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France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra

reuters.com

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Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra

#731

Post by erikpukinskis »

scoobyyabbadoo wrote: post #724
withoutboats wrote: post #700

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mods: This user's posting history makes clear they are an anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist. Why have you not banned them? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20972062 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20918028

Please assume good faith and discuss the topics directly. What is it that you find debatable about my comment? I've always made good faith efforts at productive conversation whether someone agrees or disagrees with me on something

“Assume good faith” doesn’t mean “ignore evidence of bad faith”.

Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra

#732

Post by erikpukinskis »

JAlexoid wrote: post #448
bko wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You're assuming those people are not forced, tricked or otherwise persuaded by a company worth hundreds of billions of dollars, to use Libra Anybody who creates a product tries to persuade people to use their product. You can be a cynic and just attribute ill intent of basically everything but it's not really productive Facebook doesn't control Libra. They have a non-controlling stake in the Libra Foundation, a non…

Facebook has the power of market to force you to use Libra. Just like Apple had the power to introduce NFC payment terminals in US. That's fundamentally anti free market.

It’s interesting because I agree with you and those are good examples, but there seems to be a contradiction here.

What you’re advocating for is a market with very clear boundaries, where everyone has equal access to the market but no one is allowed to do the things outside the market.

So it’s a “free market” in that no one has special powers. But it doesn’t make my American “freedom hairs” tingle because there’s a ton of stuff the government is telling you not to do.

I won’t make any argument as to which kind of freedom is more important in this case. But I do want to suggest that the more stuff you put in the “not allowed because the market can’t be administered fairly” bucket, the more of your GDP you cede to criminal organizations.

Because once it’s illegal, that’s just a big monopoly you handed to organized crime. And yes, organized crime does exist in Europe, and does control money supply.

So you have to be careful, there’s a devil’s bargain in both directions.

Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra

#733

Post by erikpukinskis »

kevingadd wrote: post #485
dantheman wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet, western democracies have been centralizing more and more power every year. It's more that a premise is that western democracies want to increase the power of the government and no one else.

Well, on the bright side most democracies are not explicitly about profit-making and/or cost-cutting as their first priority, even if it's the first priority of individual politicians.

The U.S. being the major exception?

Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra

#734

Post by repolfx »

wnkrshm wrote: post #686
repolfx wrote: post #671

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with the rest of your points, but: Germans don't want uncontrolled groups accumulating power precisely because it could lead to a situation like Nazi Germany Uh huh. Really. Germans totally hate uncontrollable groups trying to take over Europe? Please spare me sanctimonious Germans claiming some sort of moral high ground they don't have. In fact from a British perspective it appears Germany has learned nothin…

From my perspective I think the EU/UK talks have gone nowhere because the brexiteers didn't have any strategy at all. It boils down to playing chicken and thinking the rest of the EU will flinch at the threat of the UK cutting all ties, when it has been clear that the UK (under May and now Johnson) desperately wants those ties. But the UK is not willing (or politically able) to make any concessions for those - conces…

"The EU" means both the institutions and the whims of a handful of national leaders. Nothing about what it does has anything to do with the will of its people. Where is that even measured? The text of the Withdrawal Agreement was written by the Commission, which controls the negotiations.

And by the way, none of the things the UK is being asked to agree to have been presented as requirements to other countries. The only thing the UK really wants is a free trade deal. That is explicitly not on offer from the EU: ruled out immediately. That's available to countries not geographically near Brussels, but not to the UK.

And that sadly will burn itself into the minds of many Brits (at least the leavers) as a story that the EU bullied the UK without any reason, just to be mean.

The British press, despite what you may believe, is mostly pro-EU. Many Brits have concluded that about the EU all by themselves, based on the actual actions it's taken.

Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra

#735

Post by scoobyyabbadoo »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #731
scoobyyabbadoo wrote: post #724

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please assume good faith and discuss the topics directly. What is it that you find debatable about my comment? I've always made good faith efforts at productive conversation whether someone agrees or disagrees with me on something

“Assume good faith” doesn’t mean “ignore evidence of bad faith”.

What evidence of bad faith are you referring to? Interesting how you and "other people" going through my comments have no actual objections to the content of what I say. Hard to have a productive conversation when all you have are dismissive remarks and insults.

Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra

#737

Post by doomjunky »

rohan_shah wrote: post #684
_xnmw wrote: post #653

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s still “trust” in both cases. One must trust the power of the government making the promise, or rather the global system of governance.

Exactly. If a substantial amount of people stop trusting the "promissory state money", then the inflation will be uncontrollable (or not controllable by the state) and the state won't be able to give anything in return of their promissory notes.

It's not that easy.

The trust system only works between participants. Trust can't be enforced.

The promise works with a third party. When two parties to lose confidence/trust into each other they can relay on a thrid party (the gov.) to enforce a prommise between two participants.

Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra

#738

Post by lol768 »

denton-scratch wrote: post #709
lol768 wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Germany is obviously somewhat keen on letting single entities get control of everything, as the EU is in many ways an extension primarily of Germany, and the closest entity I'm aware of that could be said to be doing just that. I'm not sure a union with a democratically elected parliament is comparable to a social media corporation which answers to its shareholders?

Why can other people not make that comparison? You seem to be doing just that - A has a democratically elected parliament B answers to its shareholders

I'm pointing out it's just not relevant to the conversation. They're too different to meaningfully (in good faith) bring up as a discussion point.

The original comparison read very much as whataboutism to me.

Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra

#739

Post by imnotlost »

nugget wrote: post #575
dpau wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last week I wanted to purchase a used item but discovered that, without warning or notification, Marketplace was deactivated from my Facebook account. My Facebook account is quite active, with posts, discussion in multiple groups, and hundreds of friends. I still have no clue as to what rule I triggered and no recourse to reactivate it. Now imagine that's my digital Libra bank account? No thanks.

Isn't the answer better consumer protections, though? Rather than a ban on new technology that threatens the status quo. If Facebook wants to be a bank, they should be subject to the banking regulators and there could be (should be) strong consumer protections preventing the type of corporate behavior you describe.

Europe already has great consumer protections. The US doesn't, and probably never will.

Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra

#740

Post by downandout »

StreamBright wrote: post #692
downandout wrote: post #556

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing you provided is evidence that any Facebook activity has ever swung any election. The very people that paid Cambridge Analytica for their services in 2016 said that the company’s strategies were ineffective at best, referring to it as “snake oil” [1]. You have provided evidence that people attempted to use Facebook to swing an election. Those two things are not the same. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news…

What you are asking is impossible. How do you want me provide evidence? Fly back in time and stop facebook interfering? I can flip the question, why would politicians use this setup if it was not working?

The point is that Facebook ads, regardless of how precisely targeted they may (or may not) have been, did not sway the 2016 election, and I am not aware of any other election Facebook is even thought to have had any effect on. The whole “it’s Facebook’s fault” narrative was shaped by a liberal media desperate to explain why they were unsuccessful in influencing it themselves. Rather than accept the fact that they had simply a run a fatally flawed candidate, and had alienated large swaths of the country by calling them stupid for not agreeing with every one of their views, liberals found a scapegoat: it was Facebook’s fault.

Facebook is an echo chamber. People don’t go there to be informed; they go there to validate their already held beliefs. Given the large ideological chasm between the two candidates in the 2016 election, it defies logic that even a single voter was swayed or chose not to vote at all based on ads they saw on Facebook.

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