11–20 of 481 posts
Obligatory Taleb comment: "Think tanks are natural lobbies w/a facade of "research" Their cover allows them to censor dissent from monoculture" https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/902859415375798274 OT: I'm curious how many hours will this post survive on the front page
We might have to make sure the upvotes are stronger than the downvotes :)
Obligatory Taleb comment: "Think tanks are natural lobbies w/a facade of "research" Their cover allows them to censor dissent from monoculture" https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/902859415375798274 OT: I'm curious how many hours will this post survive on the front page
It is ridiculous that either is taken serious.
There's no genuine, credible anti-corporate voice in American politics. The reasons why are many, but of course they typically distill down to the incredible power of money to influence people, of which this is an example.
The side-effects of there being no credible labor party in our political system manifests, in part, in the extreme volatility we see in electoral politics.
And we are shown again that Google is now large enough and has enough enough influence that it's only serious opponent is the EU. A continent. Do no evil indeed.
It is a little unfair to think this problem exists only within Google. Time and time again we are reminded why corporations will evolve to become as greedy and as protective of their turf expansive of their power and monopolistic as they can get, even if good people are running them. It is the system itself that does this, corporations evolve to survive and to thrive. That in of itself isn't a bad thing but you need checks and balances. Things like the Supreme Court saying that Corporations are people or all the money pouring into our political process those are things that have to change.
Even the best of them will eventually become the worst of them. Google is now evil for sure, no doubt about that, but there have been and there will be many others.
Obligatory Taleb comment: "Think tanks are natural lobbies w/a facade of "research" Their cover allows them to censor dissent from monoculture" https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/902859415375798274 OT: I'm curious how many hours will this post survive on the front page
We might have to make sure the upvotes are stronger than the downvotes :)
The real "fight" is upvotes and substantive comments vs. people blindly flagging articles they disagree with.
It's early so not sure I'm reading this correctly, but it appears Google funded a group, then one of the members posted a statement applauding the recent 2.7 billion dollar fine against Google and that member was subsequently removed from the group? Well duh! Criticize Google all you like. But does anyone really think companies have an obligation to fund their critics? Or that groups receiving such funding have an ob…
then don't pretend you are a think tank. you are a pr firm, paid to say whatever benefits your clients.
Less like a PR firm, more like not sawing off the branch you are standing on.
It's early so not sure I'm reading this correctly, but it appears Google funded a group, then one of the members posted a statement applauding the recent 2.7 billion dollar fine against Google and that member was subsequently removed from the group? Well duh! Criticize Google all you like. But does anyone really think companies have an obligation to fund their critics? Or that groups receiving such funding have an ob…
The problem is that the only way to be truly independent is to take no money from corporations. But any group that does that will be crushed by similar groups who _do_ accept corporate money (and are thus compromised).