
Tech Platforms and the Knowledge Problem - kawera
https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2018/05/tech-platforms-and-the-knowledge-problem/
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salawat
The author does a good job of laying out the fundamental differences between
the Jeffersonian and Hamitonian approaches to solving the "knowledge problem"
of platforms creating such massive sets of data as to become a threat to any
society in which they exist, but misses in terms of thinking out the
consequences of several approaches.

For instance, there is a perverse disincentive in the Hamiltonian approach to
relinquish control. The input which would "theoretically" increase the quality
of a Hamiltonian regulator is more data. This means the regulator has a
greater incentive to act as a data vacuum than those they are regulating.
Furthermore, there comes a point at which when the data sets get large enough,
there will tend to be no accountability to be found. See the banking crisis.

"Oops. We accidentally the economy. We promise we won't do it again."

"What did you even do?"

"We don't know off hand, but we won't do it again!"

The Jeffersonian approach is very much a precautionary approach. Where a
Hamiltonian goes all in, the Jeffersonian steps back, limits scope, and sees
what happens. It is better to advance the state of the art slowly and
methodically without creating a point where a failure could propagate through
the entire system, than to take the risk that the SCRAM (Safety Cut Rope Axe
Man, the man responsible for triggering the active safety mechanisms in a non-
passively safe nuclear reactor design) falls asleep at a bad time.

Do one thing, do it well. You don't need a Leviathan to build a functional,
thriving society, but it sure helps if you are looking to destabilize and
destroy one.

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sharemywin
Stacy Mitchell of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance observes that, “when
third-party sellers post new products, Amazon tracks the transactions and then
starts selling many of their most popular products.”

However much that practice may increase economic productivity, it does so at
the unacceptable cost of concentrating power in one firm while discouraging
entrepreneurship outside it. Policymakers should protect vulnerable sellers
against it.

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sharemywin
How the platforms can both play platform and participant is really the
disturbing part. I get that a lot of platforms have to start off as both to
get started. It's probably better in the beginning to be the a really good
chicken and start selling eggs. The let others sell their eggs to.

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sharemywin
In a recent podcast, the socialists of Chapo Trap House joked that they were
happy to see Amazon consolidate power. Once it takes over every business in
the country, it will be easy to “cut off the head” and simply impose
government control over the economy.

