Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Unexpected things that are people

bengoldhaber.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

271–280 of 312 posts

Re: Unexpected things that are people

#271

Post by kannanvijayan »

mattmaroon wrote: post #183
kannanvijayan wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately the practical effect of whatever policy that comes out of this theorycrafting has left your media landscape an absurd and abject failure. Where the idea of objective truth being open to the highest bidder and allowed to change on a week by week, or day by day basis without challenge.. is a reality Americans now live every day. If the theory is "sensible", who cares? At some point you do want to connect…

Unfortunately it isn’t that simple. The opposite of our media landscape is countries that think they have free speech but really don’t, like most of Europe. I’ll take having all the information in the world (true or false, purposefully curated for propaganda or organically reported) over any society that locks people up for social media posts deemed “fake”. I have faith both in the marketplace of ideas leading to the…

But right now America is factually less free than either Europe or my own country. You simply do not have due process anymore. Most of the protections of your constitution have been interpreted away to nothingness.

I just don't see how these so called valuable principles have actually materially served your people in being able to protect or defend the values you claim to hold.

Faith is fine, but you do need to evaluate ground truth at the end of the day. Outcomes matter.

Re: Unexpected things that are people

#272

Post by mcv »

nzeid wrote: post #157
chemotaxis wrote: post #5

Wouldn't personal property in the US fall under the same criteria, in the sense that the government can sue the property itself (civil forfeiture)? But I think the boring answer here is that we sometimes need legal abstractions. If they don't exist, Microsoft is no longer a distinct entity; it's 200,000 people who for some reason talk to each other, and you can't really audit their finances, punish them collectively,…

> But I think the boring answer here is that we sometimes need legal abstractions. Absolutely - the legal abstraction is that corporations are corporations, not people. The article went with a lighter hearted quip but here's my own tired old one: If corporations are people, then owning shares is unconstitutional as that would be a form of slavery.

Yeah, there's a difference between being a legal entity with limited rights, and being a person with full personhood. Citiziens United ignores that distinction. Just because people have certain rights, does not mean corporations should have the same rights.

It's an artificial legal construct, and its rights and obligations should be entirely subject to whatever society finds beneficial to the real people of that society.

Your slavery argument is an excellent argument. If corporations supposedly have the right to the same free speech as a person, shouldn't they also be free from the bondage of owners, i.e. shareholders?

Re: Unexpected things that are people

#273

Post by mcv »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #263
redwall_hp wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Constitution doesn't grant rights, it binds the government. The first amendment is a law that disallows the government from taking actions to infringe on any human's inherent rights, be they individuals or in a group.

It's about the dichotomy. If the NY Times has First Amendment rights then Pfizer does. That annoys people because Pfizer is going to advocate for things some people might not like. But that's the cost of a rule that makes it so the NY Times can advocate for things other people might not like.

It's still possible to grant press organisations rights that other corporations don't get without having to make both of them people.

Re: Unexpected things that are people

#275

Post by mcv »

Tabular-Iceberg wrote: post #269
ZitchDog wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not correct: A share is a contract issued by the corporation entitling its owner to a share of future profits. So you're not buying a corporation, just engaging in a contract with it. I hate Citizens United as much as the next guy, but this isn't a good argument against it.

Why does the next guy hate Citizens United? I’m not American, so this is the first time I’m hearing about them. I read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC and it seems to me like a plain reading of the first amendment supports CU’s position. Wouldn’t the opposing view imply that you are allowed to have political opinions, but only as long as you go at it alone and don’t organize too much with others?…

The real issue is not so much the speech, but that money is considered speech in the US, so Citizens United apparently gives corporations the right to donate to political campaigns. A lot of people would like to stop that channel for corruption.

Re: Unexpected things that are people

#276

Post by mcv »

hrimfaxi wrote: post #237
f0a0464cc8012 wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But then why does a corporation need freedom of speech etc?

Because a corporation is a group of people, and a group of people don't lose their freedom of speech just because they joined a collective. And corporations can stand for things. They can have missions and use funds to effect speech in support of causes that align with their beliefs.

Is a corporation really a group of people? Of course people are involved with the corporation, but the corporation doesn't represent its employees, shareholders, management or customers. It's a separate legal entity with complex relationships with its employees, management, shareholders and customers, but with its own rights and responsibilities.

There are organisation forms that are a lot closer to being just a group of people working together, like co-ops and firms maybe. I'm not entirely up to date on all options in English-speaking countries (which will vary of course, but the Dutch Maatschap is probably as close as you can get to a company that's just a group of people.

Re: Unexpected things that are people

#277

Post by pjc50 »

chemotaxis wrote: post #5

Wouldn't personal property in the US fall under the same criteria, in the sense that the government can sue the property itself (civil forfeiture)? But I think the boring answer here is that we sometimes need legal abstractions. If they don't exist, Microsoft is no longer a distinct entity; it's 200,000 people who for some reason talk to each other, and you can't really audit their finances, punish them collectively,…

> it's 200,000 people

I think a lot of objections are really about scale. Corporate structure solves a lot of coordination problems; the other widely used structure, partnership, scales much less well. Partnership structured businesses tend to be small (exception: John Lewis and Partners, a UK retailer with over 80,000 partners).

Most of the objections to corporations are really the same as objections to the hyper-wealthy, where the corporation effectively acts as a sock puppet for the personal views of its management. Citizens United is just a symptom of that. The use of the WaPo as a personal mouthpiece for Bezos is another, but not really affected by the ruling.

There are lots of ways out of that if America wanted, but there's significant factions which don't because they want the status quo or a more regressive version. See all the Voting Rights Act litigation.

Re: Unexpected things that are people

#278

Post by pjc50 »

Y_Y wrote: post #203
ar_lan wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> while a corporation is easy to fine, it's hard to put in prison... It would be interesting if there were some tangible way to prevent the company from performing operations for some period of time. I don't think this is viable or even necessarily a good idea, but the concept that "Meta illegally collected user data in this way" means they cannot operate for 5 years. It would probably involve large deconstruction of…

Could the shareholders have caused or prevented the action? If not then I think it'll be a dofficult prosecution.

The whole point of a limited liability corporation is exactly this: that the liability of the shareholders is limited to the value of their investment, and they are not liable for debts or other failings of the company.

Without that, investment becomes incredibly risky and you get much less of it.

Re: Unexpected things that are people

#279

Post by mattmaroon »

kannanvijayan wrote: post #271
mattmaroon wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately it isn’t that simple. The opposite of our media landscape is countries that think they have free speech but really don’t, like most of Europe. I’ll take having all the information in the world (true or false, purposefully curated for propaganda or organically reported) over any society that locks people up for social media posts deemed “fake”. I have faith both in the marketplace of ideas leading to the…

But right now America is factually less free than either Europe or my own country. You simply do not have due process anymore. Most of the protections of your constitution have been interpreted away to nothingness. I just don't see how these so called valuable principles have actually materially served your people in being able to protect or defend the values you claim to hold. Faith is fine, but you do need to evalu…

That’s just propaganda. If we didn’t have due process, Donald Trump would be in jail. Or, if you think he’s the reason we lost it, half the Biden administration would. The idea that the legal system has somehow melted down in the last nine months is just scaremongering.

Norms are being violated, for sure, and the courts are being pushed to determine the bounds of the law. I won’t say I’m a fan of most of it, but it’s a far cry from lack of freedom.

I don’t know what your country is, so I can’t respond, but if you can be locked up over a social media post (assuming reasonable exemptions like direct incitement to violence) you’re not free. You just have been told you are.

The keystone freedom is free speech and almost nowhere else truly has it. It’s a spectrum for sure, and Europe is a lot closer than, say, China, but we’re the far extreme.

Any good outcomes also come from that same freedom of speech. It’s a double-edged sword, for sure. You have to take your anti-vax movement along with your Wikipedia.

Re: Unexpected things that are people

#280

Post by jstanley »

justatdotin wrote: post #210
jstanley wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most people who (quite reasonably) hate corporate personhood would probably have a knee-jerk reaction that personhood for a river can/should be normalized. I would have thought that people who hate the idea of corporate personhood would also hate the idea of any other kind of non-person personhood.

no river ever hit me with a strategic lawsuit

Does that make rivers more person-like or less person-like?
Post reply on HN