[LAU] Some disturbing news

[David Kastrup]

Louigi Verona <louigi.verona at gmail.com> writes:

> I don't know what is a "restriction maximalist system", but I am
> definitely not saying that Microsoft is an unwitting victim of
> capitalism. And I am not implying that either. I am saying no more
> than I did.

Which was:

> 1. All large IT companies are approached at some point by governments
> all over the world. So it is not Microsoft which is specifically evil,
> it is the way the society is structured now. I see no reason to single
> out Microsoft as a problem. You don't know what GitHub is doing now
> either.

That very much implies that Microsoft was not involved in structuring
society in the manner it is now.

> And the purpose of my point was not to exonerate Microsoft or any
> other company, but to underline that it is important to understand why
> bad things sometimes happen within complex systems. Since
> understanding the cause can help fix the situation.

The companies bribing and downtalking the lawmakers are not interesting
in "fixing" the situation.  And bad things do not "sometimes happen" but
need driving forces like Microsoft.

"I was just following orders/the law" is cheap when you are paying
literally billions of dollars in order to shape the laws.

The only thing companies understand is losses of money and of investors,
and losses of money and of investors will not happen without
fingerpointing and assigning blame where blame is due and shaming those
who choose to make evil pay off.

> Going as far as saying that capitalism is a problem or corporations in
> general are a problem or money are a problem - these are the type of
> statements I find unhelpful and stemming from a very superficial
> analysis of the problem. (Not saying anyone in this thread had implied
> any of those statements, just explaining the context I am coming
> from).

So you don't want to blame individual actors and you don't want to blame
collective actors and you don't want to blame systems.  How do you think
change will happen with things that pay off exactly because nobody wants
to blame anybody or anything?

-- 
David Kastrup