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Comment by hourago | Hacker News Reader

> Following a protracted back-and-forth between both parties, the IPI partially granted Apple’s request last fall, saying that Apple could have rights relating to only some of the goods it wanted, citing a legal principle that considers generic images of common goods—like apples—to be in the public domain. In the spring, Apple launched an appeal.

And the worst part is that Apple is wasting tax-payer money around the world with this kind of mitigations. While it avoids paying taxes, illegally for sure but difficult to prove, it wastes money that could have spend in public education or health care. Apple is so big that it becomes pure cartoonish evilness without even trying. It is time to break up all these monstrosities.

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Agreed. The only mandate for a corporation is growth and revenue. These goals are at odds with the good of people and our planet, as we've seen countless times.

Corporations consume most of our resources, produce the most waste, and damage _everything_ more compared to any individual. This won't change, because those with the power to do something benefit from the status quo and don't feel the damage they cause. Capitalism is a cancer that will consume everything.

I hope Apple loses and is forced to change their logo i to something like a bitten iPhone. The other company make actual apples and for longer than Apple, so they should have the right of way.

Do other forms of government not rape the land, build industry, dump chemicals and pollutants, etc?

Not sure the history of North Korea, China, Soviet Union, etc is an environmentalist paradise.

This is a form of "whataboutism" Just because some countries' governments are as bad as some corporations, does not mean either should get a free pass, or that corporations are not at fault for what they do.

The GP comment opposed capitalism in general. If you want to get rid of capitalism, that implies you have to replace it with something better

Capitalism isn't a type of government. You seem to have missed the point. The ever expanding need for material wealth is what destroys. It doesn't matter by whom or to what ends or under what name.

Certainly begs the question... are corporations and governments inextricable?

Corporations are governmental creations. There cannot be a corporation without a government.

> ...Corporations consume...

Humans are to blame, not some mythical piece of paper granting limited liability.

Greed is the root of every evil on Earth.

What is greed?

Greed, is self over all else. Self over others. Self over environment. Self over all other considerations.

Greed is what is killing, has killed, and will continue to kill this planet and its populace.

This comment is both true and utterly useless.

You aren't in traffic, you are traffic.

And yet humans are not unrestrained free rational actors but instead exist in systems of dominance and hierarchy. In most places of the world it's literally impossible for you to simply withdraw from society and live on your own in the wilds because there are no wilds, just somebody else's property. You're born into debt and servitude through the mere biologically reality of needing food and shelter and not having any way to access these without indebting yourself to someone else.

You do not need to be greedy to contribute to a system built on greed. Being born into that system, forced to contribute to it at the penalty of starvation and death and taught and raised not to question or even comprehend the system is enough.

Trademarks are a government-granted monopoly and as such are inherently not capitalistic.

The purpose of states is to restrict access to capital, to protect private property claims. Trademarks aren't even physical things you can claim as property, they're legal fictions trying to enclose culture the same way we have enclosed the land. By your reasoning owning a plot of land, or a factory or a stack of money is a government-granted monopoly and as such inherently not capitalistic.

Plots of land are physical things you can claim as property. Stacks of money are government creations in a sense, but I don't believe that without government creating fiat money, there would be no such thing as money.

And how do you claim as property a plot of land larger than you can patrol and guard yourself in a day? You can't. That's why enclosure is a fairly recent development historically speaking.

I'd recommend reading Debt: The First 5,000 Years by David Graeber if you want to understand how debt, money and states interconnect. I'm not saying you can't have money without states, I'm saying states are mechanisms to grant and enforce monopolies (i.e. exclusive access to and control of resources). If you want to maintain these systems without states, you'd end up with something resembling feudalism, which is just a more direct way to enforce property claims through violence.

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