Not just the corporation, but the owners. It's not as if employees and executives are blind to long-term thinking, but the higher up you are, the more dependent your salary and bonus is on your earnings report, and if the numbers don't satisfy the Street, they can kick you out.

The problem is that self-interested thinking doesn't often benefit the whole. Every corporation is in the right for cutting costs, reducing tax burden, and getting as much profit as possible (and keeping it!). Without a strong government to form and enforce public policy, the private sector creatively destroys itself and society every few decades, while the rich keep their cash.

Some on HN the other day speculated that the fiercely autocratic Asian governments are the only way to reign in the power of major corporations. I think there is a point to that.

I think we have lost touch with the reason we invented technology in the first place: which was to increase human productivity, not to remove the human from the equation altogether.

Well, then we're going to have all the data we need to see if a problem exists the quarter after that one.