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This kind of thing seems to be one reason America is still the best place to start a business. I'm saying that in order to spark a debate and challenge that be

This kind of thing seems to be one reason America is still the best place to start a business. I'm saying that in order to spark a debate and challenge that belief. Would anyone please list some actions taken by the US government which is similar in nature to the takeover illustrated here? It seems very similar to what happened in the middle ages. Before the rise of the merchant class, specifically the ability to defend themselves, bullies stepped in and took what they wanted. Pg went into some detail about that in one of his essays about wealth. The phrase "if you let the nerds keep their lunch money, you rule the world" comes to mind. Might that be changing? Is Russia harming itself by taking these actions? What ways might this action backfire against them? Or is this a new model for how governments should treat corporations that dare challenge their authority? EDIT: I really didn't mean to start a flamewar. My apologies. I was hoping to get people's thoughts on whether governments of the future are going to do this kind of thing more and more (including the US). I should have led with that rather than cheerleading America. EDIT2: I would again like to stress the international nature of this threat. This type of governmental action is something that seems likely to eventually threaten us all, regardless of where we're located. As such, the best thing to do would be to discuss possible ways of protecting ourselves. I would also like to apologize for accidentally insulting everyone who lives in places other than America. Phrasing my comment the way I did was a boneheaded thing to do. It currently reads like an elaborate form of trolling, as if I'm snubbing non-Americans. But in fact I'm just poor with the pen and in reality meant to debate the merits of starting companies in various countries, and to call attention to this international threat. I'm quite sorry for how it sounded. In the meantime, can anyone think of ways of protecting ourselves from centralized government action against businesses?

paulbaumgart 13y ago
Was it ever in doubt that the USA is the best place to start a business? You have an English-speaking domestic market that accounts for 30% of the planet's GDP, huge talent pools, easy access to capital, a culture that encourages entrepreneurship, significantly above-average rule of law, strong corporate veils, and a mostly tolerable tax burden. It ain't perfect, but you can't do better anywhere else in this solar system.
- workhere-io 13y ago
  Was it ever in doubt that the USA is the best place to start a business? America is no. 14 on the list of best countries to start a business in. http://www.forbes.com/best-countries-for-business/list/ http://www.forbes.com/best-countries-for-business/list/
  - paulbaumgart 13y ago
    So say some journalists. The results speak for themselves. Edit: In case it wasn't apparent, my "ever any doubt" question was rhetorical hyperbole. Any statement, no matter how self-evident, will have some people contradicting it. Edit2: See mtrimpe's comment below; Forbes is probably optimizing for small business in their analysis instead of startups with potential for high scalability.
    - workhere-io 13y ago
      In case it wasn't apparent, my "ever any doubt" question was rhetorical hyperbole. Any statement, no matter how self-evident, will have some people contradicting it. Your argument that the US is the best place to start a business is not in any way "self-evident", and you have provided no source or proof. So say some journalists. Their methodology seems sound. "We determined the Best Countries for Business by looking at 11 different factors for 134 countries. We considered property rights, innovation, taxes, technology, corruption, freedom (personal, trade and monetary), red tape, investor protection and stock market performance. Forbes leaned on research and published reports from the Central Intelligence Agency, Freedom House, Heritage Foundation, Property Rights Alliance, Transparency International, the World Bank and World Economic Forum to compile the rankings." http://www.forbes.com/sites/kurtbadenhausen/2011/10/03/the-best-countries-for-business/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/kurtbadenhausen/2011/10/03/the-b...
      - paulbaumgart 13y ago
        They left out "size and wealth of domestic market" and "access to capital," which I suspect are the most important factors beyond a minimal level of market fairness. It's really not self-evident that the vast majority of successful companies are started in the US?
mtrimpe 13y ago
Most people don't realise that Russia is a brutal petro-chemical dictatorship in economical decline which is clamping down hard on human rights, freedom of the press and radicalising its population through propaganda. I've been following the Crimea conflict very closely (which almost certainly is also what caused Pavel's departure) and the seriousness of the situation is heavily underestimated by the world. The Russian economy is heavily dependent on gas exports, and both income from - and production of gas is declining. A small elite has been massively siphoning off wealth from those natural resources and is desperate to stay in control. Given the situation they (rightfully) fear being overthrown and to prevent that they've started 'restoring Russia to it's former glory,' appealing to traditional family values by introducing anti-gay laws, introducing laws against protesting, laws against criticising Russia, shutting down independent media and distributing propaganda from the remaining station which gets ever more removed from reality by the day. It is in that context that the VKontakte departure must be seen, and therefore it's difficult to make direct comparisons between Russia and the US: they are truly orders of magnitude apart right now. P.S. It is important to keep in mind that you could also argue that something similar happened in the US with the NSA scandals but in the US none of the CEOs chose to resign.
- insuffi 13y ago
  The seriousness of the conflict depends on where you get your information, sadly. The situation geopolitically seems pretty simple, in broad strokes. Too bad there's unfounded scaremongering on both sides(or should I say 3 or 4 sides).
  - mtrimpe 13y ago
    It more seems that the seriousness of the conflict depends on whether you see this as an isolated incident (which just happens to be the worst violation of territorial integrity in Europe since WWII) or as yet another indicator that the exact same social dynamics that led us to WWII in the first place are intensifying significantly. I'm curious as to what your take on this is then though ...
    - 13y ago
shmerl 13y ago
> I'm saying that in order to spark a debate and challenge that belief. Would anyone please list some actions taken by the US government which is similar in nature to the takeover illustrated here? Killing Lavabit for instance?
- tptacek 13y ago
  The US didn't kill Lavabit, so much as Lavabit decided to start an untenable business: one in which they vouchsafed secrecy to their customers but retained the ability to compromise that secrecy. To understand how dumb that is, consider that AOL(!) runs a popular messaging service on which thousands of people exchange secure messages using OTR-enabled clients, and AOL could not be "killed" the way Lavabit was: the DOJ can't coerce AOL into betraying OTR-protected users, because AOL simply doesn't have that ability. The reason Lavabit did have that ability is that getting users to install software is inconvenient and drastically harms adoption. Lavabit took a shortcut, and their users shared the resulting pain. If you review the list of countries preceding the US on the Forbes list posted upthread, you won't find too many that wouldn't have left Lavabit similarly exposed.
  - shmerl 13y ago
    Yes, Lavabit made a serious mistake of leaving a technical ability to compromise their users. However it doesn't change the fact that US killed it since the government wanted to have access to all users' data without any restrictions and warrants. Lavabit's mistake doesn't in any way reduce the abusive nature and unconstitutionality of that move.
    - tptacek 13y ago
      I'm assuming it doesn't change your mind at all that Levison cooperated with a series of unrelated preceding warrants, handing over user information, and that (as I understand it) the DOJ only demanded their expansive intrusion after Levison refused to comply in a similar fashion to a warrant apparently related to Snowden, with whose politics Levison agreed.

paulbaumgart 13y ago

Was it ever in doubt that the USA is the best place to start a business? You have an English-speaking domestic market that accounts for 30% of the planet's GDP, huge talent pools, easy access to capital, a culture that encourages entrepreneurship, significantly above-average rule of law, strong corporate veils, and a mostly tolerable tax burden. It ain't perfect, but you can't do better anywhere else in this solar system.

workhere-io 13y ago
Was it ever in doubt that the USA is the best place to start a business? America is no. 14 on the list of best countries to start a business in. http://www.forbes.com/best-countries-for-business/list/ http://www.forbes.com/best-countries-for-business/list/
- paulbaumgart 13y ago
  So say some journalists. The results speak for themselves. Edit: In case it wasn't apparent, my "ever any doubt" question was rhetorical hyperbole. Any statement, no matter how self-evident, will have some people contradicting it. Edit2: See mtrimpe's comment below; Forbes is probably optimizing for small business in their analysis instead of startups with potential for high scalability.
  - workhere-io 13y ago
    In case it wasn't apparent, my "ever any doubt" question was rhetorical hyperbole. Any statement, no matter how self-evident, will have some people contradicting it. Your argument that the US is the best place to start a business is not in any way "self-evident", and you have provided no source or proof. So say some journalists. Their methodology seems sound. "We determined the Best Countries for Business by looking at 11 different factors for 134 countries. We considered property rights, innovation, taxes, technology, corruption, freedom (personal, trade and monetary), red tape, investor protection and stock market performance. Forbes leaned on research and published reports from the Central Intelligence Agency, Freedom House, Heritage Foundation, Property Rights Alliance, Transparency International, the World Bank and World Economic Forum to compile the rankings." http://www.forbes.com/sites/kurtbadenhausen/2011/10/03/the-best-countries-for-business/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/kurtbadenhausen/2011/10/03/the-b...
    - paulbaumgart 13y ago
      They left out "size and wealth of domestic market" and "access to capital," which I suspect are the most important factors beyond a minimal level of market fairness. It's really not self-evident that the vast majority of successful companies are started in the US?

mtrimpe 13y ago

Most people don't realise that Russia is a brutal petro-chemical dictatorship in economical decline which is clamping down hard on human rights, freedom of the press and radicalising its population through propaganda. I've been following the Crimea conflict very closely (which almost certainly is also what caused Pavel's departure) and the seriousness of the situation is heavily underestimated by the world. The Russian economy is heavily dependent on gas exports, and both income from - and production of gas is declining. A small elite has been massively siphoning off wealth from those natural resources and is desperate to stay in control. Given the situation they (rightfully) fear being overthrown and to prevent that they've started 'restoring Russia to it's former glory,' appealing to traditional family values by introducing anti-gay laws, introducing laws against protesting, laws against criticising Russia, shutting down independent media and distributing propaganda from the remaining station which gets ever more removed from reality by the day. It is in that context that the VKontakte departure must be seen, and therefore it's difficult to make direct comparisons between Russia and the US: they are truly orders of magnitude apart right now. P.S. It is important to keep in mind that you could also argue that something similar happened in the US with the NSA scandals but in the US none of the CEOs chose to resign.

insuffi 13y ago
The seriousness of the conflict depends on where you get your information, sadly. The situation geopolitically seems pretty simple, in broad strokes. Too bad there's unfounded scaremongering on both sides(or should I say 3 or 4 sides).
- mtrimpe 13y ago
  It more seems that the seriousness of the conflict depends on whether you see this as an isolated incident (which just happens to be the worst violation of territorial integrity in Europe since WWII) or as yet another indicator that the exact same social dynamics that led us to WWII in the first place are intensifying significantly. I'm curious as to what your take on this is then though ...
  - 13y ago

shmerl 13y ago

> I'm saying that in order to spark a debate and challenge that belief. Would anyone please list some actions taken by the US government which is similar in nature to the takeover illustrated here? Killing Lavabit for instance?

tptacek 13y ago
The US didn't kill Lavabit, so much as Lavabit decided to start an untenable business: one in which they vouchsafed secrecy to their customers but retained the ability to compromise that secrecy. To understand how dumb that is, consider that AOL(!) runs a popular messaging service on which thousands of people exchange secure messages using OTR-enabled clients, and AOL could not be "killed" the way Lavabit was: the DOJ can't coerce AOL into betraying OTR-protected users, because AOL simply doesn't have that ability. The reason Lavabit did have that ability is that getting users to install software is inconvenient and drastically harms adoption. Lavabit took a shortcut, and their users shared the resulting pain. If you review the list of countries preceding the US on the Forbes list posted upthread, you won't find too many that wouldn't have left Lavabit similarly exposed.
- shmerl 13y ago
  Yes, Lavabit made a serious mistake of leaving a technical ability to compromise their users. However it doesn't change the fact that US killed it since the government wanted to have access to all users' data without any restrictions and warrants. Lavabit's mistake doesn't in any way reduce the abusive nature and unconstitutionality of that move.
  - tptacek 13y ago
    I'm assuming it doesn't change your mind at all that Levison cooperated with a series of unrelated preceding warrants, handing over user information, and that (as I understand it) the DOJ only demanded their expansive intrusion after Levison refused to comply in a similar fashion to a warrant apparently related to Snowden, with whose politics Levison agreed.