
The tech sec­tor might be evil - robin_reala
https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/201x/2017/09/20/Tech-is-Evil
======
davedx
Good summary of the current political climate around the tech sector. To be
honest, this has been a long time coming -- I've been reading pieces with
disdain for "Silicon Valley technocrats" for a while now. It is picking up
pace now, though... and the EU has already fired quite a few shots.

"I left out Twit­ter be­cause it’s not ac­tu­al­ly a com­pa­ny, it’s a
dys­func­tion­al non-profit that ac­ci­den­tal­ly pro­vides a valu­able
ser­vice." Ouch.

~~~
mrtksn
If a company is not making money but there are lots of people trying to keep
it around it probably means that the company is making money for these people
but it's not reflected to the books directly or the payment is due for later
time.

It's bit of like building roads that on the books may look like unprofitable
venture but the utility they provide makes possible for other businesses to
flourish so the roads are kept build and maintained.

Do we really want to see Twitter gone? It's service is invaluable but it feels
like they should be state-run or non-profit run or run by a company like Apple
that makes it's money from directly selling something to it's users. Not only
because Twitter fails to directly make money but also because it harness
immense power to shape the human population(but they are not as good as
Facebook in this).

~~~
yesiamyourdad
Do I really want to see Twitter gone? Yes. I despise the trend of writing news
articles where tweets are treated as sources, and most of the article is a
series of tweets. One of the headlines I avoid ends with the phrase "and the
Internet/Twitter goes <strong emotion>".

Twitter has only one logical paying customer that I can see: the media. The
media immediately grabbed on to Twitter, pushing their handles on broadcasts.
Back in 2007 I remember saying that CNN should have a rack with their name on
it at Twitter's data center. Twitter has been trying to find a way to make
advertising work, but if anyone wants to save Twitter (if it actually needs
saving), it would be the media, maybe in the form of something like the AP, a
service that everyone uses and pays into.

~~~
mrtksn
Why do you blame Twitter for the low quality articles that are about Twitter?
Maybe you should direct your anger to those who write the news, not Twitter
itself.

------
throwaway613834
What sucks is I can't just tell my friends "you're working for an evil company
-- just look at {insert 5 evil things they did in the past couple years}". It
sucks even more that these are some of the kindest and most caring people I
know, with better moral character than myself -- I almost feel they somehow
got brainwashed into their jobs. But who would enjoy hearing that? At best
they would ignore it; at worst you'd just lose friends. How can you possibly
tell them they're making the world worse when you _know_ they'd never do this
intentionally?

~~~
sillysaurus3
If you're a friend, you won't try to control them. Debate in search for truth;
admit you might be the one who's wrong. Especially to yourself. But never
control.

That's a philosophy that bit me hard when I didn't follow it, so just trying
to pass it along.

I think techies are far too used to wielding power. Assume for a moment that
the world is evil. What now? Historically, the answer was "Accept it." The
idea that we could even do anything to meaningfully change the situation is
very recent.

Concretely, starting a startup is one of the few ways you can influence the
world. Failing that, there's nothing you can do, so you shouldn't worry about
it. Once the cake is in the oven, it'll turn out however it'll turn out.

~~~
throwaway613834
Yeah, nothing is exactly what I've been doing so far. I'm just wondering if
that's really the best I can do.

~~~
sillysaurus3
Well, that sort of begs the question: Why did you feel you could do anything
in the first place?

It sounds like a dopey question, but it's at the root of a lot of these
feelings. I used to feel similarly to you: a general sense of malaise, a
discomfort with the world, a plan for doing something concrete to change it.

But everyone has limited ambition. If you don't focus it like a laser, you
won't get anything done. Then suddenly your time is gone.

I suppose my point is, relax and enjoy yourself. Choose whatever goal you
really care about, and focus on that one thing. What Facebook does was never
up to us in the first place. Besides, they're far less evil than Microsoft was
at its peak. America isn't so bad right now.

~~~
throwaway613834
> Well, that sort of begs the question: Why did you feel you could do anything
> in the first place?

I don't know if I can... that's why I'm asking if I can. If feeling hopeless
is the best I can do then so be it, but I'm thinking maybe people have had
better success.

~~~
mirimir
It's funny. Many years ago, I left academia for NGOs, thinking that I could
make a difference. That kept me busy for a decade or so. But looking back,
nothing that I accomplished actually made any difference.

Now I'm a privacy fanatic. And my goals are far less grand. I get that most
people have little privacy anymore. And I get that there's little hope for
them. So I focus on raising awareness, writing how-to guides, etc.

That's not exactly "feeling hopeless". It's more like being realistic.

------
dalbasal
Data Science is evil :)

There are a couple of big "tech-is-evil" forces that I think are responsible
for a good chunk of this sentiment.

The first is advertising. Ads are slightly evil anyway. You're going to make
us watch an ad during intermission, and that'll make us buy your brand of
washing powder? Sounds kind of evil. It never sat right with people, but it
funded free news and entertainment so... we're used to this now.

In "tech", Google & FB's ecosystem of modern advertising is all about
individuals. It's far more efficient, so long as you have lots of data. Mad
Men & mass appeal out. Data nerds in.

The 2nd evil is "optimization." Data Science determines what you see on FB &
Google, info bubbles, etc.. These make decisions based on what humans might
call "values." The evil data nerds call them optimization goals. If I email
you a saucy sentence about your sister's poi...[read more] at 7:36 will you
check FB before your morning piss? Do you post more when you're angered or
incensed? Insulted or pandered to?

Evil, no? At least distasteful.. Data nerds!

So... data science is evil and the only way to stop it is a total ban numbers.

~~~
dhimes
_It 's far more efficient_

I'm not sure we know this yet. They sell it like it is, and it _seems_ like a
good idea that makes sense, but at this point online ads perform in the same
way as TV ads: They give us brand exposure. Most of the time I do an internet
search I am not trying to purchase something, and I've never seen an ad that
made me say as a result of that search "I need that" and make a purchase.

When I'm doing an internet search I am looking for information. When I want to
buy something I go to Amazon and search their inventory. From everything I've
seen on HN I'm not alone in this.

------
blowski
More evil than any of the following?

* Banking

* Mining

* Clothing

* Pharmaceuticals

* Media

* Agriculture

etc.

Every industry has its good points and bad points, good people and bad people.
Moreover, what one person thinks is evil another might think is completely
harmless or even a good thing.

I suspect our discomfort is more with big businesses making massive amounts of
money. That has more to do with modern capitalism in general, than the tech
sector per se.

~~~
BatFastard
Evil is as evil does.

------
hoorayimhelping
> _The oth­er thing that’s new is that they’re thought lead­ers who are
> pro­gres­sives and lib­er­al­s; just like most of us in the tech
> pro­fes­sion­_

I think most people in tech are probably more moderate-to-liberal and it's
that progressives are the loudest voices politically right now, so it seems
like tech is more left leaning than it is. Also, tech exists in places other
than the coasts.

~~~
RickJWagner
I tend to be conservative, and I work in tech. It feels to me like a
repressive atmosphere. Conservatives are muzzled or eliminated. It's not a
healthy environment for anyone.

~~~
BatFastard
Calling yourself a conservative is meaningless.

The US has shifted away from being a republic to being more of an oligarchy
over the last 30 years. So if you are a supporter of oligarchs stand up and be
counted.

If you are a fiscal conservative you should be pissed that the republicans put
the country farther in debt than the democrats do.

If you are a social conservative, what the fuck is wrong with you? If you want
to live like the Amish, go for it. But you dont see the Amish trying to impose
their way of life on others do you?

So yes, people who's ideas feel repressive or too far out there either learn
to monitor their own extreme ideas or they are shunned. That's how a civil
society works.

~~~
TheAdamAndChe
While you may have valid points, your tone is aggressive, emotional, and
unproductive.

> people who's ideas feel repressive or too far out there either learn to
> monitor their own extreme ideas or they are shunned. That's how a civil
> society works.

This can be taken too far, however. Complete suppression of nonpopular views
can maintain an unproductive status quo, and may lead to authoritarianism.

~~~
BatFastard
But indeed is that not what you just did with me? Tried to moderate it so that
it feels less aggressive and more comfortable.

~~~
TheAdamAndChe
I didn't suppress your main idea, I just critiqued the way in which you
conveyed it. Highly emotional posts on this site aren't good because of the
voting system; comments become voted on not because of their merit or
contribution to the conversation, but because the reader agrees or disagrees
with them, which is fine for sites like Reddit, but we try to maintain a more
thoughtful culture on this site. If we want to advance the conversation, the
best way to do that is to focus on the logic that determined your opinion
instead of the emotion.

------
dageshi
I'm really struggling to put into words how much this recent "moral" crusade
against Facebook/Google/Amazon has begun to irritate me. My gut feeling is
that unable to do anything about Trumps election victory all those enraged by
his win are now turning their ire against companies that tangentially might
have helped to get him elected.

~~~
golemotron
I don't think those two things are related. This issue actually touches both
sides. Steve Bannon was looking at anti-trust issues in the administration and
Trump has raised similar issues about Amazon [1][2].

[1] [https://theintercept.com/2017/07/27/steve-bannon-wants-
faceb...](https://theintercept.com/2017/07/27/steve-bannon-wants-facebook-and-
google-regulated-like-utilities/)

[2]
[https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/08/steve...](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/08/steve-
bannon-google-facebook/535473/)

~~~
notfromhere
I'd wager that has more to do with Bezos's ownership of the Washington Post
rather than any anti-trust concerns the administration has about Amazon

------
elefanten
Regulation and oversight is good. Continually reevaluating whether these
companies are being good stewards of the information they hold is also good.

But I worry more about a heavy-handed overreaction than the present course
we're on. In many ways it could be more dangerous to cripple or break up these
companies: Fragmenting that data among smaller entities with weaker security
is bad. Letting the vacuum (probably) be filled by state owned enterprises
from regimes that don't value democracy, privacy or rights is very bad.

Yes, these companies could become an insurmountable runaway evil... but they
have a long way to go to get there. The revolt would be even more intense if
they were actually trying to do anything other than stay relevant. Which
raises the final point... they will eventually stumble, get disrupted,
dwindle. If they're going to die, let them die naturally -- don't be
preemptive and destructive about it.

TLDR: let's hope for US vs Microsoft, not the break up of Bell Systems

~~~
apersona
very much this. I think the how people view companies as a whole as "evil" is
alarming. Technology is neutral, and companies make the world better and
worse.

~~~
kevingadd
Technology is only neutral if built to be neutral. People build non-neutral
technology all the time, either intentionally or unintentionally.

If you take a huge random data set and train an algorithm off it, the
algorithm is going to reflect the biases of the data, even though the
algorithm - and the technology used to run the algorithm - is completely
neutral _in theory_. If you accept this as a problem and try to solve it,
you're taking an explicit stance of non-neutrality - something is wrong with
the output of this algorithm _based on my criteria_ , regardless of whether it
is implemented correctly.

For many real-world situations, neutral technology is the opposite of what is
required to solve problems. Which is a real bummer, since it means that you
have to make difficult decisions _in addition to_ building a good piece of
technology.

Governments are already using "neutral" technology to make important decisions
about people's lives [1]. But how neutral is it, really, if the data we feed
into it for training is biased or incorrect?

[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/23/us/backlash-in-
wisconsin-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/23/us/backlash-in-wisconsin-
against-using-data-to-foretell-defendants-futures.html)

------
jejones3141
Curious how “There is grow­ing con­cern … about big­ness and size, and pow­er
be­cause pow­er cor­rupts absolutely” among the growing fan club of a
representative of the ultimate accumulation of bigness, size, and power: the
government.

~~~
takluyver
There's a case to be made that the largest tech companies are now larger and
more powerful than many governments. Google estimates that there are now more
than two billion active Android devices, and there's a similar number of
active Facebook users.

Obviously it's not just about numbers. Google and Facebook can't imprison you
or raise an army. But when you consider their influence on communications,
their ability to lobby governments, and in some cases their tendency to work
around laws (I'm thinking of Uber's 'Greyball'), the idea that the government
is the ultimate accumulation of size and power doesn't seem so clear,
especially outside the US.

------
lucraft
He links to a very long Atlantic article about Tristan Harris’ views on how we
should control our attention.

After reading and reading and reading about things like “he met me flushed
from a Yoga class” and getting more and more frustrated trying to sift out the
useful political message, it occurred to me that this was an article designed
to hook into humans’ inherent need for narrative and protagonists.

------
moduspol
I think the concerns in the post are overstated. These "monopolies" aren't as
strong as suggested, and tech is certainly not the only industry often
targeted with similar claims.

It's probably more accurate to say that some people have an innate dislike of
large corporations, which I can understand, but falls short of "the tech
sector might be evil."

------
jondubois
I never thought that Hacker News would become a forum for discussion on the
evils of technology. It's good that a lot of people seem to share my point of
view on corporations now. Awareness is the first step to fixing the problem.

------
geomark
Not to mention the many (ex) friends working for "defense" contractors.

Ex because I really can't be friends with them any longer.

Evil quotes deployed because calling it defense is a farce considering what
the systems they are developing are used for.

~~~
nextlevelwizard
If persons employer determines your friendship status with them, then maybe
they are better off not being associated with you.

~~~
robin_reala
That’s a misreading of OP’s point: it’s not the employer that they have a
problem with, it’s the morality of their employment.

~~~
nextlevelwizard
Except that is literally what he said. As soon as they work for defense
contractors they are no longer considered friends. Presumably no matter what
they do, as long as they are associated they are guilty. Be it cleaning
floors, writing software, testing hardware, or what have you.

~~~
geomark
It's not quite that abrupt. I used to work for a defense contractor. I started
as a rather naive young engineer. I worked hard for many years on projects
that were not weapons systems or even fielded systems, mostly R&D and advanced
technology. It was very cool technology. But over the years I gradually became
more and more aware of the kind of systems my employer was developing. And
although I did not work directly on those systems I knew that some of the
technology I was developing would eventually find its way into future versions
of those systems. Colleagues would always say "We aren't building bombs so
it's ok." But what we were building were key subsystems used for targeting. I
eventually left for the non-defense world.

So it isn't that friends suddenly became ex's overnight. It is after coming to
the realization that over time they either had sold out their ethics in order
to make good money working on cool technology regardless of what it is used
for, or that they really bought the indoctrination that what they were doing
was important patriotic work. As for the latter, I heard that stuff a lot, and
I always thought it was a bad sign that the boss had to kept telling you that
you are doing important work. You weren't privy to much beyond your own
compartmented subsystem but over time you could eventually piece together the
bigger story. As for the former, that's similar to the non-defense world where
a lot of smart engineers are developing shady stuff, except that it isn't
resuling in thousands of people in far away lands being killed week in and
week out as a result.

------
skmurphy
best sentence (slightly reformatted):

    
    
        "Twit­ter is not ac­tu­al­ly a com­pa­ny, it’s a dys­func­tion­al
         non-profit that ac­ci­den­tal­ly pro­vides a valu­able service."

~~~
unwind
Meta: please don't use indentation to quote, that makes the text monospace for
code, which is problematic for width-limited viewers like mobile.

Use asterisks around text to make it italic, and blank lines around it to make
it stand out.

 _This is an example of how quotes are typically formatted around here_.

~~~
Macha
The Twitter quote reads on my phone as:

Twitter is not actually a cc

Non-profit that accidentally

(Yes I can scroll, but it scrolls independently of anything else)

~~~
jackweirdy
I only get

Twitter is not actual

non profit that accid

------
wink
Submission: The tech sec­tor might be evil

URL: Tech-is-evil

Actual headline: You Might Be Evil

I know we all like to moan about editorializing titles, but this one's a
winner :)

~~~
hnaccy
The submission originally said You Might Be Evil.

------
mhroth
The real difficulty though, is if you start moralising too much, you may find
that there aren't many jobs (let alone any that pay well), that are completely
virtuous.

------
cyborgx7
And this post was hidden on the second page by the administration.

[https://i.imgur.com/tydgqLw.png](https://i.imgur.com/tydgqLw.png)

Note how the posts above it are older and have less votes. I also saw it
disappear from pretty far up on the front page when I reloaded the page.

If you are trying to change people's mind about the tech industry, this isn't
helping your case.

~~~
skwirl
It's not on the front page because when Americans woke up they flagged it off
the front page. It's not "the administration," it's the user base.

------
tarsinge
I was a little young but I remember the anti trust case against Microsoft in
the late '90s so the tech sector is not immune to it, but why are Google or
Facebook out of reach?

~~~
rl3
Because Google and Facebook have the advantage of hindsight. They were able to
take their time influencing and integrating with the government. Their
corporate images are meticulously crafted in such a way as to not feel
remotely like the cold, take-no-prisoners Microsoft of the 1990s.

It's no mistake that Eric Schmidt is best buds with all manner of high-level
USG folks, with Zuckerberg laying the groundwork for political office. Worst
case in the latter scenario, Zuck abandons his political ambitions and ends up
even more well connected than before.

Not to mention each company's massive annual spend on lobbying, or any of the
national security relationships they likely have.

------
dforrestwilson
This is bigger than the tech sector. Look at the credit companies. 3 big
names. One of them just had a massive data breach. So far the CEO has kept his
job, and no major business customers have left the platform (nor will they).

~~~
kerbalspacepro
Better to say "credit bureaus". Your local credit union is a "credit company"
but nobody would say its evil (just insecure).

------
RickJWagner
I agree. The Tech sector has become too powerful, and too singular in
political leaning. Like a free press, today's communication channels need to
be free and open. The monopolies must be broken.

------
Sean1708
_> It no­tably in­volves the M-word_

This might be a horrendously stupid question, but what is the "M-word"? The
only m-word introduced up until that point is "moment" but that's obviously
not it. I was thinking maybe Microsoft, but they then go on to talk about
Facebook, Amazon, and Google.

Edit: OK that was a very stupid question, I should have read to the end of the
article first.

~~~
humanrebar
> The M-Word -- It’s “Monopoly” of course.

From the article, farther down.

~~~
imglorp
This ties into the Buffet might be evil discussion last week [1]. The short
version is, he prefers a company that "takes no capital, and yet grows", as
well as having a moat to ward off competition (m-word). I think both are
equally evil in this discussion. Basic R&D investment used to be the leader-
makers of the US, but now it's scorned by shareholders.

[1] [http://www.newsmax.com/Finance/StreetTalk/Warren-Buffett-
Ber...](http://www.newsmax.com/Finance/StreetTalk/Warren-Buffett-Berkshire-
Hathaway-Robin-Harding-investing/2017/09/12/id/813081/)

------
gadders
And yet... he hasn't resigned from Amazon?

------
calsy
Most in the tech professions are progressive and liberal, is that so... Just
because people might work in Silicon Valley doesn't mean they automatically
align with that "way of thinking".

~~~
jhugg
That’s why he said “most” and not “all”.

------
indigochill
Something I've been thinking lately and may as well ask here: is there a
resource for finding tech positions exclusively with socially/morally net
positive organizations?

It seems most of the tech job ads I browse through seem to be mostly companies
chasing the money rather than focusing on trying to make a net positive social
impact.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Something I've been thinking lately and may as well ask here: is there a
> resource for finding tech positions exclusively with socially/morally net
> positive organizations?

Views on morality differ, and there is no universally accepted method of
assessing or aggregating utility, so this is not a thing that can be done
objectively. Such a thing, were it to exist, would be highly subjective.

> It seems most of the tech job ads I browse through seem to be mostly
> companies chasing the money rather than focusing on trying to make a net
> positive social impact.

Welcome to capitalism. That said, there are jobs at public benefit corps,
charitable nonprofits, and governments, which in principle are about social
benefit by some standard instead of (or in addition to, in the first case)
profit.

------
dredmorbius
Bray's piece is largely notable for the fact that he's calling attention to
this trend -- it's something which you _should_ be paying attention to, if
you're in tech, or if you're one of its critics. (And quite possibly both.)
But there isn't any analysis as such.

I'd like to suggest a possible thread tying numerous elements of this
together:

1\. Technology companies tend to become monopolies.

2\. Tech companies tend to become power centers.

3\. Monopolies are associated with economic rents -- returns above the
ordinary economic costs of production. (Contrast commodities or wages, or even
more so, public goods.)

I've been putting thought into just _what technology is_ , or more
specifically, _what mechanisms technology operates through_. Among those are
_network_ and _control systems_ (I'm still trying to decide if that's one
element or two). Networks are any set of differentiated nodes connected by
some relationship and flows (energy, material, information, forces, some mix
of the above).

Networks may be _physical_ (transport, communications), _logical_ (webs of
knowledge, marketing networks), or a mix of the two. Various network and
dendritic structures include cities, roads, rivers, shipping routes, and the
like.

Because of scaling effects, absent other considerations (and these do exist),
a larger network _typically_ has the advantage over a smaller one, _and very
often tremendously much so_. In particular, by _both_ providing low _price_
options and _controlling access_ to critical resources (or paths or nodes),
network structures can exert considerable power.

That is: networks (physical or logical) are monopolies, and provide economic
rents, through the mechanism of power and manipulation.

And this seems to be fundamental and intrinsic.

(I'm still developing the model. I'm interested in constructive challenges.
More discussion: [https://redd.it/71i231](https://redd.it/71i231))

------
DanielBMarkham
_"...But these days, it seems like ev­ery oth­er day I read a chill­ing anti-
tech rant, usu­al­ly writ­ten by some­one smart, ar­tic­u­late, and (like me)
left­ist..."_

There's an extremely interesting thing going on. Observing the mess tech has
made does not seem to be related to political affiliation. I know people on
the left, right, and center that are all beginning to realize that we're
creating a dystopian future, not a happy one.

As a libertarian, I'm concerned that we've created "Knowledge Overlords" with
Facebook/Google/Apple/Amazon/etc the likes of which mankind has never seen.
They know all, they see all, they tell us what's true or not. And no matter
how much they have, they only want more.

Even more disturbing, they're coopting efforts to fix other areas. Don't like
Nazis? I don't. Never cared for criminal gangs or terrorists. Some of these
folks should be left alone. Some of these folks need action by society. But
our overlords have decided that _these people should cease to exist_. So
they're using their huge infrastructure to deploy AI to intercept these
people's communications to the rest of us and mute them.

Now whether you like this or not -- and I don't -- let's honestly look at
what's happening. These giants are creating a walled garden internet _that no
new provider could hope to emulate_. They've got censors, filters, hoards of
people watching cat pictures being posted, on the lookout for a stray boob or
white supremacist. Their talking point? They're helping us. They're taking a
stand for what's right, helping the internet be a better and safer place.
Maybe so. But they're also preventing any new Googles, or any new Facebooks.
All they need to do is keep making their filters better and better to the
point where the public demands them and they're impossible to reproduce by
startups. Competition? Problem solved.

What this tells me is that this nirvana we're in, where people of all
political persuasions agree there are serious problems, is not going to last.
Instead these companies will position themselves with certain political causes
and then anybody who disagrees will be accused of being a political wanker. In
my example above, in the states at least, if I tried to defend the ability of
loser Nazis to post online, people would automatically lump me in with some
group, perhaps the alt-right. The tech companies are taking their quest for
domination and turning it into just another political issue -- one that might
go for decades unresolved as the usual suspects argue about it.

Right now most all reasonable observers agree there is a problem. We all used
to agree on most all of the aspects of the problem. That's decreased to 70-80%
agreement as these companies politicize things. Look to see it decrease even
further as they continue to "help" us with various social issues they find
troubling.

General agreement is being turned into just-another-political issue. In
kindness, I think this is because for every thousand really smart SV
entrepreneurs, there is but a tiny number of them who actually think about and
understand the societal implications of what they are doing. Perhaps these big
companies are cynically manipulating the discussion to prevent any action.
Perhaps they just don't know. In either case, the effects are the same. Good
intentions don't count for much.

There is much darkness here.

~~~
mbrock
I'm curious about your thoughts on reconciling libertarian ideals with the
desire to limit the power of corporations.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
Libertarianism gives me a philosophical foundation to reason about political
issues that is outside the usual partisan structure. It's also an _ideal_ ,
not a club of people wanting to gain, hold, and exert power. So you never
reach a perfect world. If you want to be a libertarian, you'd better be
prepared to compromise. With everybody.

Both of these attributes differ us from most political folks.

I will continue to use Nazis as an example of "a group we all hate". They've
been around in the states forever and we have traditionally tolerated them.
You can substitute various other groups or causes.

There is effectively no difference between having the government ban Nazis
from demonstrating in the public square and Google preventing them from
showing up in seach results. Sure, if there were a dozen search engines, each
with 5-10% of the search market, you could make a great case that
search!=visibility/speech. That argument cannot be made today, at least in the
U.S. Today not only can internet giants shut you down, they can make you think
you're speaking to the world when you're only speaking to yourself (hell-
banning). That's all kinds of fucked up.

What's happening is that _governments are effectively delegating powers of
surveillance and censorship to large corporations, which gain and hold their
power through government collusion_. When Facebook sucks up to China to gain a
foothold, claiming that any kind of openness beats nothing at all, it's not
Facebook that is using China. It's China that is using Facebook. Sure, may
look different to Zuck and the other cats in SV, but I can assure you that
from the government side of things, they are well aware of exactly what's
going on.

I think that internet companies in general made a devil's bargain back in the
90s: sure, the net is free, but in return for us tracking and recording
everything you do, we'll give you even more free stuff! Who doesn't like free
stuff? And it's not like when you're using the internet that you can observe
how you're being tracked. As far as most people believed (and still want to
believe, really), it's free stuff and there's absolutely no cost at all.

It's been a decade or two. Now the devil must have his due. Nobody cared that
Google was recording your searches. But now that everybody is recording
everything, it's not such a pretty world we've created.

I do not believe governments should limit corporations "just because". I do
not believe we should limit the power of governments "just because". We want
to limit complexity and maximize marketplace competition, whether it's in the
government sector or corporate sector. That's good for everybody. In the
states, the federated system we _used to have_ allowed folks to pack up and
move to another state if they didn't like their government.

So I think your question is assuming that there are two different things that
I would feel differently about, government and big corporations. But these two
things do not exist independently of one another. What's happening is that the
role of Big Government and Big Business are becoming conflated. We are
centralizing everything and creating a winner-take-all marketplace, whether
it's the political parties running for office or the internet giants competing
for mind-space. There are no options. There are no choices. Instead of various
experiments leading to better stuff for everybody (in both government and the
private sector) it's just becoming a big free-for-all for domination.

In fact, in most cases domination has already been decided. You don't think
that voting Republican or Democrat is really going to change much, do you?
Sure, maybe around the edges. Perhaps once every decade or two you might get a
huge social program. But no matter who wins, it's the same people. The same
policies. No matter whether you use Google Search or DDG, your ISP is still
tracking everything. We pretend there is much more diversity and freedom of
choice than there actually is.

When corporations and governments use one another to take away our choices and
create society that nobody in their right mind would want to live in,
something must be done. Busting up the big companies is probably the easiest,
but it's honestly just half of the problem. If we could all agree on just that
half, I'm a happy guy. But I doubt the players will allow us to do so.

~~~
mbrock
That's exactly my assumption, and it's one of my standing questions for people
I encounter who align themselves with libertarianism, and I'm always genuinely
curious.

It's because I find it a very interesting and difficult question how to
approach the danger of individual liberty leading, through a sequence of steps
none of which is by itself illiberal, leads to the establishment of large and
powerful corporations that de facto destroy liberty just as much as any state.

I agree that big business and big government are becoming conflated, although
I guess they have been since the beginning of global capitalism and the
founding of the limited liability East India Company in 1600...

The distinction between state power and private power seems essential to
libertarian ideology, so it's interesting to hear your take.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
_" The distinction between state power and private power seems essential to
libertarian ideology..."_

Yes, in the ideal world (hence all of the preferencing I went through). But
that's not the case with the big internet players. It's a spectrum. I'd feel
completely differently about the local lemonade stand.

Systems gain cruft over time. I'd make the same argument about governments. A
lot of them start off great, but through a series of logical and altruistic
measures, never wanting to harm folks or create a dystopia -- end up doing so.
I think the saddest thing about both the monopoly and big government
discussions is that in many cases, there are no bad guys. There's just
organizational drift over time.

Doesn't make it any better -- and in fact understanding can be really tough
for a lot of folks. But if we really want to fix things we need to be honest
with ourselves about both where we are and how we got here. Sloganeering and
partisanship are not conducive to fixing things.

ADD: Good point about the EIC. When libertarians talk about the free market,
whether they realize/admit it or not, it's small-scale markets, people trading
apples 2-for-a-dollar. Humans are natural traders. The minute a person gets
really good at trading, he automatically wants to start creating structures to
protect both the traders and his own interests. He conflates the two. The
system to "protect" people? That's government. It's impossible to have a
government without people trading something for something inside of it, and
based on the items traded and the number of players, the government corrupts
more or less quickly.

I like libertarianism _because_ it's an ideal. We'll never create a world
market of people selling apples 2-for-a-dollar, and that's okay. I still have
the tools to reason about GE or Facebook. There is a distinction between
private and state power, and it's important. But they become mixed together at
extremely small scales -- much more so at larger ones. You don't get to be a
Toyota without a government somewhere covering your back. With the internet
companies, we are watching in real time how starting off on your own with a
great product people love quickly leads to either becoming deeply entangled in
governments or losing your market share.

------
peterwwillis
Capitalism is evil, so this is not surprising.

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patrickaljord
The article might not be loading.

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eternalban
Please fix the title.

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Camillo
One problem is that these accusations tend to come from sectors which are far
more "evil" (e.g. the media, academia), and whichever cure they have in mind
is likely to make things worse.

------
mudil
Of all these players, Apple is positioned best for the future, and I think, it
is a testament to Tim Cook's vision. Under Cook, Apple has consistently
positioned itself as a guardian of people's privacy. Big changes are coming.
The way things are developing, it will be the state vs the big tech, because
the Big Tech thinks it can use the data of citizens and it belong to the Big
Tech. The state thinks otherwise.

It is Google, FB, Yelp and others, who have taken the information that we
supplied, they monopolized it to deliver what? The targeted ads. That's how
creative they are...

Yesterday, a friend of mine, was congratulated for Rosh Hashana by FB:NASDAQ
on her FB stream. How does it even know it?! What business does it even have
to know her Jewishness?

The whole Zuck thing is creepy.

~~~
patkai
You are onto something. I think "the way things are developing", big tech and
gov might fall into each others arms - what a beautiful couple. Imagine what a
business _that_ would be! Also, I'm surprised this scenario is rarely if ever
discussed, I mean that corporate government type of thing in the Continuum tv
series.

