5 ms·

People pay the mafia protection money because it's cheaper than fighting the mob and it makes the mob go away for awhile, and in the long run, we're all dead. M

by fasbiner 10mo ago

People pay the mafia protection money because it's cheaper than fighting the mob and it makes the mob go away for awhile, and in the long run, we're all dead. Most mafia-like entities don't have an inexorable existential drive to take it all, they just charge what the market will bear. And if you think there's a definitional difference between a government, a corporation and a mafia that stands up to any objective measure and isn't based entirely on social cues and special pleading, I think that's an extraordinary claim you have no evidence for. Go lead a maoist insurgency or don't, but the fingerwagging moral appeal is worse than useless.

bigyabai 10mo ago
> and in the long run, we're all dead. Well gee, when you put it like that all morality is relative huh?
- rcMgD2BwE72F 10mo ago
  Of course morality is relative. But still, there's no point to compare something to nothing and say "why bother". Comparisons can be useful.
  - b112 10mo ago
    Only a left or right, one or the other world view would think such. As with almost everything, it's both. Some morality is relative, some is absolute.
    - coldtea 10mo ago
      What morality is absolute? Morality being absolute means just that you subjectively consider some moral rules absolute. Doesn't make them so, the way the law of gravity is absolute. And it doesn't mean that every human society agrees to what you consider "absolute". All things you consider "absolute", there are whole societies which found them to be just fine, and you'd do too if you were raised in them, including incest, murder of innocents, slavery, torture...
      - somenameforme 10mo ago
        Many things are naturally repulsive, but are indulged out of necessity or gain. For instance Aristotle wasn't opposed to slavery, yet nonetheless in his writings, now some 2400+ years ago, he found himself obligated to lay out an extensive and lengthy defense and rationalization of such, and he even predicted what would eventually end it: "For if every instrument could accomplish its own work, obeying or anticipating the will of others, like the statues of Daedalus, or the tripods of Hephaestus, which, says the poet, 'Of their own accord entered the assembly of the Gods.' If, in like manner, the shuttle would weave and the plectrum touch the lyre without a hand to guide them, chief workmen would not want servants, nor masters slaves." [1] There were millennia of efforts to end slavery, but it's only the technological and industrial revolution that finally succeeded in doing so. But the point is that even though Aristotle was ostensibly not opposed to slavery, he nonetheless knew it was a decision that needed justification because it was fundamentally repulsive, even in a society where it was ubiquitous and relatively non-controversial, thousands of years ago. This 'natural repulsion' is, I think, some degree of evidence for persistent, if not absolute, morality throughout at least thousands of years of humanity's existence, and I see no reason to assume it would not trend back long further than that. [1] - https://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/politics.mb.txt https://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/politics.mb.txt
        coldtea 10mo ago
        >Many things are naturally repulsive, but are indulged out of necessity or gain Most "naturally repulsive" things were accepted just fine in one society or another. Aristole spent time to defend and rationalize slavery because that was just job, to spend time rationalizing things. Other societies practiced it with no such worries, and found it perfectly natural. But even if we grant you your "naturally repulsive" actions existing, it doesn't mean they are objectively morally wrong. Just that their moral judgement is not just based on culture and historical period, but also on evolutionary adaptations. These could very well be considered fine in an earlier/later evolutionary stage (in an earlier one, for sure: animals don't have such qualms).
        somenameforme 10mo ago
- coldtea 10mo ago
  Morality is all relative any way you put it. There's no God-given objective morality, it's human made and changes.
  - bigyabai 10mo ago
    Okay, but treating "being dead" and "demanding higher standards of living" as morally consistent is too facetious to be relevant.
rightbyte 10mo ago
That seems rather reductionist.
- fasbiner 10mo ago
  How so? In china, app stores are open to market competition as an eventual consequence of a maoist insurgency. It's fine if you're personally a coward or you just don't think it's worth it. But not only does it work, it is so far, the only thing that has ever been proven to work.
  - rightbyte 10mo ago
    I am not a maoist. I meant that this is reductionist: > definitional difference between a government, a corporation and a mafia that stands up to any objective measure and isn't based entirely on social cues and special pleading Thinking about it. Your post now is also reductionist. Maybe that is your thing?
    - fasbiner 10mo ago
      Using -ist instead of engaging in discussion or presenting any evidence or explanation whatsoever for extradorinaiy claims is in fact a thought-terminating cliche. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought-terminating_clich%C3%A9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought-terminating_clich%C3%A... If I were to stoop to your level of reasoning and inquiry, I could simply say that you are are a racist and a sexist for disagreeing with me with just as much basis.
ben_w 10mo ago
> People pay the mafia protection money because it's cheaper than fighting the mob and it makes the mob go away for awhile, and in the long run, we're all dead. Most mafia-like entities don't have an inexorable existential drive to take it all, they just charge what the market will bear. If I had to guess, the Mafia will have professional economists on payroll telling the bosses about the Laffer curve and emigration. But in this context, Apple's clearly on the low end of the Laffer curve* because they don't need a million apps, so who cares if the store fees are 15% or 85%, the supply is still there?**; while for emigration, being the least bad of the Apple/Google duopoly is all that is necessary. * if you take literally that the App store fee is the "Apple tax" ** Answer: Judges in market abuse/monopoly cases because Apple is not actually sovereign; on paper neither is the Mafia, but this is where "monopoly on violence" is a useful definition of a state, in that where anything like the Mafia can exist, the state is de facto not sovereign no matter what it says on paper.
coldtea 10mo ago
>And if you think there's a definitional difference between a government, a corporation and a mafia that stands up to any objective measure and isn't based entirely on social cues and special pleading, If we're speaking of democratic governments you usually get to vote (whatever ineffective). And if we're speaking for non monopolistic corporations you also get to buy from another. With mafia there's a single, non-negotiable, option: the one running your area. And both for goverments and corporations, there are other parties (e.g. courts) limiting what they can do.
Imustaskforhelp 10mo ago
To be honest the parent's comment which related to mafia was already a bit streched but comparing it to maoist insurgency feels like the extreme of an extreme. Can we please discuss how this comment is relevant to the Apple's discussion and how it fits in perhaps too.

bigyabai 10mo ago

> and in the long run, we're all dead. Well gee, when you put it like that all morality is relative huh?

rcMgD2BwE72F 10mo ago
Of course morality is relative. But still, there's no point to compare something to nothing and say "why bother". Comparisons can be useful.
- b112 10mo ago
  Only a left or right, one or the other world view would think such. As with almost everything, it's both. Some morality is relative, some is absolute.
  - coldtea 10mo ago
    What morality is absolute? Morality being absolute means just that you subjectively consider some moral rules absolute. Doesn't make them so, the way the law of gravity is absolute. And it doesn't mean that every human society agrees to what you consider "absolute". All things you consider "absolute", there are whole societies which found them to be just fine, and you'd do too if you were raised in them, including incest, murder of innocents, slavery, torture...
    - somenameforme 10mo ago
      Many things are naturally repulsive, but are indulged out of necessity or gain. For instance Aristotle wasn't opposed to slavery, yet nonetheless in his writings, now some 2400+ years ago, he found himself obligated to lay out an extensive and lengthy defense and rationalization of such, and he even predicted what would eventually end it: "For if every instrument could accomplish its own work, obeying or anticipating the will of others, like the statues of Daedalus, or the tripods of Hephaestus, which, says the poet, 'Of their own accord entered the assembly of the Gods.' If, in like manner, the shuttle would weave and the plectrum touch the lyre without a hand to guide them, chief workmen would not want servants, nor masters slaves." [1] There were millennia of efforts to end slavery, but it's only the technological and industrial revolution that finally succeeded in doing so. But the point is that even though Aristotle was ostensibly not opposed to slavery, he nonetheless knew it was a decision that needed justification because it was fundamentally repulsive, even in a society where it was ubiquitous and relatively non-controversial, thousands of years ago. This 'natural repulsion' is, I think, some degree of evidence for persistent, if not absolute, morality throughout at least thousands of years of humanity's existence, and I see no reason to assume it would not trend back long further than that. [1] - https://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/politics.mb.txt https://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/politics.mb.txt
      - coldtea 10mo ago
        >Many things are naturally repulsive, but are indulged out of necessity or gain Most "naturally repulsive" things were accepted just fine in one society or another. Aristole spent time to defend and rationalize slavery because that was just job, to spend time rationalizing things. Other societies practiced it with no such worries, and found it perfectly natural. But even if we grant you your "naturally repulsive" actions existing, it doesn't mean they are objectively morally wrong. Just that their moral judgement is not just based on culture and historical period, but also on evolutionary adaptations. These could very well be considered fine in an earlier/later evolutionary stage (in an earlier one, for sure: animals don't have such qualms).
        somenameforme 10mo ago
coldtea 10mo ago
Morality is all relative any way you put it. There's no God-given objective morality, it's human made and changes.
- bigyabai 10mo ago
  Okay, but treating "being dead" and "demanding higher standards of living" as morally consistent is too facetious to be relevant.

rightbyte 10mo ago

That seems rather reductionist.

fasbiner 10mo ago
How so? In china, app stores are open to market competition as an eventual consequence of a maoist insurgency. It's fine if you're personally a coward or you just don't think it's worth it. But not only does it work, it is so far, the only thing that has ever been proven to work.
- rightbyte 10mo ago
  I am not a maoist. I meant that this is reductionist: > definitional difference between a government, a corporation and a mafia that stands up to any objective measure and isn't based entirely on social cues and special pleading Thinking about it. Your post now is also reductionist. Maybe that is your thing?
  - fasbiner 10mo ago
    Using -ist instead of engaging in discussion or presenting any evidence or explanation whatsoever for extradorinaiy claims is in fact a thought-terminating cliche. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought-terminating_clich%C3%A9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought-terminating_clich%C3%A... If I were to stoop to your level of reasoning and inquiry, I could simply say that you are are a racist and a sexist for disagreeing with me with just as much basis.

ben_w 10mo ago

> People pay the mafia protection money because it's cheaper than fighting the mob and it makes the mob go away for awhile, and in the long run, we're all dead. Most mafia-like entities don't have an inexorable existential drive to take it all, they just charge what the market will bear. If I had to guess, the Mafia will have professional economists on payroll telling the bosses about the Laffer curve and emigration. But in this context, Apple's clearly on the low end of the Laffer curve* because they don't need a million apps, so who cares if the store fees are 15% or 85%, the supply is still there?**; while for emigration, being the least bad of the Apple/Google duopoly is all that is necessary. * if you take literally that the App store fee is the "Apple tax" ** Answer: Judges in market abuse/monopoly cases because Apple is not actually sovereign; on paper neither is the Mafia, but this is where "monopoly on violence" is a useful definition of a state, in that where anything like the Mafia can exist, the state is de facto not sovereign no matter what it says on paper.

coldtea 10mo ago

>And if you think there's a definitional difference between a government, a corporation and a mafia that stands up to any objective measure and isn't based entirely on social cues and special pleading, If we're speaking of democratic governments you usually get to vote (whatever ineffective). And if we're speaking for non monopolistic corporations you also get to buy from another. With mafia there's a single, non-negotiable, option: the one running your area. And both for goverments and corporations, there are other parties (e.g. courts) limiting what they can do.

Imustaskforhelp 10mo ago

To be honest the parent's comment which related to mafia was already a bit streched but comparing it to maoist insurgency feels like the extreme of an extreme. Can we please discuss how this comment is relevant to the Apple's discussion and how it fits in perhaps too.