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Elizabeth Warren: Break up Big Tech

minivanman

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I wholeheartedly agree with the rest of your post but you don’t actually believe this about time and metrics do you? The toilet got my time earlier, does that make me its product?

I have no love lost for the people with a severe external locus of control who complain about how much time they spend online like it’s a genetic disease.

The last time I logged into Facebook was 2011 so how do they get my time (besides right now talking about the company) if you don’t use the site, they don’t get your time. If you don’t advertise or purchase through them they don’t get your money. If you do then you’ve entered into a mutually agreeable business transaction.

They probably still get your metrics somehow but if anybody believes they can use the Internet today and not have their data pulled and tracked and sold they might be clinically insane.


Exactly
 
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Maxboost

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You are so unbelievably stupid, yet you think this mess is intellegence. Wow.

JDR died in 1937. Electricity was barely lighting light bulbs and biofuel wasnt even a word yet.

This is actually rather funny. Enjoy my ignore list.

Wow, world view challenged and now runs away when confronted. Sounds like a college student.

Kak asked a question, I answered using facts and evidence.

Not only that he misread the facts that I have stated but he did not understand the points that I was making.

I forgot to mention the Ad hominem attacks which shows his immaturity. Sad really...
 

Brian Fleig

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Presidential Candidate Elizabeth Warren (Pocahontas if you're a fan of Trump) wants to break up big tech.


What are your thoughts to the break up idea?

(Please try and keep politics out of it.)

Posturing for attention. The next year, I suspect, will bring more and more outrageous ideas as they try to out-outrageous each other. Aside from that:

A) Who would benefit from Face Book or Twitter being broken up?
B) How could they be broken up? Neither is like a media company from which networks could be split off into separate entities.

One reply said that in India, internet and FB are synonymous. That reminds me of when Internet and AOL were synonymous here to anyone who had Not been online pre WWW. Remember getting so many AOL CDs in the mail we were using them as coasters? AOL is gone almost without a trace now, victim to tech marching on. How long before FB and Twitter suffer the same?
 

minivanman

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I'm just jumping in to the middle of a conversation that I did not read, I only read Kak' post but..... electric cars were around maybe even before gas powered cars. If not for Henry Ford, electric cars might have taken a much different turn. Even though he was invested in electric cars, at the time he gave it the TKO. It's amazing how long things like this have been around.... and since the day they made them, they've been racing them.
 
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Tommo

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When governments take "action" to solve their perceived "problem" they inevitably invoke the Law of Unintended Consequences. I vote leave FB etc alone as private businesses.
 

André Casal

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It's about time.
infographic-media-ownership-media-ownership-chart-ottocodeemperor-templates.jpg


Its time we break up everything, we have market failure and these large companies cannot be trusted, especially with all of the fake news and the agenda they are pushing.

Twitter, Google, and Facebook should be on the chopping block and heavily regulated. These 3 companies can literally brainwash the masses and control society.
Well, that's just factually false. They don't control even 1% of what I read, watch or listen to, much less 90%. I don't watch TV. I get my news from family, friends and Twitter because I care about Elon and other such people.
 

splok

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What was so wrong with Rockefeller? Why was he so bad? Because "people" say he was?

I'll always be bitter about the "robber barons" lessons from the glorious public school system. It's tempting to think this craziness is new since it's so blatant now, but then I remember the robber barons and wonder how long such things have been happening. Probably always... What scares me though, is how many little, subtle things get slipped in like that but never noticed. Things that help form the foundations of our worldview. Countless little scripts that we don't even know are running... Literal weaponized education, and now we're seeing the fruits of that. Though to be fair, there's probably a lot to be learned from such things. It's truly amazing what can be accomplished with a tiny bit of control and a long enough time horizon.
 
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G-Man

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I'll always be bitter about the "robber barons" lessons from the glorious public school system. It's tempting to think this craziness is new since it's so blatant now, but then I remember the robber barons and wonder how long such things have been happening. Probably always... What scares me though, is how many little, subtle things get slipped in like that but never noticed. Things that help form the foundations of our worldview. Countless little scripts that we don't even know are running... Literal weaponized education, and now we're seeing the fruits of that. Though to be fair, there's probably a lot to be learned from such things. It's truly amazing what can be accomplished with a tiny bit of control and a long enough time horizon.

For sure. I remember that when we were learning about the history of capitalism in the US we read "The Jungle" by Upton Sinclair. Great book. Didn't occur to me till adulthood how absurd it was that they were teaching us "history" with a work of fiction. All of course while sitting in a well lit air-conditioned room, reading books produced so efficiently by private corporations that even a child can afford them. Never mind that before capitalism only royalty could even afford a book.
 

SJuan9

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I don't think these companies will be broken up based on monopoly reasons. However, I do believe some of these platforms will be overhauled in the near future due to their data collecting and selling practices to the point of regulating some of them as public utilities. This is the first time in my life I have actually seen an administration follow through with their proposals until achieved.

Can't worry about that which you do not control, but it's always a good exercise in situational recourse and opportunistic resiliency. Until then, gotta keep playing the game how it is.
 
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Kid

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At the beginning i'd like us to calm down.

This discussion is very very informative so we could all benefit from it.

When they legislate what is considered an acceptable loan and they insure the bank against default by buying the loans, banks will listen and send loans up the pipeline. This made homes more valuable on paper and the cycle repeats until the music stops.

This i didn't know. If i understand correctly the government opened can of worms.
Yet it also means that banks did jump on the opportunity without considering consequences.

What was so wrong with Rockefeller?

I agree with you that he made some good to society - jobs, innovation and probably an improved economy as a whole.

The way he did that is not so rosy.As far as i know, Rockefeller did anything that was possible, ethical or not to win over competition, including overpricing and price dumping.

That's one of reasons that i say that fully free market is bad - not to companies, not to governments but to regular folks.

Seriously...

Reducing complex subjects to such high level of abstraction like how you stated the above makes it impossible to have any meaning. There are so many underlying factors and intricacies behind pretty much every word you mentioned: ‘regulation’ (in which area, what kind, to what degree, etc), ‘free market’, ‘suffer’ (? what kind of suffering, to what degree, etc), ‘people’ (who?)

It can be agreed that what i wrote is very undetailed. The thing is that, going deep into details one can lose big picture.

To defend my stance i would ask :
Why someone assumes he has the right to dictate who will suffer and to what degree?

I hope You as a reader won't take my post as personally offensive. I'm up for learning and so far this debate fullfield this need.
 
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Kraelog

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I'm all for free markets and I do consider capitalism as one of the greatest drivers of human advancement in history, but I do see the argument against Facebook, Twitter and Google since they have a near-monopoly in the areas of Search and Social Media.

The free flow of biased and unbiased information is a fundamental requirement for the proper functioning of society. With the increased and ever-increasing importance of the internet, these companies have the ability (or are already doing it) to influence the flow of information in society to a significant degree without people realizing that the information has been manipulated. A power I believe no single company of few companies should ever have.

On the other side of the pond in Europe, the Commission has repeatedly fined Google for monopolistic behavior and they are far from finished. Multiple EU countries are also planning to cut them to size by taxing them based on their global turnover. So it would seem there is a shared growing concern.
 
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JAJT

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While I'm a free-market person, at some point the free market won't work because the battles won't be winnable because the aggressor has become too big and too dominant.

Without going through the entire thread - this basically sums up my opinions succinctly.

I think there's a big difference between being simply being a "gigantic company" and being specifically and actively anti-competitive.

If you're in favor of the free market, but the free market produces companies or industries that become aggressively and extremely effectively anti-competitive - what's to be done? Especially if those industries or services become larger and more integral parts of our daily lives?

I personally don't like any of the solutions I've heard. They are all huge compromises to both what I consider "right" and "fair" to all involved. It's very, very hard to fix situations like this without accepting a certain amount of collateral damage to those who don't deserve it.
 
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scottmsul

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I'll always be bitter about the "robber barons" lessons from the glorious public school system. It's tempting to think this craziness is new since it's so blatant now, but then I remember the robber barons and wonder how long such things have been happening. Probably always... What scares me though, is how many little, subtle things get slipped in like that but never noticed. Things that help form the foundations of our worldview. Countless little scripts that we don't even know are running... Literal weaponized education, and now we're seeing the fruits of that. Though to be fair, there's probably a lot to be learned from such things. It's truly amazing what can be accomplished with a tiny bit of control and a long enough time horizon.

Yes! If you've only learned one side of the story, then that becomes "truth."

In high school, we all learned that the Great Depression was triggered by the stock market crash of 1929. Its length and severity was the consequence of excess capitalism during the Roaring Twenties. Thankfully the government stepped in with the New Deal to help mitigate the consequences, but it could only do so much. It took WWII to finally get the economy going again which ended the depression.

Then much later I read Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell, where he argues the New Deal caused the Great Depression. In one example, the government wanted to help out the farmers by price fixing many food products above their free market prices, and buying back any unsold produce. At higher prices there will be more supply and less demand. So at the artificially higher prices, farmers created significantly more food than before, but consumers could now afford significantly less. So there was an excess amount of food available while at the same time people were going hungry, and the government bought all the excess food and destroyed it. And this was one example out of many.
 
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ZF Lee

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You only had to listen

il-794x-N-1198074238-s3gh.jpg
I saw a documentary on the guy.

Poor, poor fellow. (although he hurt a lot of people)

He really needed some leadership and guidance in his life.

I understood his debacle against tech, but he could have tried to come up with some more grounded solutions, rather than send bombs.

His solutions would need to him to step out of his field of math, though.

Economics, or sustainability thinking.

I think I've related this story on the forum before, but this thread seems like a good place to re-iterate. It is the story of one of the first stark moments that made me realize that I didn't belong in the non-profit world anymore.

I was in a meeting where they were talking about "social justice" as it pertains to ethnic minorities. Forget that social justice is tautological. All justice is social. If the world consisted of 1 guy alone on a desert island, there would be no concept of justice, but I digress.

Me the lonely guy in a room of PhD's, and the subject got onto how capitalism doesn't work, and cannot solve complex problems. So, here we are, people from at least 7 different countries, meeting in a single location. We took commercial jets manufactured in the USA, flown with fuel drilled in the middle east, met in a room in a country none of us lived in, in a pre-set office rented from an owner in Europe. We're sitting there typing on devices designed in California, manufactured in China, and sold by distributors in Europe. The room is kept cool by a device called an air conditioner that none of us knows how to make, and installed by a person that none of us can even communicate with because we don't speak the language. One of our colleagues couldn't make it. He's joining us via teleconference from a signal that literally travels to space and then back to earth.

All of this, and these PhDs are sitting around talking about how capitalism can't solve complex problems. I don't know why, but in that one serendipitous moment, the absurdity all somehow hit me at the same time.

I had one foot out the door after that.
Yes, I remember you have told this story before.

That's one reason I don't join Christian missions or street charities that are heavily populated by folks who have had comforts all their lives.

The entire ordeal will be tailored to suit their needs, rather than the folks they help.

And the entire mission trip will turn into a vacation tour, instead of a fight to save endangered lives.
We are talking about villages cut off from water, roads, electricity and healthcare.

You are so unbelievably stupid, yet you think this mess is intellegence. Wow.

JDR died in 1937. Electricity was barely powering light bulbs... Electric cars and biofuel weren't even words yet.

This is actually rather funny. Enjoy my ignore list.
On a side note, I wonder who the great titans of industry will be after folks like Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and Mark Cuban have passed on...
 

Maxboost

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Well, that's just factually false. They don't control even 1% of what I read, watch or listen to, much less 90%. I don't watch TV. I get my news from family, friends and Twitter because I care about Elon and other such people.

Where do your family and friends get their news from to disseminate news to you?

I don't know if this was being sarcastic or just a joke....
 
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ideasunlimited1

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Agreed. That country is called Texas.
Well howdy there, Texas friend.

As far as Elizabeth Warren goes, I'm good with anything that creates competition. I love what Facebook does for getting new customers and clients, but I also get a little queasy about how much political control they have and that even a business can get lumped in with groups or stories that do not fit with an orgs vision. So either we need more oversight at least, or a way to minimize the control they have over society at large. I'm okay with them making money out the nose, but I do think they should stay a business, and not move into the lane of think tanks, etc.
 

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I consider myself one as well, and I've seen some pretty compelling arguments against corporations from individuals who previously were incredibly libertarian and free-market.

For example, some claim that LLCs, corporations and such aren't true capitalist entities, but agents of government. They don't have the same legal liabilities as any individual or sole proprietor.

I'm not educated at all about this topic, but I thought it'd be interesting to throw this out here to see your reaction to it.

1. Are corporations truly capitalistic and free market?
2. Let's assume corporations are agents of government. Why shouldn't the government then have the ability to break them up?

I'm just watching this video by Vox Day on the topic and he brings up Facebook just as I write this. He's kind of a slow speaker, but he's got interesting viewpoints so just put it to 1.5x speed.

These are actually really good points, and I'm not a libertarian, but this gives me a lot to think about. I can certainly see the argument.
 

lowtek

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@jon.M Corporations are inherently anti capitalistic as they require the state to prop them up.

As far as government having or not having the power to break them up, it's reminiscent of Ptolemy's circles within circles. Government creates a problem for which it makes itself the only solution, which in turn will create more problems that require government intervention. The simplifying solution is to not put government at the center of the economy, much as we don't put the Earth at the center of the solar system.

Breaking up Facebook won't solve the fundamental problem that gave rise to Facebook. It will simply create many smaller companies that will eventually corner their own particular portion of the market, and then we're right back where we started.

The problem here is regulatory capture. Big firms monopolize the market through regulations that squeeze out smaller competitors that can't afford to comply. Nothing about breaking up the big firms changes that.
 

MJ DeMarco

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Facebook co founder wants to break up Facebook.

How about they leave Facebook alone and break up Marc Zuckerberg, starting from his head and working down, limb from limb?
 

MTEE1985

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Funny how people become “woke” after they’ve accumulated so much wealth that it can’t possibly be regulated or taxed away a la Dalio, Dimon and now Hughes.

Not to mention, even Warren is on to something different with her student loan forgiveness because this whole break up big tech idea didn’t get her the kind of traction she needs to compete with Sanders or Biden.

This whole idea of “the government needs to step in” scares the shit out of me. So now the same people who regulate banking, health care, utilities and transportation want to be in charge of what we see on a daily basis? Keep in mind this is the same government that for a period of time decided it would be a crime to speak negatively about them, irregardless of truth.


How about they leave Facebook alone and break up Marc Zuckerberg, starting from his head and working down, limb from limb?

Genuine curiosity MJ, how do you think your business, TMF , Unscripted and the FLF would be different without Facebook’s existence? Do you think you would reach as many new readers through a different medium? Or is it just a love/hate relationship with Zuckerberg who clearly doesn’t get a Christmas card from you?
 
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This whole idea of “the government needs to step in” scares the shit out of me. So now the same people who regulate banking, health care, utilities and transportation want to be in charge of what we see on a daily basis? Keep in mind this is the same government that for a period of time decided it would be a crime to speak negatively about them, irregardless of truth.

Cuckberg has incredible power over your life and business. He can deplatform you just for agreeing with people he doesn't like. At this point, this is a privatized version of the Chinese Social Credit System. The recent collusion of tech companies from paypal, instagram, youtube, Google, Facebook, Amazon and now the Banking institutions who refuse to deal with deplatformed people like Alex Jones is more scary as we DID NOT ELECT these people. At least with the government, we can vote these people out.

You can already make the case that these tech giants are working in collusion with certain political groups through lobbying which basically makes these companies state run institutions brainwashing the public.

These companies can easily deplatform guys like MJ DeMarco and this very site if we had differing opinions from tech companies.
 

MJ DeMarco

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Genuine curiosity MJ, how do you think your business, TMF , Unscripted and the FLF would be different without Facebook’s existence?

It would be the same, if not, better.

According to Facebook, TMF is a get rich quick scam and I cannot advertise it there. (And I never did.) Maybe if it was called "The Index-Fund Millionaire" it would be approved no questions asked.
 

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Government creates a problem for which it makes itself the only solution, which in turn will create more problems that require government intervention.
This. Student loans may be the best example.

@jon.M Corporations are inherently anti capitalistic as they require the state to prop them up.
Also this - A corporation is a legal "person" that exists only on paper, and is government providing special protection from liability. They suffer from the same agency problems that the socialist "solutions" to them usually do.
 

MJ DeMarco

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I'm all for it. But it starts in fixing our stupid legal system.

The way big American corporations work is they are always looking for ways to screw and exploit the system. "Oh, technically this isn't illegal, so we will just do this to bypass this law or that compliance".

It gets pretty complicated because the government makes the wrong laws or comes up with the wrong solutions and creates unintended externalities.

It's the same reason our tax code is so big and complicated.

Sad but true.
 
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F*ck off Warren... monopolies are fine. Everyone used Microsoft because they were the best in the 90's, everyone uses Google because Bing sucks, everyone uses Amazon cuz duh Prime, everyone wears shoes because being barefoot sucks. Let the market decide.
 

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