This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Spoken like a sophomore year self-proclaimed capitalist.
Depending on the circumstances, an entity whose purpose it is to make money can act in ways which make society better or worse. Thus, they have to be aligned to the values of society through laws and regulations. For example, protection rackets are highly profitable, but we judge them net negative and thus they are forbidden, with enough penalties to turn the EV negative hopefully. Likewise for environmental or workplace safety regulations.
But regulations are always either overbearing or incomplete. The solution here is that people can also treat corporations as entities capable of moral behavior, which is a fiction which is also commonly applied to other people with great success. When Google had the motto "don't be evil", this was an implicit acknowledgement that corporations can be seen as moral entities.
This framework allows us, when we learn that a corporation has just invested into hunting street urchins in Somalia for their organs to not shrug and go "well EvilCorp's sole purpose is to make money, so there is nothing to complain about". Instead, we can go "EvilCorp is clearly evil, and I will not do business with them". Collectively, this affects their bottom line (depending on how consumer-facing they are), and serves to deter some unethical behavior.
Then there is the consideration that multiple companies competing with each other is not the ground state in the absence of regulations. The ground state instead are monopolies and regulatory capture. For things which will change the bottom line of one person by plus one million $ and change the bottom line of a million people by minus one dollar, it is clear that the one person (or corporation or special interest association) will put a lot more effort into lobbying than the million people.
I think that takes like "corporations are the real unaligned ASIs" are obviously stupid, because corporations are not superintelligent. But it is certainly a good idea to keep in mind that unless you are their sole shareholder, the corporation has fundamentally different goals than you have.
We probably fucked up when we stopped making them entities organized for a time limited specific purpose. And liquidation at the end of said purpose.
The companies I worked for, from age 16 until now, all had a lot of capital tied up in their facilities. It would make no sense for such company to be created and destroyed easily given the large startup investment justified only by potential long term profit. I've been in companies that weren't profitable for years after their creation. They ultimately became profitable, but it was a long slog to get there. Liquidating their assets would mean some new company getting to start from scratch.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
This is my main complaint about libertarians generally. They don’t understand the nature of power, and they don’t understand the connection between money and power. Once a corporation gets big enough it is going to start exercising power by whatever means available to it, including access to state power. If it gets really big it’s going to start trying to exercise state power of its own, with all the restrictions on other people’s liberty that that implies.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link