Indeed. And Rambus has been losing all of their patent suits in court.
Though they have been winning all the suits involving anti-trust (both those filed against them, and those filed against the memory makers who did engage in illegal trust behavior).
I think many girls have this opinion that science isn't a "feminine" thing
It's absolutely true, though the hearts and kitty doodles my girlfriend puts in her physics and biology note margins say otherwise.
But really, it's not just about being "feminine" in some kind of societal-oppressive Barbie-says-math-is-hard way. It's that a lot of people who are interested in science really wonder if they have to lose all fashion and social sense and be a 'dork' to do science.
I once saw a PBS documentary, Nova I think, that directly addressed this. The host said that Doctor Girl-name So-and-So was a well respected scientist who was (rough quote) "living proof that you didn't have to choose between doing science, and being cool!"
Then Doctor So-and-So appeared, and not only was she wearing a white lab coat over an extremely unflattering button down shirt and wearing thick glasses with ridiculous frames... The very first thing she said after being introduced as proof you could be a cool scientist was an obscure Star Wars reference.
LOL. I mean at least it wasn't Star Trek, but seriously... she was a huge nerd, and it was obvious.
For example, you'll find many Anarcho-Capitalists being big fans of Singapore, tyrannical as many of their laws might be, because it is a relatively small government (or a very large neighborhood association) where pretty much everyone is there by choice and they are free to leave at any time. A world consisting of thousands of little Singapores [athousandnations.com] (each municipality / county competing with every other) would definitely be an improvement over what we have today - violent empires that have spread themselves "from sea to shining sea" and beyond!
Ah, yes, your choice of any of a thousand tyrannical governments. Is this the promise of Anarcho-Capitalism? Do you think they'd be competing on freedom, or on their ability to make a buck at the expense of the others? What would any of the Singapores care if one decided that in addition to every other crime on the books, now defection was a crime?
I think it's hilarious that in your ideal country the only freedom you have is to leave.
This is all true, but its the legal reality we have to deal with, not the real reality.
Sure. It's a legal reality that the "corporate personhood" fiction is respected.
I'm just saying, don't think that this means corporations are actually people. We just need to deal with them, legally, as if they were.
Its not that hard to envision an entirely employee-less business run by scripts.
Meh. It's not hard to envision me being murdered, but my bank accounts continuing to accrue interest in my name. Am I, then, immoral? Does my immortal soul desire to accrue interest?
Its a machine, after all. Who are we to guess its innermost desires?
Rational people who can say that an inanimate object doesn't have "desires". That's a human metaphor, an anthropomorphization. There may come a day when rational people can't say for certain that a machine doesn't have desires. But that's a long way from now.:)
And what data would you feed into this hypothetical Holodeck simulation that would skew the results in your favor?
Why, human nature you silly goose!
That hilarious flash animation you linked to put it plainly: All that has to happen to end war forever is for everyone on earth to not tolerate the initiation of force in their name. Well no shit, sherlock. If that was the case, any system would be utopia. But guess what? Humans do tolerate violence done in their name, and not just because they haven't heard you tell them why it's wrong! And let's not even get into the enormous number of cases where the two sides disagree who initiated violence, and who is merely defending themselves from aggression -- which you support, so go ahead, pick a side for every conflict in history and explain why one side had the right to use force and the other didn't!
The problem with your utopia is that it exists solely by virtue of axiomatic declaration. As your 'debunking bill gates takeover' link clearly shows. Anarcho-capitalism is "by definition" without government, which are the only things "immune" to the non-aggression "axiom". Except governments aren't immune. They only say they have the right to initiate violence. This no more prevents you from rejecting that validity and resisting them than if a corporation did the same thing. You view States as special, because you define them differently. You say that kind of oppression can't happen in Anarcho-Capitalism, because you, the individual, are empowered. By what? The concept of Anarcho-Capitalism? Ha! That and a Magnum.45 are worth what?
In that same post, you admit that wealthy individuals could own entire solar systems. And if the owner of your solar system decides to oppress and exploit you, what exactly would you do? They own the police, they own the courts. Oh yeah you're "free" to use whatever police force you want, in theory. But the Solar Executive just sent a bunch of his personal police force to your door with a new contract, that says you can agree to use his police and judiciary contractors exclusively, or you can be evicted from the planet without a spacecraft. It's your choice, completely voluntary! What do you do? Do you hail another solar system? Well the owner of that system, while on the one hand a competitor with the owner of yours, certainly doesn't like the idea of uppity peasants choosing their own police forces! On that both can agree!
See that's why it's so funny, you 'debunking' a "bill gates takes over the world" scenario. Because what would actually happen is that Bill Gates would collude with Halliburton and Sony and Wells Fargo and Phillip Morris/General Mills etc. etc. and they'd all agree on a set of rules such that no matter where you went, you'd have no power. Just like the other day, we saw how all of the DRAM manufacturers, ostensibly competitors, colluded to lock others out of the market and enhance their collective profits. Free Market? Ha! Free Markets are great, but they aren't magic. No bank will give you terms that don't involve you losing your home if you don't play by their rules, and it's not the government that forces them to do so. Where's the magic "do whatever you want, you're free" mortgage company that the Free Market should provide? They all agree on a set of basic rules that will guarantee debtors are kept on their hooks, and then compete on minor variations like closing fees and such.
That's why it's so funny hearing about how you could have police/judiciary companies "compete". Okay, so if you like Police Force/Judiciary A, and your bank likes Police Force/Judiciary B, which one do you use when there's a conflict? You know for a fact B will rule in the bank's favor. And A is funded by the money you don't give to the bank. Ha ha, good luck! Of course more likely is that Police Force A, being a Free Market Capitalist organization, realizes that your bank has more money, and so they w
I have to disagree with your metaphor. A corporation will and does have a distinct and different will than the directors and other top executives.
The will of the corporation will not match any person of the mentioned group. It will in fact be a combination of differing parts from that group, possibly even a synergy where the whole is greater than the parts.
If you were to take the average height of humans, the average weight, the average hair color, the average skin color, the average IQ, average political beliefs, and so on, this "average person" would not match any particular human on the planet. And yet this "average person" does not exist, it is merely a concept. "The concept of the average person" has no will, only actual people do.
You see, "the will of the corporation" is the metaphor. It's personification. A corporation is just a concept. People can take action in the name of a corporation. But that's all it is.
For example, the fiscal policy may be an amalgamation of the CEO, the CFO, and 2 our of 12 board members. And at any time those board members can change introducing more complexity.
Sure, sure. It's an oversimplification to say that everything a corporation does is what the CEO wants and only that. Yet saying the fiscal policy is a combination of the ideas of several people does not mean the corporation has a policy outside of the people who create and implement it. It does not.
So yes the corporation does have a unique personality and like many other creatures
No, stop with the metaphors. A corporation does not have a personality. It is not a creature. Not in a literal sense. Only in an extremely figurative sense, but metaphors aren't real. The "corporate person" ruling that got us in this mess is a pun on the word "person". Puns aren't real, and calling a business a person doesn't make it one anymore than saying "My computer must hate me, it crashes so much" imbues your PC with malice.
I guess that explains why executives continue to do the work of their corporations after their multi-million dollar paychecks stop.
I am baffled as to why you think that is an implication of anything I said.
No, what happens is that executive leaves, then another takes their place, and now the desire of the corporation is the desire of the new executive. I covered this in the 1st Army example.
Organizations are more than the people comprising it. They have emergent properties that do not exist by mere virtue of gathering people together
Those properties do not include sentience or desires.
most notably properties that exist in law.
Aside from law not being an emergent property of a corporation (it's vice-versa), law is not reality. They can pass a law saying the sky is plaid, or have a court ruling that corporations are people just like you and I, yet neither affects reality. Just what you have to pretend is true in court. The court cannot imbue "the concept of a limited liability enterprise" with life.
Their officers and directors are duty-bound to perform certain tasks in the service of these laws, and that is what gives a corporation a motivation and "desire" that is different from these people.
Except the corporation only has those desires if the executives desire to obey the law, and then it's the executive's desires to take the actions that you're attributing to the corporation. If they do not, the corporation does not, and this is frequently the case. As always, the only "will" in a corporation comes from the people within it. "The concept of Enron" has no more of a will or desires than the words I just typed do.
That's personification; concepts can't actually have desires. Just because the court has said you have to pretend that this personification is valid and real doesn't mean it is.
The structure of the law requires that corporations develop and evolve in certain ways, and that its officers are retained to oversee this. But if the officers weren't being paid to oversee this, they certainly would not. Our tribal senses of duty and loyalty can only be twisted so far.
And if nobody was paid to oversee it, then it wouldn't happen at all. Because a corporation can't do anything, only a person can. And if the officer is being paid to oversee it, but he thinks he could make more by ignoring the laws requirements, then they will and the company will post fraudulent earnings reports or any other violation of the law that the officer believes will benefit them. Almost as if the law does not imbue the corporation with any true desire or will of its own, and only the desires of the executives matter.
I mean, the law requires that my house develops and evolves in certain ways. You wouldn't say my house desires to be built according to code, would you?
My imagination can only do so much with fuchsia.:)
But as far as using your imagination goes, to this day nothing terrifies me more than a simple, lower case letter 'l'. 'Cept maybe certain 'c's or 'h's.:)
Looks like gone are the days when all you needed to good discussions on Slashdot was genuine curiosity and decent , not necessarily perfect, grasp of English language. And no, being a know-all, done-all master of the universe was not required either.
True but you were also expected to recognize that you were not a know-all done-all master... There was never a time on/. where someone who said "I'm right and all these fools have no idea what they're doing" wouldn't result in the poster being smacked down if they were wrong.
While I can perfectly understand saying "You are making a mistake" or "That's not what the article says", I have never really understood calling someone pathetic for not knowing something.
Not knowing something is not pathetic. Acting like you know when you don't, and calling the people who do know idiots, is pathetic and I have no issue with someone being called out on that.
See, you're forgetting the other half of slashdot posting that has changed the OP. It used to be much more common to see a post that would say something like "I thought cube/square scaling laws implied that you can't have an efficient heat engine below a certain size because the heat would dissipate faster than you could generate it. How does this invention get around that?" or "I don't really get QM, so can some explain how it's possible something to be in two states at once, and why electrons are shown as 'clouds'? Doesn't the electron have to actually be somewhere?"
Nowadays there's a lot more like the OP. "Oh my god, even Gallileo could have figured that these idiots invention couldn't possibly work!" or "Something can't be in two states simultaneously! So obviously QM is wrong and stupid. I can't believe there are so many idiots who blindly believe in that dogmatic bullshit!"
There's still some of the former, and always were the later. But seriously, I don't think it's that Slashdot has changed when a post that starts off "Reeeeeedonculous!" attracts people ready to tear it down.
Well that's the point, isn't it? I had to use my imagination to make Lich look scary, but the artwork that was present, limited by NES capabilities, wasn't helping. Was I supposed to imagine that Lich was like a skeleton-genie in a swirling cloud of fuchsia gas? Or that Lich was taking a page from Jesse Ventura's book and wearing an expansive feather boa? I mean far be it from me to give an ancient undead wizard fashion advice, but a bare chest and a pink boa is a hard look to pull off. Points for boldness though...
At least in the text adventure days, they'd simply describe what the lich looked like and let me handle the rest. "A skeleton animated by foul magic, wearing ancient tattered robes of a sorcerer. In its empty eye sockets, and bright a malevolent fire burns." See that I can work with.:)
Well I was being sloppy with my terminology. I say "corporation" but I don't mean the specific legal tax-and-liability arrangement (which obviously wouldn't exist in Anarcho-lol-capitalism), I'm really referring to any large business. And yes we are ultimately talking about the rich and powerful oppressing the poor, not necessarily via a business, it's just that such businesses have even more wealth and power than the rich people who run them have themselves. Bill Gates was the richest man in the world, but his personal wealth was a pittance compared to the resources of the company he ran.
So no, this decision doesn't change that the rich can oppress the poor. It just makes it easier by allowing the rich to marshal the resources of the companies they control for political purposes. And because companies are non-democratic structures, they are effectively using the product of the efforts of their employees against them.
Everything you said is correct, and yet it's all wrong. I realize you could be speaking from the standpoint of the "Corporate Person" pun that got in this whole mess to begin with, but let's be clear that this is a fiction. A corporation is not a sentient entity. It does not have desires or interests of its own because "it" is not an entity capable of having them. The corporation can take no actions because it has no will. It is not immortal because it is not alive.
The desires of a corporation are the desires of its executives. The actions of a corporation are the actions of its executives and their subordinates taken in the corporation's name. They aren't separate, they are one and the same. The only way for a corporation to take an action that the executives do not desire is for one of the subordinates to disobey their executive, for which they can be fired.
You're absolutely right that corporations are anti-democratic semi-feudal organizations. But an organization is nothing but the people comprising it. So when you say that the directors should view the corporation like an untrustworthy animal, it is buying into the fictional personification of the corporation that says it has a will outside of the directors themselves. Do not allow the directors to abdicate responsibility for their own actions in this way. It may be a legal reality, but it is not a literal reality.
Nobody would speak of, say, the 1st U.S. Army have a will or interests outside of the General commanding it, excepting that the General has lost control of the people under their command. You can't nuke "the concept of the 1st Army" though you can nuke the people in it. It is "immortal" only in the sense that the concept will still exist, but that concept is nothing and does nothing and desires nothing until a new General takes up the head, and then the 1st Army's desires are the General's desires.
Or for another example, you would never say "the people of feudal Britain were oppressed by Britain", you'd say they were oppressed by the King, the executive. The idea that "Britain" could oppress the people despite the wishes of the King is ludicrous.
So, getting back to the point. This problem with this decision is not that it gives political power to corporations. The problem is that it gives political power to CEOs and directors (usually CEOs of other companies if not the same company), to use the resources of the corporation -- meaning the product of the labor of everyone working for it -- for the CEO's own political benefit.
....And how is this different from having the political leanings of my UNION boss amplified through UNION DUES which I have to pay, whether I like it or not?
Ooh but governments are evil because they impose their will on individuals with force, which they have a monopoly on!
So instead, we will get rid of government, and all interactions then will be completely voluntary, and no one will have a monopoly on force!
Hmm, but wait, what if someone decides voluntary interactions aren't to their benefit? Then we will have to impose our will on them with force...
But wait, all such force is private now, and they have more money than us...
Hmm...
LOL. You can't expect someone to understand your point who thinks they are an Anarcho-anything, like you get to choose the kind of society that will exist after you've created Anarchy. How would that work, when you have no enforcement mechanism? Anarcho-Capitalism, Anarcho-Socialism. LOL. There's just Anarchy, followed by whatever those strong enough to reign in the Anarchy decide upon.
I wish there was some kind of Holodeck or Total Recal memory implantation device where you could experience your desire come to fruition without it affecting the real world. I wish I could watch, so I could see your face as your state-less free market utopia turns into an oppressive dictatorship faster than you can say "What do you mean when there are no rules, the powerful make the rules?"
The schadenfreude would be delicious as the jack-booted thugs knock on your door and inform you of your tax obligation of 90% of your income and anything they fancy lying around the house. "But there are no taxes in my utopia, only voluntary exchanges of goods and services!" you'd cry, and they'd say "Well then think of it as a 'not breaking your legs and burning down your house as an example to others' service fee." What are you going to do? Call the police? Ah, but the police force is a private firm, and that private firm, according to the free market ideal, was selected by the bank and developer who own your land and your house because they met the market demand for a police force that does exactly what the corporations paying them say. It's that private police force who is at your door. You think you have the right to appeal to a 3rd party, that you have the right to leave this community for one that is not yet completely corrupted? Why? Because the ideal of anarcho-capitalism says so? But who enforces that ideal -- there's no law that says so, nor any authority tasked with upholding it. It was that very same ideal that allowed the corporations to buy the courts and police force who are abusing you! So it's just you and your fellow "decent people" against the jackbooted thugs. Your resources versus the corporations. Have fun!
I love you Anarchists. I love you because of every crazy political organization ever devised, Anarchy is the only one that is guaranteed to become its exact opposite. Every other organization is capable of being corrupted, but there is some mechanism that slows the process. Anarchy has no such stability, because it explicitly eschews any mechanism for having it. You can't even call it corruption, because people with wealth being able to buy whatever they want, with no legal recourse to stop them, is the whole point!
Oh, no no. Definitely not. I do like to use behaviors that resemble things from 1984 as warnings, though. I mean it'd be a real facepalm-worthy moment if one day we said "Welp, direct comparisons of todays government to that of 1984 are no longer hyperbolic" without seeing it coming.;)
No my point was just unreasonable and unrestrained surveillance that is hidden vs in the open... The AC was saying they wouldn't mind if it wasn't hidden, and I was just pointing out that I don't think that actually helps much.
Oh it was beautiful alright. Not argument there. But even at the time the 3D seemed primitive and was probably the weakest part of the appearance compared to the gorgeously rendered 2D backgrounds. Not that it looked bad, the kinda blocky style had a charm to it. And the 3D was used to great effect for the Summons. Too bad they were so excited about their cut scenes they decided to make it impossible to skip them.:P
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, that's obviously not the metric of obviousness either.
The official definition of obviousness is roughly whether or not anyone skilled in the art would arrive at the same solution.
Of course that definition is based on a hypothetical, so it's hard to say (without a Time Machine).
In what universe is it true that there being only one known way to solve a particular problem means that one solution is not obvious?
In fact, when everyone who approaches the problem arrives at the same solution, that's usually proof that the solution is obvious.
Indeed. And Rambus has been losing all of their patent suits in court.
Though they have been winning all the suits involving anti-trust (both those filed against them, and those filed against the memory makers who did engage in illegal trust behavior).
I think many girls have this opinion that science isn't a "feminine" thing
It's absolutely true, though the hearts and kitty doodles my girlfriend puts in her physics and biology note margins say otherwise.
But really, it's not just about being "feminine" in some kind of societal-oppressive Barbie-says-math-is-hard way. It's that a lot of people who are interested in science really wonder if they have to lose all fashion and social sense and be a 'dork' to do science.
I once saw a PBS documentary, Nova I think, that directly addressed this. The host said that Doctor Girl-name So-and-So was a well respected scientist who was (rough quote) "living proof that you didn't have to choose between doing science, and being cool!"
Then Doctor So-and-So appeared, and not only was she wearing a white lab coat over an extremely unflattering button down shirt and wearing thick glasses with ridiculous frames... The very first thing she said after being introduced as proof you could be a cool scientist was an obscure Star Wars reference.
LOL. I mean at least it wasn't Star Trek, but seriously... she was a huge nerd, and it was obvious.
For example, you'll find many Anarcho-Capitalists being big fans of Singapore, tyrannical as many of their laws might be, because it is a relatively small government (or a very large neighborhood association) where pretty much everyone is there by choice and they are free to leave at any time. A world consisting of thousands of little Singapores [athousandnations.com] (each municipality / county competing with every other) would definitely be an improvement over what we have today - violent empires that have spread themselves "from sea to shining sea" and beyond!
Ah, yes, your choice of any of a thousand tyrannical governments. Is this the promise of Anarcho-Capitalism? Do you think they'd be competing on freedom, or on their ability to make a buck at the expense of the others? What would any of the Singapores care if one decided that in addition to every other crime on the books, now defection was a crime?
I think it's hilarious that in your ideal country the only freedom you have is to leave.
This is all true, but its the legal reality we have to deal with, not the real reality.
Sure. It's a legal reality that the "corporate personhood" fiction is respected.
I'm just saying, don't think that this means corporations are actually people. We just need to deal with them, legally, as if they were.
Its not that hard to envision an entirely employee-less business run by scripts.
Meh. It's not hard to envision me being murdered, but my bank accounts continuing to accrue interest in my name. Am I, then, immoral? Does my immortal soul desire to accrue interest?
Its a machine, after all. Who are we to guess its innermost desires?
Rational people who can say that an inanimate object doesn't have "desires". That's a human metaphor, an anthropomorphization. There may come a day when rational people can't say for certain that a machine doesn't have desires. But that's a long way from now. :)
Debunked right here.
And what data would you feed into this hypothetical Holodeck simulation that would skew the results in your favor?
Why, human nature you silly goose!
That hilarious flash animation you linked to put it plainly: All that has to happen to end war forever is for everyone on earth to not tolerate the initiation of force in their name. Well no shit, sherlock. If that was the case, any system would be utopia. But guess what? Humans do tolerate violence done in their name, and not just because they haven't heard you tell them why it's wrong! And let's not even get into the enormous number of cases where the two sides disagree who initiated violence, and who is merely defending themselves from aggression -- which you support, so go ahead, pick a side for every conflict in history and explain why one side had the right to use force and the other didn't!
The problem with your utopia is that it exists solely by virtue of axiomatic declaration. As your 'debunking bill gates takeover' link clearly shows. Anarcho-capitalism is "by definition" without government, which are the only things "immune" to the non-aggression "axiom". Except governments aren't immune. They only say they have the right to initiate violence. This no more prevents you from rejecting that validity and resisting them than if a corporation did the same thing. You view States as special, because you define them differently. You say that kind of oppression can't happen in Anarcho-Capitalism, because you, the individual, are empowered. By what? The concept of Anarcho-Capitalism? Ha! That and a Magnum .45 are worth what?
In that same post, you admit that wealthy individuals could own entire solar systems. And if the owner of your solar system decides to oppress and exploit you, what exactly would you do? They own the police, they own the courts. Oh yeah you're "free" to use whatever police force you want, in theory. But the Solar Executive just sent a bunch of his personal police force to your door with a new contract, that says you can agree to use his police and judiciary contractors exclusively, or you can be evicted from the planet without a spacecraft. It's your choice, completely voluntary! What do you do? Do you hail another solar system? Well the owner of that system, while on the one hand a competitor with the owner of yours, certainly doesn't like the idea of uppity peasants choosing their own police forces! On that both can agree!
See that's why it's so funny, you 'debunking' a "bill gates takes over the world" scenario. Because what would actually happen is that Bill Gates would collude with Halliburton and Sony and Wells Fargo and Phillip Morris/General Mills etc. etc. and they'd all agree on a set of rules such that no matter where you went, you'd have no power. Just like the other day, we saw how all of the DRAM manufacturers, ostensibly competitors, colluded to lock others out of the market and enhance their collective profits. Free Market? Ha! Free Markets are great, but they aren't magic. No bank will give you terms that don't involve you losing your home if you don't play by their rules, and it's not the government that forces them to do so. Where's the magic "do whatever you want, you're free" mortgage company that the Free Market should provide? They all agree on a set of basic rules that will guarantee debtors are kept on their hooks, and then compete on minor variations like closing fees and such.
That's why it's so funny hearing about how you could have police/judiciary companies "compete". Okay, so if you like Police Force/Judiciary A, and your bank likes Police Force/Judiciary B, which one do you use when there's a conflict? You know for a fact B will rule in the bank's favor. And A is funded by the money you don't give to the bank. Ha ha, good luck! Of course more likely is that Police Force A, being a Free Market Capitalist organization, realizes that your bank has more money, and so they w
I have to disagree with your metaphor. A corporation will and does have a distinct and different will than the directors and other top executives.
The will of the corporation will not match any person of the mentioned group. It will in fact be a combination of differing parts from that group, possibly even a synergy where the whole is greater than the parts.
If you were to take the average height of humans, the average weight, the average hair color, the average skin color, the average IQ, average political beliefs, and so on, this "average person" would not match any particular human on the planet. And yet this "average person" does not exist, it is merely a concept. "The concept of the average person" has no will, only actual people do.
You see, "the will of the corporation" is the metaphor. It's personification. A corporation is just a concept. People can take action in the name of a corporation. But that's all it is.
For example, the fiscal policy may be an amalgamation of the CEO, the CFO, and 2 our of 12 board members. And at any time those board members can change introducing more complexity.
Sure, sure. It's an oversimplification to say that everything a corporation does is what the CEO wants and only that. Yet saying the fiscal policy is a combination of the ideas of several people does not mean the corporation has a policy outside of the people who create and implement it. It does not.
So yes the corporation does have a unique personality and like many other creatures
No, stop with the metaphors. A corporation does not have a personality. It is not a creature. Not in a literal sense. Only in an extremely figurative sense, but metaphors aren't real. The "corporate person" ruling that got us in this mess is a pun on the word "person". Puns aren't real, and calling a business a person doesn't make it one anymore than saying "My computer must hate me, it crashes so much" imbues your PC with malice.
I guess that explains why executives continue to do the work of their corporations after their multi-million dollar paychecks stop.
I am baffled as to why you think that is an implication of anything I said.
No, what happens is that executive leaves, then another takes their place, and now the desire of the corporation is the desire of the new executive. I covered this in the 1st Army example.
Organizations are more than the people comprising it. They have emergent properties that do not exist by mere virtue of gathering people together
Those properties do not include sentience or desires.
most notably properties that exist in law.
Aside from law not being an emergent property of a corporation (it's vice-versa), law is not reality. They can pass a law saying the sky is plaid, or have a court ruling that corporations are people just like you and I, yet neither affects reality. Just what you have to pretend is true in court. The court cannot imbue "the concept of a limited liability enterprise" with life.
Their officers and directors are duty-bound to perform certain tasks in the service of these laws, and that is what gives a corporation a motivation and "desire" that is different from these people.
Except the corporation only has those desires if the executives desire to obey the law, and then it's the executive's desires to take the actions that you're attributing to the corporation. If they do not, the corporation does not, and this is frequently the case. As always, the only "will" in a corporation comes from the people within it. "The concept of Enron" has no more of a will or desires than the words I just typed do.
That's personification; concepts can't actually have desires. Just because the court has said you have to pretend that this personification is valid and real doesn't mean it is.
The structure of the law requires that corporations develop and evolve in certain ways, and that its officers are retained to oversee this. But if the officers weren't being paid to oversee this, they certainly would not. Our tribal senses of duty and loyalty can only be twisted so far.
And if nobody was paid to oversee it, then it wouldn't happen at all. Because a corporation can't do anything, only a person can. And if the officer is being paid to oversee it, but he thinks he could make more by ignoring the laws requirements, then they will and the company will post fraudulent earnings reports or any other violation of the law that the officer believes will benefit them. Almost as if the law does not imbue the corporation with any true desire or will of its own, and only the desires of the executives matter.
I mean, the law requires that my house develops and evolves in certain ways. You wouldn't say my house desires to be built according to code, would you?
Stop copying me then traveling back in time to post first! Total waste of a time machine. ;)
To boldly come...
That's what I thought. :/
Sure. Exposing myself to the slime mold is how I show my contempt for it. You know like in Braveheart where the Scottish all mooned the British army?
My imagination can only do so much with fuchsia. :)
But as far as using your imagination goes, to this day nothing terrifies me more than a simple, lower case letter 'l'. 'Cept maybe certain 'c's or 'h's. :)
Looks like gone are the days when all you needed to good discussions on Slashdot was genuine curiosity and decent , not necessarily perfect, grasp of English language. And no, being a know-all, done-all master of the universe was not required either.
True but you were also expected to recognize that you were not a know-all done-all master... There was never a time on /. where someone who said "I'm right and all these fools have no idea what they're doing" wouldn't result in the poster being smacked down if they were wrong.
While I can perfectly understand saying "You are making a mistake" or "That's not what the article says", I have never really understood calling someone pathetic for not knowing something.
Not knowing something is not pathetic. Acting like you know when you don't, and calling the people who do know idiots, is pathetic and I have no issue with someone being called out on that.
See, you're forgetting the other half of slashdot posting that has changed the OP. It used to be much more common to see a post that would say something like "I thought cube/square scaling laws implied that you can't have an efficient heat engine below a certain size because the heat would dissipate faster than you could generate it. How does this invention get around that?" or "I don't really get QM, so can some explain how it's possible something to be in two states at once, and why electrons are shown as 'clouds'? Doesn't the electron have to actually be somewhere?"
Nowadays there's a lot more like the OP. "Oh my god, even Gallileo could have figured that these idiots invention couldn't possibly work!" or "Something can't be in two states simultaneously! So obviously QM is wrong and stupid. I can't believe there are so many idiots who blindly believe in that dogmatic bullshit!"
There's still some of the former, and always were the later. But seriously, I don't think it's that Slashdot has changed when a post that starts off "Reeeeeedonculous!" attracts people ready to tear it down.
As a side note, the difference between a motor and an engine is that a motor rotates, an engine reciprocates.
Huh. I didn't know that.
So I guess that means that Wankel was being a bit of a Wanker when he named his Wankel Rotary Engine, huh?
Well that's the point, isn't it? I had to use my imagination to make Lich look scary, but the artwork that was present, limited by NES capabilities, wasn't helping. Was I supposed to imagine that Lich was like a skeleton-genie in a swirling cloud of fuchsia gas? Or that Lich was taking a page from Jesse Ventura's book and wearing an expansive feather boa? I mean far be it from me to give an ancient undead wizard fashion advice, but a bare chest and a pink boa is a hard look to pull off. Points for boldness though...
At least in the text adventure days, they'd simply describe what the lich looked like and let me handle the rest. "A skeleton animated by foul magic, wearing ancient tattered robes of a sorcerer. In its empty eye sockets, and bright a malevolent fire burns." See that I can work with. :)
Well I was being sloppy with my terminology. I say "corporation" but I don't mean the specific legal tax-and-liability arrangement (which obviously wouldn't exist in Anarcho-lol-capitalism), I'm really referring to any large business. And yes we are ultimately talking about the rich and powerful oppressing the poor, not necessarily via a business, it's just that such businesses have even more wealth and power than the rich people who run them have themselves. Bill Gates was the richest man in the world, but his personal wealth was a pittance compared to the resources of the company he ran.
So no, this decision doesn't change that the rich can oppress the poor. It just makes it easier by allowing the rich to marshal the resources of the companies they control for political purposes. And because companies are non-democratic structures, they are effectively using the product of the efforts of their employees against them.
Everything you said is correct, and yet it's all wrong. I realize you could be speaking from the standpoint of the "Corporate Person" pun that got in this whole mess to begin with, but let's be clear that this is a fiction. A corporation is not a sentient entity. It does not have desires or interests of its own because "it" is not an entity capable of having them. The corporation can take no actions because it has no will. It is not immortal because it is not alive.
The desires of a corporation are the desires of its executives. The actions of a corporation are the actions of its executives and their subordinates taken in the corporation's name. They aren't separate, they are one and the same. The only way for a corporation to take an action that the executives do not desire is for one of the subordinates to disobey their executive, for which they can be fired.
You're absolutely right that corporations are anti-democratic semi-feudal organizations. But an organization is nothing but the people comprising it. So when you say that the directors should view the corporation like an untrustworthy animal, it is buying into the fictional personification of the corporation that says it has a will outside of the directors themselves. Do not allow the directors to abdicate responsibility for their own actions in this way. It may be a legal reality, but it is not a literal reality.
Nobody would speak of, say, the 1st U.S. Army have a will or interests outside of the General commanding it, excepting that the General has lost control of the people under their command. You can't nuke "the concept of the 1st Army" though you can nuke the people in it. It is "immortal" only in the sense that the concept will still exist, but that concept is nothing and does nothing and desires nothing until a new General takes up the head, and then the 1st Army's desires are the General's desires.
Or for another example, you would never say "the people of feudal Britain were oppressed by Britain", you'd say they were oppressed by the King, the executive. The idea that "Britain" could oppress the people despite the wishes of the King is ludicrous.
So, getting back to the point. This problem with this decision is not that it gives political power to corporations. The problem is that it gives political power to CEOs and directors (usually CEOs of other companies if not the same company), to use the resources of the corporation -- meaning the product of the labor of everyone working for it -- for the CEO's own political benefit.
....And how is this different from having the political leanings of my UNION boss amplified through UNION DUES which I have to pay, whether I like it or not?
You could vote in a new union boss.
I have no say in who is my CEO.
Ooh but governments are evil because they impose their will on individuals with force, which they have a monopoly on!
So instead, we will get rid of government, and all interactions then will be completely voluntary, and no one will have a monopoly on force!
Hmm, but wait, what if someone decides voluntary interactions aren't to their benefit? Then we will have to impose our will on them with force...
But wait, all such force is private now, and they have more money than us...
Hmm...
LOL. You can't expect someone to understand your point who thinks they are an Anarcho-anything, like you get to choose the kind of society that will exist after you've created Anarchy. How would that work, when you have no enforcement mechanism? Anarcho-Capitalism, Anarcho-Socialism. LOL. There's just Anarchy, followed by whatever those strong enough to reign in the Anarchy decide upon.
Ah, Anarcho-Capitalists.
I wish there was some kind of Holodeck or Total Recal memory implantation device where you could experience your desire come to fruition without it affecting the real world. I wish I could watch, so I could see your face as your state-less free market utopia turns into an oppressive dictatorship faster than you can say "What do you mean when there are no rules, the powerful make the rules?"
The schadenfreude would be delicious as the jack-booted thugs knock on your door and inform you of your tax obligation of 90% of your income and anything they fancy lying around the house. "But there are no taxes in my utopia, only voluntary exchanges of goods and services!" you'd cry, and they'd say "Well then think of it as a 'not breaking your legs and burning down your house as an example to others' service fee." What are you going to do? Call the police? Ah, but the police force is a private firm, and that private firm, according to the free market ideal, was selected by the bank and developer who own your land and your house because they met the market demand for a police force that does exactly what the corporations paying them say. It's that private police force who is at your door. You think you have the right to appeal to a 3rd party, that you have the right to leave this community for one that is not yet completely corrupted? Why? Because the ideal of anarcho-capitalism says so? But who enforces that ideal -- there's no law that says so, nor any authority tasked with upholding it. It was that very same ideal that allowed the corporations to buy the courts and police force who are abusing you! So it's just you and your fellow "decent people" against the jackbooted thugs. Your resources versus the corporations. Have fun!
I love you Anarchists. I love you because of every crazy political organization ever devised, Anarchy is the only one that is guaranteed to become its exact opposite. Every other organization is capable of being corrupted, but there is some mechanism that slows the process. Anarchy has no such stability, because it explicitly eschews any mechanism for having it. You can't even call it corruption, because people with wealth being able to buy whatever they want, with no legal recourse to stop them, is the whole point!
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Oh, no no. Definitely not. I do like to use behaviors that resemble things from 1984 as warnings, though. I mean it'd be a real facepalm-worthy moment if one day we said "Welp, direct comparisons of todays government to that of 1984 are no longer hyperbolic" without seeing it coming. ;)
No my point was just unreasonable and unrestrained surveillance that is hidden vs in the open... The AC was saying they wouldn't mind if it wasn't hidden, and I was just pointing out that I don't think that actually helps much.
Oh it was beautiful alright. Not argument there. But even at the time the 3D seemed primitive and was probably the weakest part of the appearance compared to the gorgeously rendered 2D backgrounds. Not that it looked bad, the kinda blocky style had a charm to it. And the 3D was used to great effect for the Summons. Too bad they were so excited about their cut scenes they decided to make it impossible to skip them. :P