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Comment by basicplus2 | Hacker News Reader

I wonder if it would be possible for the whole world and all activities to end up being "owned" by one company?

A look at South Korea's relationship with Samsung would prove informative if we expect an all-powerful corporation sometime in our future. Samsung (Electronics) is known for making cellphones, under the parent conglomerate, Samsung (Group) makes pretty much, well, everything. From construction cranes and vehicles under Samsung Heavy Industries to providing healthcare under Samsung Medical Center to all sorts of insurance under Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance and Samsung Life Insurance.

I believe this is part of the premise of Brave New World by Aldous Huxley.

That said, whether it's one company or a few that are well-aligned doesn't really matter for the purposes of that book.

Probably the most realistic of the dystopian novels I've read and way ahead of it's time.

The world most people think described by "1984" is actually described by Brave New World.

It's actually described by We.

The way i see it is that both had it partially right. BNW for those that conform, 1984 for those that don't.

The fictional world in Wall-e explores that premise; sort of. It's kind of strange seeing the CEO of a company as the president of everything...

Why the quotes?

I can accept a person closely related to and caring for their land to have some notion of ownership,

but a corporation who only uses land without consideration for it or the local animals that depend upon it, and only cares for profit cannot "own" something that is essentially timeless and really belongs to noone but the universe. Its like ants squabbling over owning mount everest.

Because they can "own" your website in terms of control, yet not actually own it under that specific concept. E.g. Google threatens taking away ad monetization if you don't remove certain "questionable" content (according to them). They don't own your site, but in that case they're controlling it.

And here it is in action:

https://milo.yiannopoulos.net/2017/08/google-threatens-conse...

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