31 ms·
Big tech is nothing different from the German industrialists one hundred years ago
by touwer 1y ago
Big tech is nothing different from the German industrialists one hundred years ago
- CaptainOfCoit 1y agoIf history has thought us anything, it has to be that capitalists have absolutely no spine and only think about profits, no matter what.
- themafia 1y agoWe used to know this inherently and we spent half a century passing really well thought out and actionable laws designed to thwart the darker side of capitalism while still allowing it's benefits to accrue to the masses. Since then we've forgotten how to enforce anti monopoly and media ownership rules. Similarly we've somehow completely turned campaign financing into an open competition for bribes.
- card_zero 1y agoSo, in this situation when a large company cooperates with intrusive policing, you think the problem is that the company is too large and that enforcement of laws should have taken place? To prevent this collaboration with law enforcement?
- AnthonyMouse 1y agoIt's a much bigger problem when a company with >50% market share connects all the cameras to law enforcement than if a company with 0.5% market share does that, but the first one can't happen if there are no companies with a double digit market share. And when there are more companies it's easier to tell people to buy a different one because that one is doing something shady. When Amazon does it, you recommend that unsophisticated people do what, use a Chinese camera which is presumably shunting the feeds to that government?
- aftbit 1y agoI recommend that people don't install networked cameras unless they build a dedicated air-gapped network for them. If you want to know who is at your door ... look out a window. Unpopular take, I know, because it demands that people actually understand the technology they're using and where their data flows, and almost nobody has the skill, time, attention, money, and mindspace for that... but that's the only way to be a responsible networked camera user.
- potato3732842 1y agoAh, yes, because those <checks notes> communists and <checks notes again> feudal lords, theocratic regimes, monarchs and all manner of other non-capitalist societies have such a stellar track record of treating people well. This isn't a capitalist or any other "ist" problem. It is a problem with society and social norms. The cameras are there because people want them to be. The cameras get used because it is not politically toxic to do so. The use continues because the people objecting to the current abuse don't object on a principal level, they love the jackboot. They'd just rather see it used to levy ruinous fines upon middle class scofflaws (got I hate that word and the people who use it unironically) than whisk brown people off the street. Sure, different people would screech if the powers that be pivoted in that direction but at no point does the screeching add up to change because only the people who hate a specific abuse screech at any one time.
- toofy 1y ago> they love the jackboot yes, some people genuinely do, and some people don’t. some people have absolutely no understanding of what surveillance tech is doing and where it is going. in terms of the “ist” problem you refer to, at the end of the day, the real answer is to deny anyone that amount of power. whether it’s corporations, religions, governments, or billionaires. none of these should have enough power to sway the world to terrifying places. none of them, including govs, billionaires, or corporations. somehow we need to achieve separation of money and state with as much vigor as we used to separate church and state. we should be incentivizing the power from all of those groups to be dispersed as much as possible.
- potato3732842 1y ago>somehow we need to achieve separation of money and state with as much vigor as we used to separate church and state. This used to be called "equality under the law" and laws that could not be written equally or enforced equally were not written or overturned by the courts.
- mschuster91 1y ago
- newsclues 1y agoHistory also teaches us about communism but so many people refuse to accept that part of history and romance it. So why wouldn’t any accept capitalism and ignore its flaws?
- immibis 1y agoNobody was talking about communism.
- gosub100 1y agoIt's the government that wants unchecked power, no matter what. This is why people support the 2A, and why it was the 2nd most important thing to those who founded the country.
- mothballed 1y agoMost of the sanctuary areas that have historically resisted ICE are brutally against any originalist interpretation of the 2A.
- locopati 1y agoAnd weirdly, the staunch defenders of 2A, because how else do you fight tyranny are all, good with the tyrant and the tyrant party shitting all over the Constitution.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- nielsbot 1y agoYou’ll have to fight fascism with mass protests not guns.
- hackable_sand 1y agoAnd art
- CaptainOfCoit 1y ago> It's the government that wants unchecked power, no matter what. "The Government" is not a entity with "wants" or "needs", it's a collection of people with their own motivations. Motivations that usually end up being about power or money, or a combination, because the people who end up in the government are capitalists. > why it was the 2nd most important thing to those I mean, not really? The 2nd amendment includes stuff that they didn't even think of originally when creating the constitution, so just because it was the second amendment that went through, doesn't mean it was "the 2nd most important thing", the most important things are the original articles in the constitution, so the amendments must start ranking at 8th place or something like that, 2nd amendment ends up being the 9th most important thing if we were to rank things like you did, but honestly.
- 759282361082 1y agoWe should all learn from stalinists like you. Murdering 145 million people is quite the feat.
- wpm 1y agoSilence, clanker.
- CaptainOfCoit 1y agoIf anything, I'm a anti-ist, belonging to no-one.
- cindyllm 1y ago[dead]
- Ekaros 1y agoOfc they do not. It is only about making money. As is free market. Actually they will always trade morals for profits if possible.
- mothballed 1y agoBig tech have always been dogs willing to play fetch for any master. The free market didn't offer big tech these quantity of rewards for brutalizing people 'guilty' of administrative infractions, our 'democratically' elected government did.
- potato3732842 1y ago>elected government Elected in part by the useful idiots on HN and many other places. They were so ignorant of how government actually works they were happy to give it this power. They foresaw the jackboot being used to stomp petty criminals and fellow middle class types who don't "pay their fair share". But they had never cracked open a history book because if they had they would know that sort of stuff is never a top priority.
- cindyllm 1y ago[dead]
- squigz 1y agoMaybe people are just responding to things like labelling them all as "useful idiots" and "Nazis" and "fascists"
- brookst 1y agoFine, let's call them patriots who are fed up with democracy, limits on governmental power, and the rule of law.
- potato3732842 1y agoWe are all useful idiots, comrade.
- hitarpetar 1y agowhat about snowflake, that's a good one too!
- wpm 1y ago
- steve1977 1y agoIf you follow the money, it might even be less different.
- user_7832 1y agoHey don't be so ageist, IBM is still around! (Context, IBM helped the Nazis with recordkeeping.) See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_World_War_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_World_War_II
- _heimdall 1y agoGermany was a mess after WWI, there wasn't much industry at all to speak of in the 1920s.
- red-iron-pine 1y agohistorical Big Tech was more than willing to help out the Axis powers. IBM did a ton of business with the Nazis.
- chung8123 1y agoI am both amazed and not surprised by the amount of people that will work at a company that is directly opposed to their own points of view. I am willing to bet many of the employees of Google, Meta, and Amazon are morally opposed to the very things they are supporting.
- _DeadFred_ 1y agoNah. They aren't. If they were, they would leave. I went to school for aerospace but didn't work in the industry for the longest time because all the jobs available were military. These people don't care, they might put on a fake persona that pretends to care, but you outright don't care if you work at these places. You get a job somewhere else when you care. What you hear from them isn't caring, it's just a way for them to pretend they are someone they aren't. The person they pretend to be would not be working there.