I hope so too. Even if corporations really were sincerely pursuing social progress, that would be bad. In a democratic society, social progress should not be determined by a small group of unaccountable organizations.
Say what you will about governments pursuing social progress -- at least they are somewhat accountable and need to be elected. (Another potential upside of Trump's election: hopefully fewer people who believe that voting never changes anything because the establishment always wins.) Nobody outside of a corporation's board has control over who ends up in charge.
I disagree. Progress shouldn't be dependent on a small group of unaccountable organisations - but if such want to get out there and run their businesses in an, progressive manner that benefits society as a whole, I'm going to cheer them on.
What would you think if big companies like Google and Apple pursued a conservative agenda? What if they were against same-sex marriage or legal abortion?
The sword cuts both ways. There is no guarantee that corporations will always be on the right side of the culture wars, but they have enormous power. It's not a good idea to support corporate power because it happens to be on your side this time.
I would think it was bad and would think less of them.
That's why I said 'Progress shouldn't be dependent on a small group of unaccountable organisations'
We shuldn't depend on good things happening because corporations do them. But by gum, if corporations do good things I will applaud them - and if they do bad things I will criticise them.
It's like blaming Apple or Spotify that your favorite artists aren't as good as they used to be.
Fine, be happy the veil is off (tech giants are corporations and when push comes to shove are about money), but honestly you need to look at the petroleum industry, security & prison industrial complexes and their bought politicians to see the worst.
I must admit, the difference is hard for me to see. Though the tech companies may not be getting rich directly off the backs of the poor, they are just as destructive in funneling large sums of money to a subset of society.
Guess who actually clicks on ads? Guess who allows for advertising loans up to 35% APR? That definitely falls within usury/payday/predatory loan range. The 36% restriction would only exist because people actively fall for those scams, and it also indicates Google is ok with people falling for the 35% rate.
I also remember them recommending a payday loan company, but I can't find the link.
TL;DR Google is rich off people who can't tell they're being scammed.
Said every despot in the history of the world. Once you start trying to save people from their baser instincts by restricting what you can and cannot do by force, you are infantilizing them.
"Once you start" implies drawing a line that any kind of regulation is infantilizing them. There are some people who think that this is wrong. However, many more understand that there are some forms of regulation that help not only society as a whole but individuals themselves. Yes, there are questions as to the degree and kind of regulation. And reasonable people can discuss this. And these people are not asking for despots.
I never said infantilizing was a bad thing. Most people aren't really able to make the optimum decision in their lives about most areas.
For instance, some of the most proficient programmers I know who make otherwise good decisions neglect their diet and exercise.
Should we enforce mandatory vegetable and exercise regimens for them? On a more prosaic level, should we limit the size and shape of knives that private citizens should be allowed to own because of violence concerns?
Realizing that there is nothing qualitatively different about these measures from the measures being described is a first step on evaluating all measures of this sort.
You can call it a sin tax, but another term is "disincentive tax".
"If people stopped smoking, there would be a savings in health care costs, but only in the short term. Eventually, smoking cessation would lead to increased health care costs."
The responses raise legitimate concerns about the article's analysis, and they also support my assertion (which continues to be the mainstream view of the costs of smoking-related health-care). For example, the analysis you cited ignores secondhand smoke health costs entirely and ignores a number of conditions associated with smoking. In the author's reply to the criticism, they paper over these concerns in an inadequate way.
Profit motive has nothing to do with it. You could just as easily be blaming a shelter for "harboring" an adulterer. It isn't their job to be the morality police.
And you don't want them to be, because they have no accountability and little incentive to get it right. Better that corporations provide service to everyone than that they be the ones deciding who gets denied service.
> Should we not hold it against Trump that he ran casinos which preyed on the intellectually and financially disadvantaged?
Trump didn't force them to bet their money in the casino. They chose to do that, and we chose not to pass a law against it.
[1] https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/...
And the parent post is talking about loans with 35% APR still being quite predatory.
[1]Non-AMP link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/05/11...
How is that? 35% APR for short term unsecured credit seems predatory, but it is well in line with what most major credit card companies offer.
It appears the parent poster is arguing Google did ban [all payday loans] while you are arguing that the article says Google did not ban [all payday loans], but instead only banned [loans with interest rates >=36%].
My viewpoint: The article says both points, i.e. Google banned [all payday loans] and Google also banned [all loans (i.e. of the non-payday variety) with interest rates >=36%]
Evidence / Recitation from article:
"...In addition to the broad payday loan ad ban, Google will not display ads from lenders who charge annual interest rates of 36 percent or more in the United States. The same standards will apply to sites that serve as middlemen who connect distressed borrowers to those lenders..."
"...Google announced Wednesday that it will ban all payday loan ads from its site..."
As seen from the first above recitation, the words "in addition to" appears to mean that two separate bans have been enacted: The first ban is for any loan classified as a payday loan. That means a payday loan of any interest rate (i.e. 35%, 25%, even 3%) will be banned. The second ban is for a loan of any type where the interest rate is >= 36%.
Hope that helps, thanks for your time : )
Why would the tech industry be any better? The industries you name are somewhat more dependent on government, but Google and 'big tech' are still heavily dependent.
Name one such for the tech industry.
Ux that deliberately encourages addiction and compulsive behavior is also pretty bad, and is highly pervasive.
Could the IT industry ever cause this much harm? I suppose if an IT failure caused major infrastructure to fail, or propaganda caused a war ... or if propaganda enabled a Russian mole and fascist to become President of the U.S. (if that's what he is).
Of course the stranglehold the companies you mention have on American society is far more extensive and corrosive. But I grew up in an era where we were constantly proselytized that "these corporations are different." I was always skeptical, but that wasn't the zeitgeist. Now, I hope that my generation (millennials) will see the error in this judgement, but again, not terribly optimistic. In the pursuit of self-indulgence, we saw the Baby Boomers turn into Wall St Reaganites and still seemed not to learn. We just invented a "cooler" version of this story.
Do you have any evidence to support the same? It seems a bit like fear mongering.
They didn't "ride" anything.
Maybe all those people that are fawning over "B-corporations"
Im not saying they're a silver bullet, but they do seem to provide shareholders and boards tools to resist being sued for putting concerns besides short term profits at the forefront.
They designed, built, and maintain top shelf software products that are powering the world. They're giving them away for free. And unlike their competitors, they're not limited to running on Google platforms.
Tensorflow, Go, Android, Angular, Dart, Kuberbetes, Chromium are some of the most well known.
https://developers.google.com/open-source/projects
A decade ago this would have been an expensive suite of tools out of reach of the majority. You'd need staff dedicated to dealing with licensing from Oracle, MS, Adobe and the rest.
So they have to play the politics game. In particular with this administration, they either do it or run the risk of being labeled an enemy of Trump. We've seen how he plays favorites and makes decisions based on the last person he talked to.
If Google doesn't, the last people he talks to about tech would be Oracle and MS reps.
In conclusion, this simple black and white view is naive and harmful. It lacks reflection on the reality of how the world works. It omits complexity and opines for a fantasy.