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Comment by tracerbulletx | Hacker News Reader

People keep writing about businesses like they are surprised they aren't moral entities with consistent moral logic. Businesses take whatever action or position they can to maximize their results. The more power the business has, the more they can leverage that power to get what they want. This should just be the default assumption at this point and we should talk about if that is ok for society, not keep feigning surprise at the offense of the day.

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This faulty logic is deeply ironic, since it's an expression of irrational negative emotion, which is what it's accusing others of. It's so common and so unchanging, I can paste an old comment I wrote about it (just substitute "corporations" for "wealthy and powerful people"):

The "why are people surprised" line is a huge red flag for me that a person is not arguing in good faith. Accusing people of being "surprised" as an implication of naivete seems to be a very common tool of redirection when people are defending something perceived by others to be immoral or otherwise harmful. I'm not sure why such a particular angle became so common, since it seems so obvious to me that what they are calling "surprise" is indignation/anger. It seems to be exaggerated from the general notion that the stronger a reaction is, the newer it is, but obviously that's faulty. I may hear the same story of wealthy and powerful people behaving badly every day, but it doesn't make the behavior any more acceptable with each occurrence, and so my anger does not subside, no matter how un-surprised I am.

> when people are defending something perceived by others to be immoral or otherwise harmful

well, i'd usually be just as surprised as the parent that people on this site are still getting surprised by it, and i sure as hell am not defending the company doing this.

all publicly traded companies should be considered amoral by default. if they take moral action, then they dont do it because of morality. they do it either because they wish to portrait themselves as moral for publicity or they have another way to profit off of it. the thing which would surprise me is that people still dont expect that.

in this particular case i'm not surprised though. hn readers are extremely positive of apple, no matter what apple does.

Well put.

Just cause it's happened a 1000 times doesn't mean people are numb.

The protests out there are evidence of this.

Yes, some people know some cops in some places are gonna be huge dickheads, but it doesn't assuage our feelings, when a bad experience happens.

Nobody should get used to having to experience a shitty situation through no fault of their own.

Well said. This is something I've been noticing a lot lately but you put it into words better than I could have.

Apple does not present the 30% cut as a machiavellian reality of business. They describe it as a fair, reasonable, and mutually beneficial practice. Apple’s practices on the Google play store suggests that they are arguing in bad faith.

Is it incumbent on Apple to act in the best interest of Google? Because that’s what giving Google a 30% cut would do. Google could demand it, but they haven’t.

I don’t go to a car dealership and ask what the maximum price they’re willing to charge me for it.

"People can be moral but businesses are amoral" is not the right summary. Businesses (and governments) are composed of many people, and there's no reason to expect in general that the actions of such a collective are consistent in any sense, not just a moral sense. Businesses and governments frequently undertake sets of actions that cannot even be reconciled as pursuing a consistent set of selfish preferences.

Amoral doesn't mean immoral, it just means without regard for morality. Corporations in their purest form can lean towards amorality, because profit motive / share price is the only real job of the board and executives. Of course, most businesses in the real world are not 100% cut-throat: they are staffed with real humans making decisions, and if nothing else, are at least cognizant of bad PR.

I am not confused about the distinction between amoral and immoral. I chose my words purposefully.

> This should just be the default assumption at this point and we should talk about if that is ok for society, not keep feigning surprise at the offense of the day.

This is almost good, but doesn't take into account the fact that everything is equally like this. The sociology professor who constantly tweets about racial hatred makes their job more prominent. The president who tweets about the Chinese virus engages their base.

It's not just some businesses, because that behaviour of businesses is driven by the fact they're run by people. It's just how some people behave.

The faulty logic is people proclaiming businesses as a single entity and not made up of a multitude of people with varying moral standards and opinions. We shouldn't be surprised that businesses aren't morally consistent when the people in them sure won't be.

Indeed they are compelled to maximise profit (the business leadership), else the shareholders will replace them. In fact I believe there’s even a US law to this effect.

>In fact I believe there’s even a US law to this effect.

No law in the United States of America compels businesses and their leaderships to maximise profit for shareholders.

I used to think this too, primarily because I read Cryptonomicon and it states as much. But it’s simply a myth, and one that I wish would die.

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