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How Big Tech wrote secrecy into EU law to hide data centres' environmental toll

investigate-europe.eu

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Re: How Big Tech wrote secrecy into EU law to hide data centres' environmental toll

#21

Post by TeMPOraL »

johndunne wrote: post #3

I find this facet of Capitalism the most concerning; fiduciary responsibility to the shareholder. It breaks the link between people and matters that concern society (like the environment, in the case of this article). In the drive to increase profit, individual legislators can be convinced to tweak a law or two for 'greater economic growth' somewhere. Over the decades, the effect is a shift in political power away fr…

No fiduciary responsibility needed, democracy alone is enough to encourage corruption.

For example, a company decision-maker responsible for picking the city/county/country in which their company will put a new factory is in position of great influence on municipal/regional/national level politics - simply because the people want jobs, and politicians want to be popular with the people.

Re: How Big Tech wrote secrecy into EU law to hide data centres' environmental toll

#22

Post by TeMPOraL »

tgv wrote: post #10
direwolf20 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't solely due to shareholder fiduciary duty. Even without such a duty, the shareholders would fire anyone who doesn't put them first. Even without shares, a sole owner of a company would also do that. No matter your position, you don't get to do things that are bad for your boss, so the ultimate bosses (whoever they are in a given system) hold all the power. And power has a tendency to accumulate. Powerful pe…

That's an Ayn Rand type black and white view of society. Not so long ago, companies were supposed to (and many did) care for continuity, in a broad sense: survival, labor, customer, and product. Nowadays, you would add environment too. Shares were a way of getting more interest than a savings account. Heck, there were even cooperations in which the laborers were shareholders as well. The word you are looking for is g…

Corporations do care for survival and continuity - of themselves. Not the people, not even people working in them or running them - just themselves.

Re: How Big Tech wrote secrecy into EU law to hide data centres' environmental toll

#23

Post by Isamu »

billynomates wrote: post #20
kvgr wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is corruption and it is in capitalism, socialism and communism. Corruption is everywhere all the time. Capitalism is just redistribution of resources. There is also redistribution of resources in communism and there the corruption i would say is even bigger. Less in amount for one specific person, but spread out throught society that it rots from inside.

Capitalism is not the redistribution of resources. It is an economic system in which the means of production are owned by private owners, as opposed to collectively. In theory, full communism prevents corruption by removing its structural causes rather than relying on laws or moral exhortation. And since corruption under capitalism (in Marxist analysis) stems from private ownership, class divisions, and the scramble…

>Without private property to accumulate or a state apparatus to capture, the reasoning goes, there would simply be nothing left to be corrupt about.

Right, it becomes mostly the corruption of power, and the lengths people will go to in order to retain it. It’s astonishing that is not recognized as a problem.

Re: How Big Tech wrote secrecy into EU law to hide data centres' environmental toll

#24

Post by RandomLensman »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #22
tgv wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an Ayn Rand type black and white view of society. Not so long ago, companies were supposed to (and many did) care for continuity, in a broad sense: survival, labor, customer, and product. Nowadays, you would add environment too. Shares were a way of getting more interest than a savings account. Heck, there were even cooperations in which the laborers were shareholders as well. The word you are looking for is g…

Corporations do care for survival and continuity - of themselves . Not the people, not even people working in them or running them - just themselves.

How could a corporation itself care about anything? How would it act itself (without humans), for example, to express such care?

In my experience, it is always people.

Re: How Big Tech wrote secrecy into EU law to hide data centres' environmental toll

#26

Post by latexr »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #21
johndunne wrote: post #3

I find this facet of Capitalism the most concerning; fiduciary responsibility to the shareholder. It breaks the link between people and matters that concern society (like the environment, in the case of this article). In the drive to increase profit, individual legislators can be convinced to tweak a law or two for 'greater economic growth' somewhere. Over the decades, the effect is a shift in political power away fr…

No fiduciary responsibility needed, democracy alone is enough to encourage corruption. For example, a company decision-maker responsible for picking the city/county/country in which their company will put a new factory is in position of great influence on municipal/regional/national level politics - simply because the people want jobs, and politicians want to be popular with the people.

> simply because the people want jobs

To be more precise, the people want to live within a certain standard. I can’t think of anyone¹ who really wants a job. Purpose, something to do, money (which translates to standard of living), recognition, sure, but those don’t really necessitate a job, as in something you have to do on the regular to be able to survive through the indirection of money.

The distinction is important because those who have the power you described are also the ones who have the biggest incentive to perpetuate this notion that everyone needs a job and that there’s no other way the system could work. Thus, by framing it in the context of jobs we’re discussing on their terms and have already lost.

¹ For sure there’ll be someone, but not enough to be meaningful.

Re: How Big Tech wrote secrecy into EU law to hide data centres' environmental toll

#27

Post by TeMPOraL »

RandomLensman wrote: post #24
TeMPOraL wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corporations do care for survival and continuity - of themselves . Not the people, not even people working in them or running them - just themselves.

How could a corporation itself care about anything? How would it act itself (without humans), for example, to express such care? In my experience, it is always people.

Think in terms of a dynamic system. Or in terms of "selfish gene", as I've observed it to be easier to talk about.

Any single person or group in a corporation is expendable. You can swap out the sales department or a CEO, and the corporation will continue on its course without a pause or major change of direction. No single person or group of people is in total control of the direction - what directs the corporation is the sum total of ideas, vibes, internal influences, bylaws, operating practices, assets, and external environment of competitors and markets and regulatory landscape. The people that make up a corporation may be diverse and have conflicting goals, but if there's one thing they're all aligned on, is that they all want to keep their jobs and increase their pay or influence. I.e. they want the corporation to go on, to survive at least to their next paycheck.

The end result is, a corporation can be seen as an independent entity - kinda like an animal (or a super-colony for more accurate comparison) with a survival drive independent of the people that form it.

Re: How Big Tech wrote secrecy into EU law to hide data centres' environmental toll

#28

Post by jeffbee »

Can anyone name any other industry that is as open and transparent about power and water usage as the IT industry? How much energy does your local oil refinery, metal smelter, borax plant use?

Large data center operators are already far more transparent with their annual reports than any other industry.

Re: How Big Tech wrote secrecy into EU law to hide data centres' environmental toll

#29

Post by RandomLensman »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #27
RandomLensman wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How could a corporation itself care about anything? How would it act itself (without humans), for example, to express such care? In my experience, it is always people.

Think in terms of a dynamic system. Or in terms of "selfish gene", as I've observed it to be easier to talk about. Any single person or group in a corporation is expendable. You can swap out the sales department or a CEO, and the corporation will continue on its course without a pause or major change of direction. No single person or group of people is in total control of the direction - what directs the corporation…

If there is a single owner, could shut down the place, for example.

As I said, in my experience, the humans - interchangible or not, as customers, competitors, owners etc - determine what happens, not the corporation itself.

Can look at a corporate as "living thing" itself, but I think that underestimates the human side.

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