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Amazon defeated Rekognition shareholder revolt by a large margin

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Re: Amazon defeated Rekognition shareholder revolt by a large margin

#21
post #9
post #6

I’m not sure how I feel about facial recognition. On one hand, I think code is just information and no piece of information should be illegal to possess. I also think we need to protect our rights with math and code not laws. But I’m not sure that would help against the very real and dystopian future that seems just around the corner. Facial recognition is probably the key cornerstone of said future and I’m not sure…

Human rights are not a mathematical or computer science concept, they are in fact a law concept. I know it's tempting for computer people on hackernews to want to solve problems with the tools of their own domain - but law is exactly the place where rights need to be protected, not code.

But it would help a lot of developers didn't work on technologies that clearly lead to a dystopian future, or for companies that are working toward the direction. I know that would never happen, but it would sure help.

Re: Amazon defeated Rekognition shareholder revolt by a large margin

#23
post #9
post #6

I’m not sure how I feel about facial recognition. On one hand, I think code is just information and no piece of information should be illegal to possess. I also think we need to protect our rights with math and code not laws. But I’m not sure that would help against the very real and dystopian future that seems just around the corner. Facial recognition is probably the key cornerstone of said future and I’m not sure…

Human rights are not a mathematical or computer science concept, they are in fact a law concept. I know it's tempting for computer people on hackernews to want to solve problems with the tools of their own domain - but law is exactly the place where rights need to be protected, not code.

If you don't have axiomatic beliefs, then where do your beliefs come from? Some abstract feeling? Whatever "feels" right?

Clearly (to me at least), you need a system of axiomatic beliefs. If your axioms don't form a coherent system (i.e you can prove a contradiction), then you really don't believe anything at all.

It's surprising to me that very few people think about morality this way. Everyone has a different view of morality of course, but you should at the very least try and distill it into an elegant system that is a) consistent and b) has sufficient predictive power to be useful.

An example of a system that fulfills a) but not b) would be something like: There's no morality anyone can do anything they want. That's only one axiom and pretty elegant as systems go. The problem with it is that it's so trivial that it can't assign value judgements to anything at all, rendering it all but worthless.

The system that I tend to follow has three primary axioms:

1) There are two kinds of things in the world: people and property.

2) People own property and they can do anything they want with said property as long as it doesn't violate the rights of others to do the same. Moreover, the person himself is property and thus is solely owned by himself.

3) By violating the axioms above, one forfeits his right to the above axioms.

While not perfect, this system is internally consistent and also has sufficient predictive power:

If someone punches me, he's violating my property of myself (2), and therefore can be sent to jail (3). If I break into someones house, same thing: violates (2) and therefore can be punished by (3).

There are some things that the system can't assign judgements to, however: What are children? What rights do they have? What about abortion? What exactly violates someone else's property? Does air pollution can't as violation? What about the environment? What rights to animals have (the system says they're property, but some people might have a problem with others torturing animals, for example)? Where does the government get it's legitimacy? Can the government levy taxes? etc etc etc

In truth, the things it can't make judgements about are probably than the things it can. But I personally haven't found a better or more elegant system to frame the world in, so I generally stick with it while being aware of it's limitations.

Re: Amazon defeated Rekognition shareholder revolt by a large margin

#24
post #17

Is this really a valid test anymore with 50%+ of outstanding shares being held by index funds? Who actually controls the companies when shareholders don't really exist like they used to? What does shareholder primacy even mean anymore?

You're right - index funds voting really hurts the process, largely because index funds don't ask their investor base how they should vote. Instead, they default to following corporate recommendations and voting down any shareholder proposals. So really, all those shares are voted according to what corporate management wants, not to what the original retail investors want. It's distorting the power balance in a reall…

Why do they do that instead of abstaining?

It seems like their duty to the index fund owners is to vote like other shareholders (which is most easily achieved by abstaining) and not like management.

Re: Amazon defeated Rekognition shareholder revolt by a large margin

#25
post #24
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right - index funds voting really hurts the process, largely because index funds don't ask their investor base how they should vote. Instead, they default to following corporate recommendations and voting down any shareholder proposals. So really, all those shares are voted according to what corporate management wants, not to what the original retail investors want. It's distorting the power balance in a reall…

Why do they do that instead of abstaining? It seems like their duty to the index fund owners is to vote like other shareholders (which is most easily achieved by abstaining) and not like management.

How does abstaining count towards having quorum? Does it count equal to other votes?

Re: Amazon defeated Rekognition shareholder revolt by a large margin

#27

Most surprising thing in that was that the request to generate a report on the management of food waste reached a support level of 25%! I am really surprised that this is an important issue to Amazon shareholders.

We are going to metric each other to death: I'll make you worry about food spoilage in the fridge at your work and you harp on water usage in the restrooms at my work until we are all enslaved by our own 401ks tied up in index funds!

Re: Amazon defeated Rekognition shareholder revolt by a large margin

#28
post #24
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right - index funds voting really hurts the process, largely because index funds don't ask their investor base how they should vote. Instead, they default to following corporate recommendations and voting down any shareholder proposals. So really, all those shares are voted according to what corporate management wants, not to what the original retail investors want. It's distorting the power balance in a reall…

Why do they do that instead of abstaining? It seems like their duty to the index fund owners is to vote like other shareholders (which is most easily achieved by abstaining) and not like management.

They legally have to vote their shares.

Individuals are exempt for that.

It's interesting to think about index fund providers incentives:

(1) track the market (2) do it very cheaply

Voting shares is a cost center with no benefit towards the business. Fund providers don't want to spend time and money to do research on individual proposals, that would be too expensive. So they do the cheapest thing possible and default to following corporate recs.

(That's actually a simplification, what happens in practice is, they use third party proxy voting advisors, but the end results is mostly the same, except that they vote down really egregious proposals, e.g. crazy CEO pay in the context of a free falling share price)

Re: Amazon defeated Rekognition shareholder revolt by a large margin

#29
post #2

The solution to this is not "regulate Amazon's facial recognition". It's just "regulate all facial recognition". While that's obviously challenging, targeting Amazon specifically doesn't actually improve the status quo in a lasting way.

Yes, unfortunately, in the US the corporations own the government, so such policies, even if very popular, have very little chance of passing if the large companies behind such tech oppose those policies.

This is why you have to go after the companies first and boycott them/cause PR nightmares for them.

Re: Amazon defeated Rekognition shareholder revolt by a large margin

#30
post #24
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right - index funds voting really hurts the process, largely because index funds don't ask their investor base how they should vote. Instead, they default to following corporate recommendations and voting down any shareholder proposals. So really, all those shares are voted according to what corporate management wants, not to what the original retail investors want. It's distorting the power balance in a reall…

Why do they do that instead of abstaining? It seems like their duty to the index fund owners is to vote like other shareholders (which is most easily achieved by abstaining) and not like management.

> Why do they do that instead of abstaining?

Suppose index funds collectively own 80% of the shares. If they don't vote or do something that causes their vote to equal the other shareholders, someone else can buy 10% of the shares and effectively have majority voting power, or even fewer than that since most likely some of the other non-index fund owners wouldn't vote either.

The problem is that you need somebody who is paying attention to be in control of the company. Putting that on management is problematic because they obviously have different interest than owners, e.g. on matters of executive compensation or whether to return profits to shareholders instead of using them to build a personal empire/reputation or funneling money to cronies through mergers and acquisitions.

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