Ask HN: Why is company letterhead a valid form of auth in 2022?

Oh and this Noam Chomsky thought... "When the corporatization of the state capitalist societies took place a century ago, in part in reaction to massive market failures, conservatives – a breed that now scarcely exists– objected to this attack on the fundamental principles of classical liberalism. And rightly so. One may recall Adam Smith's critique of the "joint stock companies" of his day, particularly if management is granted a degree of independence; and his attitude toward the inherent corruption of private power, probably a "conspiracy against the public" when businessmen meet for lunch, in his acid view, let alone when they form collectivist legal entities and alliances among them, with extraordinary rights granted, backed, and enhanced by state power." — Noam Chomsky

> provide a specific example of a futuristic European social media tech company implementing this futuristic policy

Huh? What "futuristic policy" -- the "futuristic policy" of not accepting something as moronically easily-fakeable as "company letterhead" for ID? That's not a "policy", it's just common sense. You should try that over on the other side of the Atlantic some time.

And it has nothing to do with "social media tech company"; I've never heard of any European company accepting something as moronically easily-fakeable as "company letterhead" for ID. Which is why I wrote "is an American company", not "is an American social media tech company".

> The shot across the bow at the US is kind of old and tired at this point.

Sure. But guess why it's so "tired"? Because you get ao much of it. And why, do you think, do you get so much of it? Because it's true.

> I'm pretty sure Europeans still use corporate letterhead as a type of legal guarantee.

And I'm pretty sure they don't.

> It would be pretty cool if you could make your point without blaming an entire country for being luddites though.

Of course I could, for most points, but not when precisely that is my point. Well, not luddites, exactly, because they were anti-technology. My point is more just... Backwards. Anti-common sense.

> There's plenty of "cutting edge" "future thinking" companies in the US.

Sure. Which makes it so much weirder that the population, on the whole, conducts so much of their lives in such ludicrously outdated and non-sensical ways: Getting paid, or paying stuff, by sending paper cheques -- OK, checks -- hither and yon. Using what should be just a unique identifier -- your social security number -- as the authentication ("password") of that id more often than not. Using weird 18th-century units of measurement...

> Sometimes, old tech is the best tech especially when paper tends to last a lot longer than even governments.

Exactly. But not paper checks, ferfuxxake...

And hey, sometimes you do stuff that doesn't really make sense, precisely not to be "luddites". One example that comes readily to mind (because I've wondered over it for a long time -- at least 22 years) is: What other reason could you possibly have to run your elections the weird way you do, than to get to feel "We're the most advanced in the world, because We Vote With Machines"? Yeah, you do... And then you get ambiguous forms, Looney-tunes theories about the Machines being hacked via Italian spy satellites, and of course the infamous Hanging Chads. Gaah!

Yet another weirdity that you, AFAIK, are the only country in the world to do. Just go back to scraps of paper, envelopes to put them in, and plywood boxes to put the envelopes in. And then, since you have people from both parties at all election venues keeping an eye on things anyway (it's the law, isn't it?), just have those people empty the boxes, open the envelopes, and count the scraps of paper -- just like us luddites in the rest of the world.

See? I'm not at all saying that you're necessarily weird because you're behind on tech; just that you're weird in general, sometimes by leaning too much into tech.