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There's a George Carlin bit about politicians. The punchline is "the problem isn't the politicians, it's the people." His point is that nothing emerges from a v

There's a George Carlin bit about politicians. The punchline is "the problem isn't the politicians, it's the people." His point is that nothing emerges from a vaccuum. Politicians are people just like everyone else, they're just responding to incentives created by a majority vote. Tech companies are just like any other company, except a lot more people are willing to pay for their goods and services. If Carlin were alive, he'd say that the problem isn't the tech companies, it's their customers. I'm actually far from convinced that tech companies are a net negative for society. Amazon makes billions because everyone wants competitively priced goods delivered to their doorsteps. Google makes billions because they provide free access to a large portion of humanity's information. My theory is that if you're extremely pessimistic about technology or politics, you probably won't like anything that happens when large groups of humans make collective decisions. There's an air of let's go back to the good old days when we were hunter gatherers to the whole thing. Personally, I've accepted that it's always going to be messy and chaotic, but a lot of good things are going to come out of it as well.

budududuroiu 1y ago
We don’t have to go back to hunter gatherer societies, just do some antitrust. I dislike the commentary that any pushback against tech companies means you’re a Luddite
- fasterik 1y ago
  Anti-trust for an industry where there are at least five companies doing well in any given space? That's not called a monopoly, it's called competition. Edit: I wasn't accusing everyone who is critical of tech of being a Luddite. The attitude that nearly every tech company is a net negative for society goes quite a bit beyond criticism.
  - budududuroiu 1y ago
    You read an article that talks about consolidation of food delivery and increasingly high barriers to new entrants and think that’s competition?
    - fasterik 1y ago
      Where does the article mention barriers to entry? My reading is that that the consolidation is due to venture capital moving investment to other areas. Anyone who wants to start a new food delivery app is still free to do so, as long as they can find funding. This is the definition of competition according to Wikipedia: "Competition is a scenario where different economic firms are in contention to obtain goods that are limited by varying the elements of the marketing mix: price, product, promotion and place." Yes, sounds like competition to me. Network effects are not anti-competitive.
      - esperent 1y ago
        > Anyone who wants to start a new food delivery app is still free to do so, as long as they can find funding. This argument is meaningless because you can always make it. There's a quasi-monopoly? Yeah but you're still allowed to make a new company so it's not really a problem is it? You'll fail, unless you're backed by even more powerful venture capital, but I don't care about that because I get to keep making the argument that it's a free market. The reality is that the only way you can compete in this market is to already be a billion dollar company, or have the backing of one. That's not a free market by any reasonable definition. What it is, is a clear case of technofeudalism.
  - loloquwowndueo 1y ago
    There’s such a thing as collusion - convenient way to claim “we’re not a monopoly, there’s at least 4 more competitors” when behind the scenes they’re all talking and agreeing in price fixing, limiting offer, blocking other competitors.
    - wenc 1y ago
      That is known as a "cartel," which is also prosecutable under the Sherman Act. It applies to not just monopolies. But that doesn't seem to be the case here.
  - alisonatwork 1y ago
    Now imagine you live in one of the other 190 countries of the world who do not or no longer have significant players in the industry because they were crushed by those five foreign companies. It's not competition when the wealth and power is so disproportionately held by the same people in the same places.
    - rangestransform 1y ago
      As a software engineer in the US, I like that the US sucks up money from the rest of the world, that’s why my dollar goes so far when I travel and why I can retire in a non-reserve-currency country for cheap
      - chrisdirkis 1y ago
        Do you not feel as though that's incredibly anti-social? It's a very zero-sum "I'd prefer if things were better for me in direct proportion to how much worse they'll be for '_others_'"
      - BobaFloutist 1y ago
        Right, and you'd like if there was a special 0% income tax only for software engineers or if every software engineer got a free pony too. That's why we need to also consider the needs of people that aren't American software engineers.
    - itake 1y ago
      Can you name them which countries this impacts? China (basically) only has didi. Not much the USA can say here. Southeast has Grab, and within each country there are at least 2 local competitors (Be, GoJek, Bolt, Line Man, Bluebird, etc). I believe Doordash just bought Deliveroo, making it the only American competitor in SEA. In Europe, the main players are local food panda / Delivery hero and Just Eat. India's winning food delivery is Swiggy. What countries have both the talent to build a food delivery app and the USA is the dominant player?
      - alisonatwork 1y ago
  - anigbrowl 1y ago
    It's an oligopoly.
  - motorest 1y ago
    > Anti-trust for an industry where there are at least five companies doing well in any given space? That's not called a monopoly, it's called competition You need to be completely out of touch with reality to read an article on 5 companies dominating a global market and your take from that info is that there are no anticompetitive practices because 5 is more than 1.
    - lynx97 1y ago
      "completely out of touch" is definitely an exaggregationg. Besides, as if competition would really increase quality. Where I dwell, we have around 3 active delivery services. Only 1 of them has an app with useable UX, icnluding accessibility. Competition? Meh. What for? So that I can watch the smaller guys blunder their way to the top?
      - motorest 1y ago
        > "completely out of touch" is definitely an exaggregationg. Is it, though? I mean, can you present a coherent argument supporting the idea that a global market being dominated by 5 multinational corporations does not flag a risk of anticompetitive practices? > Competition? Meh. What for? So that I can watch the smaller guys blunder their way to the top? Is this what you have to offer to refute the idea you're completely out of touch?
        potato3732842 1y ago
        If by "coherent" you mean the Webster definition then yeah, anyone can. If by coherent you mean "using only facts and opinions that I accept at face value within my world view" then no. Personally, I think 5 is way too little. But there are probably some markets for various products and services where 5 is fine. I don't think the number matters so much as that there be potential for a long tail of upstarts who could potentially displace a big player quickly. Whether 95% of the market is captured 2 or 22 players doesn't matter, they gotta know that someone is waiting to take their place if they screw up.
    - jack_h 1y ago
- p_v_doom 1y ago
  > I dislike the commentary that any pushback against tech companies means you’re a Luddite Me too, and I actually AM a Luddite
- grues-dinner 1y ago
  Put a cap on company size. No organisation can be worth more than (say) a few hundred million. You can still make big and complex things but it'll have to be several small(er) companies working in concert, which is already kind of how massive companies work internally anyway. Less efficient, maybe, but I am not entirely convinced that huge companies hoovering up any attempt at competition leads to efficiencies in the long run. And the more value that can be extracted by smaller players, the more that ends up in the hands of humans rather than pooling R the top. Maybe have a credit for capital outlay so building and operating a factory is better than building a financial war chest, and a credit for non-executive salaries so paying your workers increases your company's headroom.
  - graemep 1y ago
    I have long had ideas on those lines: https://pietersz.co.uk/2009/11/fix-capitalism https://pietersz.co.uk/2009/11/fix-capitalism
    - potamic 1y ago
      Really good. I have one more proposal. Capital gains tax that increases progressively with gains, and decreases progressively with duration i.e. incentivize significant investors to create long term value instead of chasing quick exits.
speff 1y ago
I generally agree with your point, but would like to mention in my opinion Amazon (not AWS) makes billions because they've captured the market and prevent any meaningful competition from arising due to their "Fair Pricing" policy rules. I'll be happy when there are meaningful alternatives to Amazon that don't have inflated prices due to price parity which have an excessive return cost built in...
- fasterik 1y ago
  Amazon.com has 12% market share in global e-commerce and 38% in the United States. I think they have plenty of competition.
  - almosthere 1y ago
    Amazon 38% Walmart 6% Apple 3.5% Ebay 3% sorry but Amazon does not have competition in the united states. https://grok.com/share/bGVnYWN5_bc9cd328-15d3-4047-bde6-d57a8c90f9b2 https://grok.com/share/bGVnYWN5_bc9cd328-15d3-4047-bde6-d57a...
kylecazar 1y ago
Lobbyists muddy the incentive waters a bit when it comes to politics. But I agree with your conclusion. I don't think there are many truly net negative companies/sectors/ideas that aren't either dead or on their way out -- but I'm sure you'd agree we should still hold tech accountable and optimize for our own benefit. Btw, as a lifelong Carlin fan, I find myself asking what he would think pretty often :)
- fasterik 1y ago
  Carlin was a true philosopher. I find myself disagreeing with him more these days than when I was younger and angrier, but I still find him endlessly entertaining.
klabb3 1y ago
> My theory is that if you're extremely pessimistic about technology or politics, you probably won't like anything that happens when large groups of humans make collective decisions. There's an air of let's go back to the good old days when we were hunter gatherers to the whole thing. Hunter gatherer is the only alternative to a society under total dominance by mega-corps? This reminds me of individual stories from life under communism and brutal dictatorships where the dystopia is so omnipresent you don’t even remember what was before, nor could imagine anything meaningfully different. Instead, you take joy in the little things, like (today) the scraps left over after another market war – ”at least now we have a search engine”, ”I can order a taxi from an app”. I understand it, because it has been such a dominant force in the kind of second reincarnation of neoliberalism since ~80s in the US in particular. This apathy is the perfect wet blanket to prevent systemic change and perpetuate the status quo – no suppression of dissent is needed if there is no imagination or expectation of a better society. A lot of powerful interests are spending a lot of effort trying to convince us that any meaningful change would make things even worse, not better. In my opinion, the best way to break these cycles is to study the past, other countries and many times smaller local communities. There are countless examples of well functioning systems if you pay attention. And new ones being established all the time. I’ve seen local markets completely flourish in just a decade, because of good policy. Once you see these things, and know in your heart it’s possible, there’s no going back. I’m intentionally a bit vague here, because what’s meaningful to one person can be inconsequential to another. Which is why it’s so important to discover these things on your own. That’s the way to turn complacency into hope, and hope into organized action.
- fasterik 1y ago
  "Local communities" existed for millennia and didn't manage to reduce the child mortality rate and extreme poverty rate to effectively zero. I know neoliberalism is a dirty word, and there are plenty of problems with the modern world, but I would rather live in a neoliberal global society than the "local" world of 200 years ago.
  - fivecompete 1y ago
    Again, you have many more options than just 2.
AndrewKemendo 1y ago
Here's the bit on Youtube (I couldn't find an Archive link): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrSAxtIYM08 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrSAxtIYM08 This is the right conclusion, and I love sharing that video for that reason. As of 2025 everyone globally has everything they need to make the world a great place for everyone. Instead, people continue to take the lowest energy route for their personal actions, which means they do not even think about the externalities of that purchase from Amazon, the Latte from Starbucks, continuing living in (insert your broken system here), working for some billionaire etc...They just shrug and think "its out of my control, besides I don't have any impact and why should I suffer unnecessarily" There are millions of examples of individual people who had no education, being actively oppressed and violently attacked changing their situation by either moving or overthrowing their oppressors. Harriet Tubman comes to mind. It's never been easier to do that, but people would rather not. The entire "illegal immigrant" concept proves it, people literally spending their entire life savings ($5000) to pay coyotes to smuggle them in horrific conditions so they can be slaves picking strawberries. I know a Houston restaurant owner who did that trek twice from Guatemala, getting deported the first time and he just saved up and did it again. While speaking no english. Tell me again about how it's not possible to do something. Meanwhile the citizens can't be bothered to learn about their own history or you know, do anything. I've tried to start multiple non-heirarchical anarchist cooperative organizations and the number one challenge is finding people who will put the group ahead of the individual. It just doesn't happen. There are no organizations where that's true. No church, no government, no state, no charity, nothing, nowhere actually meets the test of holistic globally aligned "good." I read the Medicins Sans Frotiers book long ago, even they were terrible and continue to fight internally [1]. Unions now make most of their money from capital investments [2], which is directly in opposition to their anticapitalist philosophical roots. All of this is because the members don't care and don't have any desire to have less, they all want more forever. At this point in history, everyone has access to the information they need to make globally holistic decisions. It's not possible to claim ignorance, ignorance is strictly a choice and ultimately a existential personal limitation. There are no organizations that exist for the benefit of society and they cannot exist because humans fundamentally lack the cognitive ability to think beyond Dunbar's number but their actions have global consequences. Self elimination is the only possible arc for humanity. [1] https://healthpolicy-watch.news/inward-technocratic-msf-leadership-under-global-pressure/#:~:text=Von%20Schoen%2DAngerer%20described%20as%20%E2%80%9Carrogant%E2%80%9D%20the%20restructuring,that%20the%20Access%20Campaign%20has%20worked%20with.%E2%80%9D https://healthpolicy-watch.news/inward-technocratic-msf-lead... [2] https://jacobin.com/2023/02/finance-unionism-union-density-decline-american-labor-movement-mass-organizing https://jacobin.com/2023/02/finance-unionism-union-density-d...
jarpadat 1y ago
My theory is that is what is latent in the terrain of human psychology is a propensity to view misconceptions about which problem it is, as evidence there isn't one. When I stop to think about it, I realize that the misconceptions are evidence there is. With that in mind: in what way should we terraform the latent terrain of human psychology to fix this problem? Because breaking up the tech companies seems like a way, but you seem to have a different one in mind.
zugi 1y ago
"Monopoly" used to mean a single company controlling a market. Now folks are now hollering "monopoly" about five different companies competing and collectively capturing 90% of a market? Plus the market is artificially defined to be small. It excluded companies that do their own delivery (pizza places and others), home food delivery that isn't from restaurants, and the old option of just driving yourself to a restaurant. There's thriving competition in the industry of getting people food, and lots of options that didn't even exist a decade ago. Crazy that it's being spun as the exact opposite.
- lmm 1y ago
  > "Monopoly" used to mean a single company controlling a market. Now folks are now hollering "monopoly" about five different companies competing and collectively capturing 90% of a market? Five companies controlling 90% of the market is more than enough to form a cartel or spontaneously self-organise in ways that have the same effect even without explicitly coordinating. (I once read an economics paper that I wish I could find now that said this would happen when the top 4 companies in an industry controlled more than 60% of the market)
- fireflash38 1y ago
  What are the primary problems with monopolies? Do you think those exact same problems could be seen by a small group of of companies who act in a monopolistic manner (much like a cartel)? I think you are stuck on the definition of the word monopoly rather than the reason behind why we ban/rule against them.
BrenBarn 1y ago
You're right in a sense. The thing is what people are "willing" to do or what they "want" is a somewhat amorphous concept and depends on how options are presented to people. Human nature involves the ability to let different dimensions of our cognitive apparatus cover one another's weak spots. In my view, a lot of what many would consider wise decisions throughout human history have been instances of this, many of them in the form of law, from child-labor restrictions to drunk-driving laws to birth control to incest taboos. There just seems to be a certain segment of society that for some reason insists that "what the consumer wants" has to be construed in this narrow way as what is in the person's mind at the instant of a decision, and that any attempt to broaden that person's decision-making is somehow unnatural. Well, no. It's good to make changes that create immediate costs if doing so can save us from future costs that we're not good at foreseeing at the moment. It's good for Ulysses to ask his men to tie him to the mast. It's good in many cases for people to deliberately, explicitly, not do things they feel like doing because they will regret those things later. I believe this is often true even from a perspective of self-interest (e.g., people will not like it if a monopoly emerges and raises prices later), but it's even more true if you incorporate a bit of consideration for the well-being of others, and I think plenty of people are willing to do that to some extent.
eviks 1y ago
> they're just responding to incentives created by a majority vote. That's not completely true since there are too many mechanisms built in to limit those incentives
almosthere 1y ago
[flagged]
- Klonoar 1y ago
  Instead of citing an AI, why don't you cite an actual reputable source? Those facts it ingested and regurgitated no doubt came from somewhere, and you're clearly attempting to use the facts to prove a point. An authoritative source is more helpful than attributing it to [insert ai bot here].
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - almosthere 1y ago
    disagree
    - RamblingCTO 1y ago
      yes, a "source" that's widely known for producing false information is a reliable source, you're right.
      - almosthere 1y ago
        the data is so fucking obvious (everyone knows there are massive OD and suicidality in this moment), of course people are going to be pedantic about the source and not debate the merits of the argument.
        RamblingCTO 1y ago
        however you want to spin it, the source is always important. again, especially if it tends to fabricate things. don't be lazy and research a proper, first order source and not a parroted parody of a source. you're intellectually lazy, so why would anyone want to discuss with you? https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db522.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db522.htm > 105,007 in 2023 heavily picking up since around 2015
zetsurin 1y ago
George Carlin also said: "'cause they own this fucking place. It's a big club, and you ain’t in it" (https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/964648-but-there-s-a-reason-there-s-a-reason-there-s-a-reason https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/964648-but-there-s-a-reason...). I think there's a power dynamic that it seems like you are ignoring, that big companies take advantage of. Amazon gets cheap goods to your doorstep, and removes all competition while doing it. You think those goods are going to stay cheap,i don't. This is a playbook that wallmarts followed for years. Amazon also gets sellers, by selling amazon versions of their products. Google makes billions by showing you ads, they got you there with free services, but now they enshittify. >There's an air of let's go back to the good old days when we were hunter gatherers to the whole thing I think my concern is not going back to the bad old gilded age days, where wealth inequality lead to most humans having a terrible life while a few had a great life.
hn_throwaway_99 1y ago
> There's an air of let's go back to the good old days when we were hunter gatherers to the whole thing. I strongly disagree. On the contrary, I see the arch of many technological advancements in that, in the beginning, they solve a crucial need, but then once they solve that problem they attempt to hijack the positive feedback systems of humans (e.g. addiction systems) to stay in power. Consider the food industry. Many people were under pretty constant threat of starvation through much of human history. So in the 19th and 20th centuries we essentially solved that problem in the Western world with the modern food industry. But we didn't stop there. Once people had all they needed to eat, food companies had to figure out how to get them to eat more, and they were highly successful. Saying that much of modern food science is a net negative for humanity doesn't mean I think we should go back to being hunter gatherers, but at this point every new "innovation" in the industry is really just an attempt to try to get people to eat/drink more. I think much of the modern Internet/Web has been on that "net negative" slide for at least the past 10 years. Are people at large to blame for this? In one sense, sure. But I have no problem laying the blame at tech leaders who are essentially in the role of drug dealers for much of the industry. I mean, sure, drug users are ultimately at fault too, but we look down pretty harshly at drug dealers for their role in the process.
- lynx97 1y ago
  Just because Americans have an obesity problem doesn't make every food vendor a drug dealer. Come on, get real. Basically everything that is being sold can be abused by the user. Does that mean every vendor of anything is potentially a bad actor? I believe you are exaggregating. BTW, I virtually never thought about Thiel when I ordered a Pizza. Is there a reason why you drag the owners into this? It basically sounds like you are antagonising everyone above your wage-class. I don't get it.
  - ctxc 1y ago
    It's not black and white, but what you're saying sounds like "just because users have an attention problem doesn't make every social media app an attention grabber" I mean, companies optimise for profits and at some point people fall for it in excess which is the point OP made. It kinda makes sense, because the means the companies employ are psychologically advanced plays on people who don't know the spelling of psychology. I'm probably manipulated into scrolling more than I wanted to or buying more than I wanted to on an everyday basis.
somenameforme 1y ago
Carlin's comedy peaked during near the era that I think most consider the Golden Age of America. Times have immeasurably changed since then. On the tech side of things Google has recently been hit by multiple anti-trust lawsuits, and lost them all. That's perhaps even less telling than the evidence presented. They brazenly and actively conspired to kill or buy any and all competition, but they've become so large (and so important to the US intelligence agencies) that they'll get nothing more than the most gentle slap on the wrist, relative to their scale. The moral of the story seems to be don't cheat, but if you're going to cheat - cheat relentlessly, ruthlessly, and take it to an extreme - and it might just become worth it. Politics has become similar. Politicians have become way better at their jobs in modern times than in Carlin's era. Their "job" of course is just to get elected. It turns out that actually having a platform or popular ideas is far less useful than making people hate and fear 'the other guy' enough. When you rely on hate and fear, people will even actively vote for people they despise simply because 'it's the lesser evil.' With modern politicking even Reagan-Mondale would have still been a 50/50 coinflip and Regan would be an imminent threat to American democracy, and Mondale would want to turn your kids gay. Actually if we reached the modern era of divisiveness and stupidity in Carlin's time, there's a real chance America, certainly as we know it, wouldn't even exist today.
- potato3732842 1y ago
  >They brazenly and actively conspired to kill or buy any and all competition, but they've become so large (and so important to the US intelligence agencies) that they'll get nothing more than the most gentle slap on the wrist, relative to their scale. The moral of the story seems to be don't cheat, but if you're going to cheat - cheat relentlessly, ruthlessly, and take it to an extreme - and it might just become worth it. The moral of the story to me is that the government doesn't give a crap what you do so long as it's good for them. Google only got punished, and even then it was a big "show" with no results not because it did wrong, but because it so flagrantly violated the law the government got pissed that it was being made to look a fool. They didn't really want to "punish" google because it was their buddy and they found it useful, they just wanted the appearance.
imjonse 1y ago
> My theory is that if you're extremely pessimistic about technology or politics, you probably won't like anything that happens when large groups of humans make collective decisions. The main issue is that in tech and politics it is a small group of humans making collective decisions for all.
motorest 1y ago
> Politicians are people just like everyone else, they're just responding to incentives created by a majority vote. I don't think this is remotely true, and feels like victim blaming. No one is voting for monopolies and exploitation. At most you have people voting for tax cuts and the hopes of improved economies, which are then faced with a bait-and-switch of erosion of legal rights and protection and further anticompetitive practices. These so-called "food delivery" companies are the worst example possible as they are renowned for the way they exploit employees with blatant violations of basic labor laws. No one voted for that. > Tech companies are just like any other company, except a lot more people are willing to pay for their goods and services. No. Their whole business model is based on exploitation to the point some countries had to force them to finally get their riders into actual employment contracts. > I'm actually far from convinced that tech companies are a net negative for society. Amazon makes billions because everyone wants competitively priced goods delivered to their doorsteps. Google makes billions because they provide free access to a large portion of humanity's information. You have a far too naive and out of touch view on the problem, much like a few years ago people from colonial powers believed their presence was net positive for natives as that meant they could receive a salary for waiting on them hand and foot. Amazon's example is even more laughable as the company is notorious for exploitative and outright abusive labor practices. I understand you like to receive packages, but I seriously recommend you read something on the topic because their impact on society is far from net positive.
safety1st 1y ago
Carlin's actual view is a lot more nuanced than that. Big Tech (along with Walmart, Visa and more) have gotten to where they are by employing illegal business practices such as price discrimination and exclusive dealing. These tactics laid the groundwork for the mass mergers and rollups and the monopolies and oligopolies that dominate America today. The laws on the books which prohibit them, like Robinson-Patman and the Clayton Act, have gone largely unenforced since Reagan. Software sped up how quickly businesses can exploit these criminal tactics but this has become a problem across all sectors of the economy. This shocking degree of negligence has required complicity from both political parties, but there's a deeper issue which is that this stuff is just too arcane to be linked meaningfully to a popular vote in today's democracy. We're talking about a nation where 1 in 5 people are now illiterate and that number is rising. There are two parties and a vanishingly small number of candidates presented to them every couple of years, meanwhile the media bombards them with a dozen supposed crises every day. This system is never going to produce a consensus that the most important priority is enforcing some law from 1914. Popular sentiment is more likely to be expressed through the rise of more guys like Luigi Mangione.
- niclas-183 1y ago
  The ever-increasing flood of information (crises, as you call them) will, I believe, eventually become the downfall of our political system. There is already so much to read in a single day that you probably couldn't consume it all in your remaining lifetime if you tried. LLMs will only make this worse. Eventually, super-powers—whether political or economic—will send out so much misinformation about everything that no one can really follow it or distinguish truth from falsehood. People will simply stop participating in the global conversation, and their votes will become obsolete and guided by the most intruiging stories.
kazinator 1y ago
Tech companies are not like other companies because they can trivially create vendor lock-in without any geographic constraints on where the customers are. In fact, it's harder to avoid vendor-lock in in tech; it takes extra work to open things up, possibly a lot of extra work. Even a well-intentioned open-source program can garner a user base which can't easily migrate off it.
- robertlagrant 1y ago
  The customer is responsible for avoiding vendor lock-in, not the vendor.
  - danaris 1y ago
    Then let's use regulation to flip that around, and put the onus on the party that a) is making money off it b) has a vested interest in increasing lock-in c) is a singular entity, not a dispersed set of individuals d) is doing this as part of something specific and organized, rather than just trying to go about their daily lives, buying an orange here and a smartphone there
  - kazinator 1y ago
    Sure! Don't like your country's passport application website? I'm sure debian.org has an alternative for you.
    - robertlagrant 1y ago
      What do you propose? A country builds multiple passport application website for you to choose from?
grafmax 1y ago
Inequality is built into our society’s structure - capitalism divides people into two classes - workers and owners. The level of wealth inequality in the current world is quite extreme. Even if you accept some degree of it because “it’s always going to be messy and chaotic” - the current level is truly poisonous for a healthy society. And it’s the result of neoliberal policy across the world since 1980 - the deregulation ideology of the rich filtered into governments. We have concentrated wealth; this wealth concentration has intensified itself as those benefiting from it in turn shape government policy in a vicious circle. The bleak world today is shaped by these forces - impending climate catastrophe (as fossil fuel interests can’t be reigned in), austerity (as the rich refuse taxes and control the governments who would tax them), authoritarianism (as the relationship between money and power can’t be bothered with pretense anymore), concentration camps (as the wealthy manufacture scapegoats for the mess they’ve made). Turning around and blaming consumers for this while pretending it couldn’t be better both is truly a shallow take. Carlin wouldn’t let these people off the hook like you do: > A person of good intelligence and of sensitivity cannot exist in this society very long without having some anger about the inequality - and it's not just a bleeding-heart, knee-jerk, liberal kind of a thing - it is just a normal human reaction to a nonsensical set of values where we have cinnamon flavored dental floss and there are people sleeping in the street
- SirMaster 1y ago
  Is it really worse now than hundreds or thousands of years ago when there were kings and pharaohs and other rulers that had literal peasants and slaves and such all working for them? I don't know, but it fees like people are more equal now than back then at least to me. Or more people have a much higher standard of living at least.
  - grafmax 1y ago
    Realistically climate catastrophe seems worse to me yes than living as a peasant or ancient Egyptian. Our choices aren’t so limited however. But if you mean we should look at our standard of living today and appreciate them, let’s examine that with some nuance. Since 1980 pay and productivity have been decoupled in the global north such that the wealthy have continued to grow richer while the median worker hasn’t seen their real wages rise, despite being more productive. In fact much of our rise in standard of living prior to 1980 is not due to the allowing concentrated wealth to run rampant but people fighting the wealthy for things like worker rights, democratic rights, social programs. If we look at the global south on the other hand since 1980 we see a great rise out of poverty. This has happened primarily due to China’s socialist policies which have pulled 800 million people out of poverty. Allowing a small wealthy minority to run one’s country is undemocratic as they are able to use their outsized money and power to control the government and further grow their own wealth. It’s precisely why we face problems like authoritarianism, climate change, and austerity - toxic transitions all funded by monied interests. Does the world really seem like it’s continuing to progress to you? Is our choice really so limited as either ‘hand over the reigns of society to billionaires’ or ‘revert to medieval peasantry’? Consider the improvements in the quality of life we’ve seen in the past century. People came together and fought for those improvements. They didn’t trust and depend on their monied masters to drop crumbs their way. That never happens. They fought for better lives and achieved them.
mindwok 1y ago
Both things can be true. Amazon is great for consumers, Google is great for consumers, no doubt. But consolidation of economic power under tech juggernauts I would argue is a net negative for society over the long run. The tech giants are not at fault, neither are the consumers, the fault lies with the system in which they operate that allows one outcome while ignoring another (potentially bad) one. What we need to do is change the rules.
gr8beehive 1y ago
Yeah it’s Soylent green all the way down; just people hiding behind allowed legal obfuscation. Physics is inviolable. Human tech will never succeed in the fancy things we imagine. No evidence it allows such things naturally. We’ll conjure a bunch of artistic representations, but never harness enough energy to break things. Hunter gathering is a bit far back. Since none of the geniuses can guarantee 100 generations from now will still care about rockets to Mars, listening to them today about the far future is asinine. Keep enough food and hardware stores around and give people time back. I’m anti story mode and that means Sam Altman’s or some notion of future human greatness. Fellow US readers; yeah that’s right I don’t care you exist. You keep me off the hook for your healthcare, good luck. Why would I care when you keep yourself off the hook for my healthcare? Fuck you. I’m fucking sick of Americans clearly being low skilled useless to themselves exploiters of others for zero in return but a made up story. In all my study of physical science I never come across evidence any of this wanky web tech is a fundamental force. Occam’s razor applied, it’s all just the hallucinations of arbitrary meat people.

budududuroiu 1y ago

We don’t have to go back to hunter gatherer societies, just do some antitrust. I dislike the commentary that any pushback against tech companies means you’re a Luddite

fasterik 1y ago
Anti-trust for an industry where there are at least five companies doing well in any given space? That's not called a monopoly, it's called competition. Edit: I wasn't accusing everyone who is critical of tech of being a Luddite. The attitude that nearly every tech company is a net negative for society goes quite a bit beyond criticism.
- budududuroiu 1y ago
  You read an article that talks about consolidation of food delivery and increasingly high barriers to new entrants and think that’s competition?
  - fasterik 1y ago
    Where does the article mention barriers to entry? My reading is that that the consolidation is due to venture capital moving investment to other areas. Anyone who wants to start a new food delivery app is still free to do so, as long as they can find funding. This is the definition of competition according to Wikipedia: "Competition is a scenario where different economic firms are in contention to obtain goods that are limited by varying the elements of the marketing mix: price, product, promotion and place." Yes, sounds like competition to me. Network effects are not anti-competitive.
    - esperent 1y ago
      > Anyone who wants to start a new food delivery app is still free to do so, as long as they can find funding. This argument is meaningless because you can always make it. There's a quasi-monopoly? Yeah but you're still allowed to make a new company so it's not really a problem is it? You'll fail, unless you're backed by even more powerful venture capital, but I don't care about that because I get to keep making the argument that it's a free market. The reality is that the only way you can compete in this market is to already be a billion dollar company, or have the backing of one. That's not a free market by any reasonable definition. What it is, is a clear case of technofeudalism.
- loloquwowndueo 1y ago
  There’s such a thing as collusion - convenient way to claim “we’re not a monopoly, there’s at least 4 more competitors” when behind the scenes they’re all talking and agreeing in price fixing, limiting offer, blocking other competitors.
  - wenc 1y ago
    That is known as a "cartel," which is also prosecutable under the Sherman Act. It applies to not just monopolies. But that doesn't seem to be the case here.
- alisonatwork 1y ago
  Now imagine you live in one of the other 190 countries of the world who do not or no longer have significant players in the industry because they were crushed by those five foreign companies. It's not competition when the wealth and power is so disproportionately held by the same people in the same places.
  - rangestransform 1y ago
    As a software engineer in the US, I like that the US sucks up money from the rest of the world, that’s why my dollar goes so far when I travel and why I can retire in a non-reserve-currency country for cheap
    - chrisdirkis 1y ago
      Do you not feel as though that's incredibly anti-social? It's a very zero-sum "I'd prefer if things were better for me in direct proportion to how much worse they'll be for '_others_'"
    - BobaFloutist 1y ago
      Right, and you'd like if there was a special 0% income tax only for software engineers or if every software engineer got a free pony too. That's why we need to also consider the needs of people that aren't American software engineers.
  - itake 1y ago
    Can you name them which countries this impacts? China (basically) only has didi. Not much the USA can say here. Southeast has Grab, and within each country there are at least 2 local competitors (Be, GoJek, Bolt, Line Man, Bluebird, etc). I believe Doordash just bought Deliveroo, making it the only American competitor in SEA. In Europe, the main players are local food panda / Delivery hero and Just Eat. India's winning food delivery is Swiggy. What countries have both the talent to build a food delivery app and the USA is the dominant player?
    - alisonatwork 1y ago
- anigbrowl 1y ago
  It's an oligopoly.
- motorest 1y ago
  > Anti-trust for an industry where there are at least five companies doing well in any given space? That's not called a monopoly, it's called competition You need to be completely out of touch with reality to read an article on 5 companies dominating a global market and your take from that info is that there are no anticompetitive practices because 5 is more than 1.
  - lynx97 1y ago
    "completely out of touch" is definitely an exaggregationg. Besides, as if competition would really increase quality. Where I dwell, we have around 3 active delivery services. Only 1 of them has an app with useable UX, icnluding accessibility. Competition? Meh. What for? So that I can watch the smaller guys blunder their way to the top?
    - motorest 1y ago
      > "completely out of touch" is definitely an exaggregationg. Is it, though? I mean, can you present a coherent argument supporting the idea that a global market being dominated by 5 multinational corporations does not flag a risk of anticompetitive practices? > Competition? Meh. What for? So that I can watch the smaller guys blunder their way to the top? Is this what you have to offer to refute the idea you're completely out of touch?
      - potato3732842 1y ago
        If by "coherent" you mean the Webster definition then yeah, anyone can. If by coherent you mean "using only facts and opinions that I accept at face value within my world view" then no. Personally, I think 5 is way too little. But there are probably some markets for various products and services where 5 is fine. I don't think the number matters so much as that there be potential for a long tail of upstarts who could potentially displace a big player quickly. Whether 95% of the market is captured 2 or 22 players doesn't matter, they gotta know that someone is waiting to take their place if they screw up.
  - jack_h 1y ago
p_v_doom 1y ago
> I dislike the commentary that any pushback against tech companies means you’re a Luddite Me too, and I actually AM a Luddite
grues-dinner 1y ago
Put a cap on company size. No organisation can be worth more than (say) a few hundred million. You can still make big and complex things but it'll have to be several small(er) companies working in concert, which is already kind of how massive companies work internally anyway. Less efficient, maybe, but I am not entirely convinced that huge companies hoovering up any attempt at competition leads to efficiencies in the long run. And the more value that can be extracted by smaller players, the more that ends up in the hands of humans rather than pooling R the top. Maybe have a credit for capital outlay so building and operating a factory is better than building a financial war chest, and a credit for non-executive salaries so paying your workers increases your company's headroom.
- graemep 1y ago
  I have long had ideas on those lines: https://pietersz.co.uk/2009/11/fix-capitalism https://pietersz.co.uk/2009/11/fix-capitalism
  - potamic 1y ago
    Really good. I have one more proposal. Capital gains tax that increases progressively with gains, and decreases progressively with duration i.e. incentivize significant investors to create long term value instead of chasing quick exits.

speff 1y ago

I generally agree with your point, but would like to mention in my opinion Amazon (not AWS) makes billions because they've captured the market and prevent any meaningful competition from arising due to their "Fair Pricing" policy rules. I'll be happy when there are meaningful alternatives to Amazon that don't have inflated prices due to price parity which have an excessive return cost built in...

fasterik 1y ago
Amazon.com has 12% market share in global e-commerce and 38% in the United States. I think they have plenty of competition.
- almosthere 1y ago
  Amazon 38% Walmart 6% Apple 3.5% Ebay 3% sorry but Amazon does not have competition in the united states. https://grok.com/share/bGVnYWN5_bc9cd328-15d3-4047-bde6-d57a8c90f9b2 https://grok.com/share/bGVnYWN5_bc9cd328-15d3-4047-bde6-d57a...

kylecazar 1y ago

Lobbyists muddy the incentive waters a bit when it comes to politics. But I agree with your conclusion. I don't think there are many truly net negative companies/sectors/ideas that aren't either dead or on their way out -- but I'm sure you'd agree we should still hold tech accountable and optimize for our own benefit. Btw, as a lifelong Carlin fan, I find myself asking what he would think pretty often :)

fasterik 1y ago
Carlin was a true philosopher. I find myself disagreeing with him more these days than when I was younger and angrier, but I still find him endlessly entertaining.

klabb3 1y ago

> My theory is that if you're extremely pessimistic about technology or politics, you probably won't like anything that happens when large groups of humans make collective decisions. There's an air of let's go back to the good old days when we were hunter gatherers to the whole thing. Hunter gatherer is the only alternative to a society under total dominance by mega-corps? This reminds me of individual stories from life under communism and brutal dictatorships where the dystopia is so omnipresent you don’t even remember what was before, nor could imagine anything meaningfully different. Instead, you take joy in the little things, like (today) the scraps left over after another market war – ”at least now we have a search engine”, ”I can order a taxi from an app”. I understand it, because it has been such a dominant force in the kind of second reincarnation of neoliberalism since ~80s in the US in particular. This apathy is the perfect wet blanket to prevent systemic change and perpetuate the status quo – no suppression of dissent is needed if there is no imagination or expectation of a better society. A lot of powerful interests are spending a lot of effort trying to convince us that any meaningful change would make things even worse, not better. In my opinion, the best way to break these cycles is to study the past, other countries and many times smaller local communities. There are countless examples of well functioning systems if you pay attention. And new ones being established all the time. I’ve seen local markets completely flourish in just a decade, because of good policy. Once you see these things, and know in your heart it’s possible, there’s no going back. I’m intentionally a bit vague here, because what’s meaningful to one person can be inconsequential to another. Which is why it’s so important to discover these things on your own. That’s the way to turn complacency into hope, and hope into organized action.

fasterik 1y ago
"Local communities" existed for millennia and didn't manage to reduce the child mortality rate and extreme poverty rate to effectively zero. I know neoliberalism is a dirty word, and there are plenty of problems with the modern world, but I would rather live in a neoliberal global society than the "local" world of 200 years ago.
- fivecompete 1y ago
  Again, you have many more options than just 2.

AndrewKemendo 1y ago

Here's the bit on Youtube (I couldn't find an Archive link): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrSAxtIYM08 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrSAxtIYM08 This is the right conclusion, and I love sharing that video for that reason. As of 2025 everyone globally has everything they need to make the world a great place for everyone. Instead, people continue to take the lowest energy route for their personal actions, which means they do not even think about the externalities of that purchase from Amazon, the Latte from Starbucks, continuing living in (insert your broken system here), working for some billionaire etc...They just shrug and think "its out of my control, besides I don't have any impact and why should I suffer unnecessarily" There are millions of examples of individual people who had no education, being actively oppressed and violently attacked changing their situation by either moving or overthrowing their oppressors. Harriet Tubman comes to mind. It's never been easier to do that, but people would rather not. The entire "illegal immigrant" concept proves it, people literally spending their entire life savings ($5000) to pay coyotes to smuggle them in horrific conditions so they can be slaves picking strawberries. I know a Houston restaurant owner who did that trek twice from Guatemala, getting deported the first time and he just saved up and did it again. While speaking no english. Tell me again about how it's not possible to do something. Meanwhile the citizens can't be bothered to learn about their own history or you know, do anything. I've tried to start multiple non-heirarchical anarchist cooperative organizations and the number one challenge is finding people who will put the group ahead of the individual. It just doesn't happen. There are no organizations where that's true. No church, no government, no state, no charity, nothing, nowhere actually meets the test of holistic globally aligned "good." I read the Medicins Sans Frotiers book long ago, even they were terrible and continue to fight internally [1]. Unions now make most of their money from capital investments [2], which is directly in opposition to their anticapitalist philosophical roots. All of this is because the members don't care and don't have any desire to have less, they all want more forever. At this point in history, everyone has access to the information they need to make globally holistic decisions. It's not possible to claim ignorance, ignorance is strictly a choice and ultimately a existential personal limitation. There are no organizations that exist for the benefit of society and they cannot exist because humans fundamentally lack the cognitive ability to think beyond Dunbar's number but their actions have global consequences. Self elimination is the only possible arc for humanity. [1] https://healthpolicy-watch.news/inward-technocratic-msf-leadership-under-global-pressure/#:~:text=Von%20Schoen%2DAngerer%20described%20as%20%E2%80%9Carrogant%E2%80%9D%20the%20restructuring,that%20the%20Access%20Campaign%20has%20worked%20with.%E2%80%9D https://healthpolicy-watch.news/inward-technocratic-msf-lead... [2] https://jacobin.com/2023/02/finance-unionism-union-density-decline-american-labor-movement-mass-organizing https://jacobin.com/2023/02/finance-unionism-union-density-d...

jarpadat 1y ago

My theory is that is what is latent in the terrain of human psychology is a propensity to view misconceptions about which problem it is, as evidence there isn't one. When I stop to think about it, I realize that the misconceptions are evidence there is. With that in mind: in what way should we terraform the latent terrain of human psychology to fix this problem? Because breaking up the tech companies seems like a way, but you seem to have a different one in mind.

zugi 1y ago

"Monopoly" used to mean a single company controlling a market. Now folks are now hollering "monopoly" about five different companies competing and collectively capturing 90% of a market? Plus the market is artificially defined to be small. It excluded companies that do their own delivery (pizza places and others), home food delivery that isn't from restaurants, and the old option of just driving yourself to a restaurant. There's thriving competition in the industry of getting people food, and lots of options that didn't even exist a decade ago. Crazy that it's being spun as the exact opposite.

lmm 1y ago
> "Monopoly" used to mean a single company controlling a market. Now folks are now hollering "monopoly" about five different companies competing and collectively capturing 90% of a market? Five companies controlling 90% of the market is more than enough to form a cartel or spontaneously self-organise in ways that have the same effect even without explicitly coordinating. (I once read an economics paper that I wish I could find now that said this would happen when the top 4 companies in an industry controlled more than 60% of the market)
fireflash38 1y ago
What are the primary problems with monopolies? Do you think those exact same problems could be seen by a small group of of companies who act in a monopolistic manner (much like a cartel)? I think you are stuck on the definition of the word monopoly rather than the reason behind why we ban/rule against them.

BrenBarn 1y ago

You're right in a sense. The thing is what people are "willing" to do or what they "want" is a somewhat amorphous concept and depends on how options are presented to people. Human nature involves the ability to let different dimensions of our cognitive apparatus cover one another's weak spots. In my view, a lot of what many would consider wise decisions throughout human history have been instances of this, many of them in the form of law, from child-labor restrictions to drunk-driving laws to birth control to incest taboos. There just seems to be a certain segment of society that for some reason insists that "what the consumer wants" has to be construed in this narrow way as what is in the person's mind at the instant of a decision, and that any attempt to broaden that person's decision-making is somehow unnatural. Well, no. It's good to make changes that create immediate costs if doing so can save us from future costs that we're not good at foreseeing at the moment. It's good for Ulysses to ask his men to tie him to the mast. It's good in many cases for people to deliberately, explicitly, not do things they feel like doing because they will regret those things later. I believe this is often true even from a perspective of self-interest (e.g., people will not like it if a monopoly emerges and raises prices later), but it's even more true if you incorporate a bit of consideration for the well-being of others, and I think plenty of people are willing to do that to some extent.

eviks 1y ago

> they're just responding to incentives created by a majority vote. That's not completely true since there are too many mechanisms built in to limit those incentives

almosthere 1y ago

[flagged]

Klonoar 1y ago
Instead of citing an AI, why don't you cite an actual reputable source? Those facts it ingested and regurgitated no doubt came from somewhere, and you're clearly attempting to use the facts to prove a point. An authoritative source is more helpful than attributing it to [insert ai bot here].
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- almosthere 1y ago
  disagree
  - RamblingCTO 1y ago
    yes, a "source" that's widely known for producing false information is a reliable source, you're right.
    - almosthere 1y ago
      the data is so fucking obvious (everyone knows there are massive OD and suicidality in this moment), of course people are going to be pedantic about the source and not debate the merits of the argument.
      - RamblingCTO 1y ago
        however you want to spin it, the source is always important. again, especially if it tends to fabricate things. don't be lazy and research a proper, first order source and not a parroted parody of a source. you're intellectually lazy, so why would anyone want to discuss with you? https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db522.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db522.htm > 105,007 in 2023 heavily picking up since around 2015

zetsurin 1y ago

George Carlin also said: "'cause they own this fucking place. It's a big club, and you ain’t in it" (https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/964648-but-there-s-a-reason-there-s-a-reason-there-s-a-reason https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/964648-but-there-s-a-reason...). I think there's a power dynamic that it seems like you are ignoring, that big companies take advantage of. Amazon gets cheap goods to your doorstep, and removes all competition while doing it. You think those goods are going to stay cheap,i don't. This is a playbook that wallmarts followed for years. Amazon also gets sellers, by selling amazon versions of their products. Google makes billions by showing you ads, they got you there with free services, but now they enshittify. >There's an air of let's go back to the good old days when we were hunter gatherers to the whole thing I think my concern is not going back to the bad old gilded age days, where wealth inequality lead to most humans having a terrible life while a few had a great life.

hn_throwaway_99 1y ago

> There's an air of let's go back to the good old days when we were hunter gatherers to the whole thing. I strongly disagree. On the contrary, I see the arch of many technological advancements in that, in the beginning, they solve a crucial need, but then once they solve that problem they attempt to hijack the positive feedback systems of humans (e.g. addiction systems) to stay in power. Consider the food industry. Many people were under pretty constant threat of starvation through much of human history. So in the 19th and 20th centuries we essentially solved that problem in the Western world with the modern food industry. But we didn't stop there. Once people had all they needed to eat, food companies had to figure out how to get them to eat more, and they were highly successful. Saying that much of modern food science is a net negative for humanity doesn't mean I think we should go back to being hunter gatherers, but at this point every new "innovation" in the industry is really just an attempt to try to get people to eat/drink more. I think much of the modern Internet/Web has been on that "net negative" slide for at least the past 10 years. Are people at large to blame for this? In one sense, sure. But I have no problem laying the blame at tech leaders who are essentially in the role of drug dealers for much of the industry. I mean, sure, drug users are ultimately at fault too, but we look down pretty harshly at drug dealers for their role in the process.

lynx97 1y ago
Just because Americans have an obesity problem doesn't make every food vendor a drug dealer. Come on, get real. Basically everything that is being sold can be abused by the user. Does that mean every vendor of anything is potentially a bad actor? I believe you are exaggregating. BTW, I virtually never thought about Thiel when I ordered a Pizza. Is there a reason why you drag the owners into this? It basically sounds like you are antagonising everyone above your wage-class. I don't get it.
- ctxc 1y ago
  It's not black and white, but what you're saying sounds like "just because users have an attention problem doesn't make every social media app an attention grabber" I mean, companies optimise for profits and at some point people fall for it in excess which is the point OP made. It kinda makes sense, because the means the companies employ are psychologically advanced plays on people who don't know the spelling of psychology. I'm probably manipulated into scrolling more than I wanted to or buying more than I wanted to on an everyday basis.

somenameforme 1y ago

Carlin's comedy peaked during near the era that I think most consider the Golden Age of America. Times have immeasurably changed since then. On the tech side of things Google has recently been hit by multiple anti-trust lawsuits, and lost them all. That's perhaps even less telling than the evidence presented. They brazenly and actively conspired to kill or buy any and all competition, but they've become so large (and so important to the US intelligence agencies) that they'll get nothing more than the most gentle slap on the wrist, relative to their scale. The moral of the story seems to be don't cheat, but if you're going to cheat - cheat relentlessly, ruthlessly, and take it to an extreme - and it might just become worth it. Politics has become similar. Politicians have become way better at their jobs in modern times than in Carlin's era. Their "job" of course is just to get elected. It turns out that actually having a platform or popular ideas is far less useful than making people hate and fear 'the other guy' enough. When you rely on hate and fear, people will even actively vote for people they despise simply because 'it's the lesser evil.' With modern politicking even Reagan-Mondale would have still been a 50/50 coinflip and Regan would be an imminent threat to American democracy, and Mondale would want to turn your kids gay. Actually if we reached the modern era of divisiveness and stupidity in Carlin's time, there's a real chance America, certainly as we know it, wouldn't even exist today.

potato3732842 1y ago
>They brazenly and actively conspired to kill or buy any and all competition, but they've become so large (and so important to the US intelligence agencies) that they'll get nothing more than the most gentle slap on the wrist, relative to their scale. The moral of the story seems to be don't cheat, but if you're going to cheat - cheat relentlessly, ruthlessly, and take it to an extreme - and it might just become worth it. The moral of the story to me is that the government doesn't give a crap what you do so long as it's good for them. Google only got punished, and even then it was a big "show" with no results not because it did wrong, but because it so flagrantly violated the law the government got pissed that it was being made to look a fool. They didn't really want to "punish" google because it was their buddy and they found it useful, they just wanted the appearance.

imjonse 1y ago

motorest 1y ago

> Politicians are people just like everyone else, they're just responding to incentives created by a majority vote. I don't think this is remotely true, and feels like victim blaming. No one is voting for monopolies and exploitation. At most you have people voting for tax cuts and the hopes of improved economies, which are then faced with a bait-and-switch of erosion of legal rights and protection and further anticompetitive practices. These so-called "food delivery" companies are the worst example possible as they are renowned for the way they exploit employees with blatant violations of basic labor laws. No one voted for that. > Tech companies are just like any other company, except a lot more people are willing to pay for their goods and services. No. Their whole business model is based on exploitation to the point some countries had to force them to finally get their riders into actual employment contracts. > I'm actually far from convinced that tech companies are a net negative for society. Amazon makes billions because everyone wants competitively priced goods delivered to their doorsteps. Google makes billions because they provide free access to a large portion of humanity's information. You have a far too naive and out of touch view on the problem, much like a few years ago people from colonial powers believed their presence was net positive for natives as that meant they could receive a salary for waiting on them hand and foot. Amazon's example is even more laughable as the company is notorious for exploitative and outright abusive labor practices. I understand you like to receive packages, but I seriously recommend you read something on the topic because their impact on society is far from net positive.

safety1st 1y ago

Carlin's actual view is a lot more nuanced than that. Big Tech (along with Walmart, Visa and more) have gotten to where they are by employing illegal business practices such as price discrimination and exclusive dealing. These tactics laid the groundwork for the mass mergers and rollups and the monopolies and oligopolies that dominate America today. The laws on the books which prohibit them, like Robinson-Patman and the Clayton Act, have gone largely unenforced since Reagan. Software sped up how quickly businesses can exploit these criminal tactics but this has become a problem across all sectors of the economy. This shocking degree of negligence has required complicity from both political parties, but there's a deeper issue which is that this stuff is just too arcane to be linked meaningfully to a popular vote in today's democracy. We're talking about a nation where 1 in 5 people are now illiterate and that number is rising. There are two parties and a vanishingly small number of candidates presented to them every couple of years, meanwhile the media bombards them with a dozen supposed crises every day. This system is never going to produce a consensus that the most important priority is enforcing some law from 1914. Popular sentiment is more likely to be expressed through the rise of more guys like Luigi Mangione.

niclas-183 1y ago
The ever-increasing flood of information (crises, as you call them) will, I believe, eventually become the downfall of our political system. There is already so much to read in a single day that you probably couldn't consume it all in your remaining lifetime if you tried. LLMs will only make this worse. Eventually, super-powers—whether political or economic—will send out so much misinformation about everything that no one can really follow it or distinguish truth from falsehood. People will simply stop participating in the global conversation, and their votes will become obsolete and guided by the most intruiging stories.

kazinator 1y ago

Tech companies are not like other companies because they can trivially create vendor lock-in without any geographic constraints on where the customers are. In fact, it's harder to avoid vendor-lock in in tech; it takes extra work to open things up, possibly a lot of extra work. Even a well-intentioned open-source program can garner a user base which can't easily migrate off it.

robertlagrant 1y ago
The customer is responsible for avoiding vendor lock-in, not the vendor.
- danaris 1y ago
  Then let's use regulation to flip that around, and put the onus on the party that a) is making money off it b) has a vested interest in increasing lock-in c) is a singular entity, not a dispersed set of individuals d) is doing this as part of something specific and organized, rather than just trying to go about their daily lives, buying an orange here and a smartphone there
- kazinator 1y ago
  Sure! Don't like your country's passport application website? I'm sure debian.org has an alternative for you.
  - robertlagrant 1y ago
    What do you propose? A country builds multiple passport application website for you to choose from?

grafmax 1y ago

Inequality is built into our society’s structure - capitalism divides people into two classes - workers and owners. The level of wealth inequality in the current world is quite extreme. Even if you accept some degree of it because “it’s always going to be messy and chaotic” - the current level is truly poisonous for a healthy society. And it’s the result of neoliberal policy across the world since 1980 - the deregulation ideology of the rich filtered into governments. We have concentrated wealth; this wealth concentration has intensified itself as those benefiting from it in turn shape government policy in a vicious circle. The bleak world today is shaped by these forces - impending climate catastrophe (as fossil fuel interests can’t be reigned in), austerity (as the rich refuse taxes and control the governments who would tax them), authoritarianism (as the relationship between money and power can’t be bothered with pretense anymore), concentration camps (as the wealthy manufacture scapegoats for the mess they’ve made). Turning around and blaming consumers for this while pretending it couldn’t be better both is truly a shallow take. Carlin wouldn’t let these people off the hook like you do: > A person of good intelligence and of sensitivity cannot exist in this society very long without having some anger about the inequality - and it's not just a bleeding-heart, knee-jerk, liberal kind of a thing - it is just a normal human reaction to a nonsensical set of values where we have cinnamon flavored dental floss and there are people sleeping in the street

SirMaster 1y ago
Is it really worse now than hundreds or thousands of years ago when there were kings and pharaohs and other rulers that had literal peasants and slaves and such all working for them? I don't know, but it fees like people are more equal now than back then at least to me. Or more people have a much higher standard of living at least.
- grafmax 1y ago
  Realistically climate catastrophe seems worse to me yes than living as a peasant or ancient Egyptian. Our choices aren’t so limited however. But if you mean we should look at our standard of living today and appreciate them, let’s examine that with some nuance. Since 1980 pay and productivity have been decoupled in the global north such that the wealthy have continued to grow richer while the median worker hasn’t seen their real wages rise, despite being more productive. In fact much of our rise in standard of living prior to 1980 is not due to the allowing concentrated wealth to run rampant but people fighting the wealthy for things like worker rights, democratic rights, social programs. If we look at the global south on the other hand since 1980 we see a great rise out of poverty. This has happened primarily due to China’s socialist policies which have pulled 800 million people out of poverty. Allowing a small wealthy minority to run one’s country is undemocratic as they are able to use their outsized money and power to control the government and further grow their own wealth. It’s precisely why we face problems like authoritarianism, climate change, and austerity - toxic transitions all funded by monied interests. Does the world really seem like it’s continuing to progress to you? Is our choice really so limited as either ‘hand over the reigns of society to billionaires’ or ‘revert to medieval peasantry’? Consider the improvements in the quality of life we’ve seen in the past century. People came together and fought for those improvements. They didn’t trust and depend on their monied masters to drop crumbs their way. That never happens. They fought for better lives and achieved them.

mindwok 1y ago

Both things can be true. Amazon is great for consumers, Google is great for consumers, no doubt. But consolidation of economic power under tech juggernauts I would argue is a net negative for society over the long run. The tech giants are not at fault, neither are the consumers, the fault lies with the system in which they operate that allows one outcome while ignoring another (potentially bad) one. What we need to do is change the rules.

gr8beehive 1y ago

Yeah it’s Soylent green all the way down; just people hiding behind allowed legal obfuscation. Physics is inviolable. Human tech will never succeed in the fancy things we imagine. No evidence it allows such things naturally. We’ll conjure a bunch of artistic representations, but never harness enough energy to break things. Hunter gathering is a bit far back. Since none of the geniuses can guarantee 100 generations from now will still care about rockets to Mars, listening to them today about the far future is asinine. Keep enough food and hardware stores around and give people time back. I’m anti story mode and that means Sam Altman’s or some notion of future human greatness. Fellow US readers; yeah that’s right I don’t care you exist. You keep me off the hook for your healthcare, good luck. Why would I care when you keep yourself off the hook for my healthcare? Fuck you. I’m fucking sick of Americans clearly being low skilled useless to themselves exploiters of others for zero in return but a made up story. In all my study of physical science I never come across evidence any of this wanky web tech is a fundamental force. Occam’s razor applied, it’s all just the hallucinations of arbitrary meat people.