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isn't it amazing how the companies that provide us with access to the internet are pretty much among the most hated companies in our country? I feel like I'd ra

isn't it amazing how the companies that provide us with access to the internet are pretty much among the most hated companies in our country? I feel like I'd rank them almost up there with Halliburton, Sodexo and Blackwater. Blackwater is a company whose employees kill people. Sometimes civilians. And sometimes for no reason. https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/10/22/blackwater-guilty-verdicts/ https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/10/22/blackwater-gui... The incident for which the men were tried was the single largest known massacre of Iraqi civilians at the hands of private U.S. security contractors. Known as “Baghdad’s bloody Sunday,” operatives from Blackwater gunned down 17 Iraqi civilians at a crowded intersection at Nisour Square on September 16, 2007. If, after reading this, anyone is still nodding their head and entertaining the idea that their internet company is in the same league as Blackwater, then they have some pretty strange value judgments.

toufka 12y ago
For the sake of information, Blackwater changed its name to Xe, and then changed it again to Academi. Academi is the name you should rub in the dirt.
- Hemospectrum 12y ago
  It can change its name all it wants, and then there's just a trail of obsolete names being attacked by people with outdated information. It would be more productive to name the people on the board of directors, who can't abandon their identities so easily.
  - tlrobinson 12y ago
    Well, in 2011 it was sold, the founder left, and a new board of directors was installed, so that doesn't really work either.
542458 12y ago
I don't think swartkrans was making any statement about the relative evil or harm of these companies, rather, he was simply commenting on their public perception. Yes, Blackwater/Xe/Academi does terrible things. Despite this, the general population has an even stronger negative perception of Comcast/AT&T/whatever, which should serve to further highlight the absurdity of the whole thing.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
rosser 12y ago
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Not_as_bad_as http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Not_as_bad_as
chime 12y ago
> If, after reading this, anyone is still nodding their head and entertaining the idea that their internet company is in the same league as Blackwater, then they have some pretty strange value judgments. We can get really philosophical about this if you want. Is it worse to kill 1 person or dismember 100? Is it worse to bankrupt one person or steal $1 from a million? If the perpetrator is a single entity, then courts have precedents to punish appropriately. But what if it is a systemic theft where a million people are involved in making hundred million others suffer slightly? Is that somehow "less wrong" than 5 people killing 25? What if one of the hundred million suffering slightly, missing school work, or work assignments because of bandwidth theft, and loses grade or job and consequently, a chance at productive life? Every time my home internet goes down, I lose a chance at being productive, meeting my deadlines, and making money. We have started placing a lot more importance over the last few decades on violent crimes committed against a few over white collar crimes that marginally impact millions. Violent crimes against a few will never stop as long as humans continue to be humans. However, by excusing the white collar crimes that steal pennies from everyone, we are slowly chipping away at our standard of living. Banks charge fees incorrectly and get away with it. Cellphone companies do the same. Insurance companies do the same. Since nobody in a large company can be held guilty for distributed crimes, every large company engages in them without consequences. An EDI error at my wife's health insurance company caused a refusal in her invoice. The doctor's office said "Sorry, the insurance company said they won't cover it." Only after I read through the fine print and contacted all parties involved, did we find out that it was an automated electronic processing error instead of an outright denial by a human or algorithm. Nobody got blamed for this. There is nothing I can do about this to prevent future instances. And I am 100% certain, there are many many many others who have just paid the $200 without putting up a fight. And then someone of them stop getting the treatment because $200 is too much, and then suffer despite having insurance. You might still put outright murder in a different league than bandwidth theft, but my point is that scale matters and we continue to ignore it because we solely look at individual instances and go "Pfft! It's only bad 10% of the time for 5% of the base so who cares?", ignoring that the base is 100 million people.
- Oblouk 12y ago
  Well said! From a purely utilitarian perspective it could easily be argued that large scale corporate collusion is worse than the deaths of a few individuals. When looking at which company is more hated in the US I would completely agree that ISPs are towards the top of that list. Not only because of their large scale poor performance and price gouging but also because unlike Blackwater many people are directly affected.
Hemospectrum 12y ago
> Blackwater is a company whose employees kill people. You have to eat to live. You have to pay to eat. Tricking people out of more money than they can afford, with no regard for how it might harm their lives, is negligence comparable in quality (though obviously not severity by degree) to firing a gun randomly in the dark. There is a quantitative difference between running over one homeless person while speeding and running over a hundred people every day for a year. Yet both are illegal, for the same reason.
gadders 12y ago
From the linked article: The company, founded by secretive right-wing Christian supremacist Erik Prince, pictured above, had deep ties to the Bush Administration and served as a sort of neoconservative Praetorian Guard for a borderless war launched in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. Yeah, I think we can pretty much discard that link.
- dingaling 12y ago
  That's actually a fairly tame description of Mr Prince, compared to some I've read. What part do you feel to be inaccurate? For an insight into his current thinking on business opportunities, have a read of this re: how to engage ISIL. http://time.com/3490414/isis-isil-blackwater/ http://time.com/3490414/isis-isil-blackwater/ If the old Blackwater team were still together, I have high confidence that a multi-brigade-size unit of veteran American contractors or a multi-national force could be rapidly assembled and deployed to be that necessary ground combat team. Not a lot of regret expressed there. Praetorian Guard is a reasonably accurate description for his former organisation's activities; administration, special forces and covert intel ops directed from a higher level than the bread-and-butter army.
  - wicker 12y ago
    Not only not a lot of regret, but it really is a chilling comment for its implications. A single brigade-sized unit is something like 4,000 soldiers. So coming up with a multi-brigade-size unit could be twenty thousand veteran American contractors with, like you said, administration, special forces, covert intel ops, and all with recent combat experience. The brazenness of Blackwater/Academi has always amazed me.
  - gadders 12y ago
    For starters: "Secretive" "Christian Supremecist" "neoconservative Praetorian Guard" "borderless war" I'll give you right wing. I've no idea what level his ties t o Bush were, but I believe he still got work under Obama.
Retric 12y ago
This is actually a vary minor incident. It's easy to find US companies that kill 20+ civilians a month on average. Worse most of them are actively killing people for money. EX: Wait we actually need to legislation it or your going to actively advertise cigarette's to children? WTF is wrong with people. O you set up a program to specifically drop sick people from your insurance plans. I guess sociopaths really do run things.
jordanpg 12y ago
The people sitting on the BoD of one giant company look just like the people sitting on another BoD. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if institutional investors or board members in Academi are the exact same people on the board of AT&T. They are all suits and they are all most interested in short-term profit. It is the fallacy of both the left and the right to attribute human values to large corporations, both public and private. See also: http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power_elite/interlocks_and_interactions.html http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power_elite/interlocks_...
logn 12y ago
> If, after reading this, anyone is still nodding their head and entertaining the idea that their internet company is in the same league as Blackwater Blackwater as a company (their employees' actions aside) isn't so different from an ATT or TWC. They seek convenient profits and have questionable ethics. Add to that wars on drugs and terrorism, along with unlimited ability to fund politicians. Certainly Blackwater is in a different league than ATT, but the leagues' owners are the same people.

toufka 12y ago

For the sake of information, Blackwater changed its name to Xe, and then changed it again to Academi. Academi is the name you should rub in the dirt.

Hemospectrum 12y ago
It can change its name all it wants, and then there's just a trail of obsolete names being attacked by people with outdated information. It would be more productive to name the people on the board of directors, who can't abandon their identities so easily.
- tlrobinson 12y ago
  Well, in 2011 it was sold, the founder left, and a new board of directors was installed, so that doesn't really work either.

542458 12y ago

I don't think swartkrans was making any statement about the relative evil or harm of these companies, rather, he was simply commenting on their public perception. Yes, Blackwater/Xe/Academi does terrible things. Despite this, the general population has an even stronger negative perception of Comcast/AT&T/whatever, which should serve to further highlight the absurdity of the whole thing.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

rosser 12y ago

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Not_as_bad_as http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Not_as_bad_as

chime 12y ago

> If, after reading this, anyone is still nodding their head and entertaining the idea that their internet company is in the same league as Blackwater, then they have some pretty strange value judgments. We can get really philosophical about this if you want. Is it worse to kill 1 person or dismember 100? Is it worse to bankrupt one person or steal $1 from a million? If the perpetrator is a single entity, then courts have precedents to punish appropriately. But what if it is a systemic theft where a million people are involved in making hundred million others suffer slightly? Is that somehow "less wrong" than 5 people killing 25? What if one of the hundred million suffering slightly, missing school work, or work assignments because of bandwidth theft, and loses grade or job and consequently, a chance at productive life? Every time my home internet goes down, I lose a chance at being productive, meeting my deadlines, and making money. We have started placing a lot more importance over the last few decades on violent crimes committed against a few over white collar crimes that marginally impact millions. Violent crimes against a few will never stop as long as humans continue to be humans. However, by excusing the white collar crimes that steal pennies from everyone, we are slowly chipping away at our standard of living. Banks charge fees incorrectly and get away with it. Cellphone companies do the same. Insurance companies do the same. Since nobody in a large company can be held guilty for distributed crimes, every large company engages in them without consequences. An EDI error at my wife's health insurance company caused a refusal in her invoice. The doctor's office said "Sorry, the insurance company said they won't cover it." Only after I read through the fine print and contacted all parties involved, did we find out that it was an automated electronic processing error instead of an outright denial by a human or algorithm. Nobody got blamed for this. There is nothing I can do about this to prevent future instances. And I am 100% certain, there are many many many others who have just paid the $200 without putting up a fight. And then someone of them stop getting the treatment because $200 is too much, and then suffer despite having insurance. You might still put outright murder in a different league than bandwidth theft, but my point is that scale matters and we continue to ignore it because we solely look at individual instances and go "Pfft! It's only bad 10% of the time for 5% of the base so who cares?", ignoring that the base is 100 million people.

Oblouk 12y ago
Well said! From a purely utilitarian perspective it could easily be argued that large scale corporate collusion is worse than the deaths of a few individuals. When looking at which company is more hated in the US I would completely agree that ISPs are towards the top of that list. Not only because of their large scale poor performance and price gouging but also because unlike Blackwater many people are directly affected.

Hemospectrum 12y ago

> Blackwater is a company whose employees kill people. You have to eat to live. You have to pay to eat. Tricking people out of more money than they can afford, with no regard for how it might harm their lives, is negligence comparable in quality (though obviously not severity by degree) to firing a gun randomly in the dark. There is a quantitative difference between running over one homeless person while speeding and running over a hundred people every day for a year. Yet both are illegal, for the same reason.

gadders 12y ago

From the linked article: The company, founded by secretive right-wing Christian supremacist Erik Prince, pictured above, had deep ties to the Bush Administration and served as a sort of neoconservative Praetorian Guard for a borderless war launched in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. Yeah, I think we can pretty much discard that link.

dingaling 12y ago
That's actually a fairly tame description of Mr Prince, compared to some I've read. What part do you feel to be inaccurate? For an insight into his current thinking on business opportunities, have a read of this re: how to engage ISIL. http://time.com/3490414/isis-isil-blackwater/ http://time.com/3490414/isis-isil-blackwater/ If the old Blackwater team were still together, I have high confidence that a multi-brigade-size unit of veteran American contractors or a multi-national force could be rapidly assembled and deployed to be that necessary ground combat team. Not a lot of regret expressed there. Praetorian Guard is a reasonably accurate description for his former organisation's activities; administration, special forces and covert intel ops directed from a higher level than the bread-and-butter army.
- wicker 12y ago
  Not only not a lot of regret, but it really is a chilling comment for its implications. A single brigade-sized unit is something like 4,000 soldiers. So coming up with a multi-brigade-size unit could be twenty thousand veteran American contractors with, like you said, administration, special forces, covert intel ops, and all with recent combat experience. The brazenness of Blackwater/Academi has always amazed me.
- gadders 12y ago
  For starters: "Secretive" "Christian Supremecist" "neoconservative Praetorian Guard" "borderless war" I'll give you right wing. I've no idea what level his ties t o Bush were, but I believe he still got work under Obama.

Retric 12y ago

This is actually a vary minor incident. It's easy to find US companies that kill 20+ civilians a month on average. Worse most of them are actively killing people for money. EX: Wait we actually need to legislation it or your going to actively advertise cigarette's to children? WTF is wrong with people. O you set up a program to specifically drop sick people from your insurance plans. I guess sociopaths really do run things.

jordanpg 12y ago

The people sitting on the BoD of one giant company look just like the people sitting on another BoD. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if institutional investors or board members in Academi are the exact same people on the board of AT&T. They are all suits and they are all most interested in short-term profit. It is the fallacy of both the left and the right to attribute human values to large corporations, both public and private. See also: http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power_elite/interlocks_and_interactions.html http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power_elite/interlocks_...

logn 12y ago

> If, after reading this, anyone is still nodding their head and entertaining the idea that their internet company is in the same league as Blackwater Blackwater as a company (their employees' actions aside) isn't so different from an ATT or TWC. They seek convenient profits and have questionable ethics. Add to that wars on drugs and terrorism, along with unlimited ability to fund politicians. Certainly Blackwater is in a different league than ATT, but the leagues' owners are the same people.