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Comment by hobo123 | Hacker News Reader

What about a guy with a lawnmower intentionally chopping off your foot? And what about a CEO making decisions on behalf of the corporate entity called Oracle?

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There is no guy, only the lawnmower, mowing lawns. Sometimes it chops off feet.

It doesn't matter if the lawnmower is chopping off feat intentionally or not. If it's presenting a public hazard, it should be stopped. Even though the ocean couldn't care less it doesn't prevent us from building breakwalls. And Larry Ellison isn't unstoppable as the ocean.

you and what army are going to stop him?

If there were such an army, let's call it a union, would you join it?

absolutely!

This seems to make Larry more harmless. A lawnmower does not think. Larry thinks, so it seems to white-wash Larry here.

It's more like that movie with Stephen King where the cars and other machines turn actively evil. Hilarious movie too, not great but hilarious.

Never thought to hear someone here mention Maximum Overdrive. Indeed a hilarious movie and the only movie for which AC/DC ever recorded an (instrumental) soundtrack.

Rather than harmless, what the lawnmower analogy achieves is to make him seem blameless. "How can you assign blame to a thing that's just doing what it's built to do without any intent?" It's important to push back against that. Intent isn't a necessary condition for something to be dangerous, and so it's not necessary to ask whether it is intentional or not. A rabid dog will be put down regardless of who is to blame for it.

I think the point of the lawnmower analogy is to subjectively characterize Larry Ellison and Oracle from the viewpoint of someone who has had the unfortunate experience of having to deal personally with either of them in some way. You feel powerless against the machine, as it were, and the best course of action is to keep yourself far from the blade.

I think you both are missing the point. Hes sayin larry is inhuman, hes closer to an apex predator or a serial killer freak of nature than your ordinary human

We're not missing the point, we simply don't agree. You're putting him too much on a pedestal. He's an ordinary human bound by the same laws anyone else. If he's criminally insane and can't be held accountable for his actions, he should be locked up in an mental institution, not running a corporation.

Don not fall into the trap of anthropomorphizing Larry Ellison. You need to think of Larry Ellison the way you think of a 1958 Plymouth Fury named Christine. You don't anthropomorphize your killer car, the killer car is just out for blood - you rebuild it and it kills your friends and family, the end. You don't think 'oh, Christine hates me' - Christine doesn't give a * about you, Christine can't hate you. Don't anthropomorphize a 1958 Plymouth Fury named Christine. Don't fall into that trap about Oracle.

Wrong movie

To me, Christine has a stronger resemblance.

The owner of the car that rebuilds it so it can kill is the equivalent of the people that prop-up Oracle and companies like them.

Maximum Overdrive has a mystic comet that happens to pass by and temporally creates the destruction.

Maximum Overdrive. Even the electric turkey carver gets revenge.

A lawnmower doesn't decide to do something bad by itself. The case with L.E. is much more sinister.

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