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Google's Monopoly-Based Foreign Policy

mattstoller.substack.com

141–150 of 160 posts

Re: Google's Monopoly-Based Foreign Policy

#141

Ah, it's so nice to have my morning coffee with my daily fresh anti-Google story on the front page of Hacker News. Our lives just wouldn't be the same without it.

Yeah, I don't get it. FB is being openly evil with the political ads thing, but Google is the devil somehow? I suspect a smear campaign.

Two things can be different and still both be bad.

Are you claiming everyone on HN loves FB and hates Google? Because that is a pretty strong claim to make. Same goes for the tech press in general, it's not hard to find negative articles about FB and Google on the same website or from the same source.

If you type "matt stoller facebook" into Google Search (the devil's search engine) one of the top results on the first page is a criticism of Facebook... by Matt Stoller:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/22/restru...

If you're going to suspect a smear campaign or conspiracy that's fine, but please at least make a basic effort to validate your theory before posting it on HN

Re: Google's Monopoly-Based Foreign Policy

#142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I stand with Google in this case. What if google goes down tomorrow? Is your human rights violated?

The deterioration of the term "human right" really makes me sad for the future. A human right is something to kill and die for. If someone breaks into your home, you ought to defend yourself. If a government is censoring you, you are justified in civil war to defend your rights. But now "human rights" are political speech for "something I want". I want free housing and medical care and internet access, so those thing…

What is your basis for the assertion that medical care and housing are not human rights, when you just implied you should be able to kill someone who breaks into your home?

What precisely is the line here? You have the right to defend a home if you have one, but you don't have a right to have it?

Is food a human right, but not housing or medical care? Do you also believe food is not a human right?

If food is a human right (i'm going to assume favorably that you agree with me that it is), what distinguishes food - essential for survival - from medical care, which is also frequently essential for survival in modern culture?

Is it okay to deprive children of - for example - necessary vaccines and allow them to catch, spread and die from preventable diseases, because some children may survive? Near-starvation may also kill some children but not all, so is that OK?

Alternately, if you believe neither food or medicine or housing are human rights - okay? - what makes free speech a human right when those aren't, specifically? How can you exercise your free speech, exactly, if someone takes away your food as punishment for speech they dislike or if they confiscate your home along with the property you use to communicate?

Your definition of human right here is confusing and circular. Almost anything can be worth killing for depending on who you ask, otherwise you wouldn't have people getting murdered by thieves or scorned lovers. What makes it worth killing for or dying for? What makes it justified or not justified?

Obviously there are ways to establish a logical framework here but your post makes it hard to understand what framework you're operating on.

Re: Google's Monopoly-Based Foreign Policy

#143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I don't get it. FB is being openly evil with the political ads thing, but Google is the devil somehow? I suspect a smear campaign.

Two things can be different and still both be bad. Are you claiming everyone on HN loves FB and hates Google? Because that is a pretty strong claim to make. Same goes for the tech press in general, it's not hard to find negative articles about FB and Google on the same website or from the same source. If you type "matt stoller facebook" into Google Search (the devil's search engine) one of the top results on the firs…

OP was talking about what gets upvoted to the front page of HN, not necessarily what gets written by the source.

Try searching "Matt Stoller Facebook" and then "Matt Stoller Google" on HN.

Re: Google's Monopoly-Based Foreign Policy

#144
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Re: Google's Monopoly-Based Foreign Policy

#145
post #89
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Turkey is more than half as large as Russia in population and GDP. It‘s not exactly a small market.

Household income per capita in Turkey is less than 1/2 of that in Russia.

And what? They all want and need smartphones, and they'll get them somehow, even if they're Chinese knock-offs.

Re: Google's Monopoly-Based Foreign Policy

#146
Microsoft eventually caved, and put a "Browser Choice" popup in Windows. This was because the US was too big for MS to ignore. Here, we have a similar choice: Turkey wants Google to give users "Search Engine Choice", and because Turkey is relatively small of a market compared to Google's TAM, they decided they'd rather ignore than market than compromise, even though a compromise is probably the best outcome for users, for fair competition.

I think the author is not talking about what Google has a right to do or not do, nor do any moral obligation to play in which field. The problem being highlighted here is that size simply matters too much.

Re: Google's Monopoly-Based Foreign Policy

#147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, that's not too far off from what probably happened. According to former Nixon domestic policy chief John Ehrlichman: "You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin. And then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities," Ehrlichman said. "We coul…

According to Harper's magazine, which conveniently published that after his death. From the same article: >Ehrlichman died in 1999, but his five children in questioned the veracity of the account. >"We never saw or heard anything from our dad, John Ehrlichman, that was derogatory about any person of color," wrote Peter Ehrlichman, Tom Ehrlichman, Jan Ehrlichman, Michael Ehrlichman and Jody E. Pineda in a statement pr…

It seems more "massive" to our modern eyes. Back then it wouldn't have been remarkable, because the Drug War marketing was widely believed. (Baum's book itself was at the vanguard of changing public opinion.) Also, bland impersonal racism was largely tolerated in the mid-90s.

Besides, that statement from some of his children seems surprisingly specific. Nothing about Nixon's policies or Ehrlichman's role in them required Ehrlichman to be derogatory to anyone. Not that it would have been a surprise: he was born in 1925! Lots of white Americans born in that year were all too happy both to discriminate in their private lives and to enact discriminatory policies in public. Ehrlichman's kids must not have been such great fans of his anyway. At the time of the interview, he lived in Atlanta and they were all in the Pacific timezone. Reading the Harper's article, I have more sympathy for him than for them. Let the old man say his piece.

Re: Google's Monopoly-Based Foreign Policy

#148
post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The deterioration of the term "human right" really makes me sad for the future. A human right is something to kill and die for. If someone breaks into your home, you ought to defend yourself. If a government is censoring you, you are justified in civil war to defend your rights. But now "human rights" are political speech for "something I want". I want free housing and medical care and internet access, so those thing…

What is your basis for the assertion that medical care and housing are not human rights, when you just implied you should be able to kill someone who breaks into your home? What precisely is the line here? You have the right to defend a home if you have one, but you don't have a right to have it? Is food a human right, but not housing or medical care? Do you also believe food is not a human right? If food is a human…

I think my wording was unclear. Human rights are categorically worth killing and dying for, but that's not how I would define them.

I believe in natural rights. Human rights must be things that are natural and innate to humans. This is a very Google-able thing, and there has been a lot of interesting philosophy on the topic, but I will try and summarize here.

My core belief is that humans are sovereign over themselves. My body is my own. This is where all rights flow from. If I build or buy a house, and you break in, you are violating my sovernty over myself and my property.

On the other hand, if I force you to build me a house, I am violating your sovernty. Therefore it cannot be my right to have free housing , because doing so would violate your rights to not be a slave. If we mutually agree on terms and I pay you to build me a house, that's wonderful. But saying I have a right to make you build me a house is tantamount to slavery.

Natural rights almost always boil down to force. It is wrong for me to force you to do anything, even if that thing is "good" such as providing me with free food or internet. You and I are both autonomous adults and we can either come to mutually beneficial terms or not do business at all.

> How can you exercise your free speech, exactly, if someone takes away your food as punishment for speech they dislike or if they confiscate your home along with the property you use to communicate?

If someone stole your food or your house, that would be a violation of your rights. Again, it comes down to the use of aggression and force. Are you forcing your local grocer to give you food that he doesn't want to give you? That's theft, plain and simple.

And I feel I need to reiterate: it's perfectly fine if you think the government should provide taxpayer funded medicine, housing, food, internet, etc. But just because you think something is good to have does not make it a right. It's the redefinition and watering down of the idea of human rights that upsets me.

Re: Google's Monopoly-Based Foreign Policy

#149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My thinking is that if this argument is true, Google should be the one making it. They don’t need HN to “reverse engineer” a defense for them, particularly one that may not be factually correct.

Please don't shift goalposts - you asked a question (on HN!), got an answer here (based on conjecture), and you now want an official Google response that breaks down the reasons?

My point is simply that the conjecture seems difficult to believe on the face of it, but that I would be willing to revisit my beliefs if Google actually made the claim. The fact that Google has made no such claim makes it more difficult to take seriously.

Edited to be more substantive.

Re: Google's Monopoly-Based Foreign Policy

#150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Recently journalist Max Blumenthal was jailed on false charges. And released when the accusers were found the be lying. How does this incident put the US in the same league as Turkey?

Let's list some stuff that doesn't look good. Guantanamo - detention and physiological torture without trial. Hounding of whistler blowers of illegal activity - Snowdon, Manning, Assange etc. Destabilizing countries around the world - many with democratically elected governments. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r... ) Now, of course, this is largely directed at other countries citizens ra…

The vast majority (at least 99.9%) of the documents that Snowden, Manning, and Assange leaked contained no illegal activity. No judge would classify them as whistlebowers.
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