First they came for the right wing bloggers...

[Dr Rock]

I do hope not. I loathe that phrase. I'd just like an example of (Ex poster)' semi for war.

War as in the way he acts in this forum?

[zomgmouse]

"...and then they came for literally no one else cause there was nobody else spouting hateful twunty tripe on the Internet."

[Dr Rock]

"...and then they came for literally no one else cause there was nobody else spouting hateful twunty tripe on the Internet."

There's plenty of people spouting hateful twunty tripe on this site. I wouldn't be feel so secure, the internet used to be like the wild west, and still is in places, but slowly it will be regulated. It won't be like this forever, I fear.

[biggytitbo]

I do hope not. I loathe that phrase. I'd just like an example of (Ex poster)' semi for war.

The only way to know for sure is if he pops it out for us whilst he reads one of the Guardians articles on Syria or Russia. If there is no tumescence then I will withdraw my accusation, although I'm keeping 'authoritarian'.

[jobotic]

I see. If you don't love Putin you love war. That's cleared up.

[biggytitbo]

Yeah weve had all this before,, no one was asked to like Saddam Hussein or Gaddafi, but there's a big difference between that and promoting and buying into contrived war state regime change propoganda whose sole aim is mass murder and destruction.

[Large Noise]

We should all be very sceptical of any top-down censorship imposed by these private businesses. It's one thing when they censor content that contravenes the law of the land. But when they start censoring perfectly legal content people should be uncomfortable.

Medium gets its revenue from advertisers and venture capitalists, that's who ultimately decides what is and isn't acceptable on the platform. It's great that they're going after Mike Cernovich. But we've got a bunch of tech billionaires and shady sovereign wealth funds deciding what is and isn't good for the plebs to read online, and "progressives" cheering them on.

[Zetetic]

We should all be very sceptical of any top-down censorship imposed by these private businesses. It's one thing when they censor content that contravenes the law of the land.

Which land?

[Sebastian Cobb]

Medium gets its revenue from advertisers and venture capitalists, that's who ultimately decides what is and isn't acceptable on the platform. It's great that they're going after Mike Cernovich. But we've got a bunch of tech billionaires and shady sovereign wealth funds deciding what is and isn't good for the plebs to read online, and "progressives" cheering them on.

That generally seems better than when everything was in the hands of very rich media moguls. Tech billionaires seem to be more interested in gathering information than restricting it usually. Often they're getting moaned at for not restricting things on their platforms.

There seems to be a lot of howling about 'tech billionaires' of late as if they're some moustached twirling evil but I'm not sure they're any worse than traditional forms of big business. I realise it's dangerous to entrust running the world to them, but of course it is, it was stupid to do the same with bankers and people who claimed to control 'the market' at least the technical ones sometimes manage to produce things that solve problems in the world and make it a better place. If anything it's usually businessmen with their questionable practices that turn yer 'do no evil' googles into yer dodgy alphabet corporations.

Whenever people express concern about how much power Facebook, Google and people like Elon Musk have I just tend to thank the stars that it's not all in the hands of people like Larry Ellison.

[Large Noise]

Which land?

Whichever land they're operating in.

This comes with its own set of problems. But the issue of say China censoring political dissent exists independently of what some San Francisco tech billionaires decide. At worst they can fail to make the situation any better by complying with the Chinese government.

But in liberal democracies the people who own the big social media and publishing platforms possess the power to seriously interfere with our rights of free expressio and they're completely unaccountable.

[Zetetic]

it was stupid to do the same with bankers and people who claimed to control 'the market' at least the technical ones sometimes manage to produce things that solve problems in the world and make it a better place.

[/quote]Right, but that's been true of almost all "forms of big business" - solutions that makes bits of the world a better place, and that manage to shrug off massive externalities while doing so.

If anything it's usually businessmen with their questionable practices that turn yer 'do no evil' googles into yer dodgy alphabet corporations.

I'm not sure how you can reliable distinguish between a tech billionaire and a businessman.

[Sebastian Cobb]

How have bankers and traders, in of themselves, made the world a better place?

[Zetetic]

But in liberal democracies the people who own the big social media and publishing platforms possess the power to seriously interfere with our rights of free expressio and they're completely unaccountable.

I don't disagree, mind you.

Whichever land they're operating in.

But I don't think that this is a credible alternative insofar as "internet sovereignty" (to borrow a term from the PRC) is going to be an option for most states - they won't have the clout to force hosting (broadly) companies to comply to local regulations or the political will (rightly or wrongly) coupled with technical capability to enforce censorship at the desktop.

Which leaves much of the world getting to choose between Chinese, American and - perhaps - Russian laws. (Which might still be better than the absence of any kind of social accountability.)

[Bhazor]

Titty, ballbag.

[Zetetic]

How have bankers and traders, in of themselves, made the world a better place?

They've enabled more efficient direction of investment.

Reasonable counterarguments are:
- Without them we'd have found another solution (although this is true of every programmer)
- That this has only mattered because there are people making use of those flows (although this is true of every programmer's products)
- This has come at the cost of profit being extracted from the system by middlemen and often hideous externalities (Do I have to type this bit?)

(On the first of these - yes, other solutions are available and we need to move them. Capital allocation isn't a non-trivial task in an economy, however, and bankers and traders provided a limited solution even if it has increasingly gone up its own rear.)

[Sebastian Cobb]

I'm not sure how you can reliable distinguish between a tech billionaire and a businessman.

I think it depends on how your priorities once you have managed to build something. Do you want to continue to develop your product or use your success to continue to benefit the world, or do you want to just use it to continue to make yourself wealthy? Of course these things aren't mutually exclusive and wealth is generally a byproduct of success.

I'm going to prefix this with saying I don't think Musk is some sort of saviour and a lot of what he does may be questionable, because I'm almost certain that's the route you'd jump on if I didn't. But it's clear Musk has some vision for his electrical stuff beyond making himself wealthy, he's released the patents to allow things to develop (a bit like volvo did with the three point seatbelt). Compare that to say, Larry Ellison who made some database software and then has spent the rest of his time locking people into it and forming a workplace that one of my friends who is a former employee described as 'like being aboard a great big pirate ship', the only thing that cunt wants to innovate are his private yachts.

Also there are plenty of examples of people who build a useful thing, set up a business and then get pushed out by the businessmen for having the temerity to have a vision to develop things in a way the businessmen don't like. Jobs at Apple the first time round, McAffee etc etc.

[Zetetic]

Yes, I'm also mostly glad that some of the people involved have some more vision than making money.

I don't think this is a modern phenomenon though, and I don't think we should bet on the whims of those with such visions over democracy.

[Zetetic]

Also there are plenty of examples of people who build a useful thing, set up a business and then get pushed out by the businessmen for having the temerity to have a vision to develop things in a way the businessmen don't like. Jobs at Apple the first time round

To take that example, I think it's misleading to frame Jobs as not a businessman in that scenario.

[Sebastian Cobb]

They've enabled more efficient direction of investment.

Reasonable counterarguments are:
- Without them we'd have found another solution (although this is true of every programmer)
- That this has only mattered because there are people making use of those flows (although this is true of every programmer's products)
- This has come at the cost of profit being extracted from the system by middlemen and often hideous externalities (Do I have to type this bit?)

(On the first of these - yes, other solutions are available and we need to move them. Capital allocation isn't a non-trivial task in an economy, however, and bankers and traders provided a limited solution even if it has increasingly gone up its own rear.)

This is only really useful if the direction of investment is going towards r&d or things that produce a useful end result. A lot of the time it seems like that's a side effect. The system is in essence a load of made up numbers swirling about that make some very wealthy people even more wealthy.

[Sebastian Cobb]

To take that example, I think it's misleading to frame Jobs as not a businessman in that scenario.

Alright, but he wasn't just a businessman I don't think, I think he certainly had a vision for things that surpassed merely doing business. It's what set Apple and later NEXT apart from your Microsofts. Since Cook replaced him they seem to be less innovative and there's absolutely a clear difference between Jobs and I dunno, someone like Steve Ballmer. Of course Apple are no stranger to some fucking shady business practises and take the piss with patent laws.

[Zetetic]

This is only really useful if the direction of investment is going towards r&d or things that produce a useful end result. A lot of the time it seems like that's a side effect. The system is in essence a load of made up numbers swirling about that make some very wealthy people even more wealthy.

Similarly, a side-effect of Google's system of made up numbers swirling about that make some very wealthy people even more wealthy is that I get to find websites that I'm looking for more easily.

Yes, the teleology regarding my benefit is more transparent in Google's case. I don't think that makes all the difference.

I don't disagree that we're seeing more and more that banking is less about allocating capital in such a way that it proves to be a good investment in actually producing something in the world. (Although similarly we can see that tech companies are increasingly less focused on solving the problems of the mass of people than working out how to better monetise the solutions that they already have.)

[Zetetic]

Alright, but he wasn't just a businessman I don't think, I think he certainly had a vision for things that surpassed merely doing business.

Yes. Or at least a better vision for things in order to do business (in that time and place) better.

(Well, possibly not in that time and place, but for a couple of decades over the last half-century.)

[Sebastian Cobb]

Similarly, a side-effect of Google's system of made up numbers swirling about that make some very wealthy people even more wealthy is that I get to find websites that I'm looking for more easily.

That 'side effect' was it's main goal from the beginning though. The market was more-or-less devised to facilitate the flowing of cash; mostly from the many to the few.

[biggytitbo]

The big tech firms seem to be fully on board with the usual establishment narratives - they've certainly bought into the fake news bullshit and the need to protect us from 'misinformation'. I'm not sure why we should be surprised, the national security apparatus will have its fingers in all those firms to some extent, just look at how often in-q-tel pops up in their early history's, for instance.

[Zetetic]

The market was more-or-less devised to facilitate the flowing of cash

Well, yes. That's the point - allocating capital to where it will best produce income. (Which is positive insofar as in many cases that's because the capital has been used to produce something that other people will pay for because it solves something in the world.)

mostly from the many to the few.

This look to be an inevitable consequence of capitalism over the longterm, yes.

That 'side effect' was it's main goal from the beginning though.

As much as banking's main goal was to invest in things that would be profitable (like...).


Edit: Again to be clear, that's not to deny that banking has plausibly moved increasingly away from that towards attempting to profit from the behaviour of the markets per se. But I'd reiterate that I don't think that the large tech companies are as determined to profit by solving people's problems as they once were either - not when they're in a position to instead leverage their existing products (in the sense of what you and I use) to different ends.

[Sebastian Cobb]

But I'd reiterate that I don't think that the large tech companies are as determined to profit by solving people's problems as they once were either - not when they're in a position to instead leverage their existing products (in the sense of what you and I use) to different ends.

That's true however if Google were just focused on profit though I think they'd probably stick to being the worlds biggest ad-broker; if Oracle/Symantec/HP had made a leading search engine I don't think we'd necessarily be also be using their phones or seeing their cars driving themselves around.

[biggytitbo]

These tech firms suffer from the same corporate cancer as other industries. They cant be content with been a successful player in whatever market they are in, they have to be the most successful player. Then they have to have all the market for themselves, all the money, all the profit. Then they have to start looking at other markets they have no business to be in, all so they can keep expanding, keep doing more, regardless of whether it has any worth or is successful. They will all eventually eat themselves from the inside, but not before doing potentially a lot of damage, because they're represent such a powerful window on how we see the world.

[All Surrogate]

What have you got against the free market, biggytitbo?

[biggytitbo]

It usually goes toxic when it becomes a mix of private and public, eg the merger or private interests with government power. The arms, pharma and banking industries are the obvious examples of how badly this can turn out for us.

[Zetetic]

"Government power" seems to involve a misunderstanding here - as if the crossover is not a consequence of power that goes with great wealth and either gross externalities or the supply of public goods.