm not sure what your point is there. The corporations were manufacturing Zyklon B as a delousing agent. It only became notorious because a government with a mandate to improve the lives of Germans took charge and turned out to be ideologically unsound.
- Matthyze 1y ago
  The corruption of the tech/'hacker' subculture has been so disheartening to watch. Is this the subculture that was obsessed with cyberpunk? It took so little, too: good (but not great) salaries, mediocre tech, and a small amount of fearmongering. And suddenly we're here, convinced that corporations must be unconstrained no matter the societal effects. It's as if the cyberpunk dystopias are now seen as aspirational. Absurd and deeply sad.
  - saubeidl 1y ago
    I've become deeply disillusioned with tech. Most folks here are actively building a corporate dystopia, and like you said, it didn't even take that much for them to sell out. The hacker spirit is dead, it's been replaced by capitalist greed :( To quote rms: Join us now and share the software; You'll be free, hackers, you'll be free. Hoarders can get piles of money, That is true, hackers, that is true. But they cannot help their neighbors; That's not good, hackers, that's not good.
    - camillomiller 1y ago
      Comments like yours are very refreshing, thank you.
  - SideburnsOfDoom 1y ago
    > It took so little, too: good (but not great) salaries, mediocre tech, and a small amount of fearmongering. IDK, I think a major motivator was the "American dream", stories of the few who though talent, hard work, being at the right place and the right time, and a lot of sheer dumb luck, got immensely rich. "the hackers see themselves not as exploited office workers but as temporarily embarrassed billionaire start-up founders." to paraphrase Steinbeck.
Nasrudith 1y ago
[flagged]
- ceejayoz 1y ago
  > Let me know when Google kicks down a door to kidnap someone… There are plenty of other ways to ruin a life available to a megacorp.
- Drakim 1y ago
  I think you should read up a little about what private companies have done once they have enough political power. They have actually kicked down people's doors and kidnapped them, murdered protestors, overthrown governments, and enslaved workers.
- piva00 1y ago
  They don't need to take on the monopoly on violence to become more powerful than governments, the sheer act of repeatedly breaking laws, many times knowingly because the punishment is either not levied or they can just pay their way out of it, is an act of being above the power of the State. Now Big Tech is such a large percentage of the USA's stock market valuation that there's no political will to reign on them, and they feel free to try to break other countries' laws since the USA's government will be backing them up if they pick a big enough fight, it's the golden goose, they know it and they use and will continue to use that power.
- ben_w 1y ago
  Power is a lot of things, not just muscle. Even then: Who is more powerful, of Google and the Musk group? The latter used wealth to influence a government that is abducting people off the street for undesirable speech. > Likewise assuming that because it is a government it is more aligned to your interests is frankly, dangerously naive. The "δῆμος" in "democracy" is what makes it aligned; the unfortunate part is that "aligned" doesn't mean "competent" or "friendly", there's no coherent extrapolated volition here.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
nickslaughter02 1y ago
> This is good and too little, too late. Tech giants have become more powerful than most governments, and that is a net negative for society. > In short: suck it up big tech; please go harder governments. Meanwhile EU is trying to undermine security of all citizens and Meta is promoting it. ‘ProtectEU’ security strategy: a step further towards a digital dystopian future https://edri.org/our-work/protecteu-security-strategy-a-step-further-towards-a-digital-dystopian-future/ https://edri.org/our-work/protecteu-security-strategy-a-step... WhatsApp Goes All In on Privacy with ‘Not Even WhatsApp’ Campaign https://the420.in/whatsapp-not-even-whatsapp-privacy-campaign-end-to-end-encryption-aamir-khan/ https://the420.in/whatsapp-not-even-whatsapp-privacy-campaig...
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 1y ago
  Meanwhile, “we kill people based on metadata” means it hardly matters that the message payload is encrypted. Who you are messaging and when is sold to commercial actors and given to the US government if they ask for it lawfully. The privacy stuff is typical PR and marketing. They say it’s good for privacy because that’s what people want to hear. After the Snowden leak revelations and CryptoAG, it seems incredibly naive to look at any mass-communication platform from a US company with anything short of suspicion. The only question is whether or not there is somehow a backdoor for the actual encrypted message but US intelligence doesn’t really need that, anyway.
- camillomiller 1y ago
  >Meanwhile EU is trying to undermine security of all citizens and Meta is promoting it. The EU is a complex political body. Parts of it are trying that, lobbied by a toxic American big tech corporation. A corporation that carelessly enabled genocide in Myanmar, btw, so it won’t certainly have any qualms about steering a foreign political body towards its own goals.

jajko 1y ago

[flagged]

roenxi 1y ago
I'm not sure what your point is there. The corporations were manufacturing Zyklon B as a delousing agent. It only became notorious because a government with a mandate to improve the lives of Germans took charge and turned out to be ideologically unsound.
Matthyze 1y ago
The corruption of the tech/'hacker' subculture has been so disheartening to watch. Is this the subculture that was obsessed with cyberpunk? It took so little, too: good (but not great) salaries, mediocre tech, and a small amount of fearmongering. And suddenly we're here, convinced that corporations must be unconstrained no matter the societal effects. It's as if the cyberpunk dystopias are now seen as aspirational. Absurd and deeply sad.
- saubeidl 1y ago
  I've become deeply disillusioned with tech. Most folks here are actively building a corporate dystopia, and like you said, it didn't even take that much for them to sell out. The hacker spirit is dead, it's been replaced by capitalist greed :( To quote rms: Join us now and share the software; You'll be free, hackers, you'll be free. Hoarders can get piles of money, That is true, hackers, that is true. But they cannot help their neighbors; That's not good, hackers, that's not good.
  - camillomiller 1y ago
    Comments like yours are very refreshing, thank you.
- SideburnsOfDoom 1y ago
  > It took so little, too: good (but not great) salaries, mediocre tech, and a small amount of fearmongering. IDK, I think a major motivator was the "American dream", stories of the few who though talent, hard work, being at the right place and the right time, and a lot of sheer dumb luck, got immensely rich. "the hackers see themselves not as exploited office workers but as temporarily embarrassed billionaire start-up founders." to paraphrase Steinbeck.

Nasrudith 1y ago

[flagged]

ceejayoz 1y ago
> Let me know when Google kicks down a door to kidnap someone… There are plenty of other ways to ruin a life available to a megacorp.
Drakim 1y ago
I think you should read up a little about what private companies have done once they have enough political power. They have actually kicked down people's doors and kidnapped them, murdered protestors, overthrown governments, and enslaved workers.
piva00 1y ago
They don't need to take on the monopoly on violence to become more powerful than governments, the sheer act of repeatedly breaking laws, many times knowingly because the punishment is either not levied or they can just pay their way out of it, is an act of being above the power of the State. Now Big Tech is such a large percentage of the USA's stock market valuation that there's no political will to reign on them, and they feel free to try to break other countries' laws since the USA's government will be backing them up if they pick a big enough fight, it's the golden goose, they know it and they use and will continue to use that power.
ben_w 1y ago
Power is a lot of things, not just muscle. Even then: Who is more powerful, of Google and the Musk group? The latter used wealth to influence a government that is abducting people off the street for undesirable speech. > Likewise assuming that because it is a government it is more aligned to your interests is frankly, dangerously naive. The "δῆμος" in "democracy" is what makes it aligned; the unfortunate part is that "aligned" doesn't mean "competent" or "friendly", there's no coherent extrapolated volition here.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]

nickslaughter02 1y ago

> This is good and too little, too late. Tech giants have become more powerful than most governments, and that is a net negative for society. > In short: suck it up big tech; please go harder governments. Meanwhile EU is trying to undermine security of all citizens and Meta is promoting it. ‘ProtectEU’ security strategy: a step further towards a digital dystopian future https://edri.org/our-work/protecteu-security-strategy-a-step-further-towards-a-digital-dystopian-future/ https://edri.org/our-work/protecteu-security-strategy-a-step... WhatsApp Goes All In on Privacy with ‘Not Even WhatsApp’ Campaign https://the420.in/whatsapp-not-even-whatsapp-privacy-campaign-end-to-end-encryption-aamir-khan/ https://the420.in/whatsapp-not-even-whatsapp-privacy-campaig...

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 1y ago
Meanwhile, “we kill people based on metadata” means it hardly matters that the message payload is encrypted. Who you are messaging and when is sold to commercial actors and given to the US government if they ask for it lawfully. The privacy stuff is typical PR and marketing. They say it’s good for privacy because that’s what people want to hear. After the Snowden leak revelations and CryptoAG, it seems incredibly naive to look at any mass-communication platform from a US company with anything short of suspicion. The only question is whether or not there is somehow a backdoor for the actual encrypted message but US intelligence doesn’t really need that, anyway.
camillomiller 1y ago
>Meanwhile EU is trying to undermine security of all citizens and Meta is promoting it. The EU is a complex political body. Parts of it are trying that, lobbied by a toxic American big tech corporation. A corporation that carelessly enabled genocide in Myanmar, btw, so it won’t certainly have any qualms about steering a foreign political body towards its own goals.