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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

#161

Post by SllX »

chillacy wrote: post #146
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…

Just want to point out that this is true today in the USA and most developed nations, but there was definitely a time when corporations had armies and navies (e.g. Dutch East India Company times). Corporations, not government, were also the main driver of the Atlantic slave trade. Of course this was true at the time because of a power vacuum, physical security is a requirement to doing business–at the end of the day…

Mostly agree! But! An important part of a monopoly is the ability to grant licenses on that monopoly, or letters of marque and reprisal, or charters or pass laws governing acceptable uses of violence by private citizens, and so on. Theoretically if Congress allowed it, private corporations could raise standing armies and navies, I just don’t think we or anyone in Congress would stand and suffer that blight on society.

In a way though, that’s what private security contractors are though, although their authority to engage in violence is legally limited.

Also it is important to note that such corporations as the Dutch East India Company operates their militaries outside and beyond the core jurisdiction, were and of their nations of origin. There was no contradiction of terms in subjugating and governing Indians and Javanese so long as they weren’t subjugating free Dutchmen.

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

#162

Post by whalabi »

BlueTemplar wrote: post #148
bagacrap wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To transition into something resembling a government would not be very on brand for Apple. If anything they seem likely to blast off into space and colonize Mars with all the cash they've mined and stockpiled here.

A place inhospitable to life? Yeah, this sounds a great plan to waste all their resources...

Well hang on, making human life multi-planetary is extremely valuable, if not essential for our future survival. And we can use technology to make Mars hospitable.

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

#163

Post by aj7 »

SllX wrote: post #134
aj7 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe we should make you persona non grata at the three largest supermarket chains in your area, plus Walmart and Amazon. You can get your meals at Burger King and 7-11.

I see your angle, but that would still leave me with countless other places to purchase groceries, any one of which could choose not to do business with me.

Indeed, the market for food is more fragmented than that for a large video audience. That's why it's a screwjob by Google. And it's a good reason to break Google into pieces.

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

#164

Post by olliej »

BlueTemplar wrote: post #158
olliej wrote: post #137

As opposed to the Catholic Church? Oil companies? A number of retailers? Beating up tech companies specifically is getting irksome. There are many things wrong with our industry specifically, but beating them up over something true of many industries is .

They are being brought up more and more because they are starting to become as much if not more powerful than your examples?

but they aren't - there are few examples where laws are explicitly repealed to aid the tech industry, there a few cases where tech companies have be absolved of responsibility (or given drastically reduced fines) for their environment or societal damage.

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

#165

Post by BlueTemplar »

olliej wrote: post #164
BlueTemplar wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are being brought up more and more because they are starting to become as much if not more powerful than your examples?

but they aren't - there are few examples where laws are explicitly repealed to aid the tech industry, there a few cases where tech companies have be absolved of responsibility (or given drastically reduced fines) for their environment or societal damage.

Only because they haven't been around for long ?

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

#166

Post by BlueTemplar »

whalabi wrote: post #162
BlueTemplar wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A place inhospitable to life? Yeah, this sounds a great plan to waste all their resources...

Well hang on, making human life multi-planetary is extremely valuable, if not essential for our future survival. And we can use technology to make Mars hospitable.

Yes, but Apple is very unlikely to achieve that, as not only it doesn't only take money, but all the money on the earth wouldn't be able to achieve that with current tech (or even next-decades tech...) We should instead concentrate on mitigating the ongoing collapse of our civilization, so that the next one might get a shot at that ! (And Apple is not likely to help here, on the opposite, they are too invested in kicking the can, which makes things worse.)

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

#167

Post by saagarjha »

matt123456789 wrote: post #82
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…

This argument severely underestimates the alternatives available to the current corporate tech hegemony. Put yourself in the position of Internet persona non grata and let’s look at your alternatives. Twitter doesn’t like you(or whoever “Big Tech“TM goes after next)? Yet you can still say whatever they want on their own website. YouTube doesn’t like you? You can self-host your videos. Facebook doesn’t like you? No ac…

> Linus Torvalds himself doesn’t like you!?!? OpenBSD!

Actually, it doesn't matter if he likes you or not; you can still run Linux just as well. Unlike the other examples he has no power to stop you from doing this.

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

#168

Post by kevingadd »

wolfgke wrote: post #140
adventured wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steve Jobs described the whole point to the design: he wanted people to frequently bump into each other, rather than being hidden away in private offices. He noted it was one of his favorite aspects of the Pixar office. It's strange that anybody would blame Jony Ive for a design that Jobs chose. Jobs took what he thought worked about Pixar's office to spur creativity & innovation, and used it in building the new Appl…

> Steve Jobs described the whole point to the design: he wanted people to frequently bump into each other, rather than being hidden away in private offices. He noted it was one of his favorite aspects of the Pixar office. It's strange that anybody would blame Jony Ive for a design that Jobs chose. Jobs took what he thought worked about Pixar's office to spur creativity & innovation, and used it in building the new Ap…

Programmers working on products like the iPhone or on networked services can end up applying creativity more often than you think. Sometimes there are difficult problems that can only be solved with applied creativity, and you also get much better results if your thinking is informed by the people who will be using your product (or taking it across the finish line once your code is 'done').

In my past jobs working on tools and infrastructure, the best results usually come from sitting next to the people who use the tools or at least watching them use them. The traditional model used by the teams I've helped typically was partitioned off and people tossed things over the wall, but I always got significantly improved results by actually collaborating with the users.

You can compare programming with Air Traffic Control but in that case you need to realize that ATCs are in constant communication with their customers (i.e. pilots) in order to deliver the best results for passengers. If ATCs behaved like programmers in monolithic organizations they'd simply issue flight plans without talking to pilots at all and they'd be ill-equipped to respond to emergencies and sudden changes in flight situations.

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

#169

Post by ksec »

As an Apple Shareholder I would be furious if the part about Shows were only for 10 years and not for life are real.

Apple News+, Apple Arcade are forgiving as they are only a few hundred million bet. Apple TV+ is a multi billions bet, with no short terms or long term goal or benefits.

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

#170

Post by majewsky »

jotm wrote: post #44
ginko wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also not true. Apples valuation is around $365 billion, Denmarks _GDP_ is around $370 billion per year. I'd argue a sovereign country's assets are essentially invaluable, but in Denmark's case there's the interesting historical fact that the US government offered to buy Greenland several times (and always being rebuffed by the Danes), so at least there's an estimate for the value of that island alone: https://en…

Let's go by the price of land in Denmark. 25,000 Euros per hectare in 2009. That's for agricultural land. Greenland does not support agriculture, but it does have natural resources, and can have a good strategic value. So let's say it's 10,000 Euros per hectare, a good discount. It would cost 2.6 trillion Euros, or 2.9 trillion US Dollars. Everything has a price, I wonder if that would be acceptable for Denmark and u…

> Greenland does not support agriculture

Give it a few more decades.

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