231–240 of 253 posts
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Sorry do you speak for all members of this website or just yourself. The weak swimmers are what exactly? people who value other people for who they are, not for how much they own? This is confusing.
You should work on your reading comprehension.
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> That's any for profit company no matter what anyone believes. Any company its only purpose is profit. That's a myth. See for example 1. this aptly titled article: Corporations Don’t Have to Maximize Profits https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/04/16/what-are-co... 2. Tim Cook at Apple: > The shareholder asked Cook about the company’s renewable energy efforts and told him that Apple should only undertake such…
The first link is discussing whether directors have a legal duty to maximize profit, which, as the article describes, they do not (their duties are open to much broader interpretation, which the article also describes). But, of course, there are numerous nonlegal forces that incentivize profit maximization, some of which are noted in the aforementioned article, and these forces are so strong and ubiquitous that their…
However, that is just a broad and fast rule, and it is neither empirically true, nor desirable, nor legally required that every firm at every opportunity "maximises profit". It is this over-simplification that I argue against [0].
If Facebook is shown to pursue profit at the expense of teenager health, or at the expense of democratic institutions, or Shell is shown to pursue profit at the expense of the environment, the appropriate response is not to shrug and say "doh, that's what companies do (and must do)!".
Instead, one ought to discuss whether A) the legal/regulatory framework within which the firm operates should be tightened (eg with rules that just prohibit certain things, or internalisation of externalities), or B) whether a firm should refrain from doing certain things even though they're (still) legal and increase profits.
[0] GP didn't state, as you sensibly do, that "profit maximization should be taken to be the default", but rather (my highlights) "That's any for profit company no matter what anyone believes. Any company its only purpose is profit.", which is just the facile statement I argue against.
[1] Note that these Econ 101 arguments for the primacy of profit maximisation rest on many assumptions that don't hold, see for example James Kwak's book Economism: Bad Economics and the Rise of Inequality.
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This is a completely bogus claim, and you really should not be taking content from the guardian seriously - this is a great example why. Apple, in this case, is one of many companies that generally supports various lobby groups for various causes. In this article, they note that some (unspecified) groups that Apple supports oppose the current budget bill. Nowhere in this article can you conclude that APPLE specifical…
Bogus how? Sources? > Nowhere in this article can you conclude that APPLE specifically opposes this bill BECAUSE of the climate change clauses in it. That is a lot of caps. Apple gives money to group A. Group A opposes a bill that contains environmental provisions. Apple will not refute the actions of group A. Who cares if group A says their objection is for other reasons. They are still trying to sink a bill with en…
This is the idiotic argument the article is making.
You are better than this.
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The first link is discussing whether directors have a legal duty to maximize profit, which, as the article describes, they do not (their duties are open to much broader interpretation, which the article also describes). But, of course, there are numerous nonlegal forces that incentivize profit maximization, some of which are noted in the aforementioned article, and these forces are so strong and ubiquitous that their…
You're right (and I don't dispute) that almost all firms aspire to long-term shareholder value creation, and that there are both practical reasons (market forces, competition) and theoretical reasons (Econ 101 arguments such as the two welfare theorems, principal-agent theory, etc. [1]) why that is and should be so. However, that is just a broad and fast rule, and it is neither empirically true, nor desirable, nor le…
That profit maximization is not legally obligated (or even "desirable") is not a particularly compelling counterpoint, many things are done that are both legally forbidden and undesirable (of course "desirable" for who is another discussion). Additionally, your Tim Cook quote, which I assume was your attempt at disproof by counterexample, is not particularly compelling either, primarily because it's simply a quote (especially considering there is abundant anecdotal evidence that corporations have the ability to do things for superficial intent other than profit, and many examples where that superficial intent is more defensible).
Also, what you read as "doh, that's what companies do (and must do)," I read as "it's naive to assume a for-profit company would prioritize anything over profit by choice." The second (but also the first) implies the necessity of a discussion about "the legal/regulatory framework within which the firm operates." They also both imply that expecting firms to simply "refrain" is naive, even if it superficially occurs.
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> And it really appears to be a Facebook problem. Instagram for Kids wasn’t the fever dream of a deranged Instagrammer Two things to unpack here. its not a facebook problem. its a problem that exists in many large companies. Apple for example doesn't give a shit about individuals. (you can see that if you slip off any of the predefined support pathways) _everyone_ to google is just a thing to evaluated and advertised…
>(how do you think they manage the "x is busy now, try later"?) what is this?
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Social network, no. Social networks are for talking about yourself, and that's generally not very productive for educational purposes. However, in the slightly earlier life of the internet BBSes and forums were all the rage, and those were actually useful, because the focus was on discussing common interests instead of everyone just showing themselves off (and forums are still around! Discourse is a modern open sourc…
Concerning social networks, it's even more than just talking about yourself. It's about creators' wants of acknowledgement/views and the greed and addiction associated with it. Of course users in a hypothetical social education network would want views from their material too, but it would require the removal of sinking to the lowest common denominator from the equation. As you pointed out, that seems to already exis…
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I would even say it's simpler, and the problem is Mark Zuckerberg specifically. He's deeply immoral, and continues to do what Facebook does for power and money. I understand, on some level, the excitement - he's a computer nerd who came to control an organization that is more powerful than the majority of the world's countries. Zuckerberg controls the platform that is the primary means of communication for hundreds o…
> an organization that is more powerful than the majority of the world's countries. Zuckerberg controls the platform that is the primary means of communication for hundreds of millions of people, and in terms of power he's almost on the level of G7 leaders, just not accountable to anyone. Let's add a header to Facebook's homepage insulting some country's leader, and see how fast they get beaten into removing it by a…
I'm from a small European country with no notable natural resources nor other economic influence. Legally, the government has quite a lot of authority, but its power, measured by how it can specifically influence events, pales in comparison to the power of certain larger countries that can actually affect more.
Facebook is the primary source of news for many, many people and can greatly influence their view by choosing to bury, or prominently display, stories promoting a particular stance. It's likely that Facebook could flip the outcome of a close election in a heavily FB-using country if it wanted to. Facebook controls several of the most popular services people use to directly message one another, and it could choose not to deliver messages containing certain words or links. Facebook can (through the FB Pixel) build a highly accurate history of web browsing for most online users, something major governments can also do through NSA, GCHQ or Spetssvyaz, but smaller governments don't have that capability.
Facebook can't launch nukes or assassinate anyone anywhere with a drone strike, but if you look past the several national leaders who truly stand out in terms of power, I'd say you would find Facebook in the next rank.
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Social network, no. Social networks are for talking about yourself, and that's generally not very productive for educational purposes. However, in the slightly earlier life of the internet BBSes and forums were all the rage, and those were actually useful, because the focus was on discussing common interests instead of everyone just showing themselves off (and forums are still around! Discourse is a modern open sourc…
Concerning social networks, it's even more than just talking about yourself. It's about creators' wants of acknowledgement/views and the greed and addiction associated with it. Of course users in a hypothetical social education network would want views from their material too, but it would require the removal of sinking to the lowest common denominator from the equation. As you pointed out, that seems to already exis…
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> I guess you need to be a bad person from the get-go to be able to keep a smiling face in that place. I have a close friend who works there. He's a moral person and disagrees with the social changes that Facebook has caused. But if you ask him why he works there, he has a few standard responses: - Most of the employees at Facebook are good and push back against Zuckerberg's harmful decisions. - If all the good peopl…
Not certain if I support your friend, but he is right in one regard. If people who push back against Zuckerberg were not part of Facebook, we would not have all these leaks. When they announced that they would be cracking down on leakers, that announcement leaked immediately. Imo it shows that they don't have popular support within Facebook at all. Of course this doesn't excuse implementing features that you know are…
This is correct. There's a huge amount of internal dissent. There are internal protests and letters to the CEO.
But the dissent means nothing (except, as you say, in the rare instance of a leak) because Zuckerberg has 100% control of the company. There are even reports that Sandberg has been sidelined over time as Zuckerberg has consolidated decision-making for himself.
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That is something that we need to change, I have no issue with being wealthy I do have an issue when it is something that is misguiding, misleading and breaking the social structures of society just cause "old mate" has a behavioral complex and mental disorder due to potentially a lack of self confidence.
Well, that's the key, isn't it? Societally we have a different approach to the basically natural (but not exclusive) human drive to just dominate and rule and conquer those around us. There's laws and rules based on the concept that some people WILL want to beat up those around them, and that this isn't helpful or good. Wealth legitimizes this, and that's the problem. But civilization is a long history of society tak…