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Tech giants have as much money and influence as nations

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Re: Tech giants have as much money and influence as nations

#71

Post by bsanr2 »

tasogare wrote: post #60
christiansakai wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forgive me for my naive thinking. But as long as country have a military power, isn’t that the ultimate deciding factor? Like, sure you can bully nations all you want, but as soon as they implement policies like “obey our rules or get out of our land or receive the end of the gunpowder” companies will just obey

In theory yes, but it takes a government with "balls" to take this kind of stance. Big companies owners and leaders are from the same schools, eat at the same table, are friends with the politician ruling class. One government might take action against a foreign company because it is foreign, yet allows the same behavior from a domestic company. Ultimately the people need to cut some heads to remember them what is th…

What's worse: big company owners and big financiers are from the same schools, etc. It's not unheard of for a nation that's threatened an overreaching company with sanctions or nationalization to find itself facing a coup, or shut out of an advantageous (read: actually workable) stake in the world monetary establishment. In fact, that's basically the modern history of the southern hemisphere.

You don't get to play unless the global oligarchs can skim off what they want, even if it breaks your economy (all the better! Who doesn't love an entire population in thrall to your whims?). The American government is currently part of that oligarchy, but see what happens if Bernie Sanders is elected.

Re: Tech giants have as much money and influence as nations

#72

Post by SllX »

epicgiga wrote: post #53

Problem is that states usually have constitutional safeguards that keep a safe balance of power between citizen and state. Not so with these companies. Step out of line and they can unperson you like that, and you can't vote on their leadership. And increasingly entire livelihoods and social existences are tied into them. This is why you're seeing states start to get so aggressive with them. The EU fining billions ou…

The difference between a sovereign nation-state and a corporation is that a nation-state has a legal monopoly on sanctioned violence within their jurisdiction. Those constitutional safeguards are necessary because otherwise they could search, seize, detain, arrest, imprison, torture and kill with impunity.

A tech company can deplatform you with impunity, but they’re not inflicting any real violence in the process. Corporations are still agents of real people, and those people are still subject to the laws of nations.

Re: Tech giants have as much money and influence as nations

#73

Post by topologistics »

SllX wrote: post #72
epicgiga wrote: post #53

Problem is that states usually have constitutional safeguards that keep a safe balance of power between citizen and state. Not so with these companies. Step out of line and they can unperson you like that, and you can't vote on their leadership. And increasingly entire livelihoods and social existences are tied into them. This is why you're seeing states start to get so aggressive with them. The EU fining billions ou…

The difference between a sovereign nation-state and a corporation is that a nation-state has a legal monopoly on sanctioned violence within their jurisdiction. Those constitutional safeguards are necessary because otherwise they could search, seize, detain, arrest, imprison, torture and kill with impunity. A tech company can deplatform you with impunity, but they’re not inflicting any real violence in the process. Co…

Taking away somebody's right to make a living with their chosen profession or otherwise participate in commerce is economic violence.

Say you have built up a following of people over many years and you are making thousands of dollars a month from YouTube, and they they decide to shut you down overnight, I bet it's going to feel like violence when it comes time to pay bills and you no longer have any of that income you have become accustomed to.

Re: Tech giants have as much money and influence as nations

#74

Post by indigochill »

topologistics wrote: post #73
SllX wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference between a sovereign nation-state and a corporation is that a nation-state has a legal monopoly on sanctioned violence within their jurisdiction. Those constitutional safeguards are necessary because otherwise they could search, seize, detain, arrest, imprison, torture and kill with impunity. A tech company can deplatform you with impunity, but they’re not inflicting any real violence in the process. Co…

Taking away somebody's right to make a living with their chosen profession or otherwise participate in commerce is economic violence. Say you have built up a following of people over many years and you are making thousands of dollars a month from YouTube, and they they decide to shut you down overnight, I bet it's going to feel like violence when it comes time to pay bills and you no longer have any of that income yo…

>Taking away somebody's right to make a living with their chosen profession or otherwise participate in commerce is economic violence.

The thing is, no company is taking away a creator's right to their living. They may take away the opportunity to make a living on that company's platform, but there's a distinct difference.

YouTube (or Twitch, etc) are providing a service to content creators, that service being hosting and broadcasting their content. Service agreements come with clauses about termination of service. A content creator should never put all their eggs into a single basket lest that service cease to support them for whatever reason.

Re: Tech giants have as much money and influence as nations

#75

Post by osb10 »

epicgiga wrote: post #53

Problem is that states usually have constitutional safeguards that keep a safe balance of power between citizen and state. Not so with these companies. Step out of line and they can unperson you like that, and you can't vote on their leadership. And increasingly entire livelihoods and social existences are tied into them. This is why you're seeing states start to get so aggressive with them. The EU fining billions ou…

Alex Jones is a bad example. I don't have any sympathy for what happened to him given the number of people whose heads he has filled with bullshit over the years. There aren't simple tools to clean up that kind of population scale mental pollution.

In these early iterations of social networks, the power to deplatform people is required. Not everyone deserves to broadcast whatever is flitting through their minds, to the largest available susceptable population.

Regulations and big tech itself will evolve as they and their kids and families aren't immune to the dangers. Most people in big tech have a much better sense of what's possible thanks to the Trump election, Brexit etc and the solution are not obvious so it's just taking time to figure out.

Re: Tech giants have as much money and influence as nations

#76

Post by asdfeasdffwes »

indigochill wrote: post #74
topologistics wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taking away somebody's right to make a living with their chosen profession or otherwise participate in commerce is economic violence. Say you have built up a following of people over many years and you are making thousands of dollars a month from YouTube, and they they decide to shut you down overnight, I bet it's going to feel like violence when it comes time to pay bills and you no longer have any of that income yo…

>Taking away somebody's right to make a living with their chosen profession or otherwise participate in commerce is economic violence. The thing is, no company is taking away a creator's right to their living. They may take away the opportunity to make a living on that company's platform, but there's a distinct difference. YouTube (or Twitch, etc) are providing a service to content creators, that service being hostin…

When I was at Google, a few people there posted on internal forums to celebrate how successfully the deplatforming was in causing financial troubles for the targets.

Re: Tech giants have as much money and influence as nations

#77

Post by xur17 »

indigochill wrote: post #74
topologistics wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taking away somebody's right to make a living with their chosen profession or otherwise participate in commerce is economic violence. Say you have built up a following of people over many years and you are making thousands of dollars a month from YouTube, and they they decide to shut you down overnight, I bet it's going to feel like violence when it comes time to pay bills and you no longer have any of that income yo…

>Taking away somebody's right to make a living with their chosen profession or otherwise participate in commerce is economic violence. The thing is, no company is taking away a creator's right to their living. They may take away the opportunity to make a living on that company's platform, but there's a distinct difference. YouTube (or Twitch, etc) are providing a service to content creators, that service being hostin…

> YouTube (or Twitch, etc) are providing a service to content creators, that service being hosting and broadcasting their content. Service agreements come with clauses about termination of service. A content creator should never put all their eggs into a single basket lest that service cease to support them for whatever reason.

This is normally true, but in the "winner takes all" world, not having access to Youtube (or Twitch, etc) is effectively like being cut off from all customers. I experienced this in the past when running an ad supported website. Adsense paid by far the best (> 10x everyone else), so being shut off by them was like being shut off altogether.

And the problem is that for marketplaces it typically is "winner takes all".

Re: Tech giants have as much money and influence as nations

#78

Post by Ididntdothis »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #5

I think it’s supposed to be a joke, but it’s still a bit contrived. The governance models of countries and companies are very different. Just about every company would end up being like some sort of socialist regime. No democracy, central planning. Perhaps you could argue they’re more like oligarchies or plutocracies (governed by capital).

"Just about every company would end up being like some sort of socialist regime."

Very true. It's all there. 5 year plans, top-down control, a lot of internal propaganda, suppression of inconvenient opinions.

Re: Tech giants have as much money and influence as nations

#79

Post by Ididntdothis »

Razengan wrote: post #13
arkitaip wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet we think it's absolutely normal for companies to be run like oppressive regimes.

Should your employees take over any company you found?

It's certainly conceivable to give employees a bigger stake in the company. Germany has representation of works in company boards by law and I think it works well. It's all a matter of balance.

Re: Tech giants have as much money and influence as nations

#80

Post by tomrod »

So do several religions. As well as mafioso or cartels.

I think of these groups as "states-in-waiting." Should their regional government grow too corrupt or too weak, they fill the void.

[1] https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-net-worth-of-the-Catholic-...

[2] https://fox13now.com/2018/05/30/mormonleaks-lds-church-contr...

[3] https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2660520/joaquin-el-chapo-guzma...

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