6 ms·

Really? I wonder how many people could take medical care, buy food (mind goes to Africa), etc with that amount of money that apparently was given to a patent t

by atmosx 13y ago

Really? I wonder how many people could take medical care, buy food (mind goes to Africa), etc with that amount of money that apparently was given to a patent troll (IBM). Just sad. ps. Nothing against twitter, or IBM. They are just exploiting rules made by humans.

iends 13y ago
Really? I wonder how many people's lives have been made better by technologies created, sold, and serviced by IBM.
- jp_sc 13y ago
  Really? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust (And by Goodwin's law corollaries I've lost this debate)
  - iends 13y ago
    It's tragic that IBM built technology that helped enabled the death of large number of people. One thing the wikipedia page doesn't make clear was IBM aware of the atrocities? The article cites the 1933 census, but things in Germany didn't really heat up until Kristallnacht in 1938? Anyway, the point was, things are not always black and white. IBM has certainly done some bad things, but it has also had a tremendous positive impact on society, medicine, techology, etc easily; more than 36m.
    - throwawayaway 13y ago
      http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/Holocaust/black.html http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/Holocaust/black.html From the author of the book of the same name.
    - pessimizer 13y ago
      >The article cites the 1933 census, but things in Germany didn't really heat up until Kristallnacht in 1938? "As the Nazi war machine occupied successive nations of Europe, capitulation was followed by a census of the population of each subjugated nation, with an eye to the identification and isolation of Jews and Gypsies. These census operations were intimately intertwined with technology and cards supplied by IBM's German and new Polish subsidiaries, which were awarded specific sales territories in Poland by decision of the New York office following Germany's successful Blitzkrieg invasion."
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
duaneb 13y ago
> They are just exploiting rules made by humans. This is capitalism. If you want a free market, you must live with unethical corporations.
- dantheman 13y ago
  Free markets and patents are incompatible.
  - duaneb 13y ago
    Sure, but a free market is utopian. Nobody wants to live in a world where the free exchange of money takes highest precedence.
  - gress 13y ago
    True, but in a real free market monopolies and cartels quickly produce the same effect.
    - JetSpiegel 13y ago
      In a real free market the cartels would be undercut by competitors not fixing their prices. You mean in a real-life market.
      - gress 13y ago
        In practice the powerful would be able to restrict supply lines and access to market for upstart competitors using anticompetitive contracts, so those not in a cartel would simply wither.
      - atmosx 13y ago
        Sure, and in communism there's no need to do even that, because the state provides and we're all happy 20-hours per-week workers. Every social movement has two sides: a theoretical and a real one. When studying. If we have to accept that China, Cuba and Stalin's Russia what applied Communism looks like, we have to accept for coherence and mainly because it seems to be the truth that what we're seeing (wall street, monopolies, free market not auto-regulating, etc) as applied Liberalism.

by atmosx 13y ago

iends 13y ago

Really? I wonder how many people's lives have been made better by technologies created, sold, and serviced by IBM.

jp_sc 13y ago
Really? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust (And by Goodwin's law corollaries I've lost this debate)
- iends 13y ago
  It's tragic that IBM built technology that helped enabled the death of large number of people. One thing the wikipedia page doesn't make clear was IBM aware of the atrocities? The article cites the 1933 census, but things in Germany didn't really heat up until Kristallnacht in 1938? Anyway, the point was, things are not always black and white. IBM has certainly done some bad things, but it has also had a tremendous positive impact on society, medicine, techology, etc easily; more than 36m.
  - throwawayaway 13y ago
    http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/Holocaust/black.html http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/Holocaust/black.html From the author of the book of the same name.
  - pessimizer 13y ago
    >The article cites the 1933 census, but things in Germany didn't really heat up until Kristallnacht in 1938? "As the Nazi war machine occupied successive nations of Europe, capitulation was followed by a census of the population of each subjugated nation, with an eye to the identification and isolation of Jews and Gypsies. These census operations were intimately intertwined with technology and cards supplied by IBM's German and new Polish subsidiaries, which were awarded specific sales territories in Poland by decision of the New York office following Germany's successful Blitzkrieg invasion."
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

duaneb 13y ago

> They are just exploiting rules made by humans. This is capitalism. If you want a free market, you must live with unethical corporations.

dantheman 13y ago
Free markets and patents are incompatible.
- duaneb 13y ago
  Sure, but a free market is utopian. Nobody wants to live in a world where the free exchange of money takes highest precedence.
- gress 13y ago
  True, but in a real free market monopolies and cartels quickly produce the same effect.
  - JetSpiegel 13y ago
    In a real free market the cartels would be undercut by competitors not fixing their prices. You mean in a real-life market.
    - gress 13y ago
      In practice the powerful would be able to restrict supply lines and access to market for upstart competitors using anticompetitive contracts, so those not in a cartel would simply wither.
    - atmosx 13y ago
      Sure, and in communism there's no need to do even that, because the state provides and we're all happy 20-hours per-week workers. Every social movement has two sides: a theoretical and a real one. When studying. If we have to accept that China, Cuba and Stalin's Russia what applied Communism looks like, we have to accept for coherence and mainly because it seems to be the truth that what we're seeing (wall street, monopolies, free market not auto-regulating, etc) as applied Liberalism.