Which makes me ask the question: do you, gentle Hacker News reader, really want diversity of opinion and why? Do you have unpopular opinions and if so, would you get fired or ostracized for sharing them? Are you practicing crimethink? After all, the only people actually working on alternatives to Google and Facebook are the alt-right who have been de-platformed. Gab.ai is so de-platformed that google doesn't even let…
The Google-Facebook Duopoly Threatens Diversity of Thought
41–50 of 228 posts
Re: The Google-Facebook Duopoly Threatens Diversity of Thought
#42The solution really is a revitalization of antitrust policy. The reason markets work is because participants in them are bound to a 'race to the bottom' with many other participants doing the same thing. When companies aren't forced to race to the bottom against each other, the conditions of authoritarianism rise. Authoritarian structures don't have to necessarily come from government - monopolies, oligopolies and im…
> The question is have we reached a point where technology and globalization provide such enormous returns to the economies of scale that we can't go back or is all this corporate concentration just due to a lack of government enforcement? At some point, America decided that only horizontal monopolies counted, not vertical ones. Many of our concerns about antitrust would be assuaged if regulators started keeping sepa…
It was mostly created, pushed and used by a group of progressive to go after their political opponents. Its well documented (even if people choice not to remember this part) that this was very much PR and protectionism of businesses that were afraid to be driven of the market by the larger more efficient companies. The first anti-trust law in US history for example was quite explicitly passed to restrict the centralised slaughter house industry from driving all the local butchers out of businesses)
The new interpretation that has been adopted requires that you can show consumer harm. I actually have credible evidence that people are getting overpriced.
> Many of our concerns about antitrust would be assuaged if regulators started keeping separate markets separate.
That is very easily said but practically impossible. And even if it is possible, it would be massively harmful because some of the largest changes in the history happened because or were at least massively supported by companies bridging, merging, combining, integrating different markets.
In fact what you describe is pretty much called 'Indian Socialism' a form of 'Socialism' that was very in vogue with British elites after WW2 and India served as a nice place to test this since many of the Indian leaders had an English education and agreed with it. They had a sort of 5 year plan that attempted to plan how many companies could be in what market requiring licences to go into or out of different markets.
Those licences were of course a perfect tool for the state bureaucracy to get bribes from all business people.
> Or requiring platforms to provide third-party-friendly APIs.
Again, said very easily. Have you considered what that would mean? It would mean government regulator would have to go threw each layer of the software and each application and define adequate rules about what sharing would mean. This is a political insanity specially in a democracy.
Now you could argue, that it should all be made by some loosely controlled government bureaucracy like the Fed. An API tzar but how that would end is pretty easy to see.
I would agree that it would make sense for government to support and insensitive the adoption of open standard that were created and adopted by people and companies in the market voluntary.
If you want to use state power to force companies to support open standards it can not be on a ad-hook bases. You would need to think about a specific general law that could be applied to everybody and that does not involve concrete technologies or companies. That would be pretty hard because I think once such a thing is written most people (at least in here) would oppose it.
Re: The Google-Facebook Duopoly Threatens Diversity of Thought
#43I am pretty liberal but I am someone that can deal with reading the otherside and do not have to put my head in the sand. I will even watch Fox from time to time just to see how they are talking about things.
Google would know my slant so putting Breitbart articles in my alerts and on the Google Assistant suggests they are not filtering.
Heck I get negative Google stories and clearly if Google was going to filter be the first thing to filter out.
I really do not use FB so can not comment about it.
Re: The Google-Facebook Duopoly Threatens Diversity of Thought
#44Right wing propaganda is so strong and coordinated these days that they can develop a new goal and drive a single message repeatedly across multiple platforms for months or years. This attack on Google is a new right wing message developed this year but they just keep hammering at it across all their channels tailoring their argument to the different audiences and continuously building mind share and momentum.
I think it’s interesting that you think antitrust Google benefits right wing groups over left wing groups.
I think this thought is mainly due to the dichotomy of “google = good” and “republican = bad” having some transitive logic making “stuff against google = republican.”
Re: The Google-Facebook Duopoly Threatens Diversity of Thought
#45Re: The Google-Facebook Duopoly Threatens Diversity of Thought
#46The Justice Dept has a very strict definition of monopoly [0] -- it requires both 1) the ability to raise prices profitably above that in a competitive market, and 2) anticompetitive conduct. That means that Google receiving 90% of all searches wouldn't automatically imply market power or anti-competitive conduct, and I can't see how Google or Facebook can raise their prices higher than a "competitive market" if they…
How is comcast not a monopoly? That was my only choice when I lived chicago.
Re: The Google-Facebook Duopoly Threatens Diversity of Thought
#47Which makes me ask the question: do you, gentle Hacker News reader, really want diversity of opinion and why? Do you have unpopular opinions and if so, would you get fired or ostracized for sharing them? Are you practicing crimethink? After all, the only people actually working on alternatives to Google and Facebook are the alt-right who have been de-platformed. Gab.ai is so de-platformed that google doesn't even let…
I speak only for myself, but the answer is an absolute, complete and emphatic YES. The reason is quite simple: in all of human history, there have been only three "families", broadly speaking, of epistemological methods[1]:
* Mysticism: you have been told what is true by an unquestionable (and often distant) authority. Think Moses descending from the mountain--only he can safely speak to God. While God is ultimately the original [claimed] source of the knowledge, it must be funneled through Moses first.
* Socratic debate: two humans can talk about the topic, trying to apply abstract reason to determine the "best" answer. Note that in a "pure" Socratic debate, only logic and not any evidence is used.
* Scientific study: humans can attempt direct inquiry of an answer from the physical universe. Note that logic need not apply to scientific answers: the results of many particle physics experiments such as the delayed choice quantum eraser are not "logical" in that they violate what "common sense" tells us the universe should allow.
Now, there no reason I had to use a religious example for the first family, but they do not exist for the other two: literally, both debate and science cannot work correctly if you do not admit the possibility of contrarian or "heretical" ideas.
Since I wish to live in a society jointly directed by reason and science, I must allow (and to some small extent, seek) contrarian and heretical ideas.
1: I'm speaking of epistemology not in the definition taught in philosophical classes (e.g., "How do we know what is real or what is knowledge?"), but a far more direct, literal, and practical application of how knowledge is generated and transmitted between societies/individuals.
Re: The Google-Facebook Duopoly Threatens Diversity of Thought
#48Right wing propaganda is so strong and coordinated these days that they can develop a new goal and drive a single message repeatedly across multiple platforms for months or years. This attack on Google is a new right wing message developed this year but they just keep hammering at it across all their channels tailoring their argument to the different audiences and continuously building mind share and momentum.
Both right and left wing propaganda is strong and coordinated these days. I can't say anything that doesn't toe the line with either side and not have them look at me like I'm an asshole. I've been called both a socialist welfare state supporter and a reactionary corporate feudalist. Which is it folks. The division is worse than it ever was in my lifetime.
Re: The Google-Facebook Duopoly Threatens Diversity of Thought
#49Right wing propaganda is so strong and coordinated these days that they can develop a new goal and drive a single message repeatedly across multiple platforms for months or years. This attack on Google is a new right wing message developed this year but they just keep hammering at it across all their channels tailoring their argument to the different audiences and continuously building mind share and momentum.
"Remember kids, any criticism of Google censorship is right wing nazi propaganda. This message brought to you by Google."
Re: The Google-Facebook Duopoly Threatens Diversity of Thought
#50The Justice Dept has a very strict definition of monopoly [0] -- it requires both 1) the ability to raise prices profitably above that in a competitive market, and 2) anticompetitive conduct. That means that Google receiving 90% of all searches wouldn't automatically imply market power or anti-competitive conduct, and I can't see how Google or Facebook can raise their prices higher than a "competitive market" if they…
How is comcast not a monopoly? That was my only choice when I lived chicago.