As House Republicans vocally denounce Big Tech in media appearances, many simultaneously use their power to impede legislative reform. Rep. Buck is acting.
That's actually a point that's made in the video. Fact is, it's extremely difficult to get a tech giant (or even social media tool) going these days, and Big Tech is now actively trying to continue their own monopolies. All the more reason for the government to step in.
Having lived and worked in the San Francisco Bay Area for many years I can say without question they are destructive, parasitic and evil entities. Whether or not they are monopolies is a question that might interest lawyers but there cannot be any doubt these companies distort market incentives and corrupt public policy. I wonder if they would even go so far as to undermine our democracy and the basic rights and freedoms so many of our ancestors fought and died for. It’s as pathetic as it is sad. As a technology enthusiast I’m angered by the stifling of competition, which is the driver of innovation, and the amazing devices, gadgets, products and services they are stealing from all of us by preventing their development on the FREE market. My hat is off to Glenn and Representative Buck for facing down these thugs!
Glen is wonderful on so many topics--international affairs, free speech, the war machine, and so on. But I cringe when he wades into economics. He's prey to all the socialist idiocies of the left. He has no practical understanding of how businesses are built and people are employed. Any student of Tech could look back on the last 30 years and see the wisdom of Milton Friedman's belief that it's the free market that destroys monopolies, not the government. It wasn't the government that brought Microsoft's monopoly down. It was the internet, along with Apple and Google and other innovative companies. Government interference in the free market works as well as government interference in free expression.
I didn't wade in on economic policy. I interviewed the extremely conservative ranking member of the House subcommittee on antitrust law about his efforts to ensure compliance. If you want to abolish laws against monopolies and antitrust, that's your right to try, but while those are laws, Google, Facebook and the others shouldn't be allowed to get away with violating them and using anti-competitive practices because they drown both parties with campaign cash and pay lobbyists to sabotage regulatory efforts to ensure compliance.
Huge supporter Glenn, but you are committing the common fallacy here of "begging the question." Facebook et al have not been proven to have a monopoly; just last week a federal just stated that prosecutors failed to prove Facebook has a monopoly in social networking and dismissed complaints.
Tech companies yield an immense amount of power no doubt, but competition amongst them is alive and well. And I think it'd be foolish to say that Google's search, maps, documents and many other free features are a net detriment to society (the consumer), even with glaring privacy concerns.
Have you read the report I referenced in the beginning? It's extremely comprehensive on that question and, in my view, very convincing. There's a summary of it here:
Can you please never link ArsTechnica as a source for anything again please? They are yet another wing of the Conde Nast DNC empire (Anna Wintour's donations are easily checked on opensecrets) that has had their own CEO's caught changing content on their site at the DB level.
I cannot even click that link that site has given no evidence of posting anything other than PR or bullshit, just like "the verge" telling me how to build a PC.
The people who have been lobotomized do not know it has happened, due to the lobotomy.
In this case, conde-naste takeover of the entire formerly technical techincal press some years ago now. They have no idea this occurred. They believe they are referencing technical experts, when all the experts left after the dumb down into the marketing channel you are referring to.
All of the technical publications that used to be great are now purile sales noise.
The court also ruled that the sun doesn’t have a monopoly on light.
Considering all the social
Media companies colude together to censor people at the same time, how is it not monopolistic? Google has over 90% of search and even more of video streaming. How is that not monopolistic?
Much of it is still invisible. Like banning someone - my friend - for reposting a quote by Shakespeare on facebook. AI will never work. So we should applaud it for its stupidity. Actually I love it when Iget banned. Ihave noticed now I get lots of pop ups refuting what I say and quoting the CDC or some such other agency of. the federal govt as its. unpedigreed information
The free market capitalist in me has to respond with - "Because they dont have 100% and aren't actively attempting to suppress competition."
There are plenty of other markets where individual companies have similar market shares. Why are we picking and choosing which industries should be regulated. Either regulate all or none.
Either you cant exceed a threshold of market share or you can have it all. We cant have it both ways in capitalist America.
Yes we probably should be regulating those other markets too then. Feel free to get on top of pushing for that. In the meantime, there's no good reason not to regulate this one, is there? Do we need to wait until we can simultaneously regulate EVERYTHING before we start to regulate ANYTHING?
Yes regulate andmake themstronger and stronger. That's exactly what they want you. to propose and do. Then there will be no change. Voila! Marcuse here andhis Pac-Man metaphor is relevant.
If you discover #Varoufakis andhis new book #AnotherNow he wonderfully deconstructs capitalism for you, then elicits carefully a new economic system of "Markets without Capitalism." It is ingenious and brilliant.And he walks the walk and did by goingtothe EU for Greece and then resigning and blabbing about what they really do and did. His conversation with Obama is juicy, dicey and the best quotes ever on The Obama.
But even Rand said "there has never been free capitalism." Regulation keeps it from imploding. in on itself. Capitalism gets regulated into saving capitalism and FDR did it.
There's more at play here, I think. FB may not be a monopoly in the legal sense but what is this "immense power" you speak of. Why the biased and selective censorship? Why the revolving door relationships with career government officials? Focussing on whether FB is a monopoly or not appears to be yet another distraction ploy to keep us otherwise engaged while Big Tech does the bidding of the entrenched (global) interests. Somewhere in there is the real story of how and why this immense power manifests itself.
Yes. It places the argument square in the middle of the Dominating Discourse which is BINARY and keeps us occupied playing forever ping-pong for distraction and achieving busyness.
Why are we only talking about Big tech? Why aren't we holding all media to this same standard?
Why are only the tech barons something that need to have regulation? Oh right because currently they arent yet completely working for either the DNC or RNC.
Before the Internet, bookstores, publishers and even newsstands had to legally ensure that the newspapers they distributed were not considered defamatory. Courts initially extended this principle to online platforms.
Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act immunizes online platforms for their users’ defamatory, fraudulent, or otherwise unlawful content. Congress granted this benefit to facilitate true diversity of political discourse. This exemption from standard libel law is extremely valuable to the companies that enjoy its protection, such as Google, Facebook, and Twitter! Big Tech got this special dispensation because it was assumed (myopically) that they would operate as impartial, open channels of communication and NOT curators of acceptable opinion.
Because the IDEOLOGICAL STATE APPARATUS FOR THE REPRODUCTION OF THE IDEOLOGY OF THE RULING CLASS has not yet beeninscribed on their foreheads and inside their brain neurons. Why I keep repeating is like a MacDonald jingle. the media is doing exactly what itis designed to do. It is doing it perfectly. dont knock it for being bad. Knock it for being perfect.
It amuses me when as we teach history in our schools we learn about those terrible monopolies of the late 1800’s: Big oil, big steel, etc. those companies were playing patty cake compared to the rapaciousness of Bill Gates Et. Al
All those companies you mention were empowered by the government. The railroads right of way etc etc etc. They were not true free capitalistic monopolies. The camouflage over themnow just conceals the real
"Facebook et al have not been proven to have a monopoly" The only "proofs" are in mathematical theorems. There is no way to "prove" that facebook is or is not a monopoly. It is impossible. One can only get statistic inference at a .o5- .o1 or .0X level of significance. That's it William. Only a judicial can call that ball and we all know that the "Legal and Judicial machine is a IDEOLOGICAL STATE APPARATUS FOR THE REPRODUCTION OF THE IDEOLOGY OF THE RULING CLASS. See #Althusser pdf on this.
And just how are you measureing competition? How weak or how strong? U must be able to define your terms when you go after Glenn. He is not a stupid man. It is obvious you are ill educated in ? American Universities perhaps? Derek Bok has written an excellent book on the poor education served up in the US at all universities these days. And even quite awhile before these days.
Googles searches, maps etc "used to be very informative." They are not any longer so stuffed with ads and pop ups for money one has to leave the google browser to get the help one needs that Google used to provide. Anyway Facebook Google and Twitter are committing suicide IMO only. When they indulge in propaganda and censoring they lose all the good will they once spent so much time developing.
Despite this terrible, grammatically error-ridden rant, I'll bite. The burden of proof is on the legal system. It's that simple. They are innocent until proven guilty under the American system. They have not been proven guilty as of now and are thus, not guilty at this point in time. Unfortunately you have your logic backwards where you assume guilt.
And your linguistic comment on my grammatical errors (I haven't bothered to check) has long been identified by feminism as the male patriarch's method of DOMINATING through language. I like that you did it. Nice catch for me. Thanks so much.
There is nosuch thingas PROOF except in pure mathematics. Your definition of"proof" is only a statistical level of significance. This is what Einstein meant when he said, "I dont believe God plays dice with the universe." g\Go argue with Einstein. He said it not me.
You think it was a coincidence that the "rioters" (who were FBI informants btw) went to the RNC-controlled social media platform to do this?
You don't think that was all part of the plot from day 1? Lock down social media and try and impeach Trump again for constitutionally protected speech and at the same time destroy a fledgling conservative-run social media app and be able to show your constituents an example of big tech being nasty without even hitting your own supporters like FB or Twitter.
Open your eyes, Parler was a casualty of the war to win the elections of 2020 which bailed out every DNC state in the country.
There is no 'competition' when it comes to free speech. Something has to be done about Big Tech censorship mostly of conservative POVs. The fact that Donald Trump can't participate on these platforms but every other tin pot dictator around the world can is damaging to our civil life and promotes corrutpion.
STOP! This is of great VALUE! When you are censored you become VALUED but only by those who recognize your value. As Bolano said about all the junk books piled up[ in boodstores, that this is a good thing. It allows you todiscover treasures to read. And Bolano is a TREASURE to read. All ofhis work. I remember how we felt when the Catholic Church banned books in the 1940's and 50's. God's Little Acre by Erskine Caldwell. Wow! We carefull passed it around. We were thrilled! There was a RAPE scene in it, and incest and we loved it. Actually it is now a classic literary achievement that PC feminists will ban when they find young adults reading it, but it is a true literary classic not only of its time but of ours also. Forever Amber was a best seller, not literary but definitely banned. And Payton Place? Banning made those novels and made their writers very very rich. 50 Shades of Grey is still the top selling ever on the NYTimes book list. SEX PORN FOR WOMEN! Mostly soft but a little bit hard. CENSORING SELLS! Dont knock it.
OK willcheckthis out. Iwanted Trump. Not because of any CONTENT he offered but by the fact that he was and was going to unpack, destruct the "Institutional Political Discourse." He fulfilled my wish totally.Only Zizek validated me so I felt strong. The DISCOURSE is GROUND in McLuhan's sense. It is invisible so 99% dont even see it or knowit is there. And it isthe most powerful of all MEDIUMS.
The Donald has already done his utmost radical gift for us. He has brought down the house. He has opened the fly trapand released all the transparent lies, the fake Discourse of Washington DC full of meaningless tripe, the exposure of every one of them for all of. us to see if our eyes are open and are ears have been cleaned. He has already done it. Now he probably will seek real power which is to head the GOP machine to set in place a strong opposition to the DNC. Ihave little hope about that.
"As an Apple user, I’d hate to be forced to move to some crappy product that does not function, is inefficient with a minimal lifespan."
Um... You DO know, don't you, how Apple has been PROVEN to, and later ADMITTED to screwing with phone batteries and phone performance _specifically_ to get you to "upgrade" from your old iphone to a new one, RIGHT?
In this present capitalistic culture no matter how big and strong your company corporation is, you must continually metastasize like cancer cells to grow and be competitive in the GLOBALIZED WORLD CAPITALISTIC CULTURE! You have no alternative. The planet is out of space. Ways to do this are limited only by your own imagination. SO YOU CHEAT!
My brain freezes at the word huffpost. I amnot doubting you on this, I amjust saying this BRAND has been ruined for me by their past behavior so me do not trust.
Yes, and several forms of it should be outlawed... I recommend a mechanism for doing that to be providing favoritism in the court system for the starting and progression of class-action suits where it's easy for consumers to identify artificial faults (as opposed to inherent limitations) that cause product premature failure; it harms not only the buyer but also our shared environment.
I have a Blü brand G5 phone, and FAR too many computers to comment about here. The phone, unlocked, cost about $75, and is very comparable to last-years IPhone.
BTW, if you want a good deal for a desktop computer to replace your ipad or Macintosh with that's likely to meet _most_ computer user's needs for a great price, try the Raspberry Pi 4 Model B 8G. Yes, you'll need to be savvy enough to order up the extra components you'll need to get what you want, such as your own video screen, keyboard, mouse, etc, but the base price is $75 and you can have the whole thing up and going for well under $200 if you already have a monitor, keyboard and mouse - and maybe even if you don't! AND, it has TWO "4k" video hdmi feeds, either or both of which can be touch-screens... It has 1G "ethernet" and a wi-fi that covers all current standards, and blue-tooth, etc, etc, etc. ... Why spend $2k+ for the Apple?! PLUS, with the right case, the main unit will fit in your shirt pocket!
To say the Apple products are overpriced is an understatement.
It is not its purpose to CURE anything at all. THE HEALTH CARE INDUSTRY IS AN IDEOLOGICAL STATE APPARATUS FOR THE REPRODUCTION OFTHE IDEOLOGY OFTHE RULING CLASS. Sorry if I am being repetitive but once you get this you will understand that criticism of ANY state apparatus is futile. The State Apparatus is doing EXACTLY WHAT IT WAS DESIGNED TO DO. Perpetuate itself. Why voting changes nadda.
Jules Henry in #Culture Against Man: Under capitalism schools teach children to hate each other in socially acceptable ways. You cannot compete with your "brother" and drive him/her out of business if you "love" your brother/sister as yourself. I'll leave the rest of you to play with this one. My great regret is that I never could sit in on classes with Jules Henry at Washington University in St. Louis by the time I found him. I did meet a remarkable woman later who had and had been very influenced by him.
I don’t find the Ars Technica article compelling. A naive reader would come away with the idea that operating a business with network effects, privileging your own search results, or operating a marketplace that sellers can’t afford not to use are illegal.
AFAIK those are all legal.
The way Apple operates its App Store is almost identical to the way that game console companies operate, down to the generous commission on sales and policies on in app purchases. Yet I almost never see this comparison when people report on Apple’s App Store policies.
FDR saved capitalism with the New Deal. Capitalism requires regulatipon, restrictions to keep on going. As Marcuse tells us capitalism is like Pac-Man. It devours its opposition only to digest it and make itself stronger. Capitalism MUST have opposition or it will implode. We are now in a time of SPEED.
We probably agree more than disagree when it comes to extolling the virtues of a free market, but Parler being de-platformed is probably a prime example of what the report refers to when it states; "these firms typically run the marketplace while also competing in it — a position that enables them to write one set of rules for others, while they play by another, or to engage in a form of their own private quasi regulation that is unaccountable to anyone but themselves."
Again, for a free market to have a chance at defeating monopolies, it must first BE a free market.
I viewed the banning of Parler as less of a monopolistic antic and more Big Tech throwing the DNC a political bone. But in doing so they showed are full partners in the administrative state.
Banning is a greathonor. A great club to have joined. When I was a child it was banned books by The Church of Rome. Then the hunt was on to find a copy and READ it! Erskine Caldwell's God's Little Acre (1933) such a dirty little book then and so important now. I was in 9th grade and it was "so adult" to me, so forbidden, so desired like that apple in the Garden of Eden. God knew what he was doing eh.
My thoughts exactly. Although there may not have been an overt agreement, Apple, Alphabet (Google), and Amazon, almost simultaneously killed the phledgling Parler.
This is all good. PIarler will rise again no doubt. Freedom is in the air now that dominatiuon and totalitarianism are asserting. I always think of democracy being born in Greece while slavery was there giving the philosophers leisure time to think. And then reappearing again in the North American colonies by those themselves who enslaved others. Again the unknown?known creeps in on little cat feet. Slavery signals liberty. Without slavery liberty would be invisible.
Ah you are right smack with Varoufakis of Greece. His new book #AnotherNow imagines "markets without capitalism" which he also discusses in lectures on youtube. I really like the one he gives to Boston students of Marx. As he says "financial capitalism" is what we have now, not markets. The beginning was the East India Company that had such fantastically imagined trading it required huge sums no one comapny could come up with so "SHARES WERE INVENTED" and that was the beginning during the time Shakespeare was writing Hamlet. A neat Foucauldian CUT. It's not long. Varoufakis is so intelligent - sexy I think - witty and so free that his charisma shines.
Ah if you dont know then read Virlio. "The shadow knows." Today I hae watch MSNBC which Is so periciouc I have had an anxiety stomach all day long. It is the most dangerous media out there for a particular segment of the masses. SPEED - Virlio again the architect of the theoretical imprtance and danger of SPEED - is vibrating in your face on that chanel. All the talking comes bullet fast. There is no reasoned explanation of anything at all. You are word bombed, "information bomb" as Einstein named it, to the point of no comprehension whatsoever. The wordsmiths just pour it on you like honey and red pepper all mixed together and THERE IS NOT A MOMENT TO THINK WHAT IS SAID OR TO CRITICALLY EVALUATE WHAT YOU JUST HEARD ND WATCHED. Right there is Virilio's "NICE CATCH" on McLuhan who completely missed VELOCITY as the crucial variable. Think Trump hating on and on and on but with a certainl amount of ho hum in it. But along came a spider who sat down beside us and its name was COVID and the WORLD-WIDE snynchronous hysterical state of FEAR was born. And still the VELOCITY kept on and on with all those inflated numbers of positives and manipulated deaths on the right of the screen. The US and the World going up in Flameful Fear. And there I am a few nights a week on the running trreadmill at Planet Fitness dividing deaths by "positives" and getting at first 2.8% and the trending down of month after month. Hey I went through the POLIO epidemic and that disease was far worse if you lived! And yet WE WERE NOT AFRAID. We had Roosevelt how went thruough it saying, "The only thing to fear is fear itself." So we followed him and were not afraid. Joni Mitchell had it as a child. Her parents stopped coming to see her. She was doomed so better to detach than to suffer eh. And Joni deicded nnope I'm not going that way now. She fought. Who knows how. But she won. And then there was Dr. Temple Fay -Faye? - at the med school of Temple University taking polio patients and using vibraters on them to induce orgasms and people thought he was crazy. Probably just following Wilhelm Reich in his thinking and practice of Orgone Therapy. i wonder;.
Web hosting can be achieved without relying on companies like Amazon. It’s expensive but it can be done. Gab achieved it by building their own infrastructure.
Things like apps on the App Store on the other hand can’t be done. Those are gatekept by Apple and Google.
As someone who hosts web services for some 60-ish domain names (mostly from friends of mine), I can tell you it's not at all expensive - or at least need not be.
Hmm, do you rent a rack space somewhere? I think the costs are not linear with the growth of the size of the hosting.
Hosting aside, one is still at the mercy of Google (at least today), as they may suppress the search (like they did with Gabbard). There is also the actual domain registration that can be denied (wouldn't surprise me).
Why rent when you can own? ...I have my own rack, and have had for about 25 years or so now. a reasonably high-speed link, some technical savvy for computer administration, and you're good to go.
But of course, renting rack space somewhere isn't crazy expensive, either, and I've done that on a few occasions when the network demands were more than I / we cared to fund to my own place. In this case, you get what's called a "colo" - co-location - service where there's a cage inside a computer room that's all your own and you can have as many racks inside that room as you care to afford. The provider provides electrical power, networking, and air conditioning, a physical security program (including a live video feed of your cage) and you do everything else yourself - and I mean _everything._ ...I usually configure things so I have a clone at my rack and use binary replication to keep the machines synchronized in the event of failure, including a logging system to track changes as they occur and can back-track if a cracking (AKA "hacking" by people not in the industry) event is detected, so reduced risk for data loss. (That doesn't protect against _copies_ being made, though, if you get cracked.)
So far as we're aware, we've only ever been cracked _once,_ and it was by a major US MILC player who was in competition with us over a NASA contract - we found out because they'd tried to use some internal documentation to convince our customer we weren't competent to satisfy their needs, and our customer shared the documents with us. We explained the stolen information and ended up getting the contract.
We found out when I was visiting a NASA facility in person, and I called the office immediately and told 'em to take us offline _that_instant._ We did a _complete_ scrape and re-installation of our _entire_ computing environment, and went offline while it was in progress. And before going back online, we upped our game regarding network security, from "competent" to "paranoid." So far as we know, never cracked since, but our logs show us attempts at all hours of the day, every day, on-going...
Anyway, for an informed, competent staff, this stuff is relatively easy, it's just that so many people can't be bothered to hire "informed, competent staff" as we're not $15 / hour people. ... I do this for most of my friends, especially when their needs are modest, for free, or at most trade favors now and then - such as one guy manages an off-site backup for us in exchange for a production environment on our servers.
Power begets power. The level of market freedom available nearly always correlates to eventual high levels of industry concentration. Thus, ironically for conservatives, the *continuance* of *actual* market freedom always needs to be enforced ... by government.
How, or when, did these companies become monopolies? During the heyday of neoliberalism.
Anyone at Burning Man over the last 10 years saw the wretchedly excessive freight train of shit hurtling at themselves. I was the recipient of said shit, and copious amounts of LSD only clarified the perception.
I went to the first few, but when they moved to the desert, the timing was bad, and I haven't been since. -shrug- Sounds like it has morphed into something it wasn't when it began.
Probably impossible to avoid given the population growth, even without the aforementioned "corruption". (Actually, I don't view much in art as corruption, per se, usually just infinitely fascinating social transformation.) If you were there on the beach, I don't see how it could be qualitatively like the city it was already in '00.
The elephant in the room is that when you have enough power to corrupt the markets, they are no longer free. Devour your competition and neuter the justice system with the regulatory state and you can be a monopoly too
I've said it before and I'll say it again; a conscientious and informed public has the ability to regulate a market all their own, and with the efficiency and expediency not remotely possible for a government.
Now, is our apathetic, zombie-like society capable of such conscientious behavior? Seems doubtful, but I submit that change would happen a lot sooner than a just and regulated market would, via the federal government.
We don't need a "just and regulated market". We need more fragmentation in tech. Breaking things is actually something that government does regularly. Let them have a crack at Big Tech. Ramping up the diversity requirements in those companies is a start. Government could also promote unionization, community set-asides, etc.
Thanks for going easy on me, Sasha. Idealism is not such an easy thing to express these days, but it sure is a more pleasant mindset than the alternative.
If you're interested in my view on the role of human nature, you can find my comment just above. All the best! -Joshua
But then people wouldn't be making so much money in a conscientious and informed public that can regulate a market all their own.
One of Marxism's key insights that made him popular is that capitalism isn't just unjust, it's also self-contradictory. His core economic idea was that capitalism and competition are incompatible, because a perfectly competitive market yields no profit. Therefore, according to Marx, any good capitalist would seek not competition, but advantage. https://www.forbes.com/sites/gregsatell/2014/10/17/peter-thiel-believe-it-or-not-is-a-marxist/?sh=1669ea89466e
The article you linked repudiates the idea that the world is easily reducible to mathematical / logical formulas which seriously undermines the significance of the contradiction. It also points out specifically that the contradiction was challenged substantially by Schumpeter.
Where were you planning to find this conscientious and informed public? Yes, you are naive. That's only a bad thing when it drives you to embrace and expound bad ideas. If we had such a conscientious and informed public, I wouldn't be worried about government either, because we'd have wise voters and politicians.
"Self-regulating" free market assumes a couple of absurdities:
1) There are no people willing to treat the world as a zero-sum game and who will take advantage of others' conscientiousness and sense of fairness.
2) Network effects do not drive natural monopolies.
Proud of yourself, are you? It took longer than I expected, but as sure as the day is long, you finally arrived. By "you", I mean a person filled with such underserved hubris, not even they actually believe in it, evidenced by their need to "pile on" a comment that already acknowledged the shortcomings. What else do you do for fun (validation) - stand outside mental health clinics and berate the depressed? [slow clap]
Let's take a closer look at your contribution, shall we?
"Where were you planning to find this conscientious and informed public?" You don't "find it", it is cultivated over countless generations. While idealistic, I'm not so naive as to think there is an easy, quick fix. No such solution exists, and certainly not from electing the right politicians. Well, save for those who realize that it's not their job to cure all of society's ills, or so arrogant to believe they're capable - THAT would be a great start. Lest you think the human condition reacts to force better than self-actualisation? I'd argue the opposite is "easily observable".
"If we had such a conscientious and informed public, I wouldn't be worried about government either, because we'd have wise voters and politicians" Not sure "wise" has anything to do with it, unless you're referring to emotional wisdom. I'd posit that humanity's greatest asset, our emotions, is also its greatest obstacle. Like a broadsword in the hands of a child, we are not developed (evolved) enough to wield this unfathomably, powerful tool. Take us, for example - two people capable of much better things to do than engage in pithy comments, but alas, servicing the ego is such a tempting force, yes?
Look, human NATURE, for all its' flaws, is capable of evolving like anything else in nature. Does a top down government aid in this evolution or hinder? This is the fundamental question at hand, I think.
It would probably have been more polite to say that you are idealistic. I chose to use the word you did ("I know, I know, I'm an ignorant, naive"), and it was thoughtlessly rude of me.
However, that doesn't really change my point: we need idealism and idealistic people, but when that idealism serves to embrace policies that actually gut the morality and benefit that results from the idea they embrace and harm everyone, the idealism is harmful. You didn't make any policy suggestions, so my rancor here is perhaps misplaced, especially since you acknowledged that our society (in its current state) isn't capable of producing such a self-regulating free market.
In the realm of theory, I don't think human nature has evolved much in the < 10,000 years we've had civilization. It does evolve, and will continue to do so -- largely on a scale that is imperceptible to any of us over the course of a lifetime (though it doesn't have to be), and it will be driven by what makes us successful (and unsuccessful) in passing on our genes.
That basic, very slowly changing human nature does far more rapidly change how it's expressed with culture. Perhaps a change in cultural expression of our current nature can bring about the the kind of informed and conscientious public you'd need. However, I'd want to see that before I'm willing to entertain purist ideas that, absent said public, have a demonstrated tendency towards monopoly and large-scale harm for the benefit of few (and, as monopoly seeks to further entrench and enrich itself, oligarchy). I don't have much hope on this score, but stranger things have happened, and efforts to engender a conscientious and informed public seem like a good activity libel to pay dividends for any success it may achieve, even absent the ultimate goal.
Question: how does the informed and conscientious public avoid the problem of monopolies through network effects? To me the answer is regulation, which of course is rather inimical to free market self-regulation. Did you have some other mechanism in mind?
There's a lot to respond to here. First and foremost, thanks for taking my return jabs (albeit even harsher in nature) in stride and not ramping up the discord. No apology was necessary, either.
I must admit that I have nothing specific or original to offer in terms of a short term solution. As I think we're in the process of illustrating, we (society) must first isolate and understand what the actual problem is (in some cases figure if there really is a problem) before enacting a solution is possible. To do otherwise, merely mutates the problem, or creates all new ones. IOW, we need to stop treating symptoms (poorly) and search for the pathogen. To say I lack the wherewithal to even broach such a task, is the ultimate understatement. I don't mind offering some thoughts on the matter, though, and I'll start with your question.
I'm not an expert in the field of network effects, but based on my cursory knowledge of the matter, it seems to me that it, in and of itself, is a good thing. It's merely a way in which the users and company experience increased value in a geometric (if not exponential) fashion. Presumably, this is good for everyone involved. The problem ONLY comes when this value is leveraged as power to do harm. Admittedly, this harm can manifest in a myriad of ways with censorship and anti-competitiveness seemingly the biggest issues at present. Ultimately, it doesn't matter what the issue is, though. Just as we like to say with democracy - that the government's power is derived from we the people, so too with public (and private) enterprise. Except with one huge, massive, difference! Rather than having to wait till the next election to vote someone out (only in hopes that the next person isn't as bad or worse); theoretically, those same people could just vote with their money instead. The company would then be faced with immediate call to action. They would either have to change the objectionable actions, post haste, or lose that value (by extension their power) even quicker than it was accrued.
If you agree in theory, this leads us back to our mutually agreed issue of a society that is either severely polarized, misinformed, or just utterly apathetic. Ironically, this same societal "rot" which prevents "self governance", seems only to get worse the more we succeed responsibility to the government.
As for the evolutionary aspect, it's been way too long of a day, and that's way too involved of subject matter to delve in now. I appreciate your input on the subject, though. Till next time, all the best.
I think it's great for this conversation that you cite the Chicago School's most notable Nobel Laureate, Milton Friedman in a discussion about the role of Big Tech and government. I remember a Chicago politician they called the 'the Social Media President', who went on to exclaim, the internet and social media are “the single biggest threat to our democracy.” Do you have any practical understanding of how a Political Machine is built and who they employ? We now have a political machine that has captured the reigns of democracy and keeps all the establishment dogs on the same leash. If the government isn't going to bring the monopolies down, these monopolies could bring down the government. I can't remember reading about an era in which politics wasn't a corrupt and dirty business. Is that the free market?
Wow, ask Chiki and Argentina how they did with Milton Friedman "free trade". Google and Facebook are destroying their competition via blatant privacy and constitutional violations. It's the representative governments job (the people's will) to correct those who violate our rights to information, discussions, access to opposing views, and free trade. These technocrats are not participating in fair trade or competition. Read the report. Talk to the censored.
This illustrates PURE ignorance about the field under discussion:
"Any student of Tech could look back on the last 30 years and see the wisdom of Milton Friedman's belief that it's the free market that destroys monopolies"
AAAAAAAAAAAAAaaahahahaha.
Buddy, I joined TANO - Technical Associates of New Orleans - in 1979, and have been engaged in the computer industry ever since, and, first of all, Milton Friedman doesn't know the first thing about this topic, and secondly, the real-world hasn't performed as you suggest; the "free market" _creates_ monopolies, buddy.
Free markets, when these companies are predatory? It's kind of like China's free market system. You made me cringe with your foray into economics, but more so with your understanding of freedom.
Did the market destroy Standard Oil, the big trusts of the 1890s, Bell telephone, etc?. No, the Sherman Act did. Have the big banks lost their market power after crushing the world economy in 2008? No, in fact, they've gotten bigger through government capture and their own size. Microsoft never had an absolute monopoly, but an extreme duopoly with Apple. This hasn't really changed either.
You do realize that Milton Friedman's ideas (and by extension the Chicago school and Austrian school of economic thought) were the main drivers of neoliberalism markets (which is just laissez-faire capitalism 2.0), right?
If you... s t i l l ...haven't read Shoshana Zuboff's "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism," you have no place in this conversation. Go educate yourself and come back. aw
Yes and Rand saw this very well. She was a wonderful desciple of Nietzsche. "To get rid of something carry it to excess and it immplodes,"which she wrote in her journal Jan 1 just as she started Atlas that day. But why is she held up as the symbol of FREE capitalism? Because she knew but didn't know she knew. Rumsfeld's the "unknown/known" so laughed at at the time he uttered it. It is straight from the brain of Zizek reading opposites through Hegel and permuting them into 4 ipairs. If you can learn to think like Zizek instead of arguiing theories of his online it will help. All these companies were start-ups by start uippers. But it is inevitable that a beginning of great promise will "METASTASIZE" like cancer cells into a bureaucratic webbed monolith consuming everything it can get in its paws and continuing to grow. But as Marcuse tells us in his Pac-man metaphor "capitalism eats its op[osition only to become stronger." This is what Roosevelt knew but didn't know he knew, another example of the unknown/known. Roosevelt SAVED capitalism with his NEW DEAL of wonderfully imagined Gederal programs and Federal Agencies to regulate and empower those outside the feast. These young wizards operated freely without restrictions because govt had no idea of what they were, what they were doing until much too late.You see govt during that time had greatly entrenched their own bureaucracy and lost focus and have not regained it as govt is now a career not a service. All regulation does is strengthen the corporations. We need opposites to focus our attention and thinking. Would night even exist without daytime sunshine. Or turn that on its head, invert it, and you see it is the same. As Rand said, "When govt tells you what it is going to do to please you, turn it inside out and extract its opposite and you will know what it is going to do." FDR said we are not going to war on foreign shores and then Pearl Haror was arranged. Now it is getting more sophisticated as Jung's statement that all of politics can be understood from the point of view of projection. Think Trump a minute and every acfcusation hurled at him - some very true- and also very true of his accusers as well as ones he was innocent of his accusers were not. That is what we are getting now. Glen misses this as do all the other journalists, and what would it change if people knew this and thought this way? It is deadly to know when you can't unknow. And knowing does no good and does incredible harm to the knower. Writers have written this for decades and decades. Few have excaped its horror. Think Conrad and his Heart of Darkness and Kurtz's last cry of his dying breath, "The horror! The horror."
Thanks for likeing this. I fixed the typos and edited it a bit and ppublished it on my newsletter FOCUSFREE. I am resisting doing an email marketing thing. I learned a lesson form STROLLI" who started his own Italian restaurant in South Philly during the late 70's. My gf and I loved it and told him she had seen no advertising on it until the New York Times had a clip on it. Stroli told us "I plannned it that way. If people discover it on their own IT BECOMES THEIR PLACE, THEIR RESTAURANT! THE ONE THEY KNEW BEFORE EVERYONE ELSE. IT IS THEIRS! So I thought I would try that to let people discover what I am thinking about and writing since I cant stop it anyway. We will see. I love those odd books I find at used bookstores that I never heard of before and decide to try.
As I understand it one of the reasons Microsoft didn’t kill off or co-opt Google was the recent antitrust suit the DOJ had pursued against Microsoft. I want these companies much more concerned about their illiberal marketplace activities. I want the government very scared about “we the people”. Right now I live in fear. They should be living in fear
Rep Buck stated that the big tech companies spend $50 million on lobbying. That's all you need to know to understand why nothing is being done, despite all the rhetoric.
And that's just lobbying. More importantly, I'd like to know how much the spend in campaign contributions. It's all bribes. Legal bribes, but still bribes.
"Politics is a kind of greasy pole climbing contest - where the object is not to see who can climb the pole the fastest or the farthest, but rather...who can emerge with the cleanest shirt."
The local "D" bosses tried to get my father (a Depression-Era/WW2 success story) to run for office for years. My father refused. Only after years of foray into local politics (in both the "D" and "R" side of the house) did I finally understand why.
1. Justice Clarence Thomas opined couple months ago discussing big tech censorship quite extensively. The case was regarding whether Trump was allowed to block people on Twitter and it being a 1st amendment violation. While the case was declared moot as Trump left office, Justice Clarence Thomas took the opportunity to discuss censorship. How politicians like Trump aren't allowed to block users on big tech but big tech is able to block and ban government employees and how this creates a weird power dynamic. Here's a couple excerpts:
"But whatever may be said of other industries, there is clear historical precedent for regulating transportation and communications networks in a similar manner as traditional common carriers. Candeub 398–405. Telegraphs, for example, because they “resemble[d] railroad companies and other common carriers,” were “bound to serve all customers alike, without discrimination." ... "Internet platforms of course have their own First Amendment interests, but regulations that might affect speech are valid if they would have been permissible at the time of the founding. See United States v. Stevens, 559 U. S. 460, 468 (2010). The long history in this country and in England of restricting the exclusion right of common carriers and places of public accommodation may save similar regulations today from triggering heightened scrutiny—especially where a restriction would not prohibit the company from speaking or force the company to endorse the speech." ... "The similarities between some digital platforms and common carriers or places of public accommodation may give legislators strong arguments for similarly regulating digital platforms. [I]t stands to reason that if Congress may demand that telephone companies operate as common carriers, it can ask the same of ”digital platforms." ... "For example, although a “private entity is not ordinarily constrained by the First Amendment,” Halleck, 587 U. S., at ___, ___ (slip op., at 6, 9), it is if the government coerces or induces it to take action the government itself would not be permitted to do, such as censor expression of a lawful viewpoint. Ibid. Consider government threats. “People do not lightly disregard public officers’ thinly veiled threats to institute criminal proceedings against them if they do not come around.” Bantam Books, Inc. v. Sullivan, 372 U. S. 58, 68 (1963). The government cannot accomplish through threats of adverse government action what the Constitution prohibits it from doing directly. See ibid.; Blum v. Yaretsky, 457 U. S. 991, 1004–1005 (1982). Under this doctrine, plaintiffs might have colorable claims against a digital plat- form if it took adverse action against them in response to government threats. The Second Circuit feared that then-President Trump cut off speech by using the features that Twitter made available to him. But if the aim is to ensure that speech is not smoth- ered, then the more glaring concern must perforce be the dominant digital platforms themselves. As Twitter made clear, the right to cut off speech lies most powerfully in the hands of private digital platforms. The extent to which that power matters for purposes of the First Amendment and the extent to which that power could lawfully be modified raise interesting and important questions. This petition, unfortunately, affords us no opportunity to confront them."
The last 2 points are important as Thomas is basically saying "give us a case which brings up these two questions and then we will have a deep look."
2. Totally agree with the republican RINOs who say one thing on TV while doing another or not doing anything at all. Lindsey Graham is a perfect example and why I can't stand Hannity. Lindsey kept going on Hannity and grandstand for 2 years about how he's gonna doo all these big things to hold the FBI and CIA accountable for the russiagate nonsense. Yet he didn't get anything done except a couple hearings where Rosenstein blatantly lied and nothing happened to him. Lindsey is one of the worst republicans imo.
3. You brought up the point about SCOTUS having ruled in the past that if a private actor is pressured by government that if they don't do something, then they will be punished, is a violation of 1st amendment. Have you looked at the recent Fauci emails, especially the ones with Zuckerberg (which are also redacted)? Fauci is the government and him working together with FB in building their "COVID dashboard" which censored many people, especially those talking about the lab leak theory as well as Ivermectin. This has to be a violation right?
4. One of your questions was regarding why Big Tech is hyper-liberal democrat supporters. While this is ideologically driven, one big point which didn't get raised was H1B visas. This is also why all the tech companies were so against Trump - he cut/tried to cut their supply of H1B visas - their primary labour supply. The immigrant folks who get brought in on H1B visas are basically exploited for work on lower wages. Liberals often think they are more virtuous for supporting H1B because companies like Apple and Google have lectured them about how H1B visas bring diversity. Anyone seriously thinks FAANG tech companies care about diversity? They care about low labour cost, employees who won't complain and won't report shady stuff going on in the company. H1B visas are perfect for that.
H1B visas is pretty much modern day slavery (bit hyperbole in a way) but it essentially gives full power over an immigrant to the employer because these employers have work rules that if you don't get promoted every 1-2 years, you get fired - which means H1B visa employees get deported back. So these immigrants end up working much harder for lower pay to not get deported. Meanwhile the companies get cheap labour while virtue signaling about diversity. This is also a reason why immigrants are hesitant to report work illegalities and thus the company prefer hiring them even more.
Here's another proof that this isn't about "diversity" or caring about immigrants but more about exploitation:
76% of the h1b go to Indians and 10% goes to China. Do you think this is about diversity? Does diversity only come from India and China? Source:
5. I agree with what Ken Buck is saying regarding people being too compacent and lazy. He rightly is telling people to start getting engaged and taking over school boards because if they don't, then the CRT bullshit will destroy America from the inside. Thankfully in the last couple months, many parents are finally starting to speak up and hopefully some take over those school boards too. The nation's largest teachers union has approved a plan to promote critical race theory in all 50 states and 14,000 local school districts. The argument that "critical race theory isn't in K-12 schools" is officially dead. The union has also approved funding for "increasing the implementation" of CRT in K-12 curricula and for attacking conservative groups who oppose CRT indoctrination. The teachers union has made critical race theory its #1 priority—and want to implement it nationwide.
Forgive me for being snide, but the Republicans and Democrats will seemingly use their rhetoric to please vast numbers of Americans, while stabbing the same people in the back. It allows them to pretend they're doing something, while using inaction as a forever talking point.
As with Climate Chaos, the Republican report that Rep Gaetz promised a few years ago (where is it?), hopefully the solution cannot be found in technology and *market* solutions.
Show us the unmolested data. Guess what happens when you come out of the little Ice Age? Hint: the planet gets greener, more productive and more livable. Oh! The horrors for the Doom Goblins! Lol
Silly boy. We get all kinds of weather disruptions along with askew pollination timing, droughts over once prolific breadbaskets, acidifying and thermocline disruptions in our oceans, further species die-offs---things that are ALREADY occurring. Never mind, smarm always wins in the crayon-eating ghettos of misinformation that it appears you inhabit. You'll be trading in your crayons soon enough for all of the words you will shortly be eating. So enjoy your moment in the sun, the hot, hot, and getting hotter sun.
According to the Doomer Class, we’ve been either frozen to death or melted to death over the last 50+ years. We’re all dead, so let’s eat more mescaline and get funky with it.
Guess what? You doomtards have been wrong on each and every sorry prognostication you’ve ever made. But like the Jehovah Witnesses, your religion will get it “right” someday. Just keep paying and praying! Lol
Trying to read you is nearly impossible. You believe it or you don't? You don't like the idea that things must change or you don't accept some of the solutions? You don't think climate refugees are a real issue?
Many scientists are experts, but if you don't believe the science, Earth help you.
“Belief in science” is not science. I’ll leave that with you to discover on your own time. Having said that, I’d love to have a beer with you sometime. :-)
Your first paragraph is solid - not snide - but this I just don't understand:
"As with Climate Chaos, the Republican report that Rep Gaetz promised a few years ago (where is it?), hopefully the solution cannot be found in technology and *market* solutions."
What kind of "technology solution" do you hope cannot be found?
Frankly, the unwillingness of the ultra-rich who control the world to manage the world's most important crisis - the accumulation of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere and inevitable destruction of the current biosphere - INCLUDING HUMANS - is stupendously stupid, dangerous, reckless, criminal and a few dozen other negative adjectives, and HAS LEFT US IN DESPERATE NEED - the entire fucking biosphere - OF A TECHNOLOGICAL SOLUTION because all the easy ways to solve this were ignored since forever.
What if I told you that all life on Earth ceases at 150ppm CO2? What if I told you we hit 180ppm a few thousand years ago and we’re crawling our way out of a near-death plant food crisis? What if I told you my weed grow is happiest at 1100ppm CO2? What do you tell the plants struggling to grow at 420ppm? How about I roll a big fat joint of Train Wreck and we discuss what CO2 actually is and the deception fed to us by the Technofucks? :-)
What if I told you that I too am an Earth scientist and those are objective facts that anyone can look up for themselves? The weed is great. Wish you were here to enjoy it with me.
When the Republicans speak of technological solutions, they are desperately seeking ways to avoid doing the real work necessary to stop/reverse this devastation. Such as: clean coal (if anybody is still pushing this myth), carbon capture, or my fave: geoengineering.
I suppose the fundamental scientific question is this: does plant food = pollution? Then work backwards from that fallacious proposition. FauciFlu = “climate catastrophe”? Or victory for the Technocracy that Hitler initiated.
Not fat and not happy, but of course I am a recipient. I also recycle, walk, drive very little, save electricity and water, and the other small things that one conscientious and caring human can do.
What an ignorant statement. If you don't think it will make a difference here, please educate yourself. I don't have a solution for 8 billion people. We must all act.
We must recycle. We must switch from fossil fuels to clean energy. We must conserve electricity and water. We must leave the land in better shape than we found it. We must move away from plastics. We must invent better ways to pack and protect and create everyday items. We must cut our consumption and our toxins.
You do realize how awful “alternative” energy is, right? If you’re not pro-nuclear, you are delusional. Look at the cumulative impacts of “clean” energy vs. organic. (Energy density and all that inconvenient stuff…)
What do mean by "awful"? My neighbor across the street from me is "off the grid" most of the year because of the way he designed and built his house. But it cost him a BUTTLOAD of money. And with money, you can design and build infrastructure that isn't "awful".
Nuclear energy production cannot be executed safely while placed in for-profit hands. Likewise, as demonstrated by Chernobyl, it cannot be placed in politically corrupt ones, either.
The US Navy is able to utilize nuclear power, safely, ONLY because it does not fall under those auspices.
BTW, ~ 62% of all energy production (i.e. what is produced at the power plant) is lost before it reaches your home. And there is a workable solution to a large part of that, today.
Anything other than nuclear is worse or equally as bad as fossil fuels. Things like solar panels and wind turbines get made in China, Germany etc so more jobs shipped. Plus they aren’t even that efficient. Battery storage is horse shit and the materials are extracted from earth again using underage slave labour (even liberal media admits it). Almost Everyone in western world “recycles” as in puts the cans and cardboards where they are supposed to go. But the next step of it being actually recycled isn’t happening nearly as well because we ship the plastics to China for it to be recycled an even they have started refusing it.
Meanwhile people who want climate Justice live buying their new phones, drive a car, take uber, use useless packaging for their consumer goods and so on.
China and India doesn’t do any of the climate Justice stuff but they don’t get even talked about.
It's not the left you're talking about there, but neo-liberals.
Anyway, a focus on what the USA does makes sense for people in the USA because that's the country we theoretically have some control over - or at least some influence. And, you can't really bitch at others when your own house isn't in order.
Glenn, I subscribed to your site because you practice true journalism that is sorely lacking these days. I understand that video reaches a large audience, but it's not useful to me, and I suspect many others. I read faster than most people can speak intelligibly, and I'm not going to spend my valuable time watching a video. Please post transcripts for those of us that still exercise literacy.
The scandalous recent letter by two California House "lifers" and useless Democrats Anna Eshoo and Jerry McNerney to CEO's of cable companies are truly unparalleled and represents the rise of fascism in the US -- under a guise of "fighting fascism." All these multiple attacks are clearly carefully choreographed and coordinated -- easily predicted and well understood since we should always keep in mind that there is one huge elephant in the room:
The scam of the century - the now 5-year long Russia-gate hoax initiated by Obama/Biden administration. The bipartisan decade long major crimes and hoax against Syria are equally scandalous and finally being surfaced to the US population.
The Russia-gate hoax and two-impeachment “entertainments” were concocted by Obama/Hillary/Biden/Pelosi, Schumer, Schiff, Maxine Waters, Jamie Ruskin, etc., etc. -- and their intelligence and DNC executives on behalf of their Wall Street and military and security industry donors, i.e., the War party. For them - censorship is mandatory.
I'm going to watch the video, but I did want to point out one thing. (First, I agree with you Glenn! And I hope Rep. Buck kicks some A$$.)
But thank-you for highlighting this! This is a serious issue, and I've been stumped about something. I'm a staunch conservative, who is open to other opinions, and have come to appreciate many of the perspectives that Glenn has to offer. However, I have been deeply puzzled by conservative protection of "big business" in all its forms.
Sure, I'm against excessive taxation as it has a trickle down effect on the cost of doing business. I'm also open for free expansion of business and praised President Clinton's instincts on a free and open (and untaxed) Internet. (I was working in the business at the time.)
However, somehow, Facebook, and the other tech giants, and their overwhelming power in the market place still hold some kind of magic power for some conservatives (like Kevin Williamson of National Review thinks that Facebook is the cat's meow, last I heard, though I fail to see why).
It's not just the censorship (and for the record, I'm not saying "free speech" SOOOO many people confused first amendment rights with censorship). Hint: Censorship can be done by *anyone* even you censoring yourself.
So, yes, obviously, these tech companies are censoring people. Some for legit reasons, others, not so legit. And, usually, the liberal response to such things (when countering the right leaning complaints) "Hey, go found your own twitter or facebook and let the owners of this tech do whatever they want!"
Yeah, like you can start a billion dollar competitor out of your basement. And, hey, if you do, then the tech giants will collude and knock you out of business anyway!
In any case, I want to highlight one particular example of the confusing state of our anti-trust laws, and how an article (which I read years ago and have lost the link to it) changed my mind on Amazon (who, I still probably spend $10k a year with...)
The thing is, Amazon is SO big, that any time they choose to go into a market (particularly in small business, but increasingly into even larger business, like going up against Wal-mart. Or ask Google or Oracle how they're doing in the virtual cloud business?) - Amazon de facto wins. They are overpowering. They are more than a conglomerate.
God forbid you happen to be selling anything - even on Amazon's reseller store, that Amazon decides to start selling on their own.
Yet, our anti-trust laws don't really protect sellers, do they? No, they are designed to protect consumers. So, it's going to be a beast of a journey to nail down Amazon since everything they're doing and designed to do is to deliver the cheapest price to the consumer.
Does it harm a consumer if Amazon starts making shirts, and pants and batteries, and speakers and they're all as good a quality as someone else's, and cheaper? Nope. But it could put hundreds of people out of business, but that's not really anti-trust law's problem, is it?
It's time we fix our anti-trust laws to cover those types of issues. Or really good lawyers who can figure out how to fix that practice.
And high minded conservatives need to also think in terms of the small business people who get squashed on a daily basis by the likes of Amazon.
I just about want to gag every time I read something from Williamson. While there are still a few writers I respect at Nation Review such as David Harsanyi and Charles C. W. Cooke, most of the staff are shameless, establishment neocons. Now that Jonah Goldberg and George Will left, the title of the most shameless and out of touch neocon goes to Kevin D. Williamson. He is an elitist, out of touch, corporate bootlicker who thinks he is witty, and has a pronounced authoritarian streak. A good rule of thumb for any Republican politicians going forward is to read his articles and whatever Williamson claims that "true" conservatives should do, do the opposite.
I agree with all of that, except the authoritarian part. (I even consider Cookie and Harsanyi my favorite writers there. Though, I do still like Gerarity, McCarthy and occasionally even Rich Lowry.) I still get Jonah's "newsletters" and even when he's trying NOT to talk about Trump, he still does. It's kinda pathetic, honestly. He was the model of my conservativism for twenty years.
Anyway, in Kevin's defense, he often laments just how much ...let's call it "majesty" that Americans put on their commander-in-chief, even complaining about holidays, like Presidents' Day.
However, he does have this idea that every big tech is amazing and that conservatives would be screwed if it weren't for Big Tech, and I just don't see that. One primary difference between he and I, is that I have actually worked in tech for over twenty years and KNOW we do not need this ridiculous dependence on it that the Internet has fostered.
He seems to think (and I am paraphrasing, probably wrongly) but that a big chunk of our economic boom is due to Big Tech. The problem is, he's not matching all those billions being spent with where the money is being dumped. Most of those big tech companies (Amazon being the exception, particularly as they grow their distribution network, buying their own trucks, etc) - they employ far, far, far, fewer people (including in the US) than all the other major companies in the fortunate 100.
So, that stock boom maybe helping some people with retirement funds (nothing like what the Wall Street Hedge fund managers make, etc) - and low prices are nice, but how does that help all the Google, Apple, Facebook users? It's not in jobs, which are nearly all in Silicon Valley.
In any case, where conservatism is TODAY, for the common man, for the middle class, is not in hedge funds, but in personal liberty. And these big tech firms don't give a rats butt about personal liberty. In listening to Glenn's interview, they talked a lot about where the parties are re-aligning, and part of the reason for the Lincoln idiots, and the NeverTrumpers is that they are actually on the outside of that change in conservatism. It's not just about Trump. The new political reality is actually more about class and elites vs. the common man than it has been in a long time.
Why else would a state like West Virginia change from D to R practically overnight? Or that the Rs picked up the largest gains in minorities in 2020, and lost the most in whites? Because the elites haven't caught on that it's not about race - it's once again (going back millenia here) about class. (Sorry, I digressed a bit!)
Omg. How Cooke came out Cookie.. I guess I was hungry? ;) Anyway, yes, Charles C.W. Cooke has emerged as probably my favorite writer at NRO over the last year.
And I see what you mean below about the Authoritarian stuff - e.g. it's more a passive thing behind a lot of what he says, as opposed to what he actually writing. I wonder if he even realizes that he's pushing less freedom for the individual and more power for the state.
The trouble with corporations, when they get SO big, is that there is massive collusion between the government and corporations. It definitely happened with Health Care which wallopped the middle class (and for what? Obama's Lie of the Century about keeping our health care?)
Well, Big tech is doing the same thing. More people on the Right need to get back to their roots. I mean, yes, Teddy Roosevelt was a monopoly buster. And breaking up monopolies gives more freedom to the individual.
I agree completely. The authoritarian part has only really emerged recently for me. Williamson seems less inclined to defend the Bill of Rights every year, he does not seem all that bothered by the surveillance state, he supports every lie said by the establishment about anything or anyone populist, and he has no problem with abuses of power towards those he sees as his enemies. I was never the biggest fan of Williamson but he seems like almost a different person now. Personally, the most important part of Trump becoming president is that he ripped the mask off of people I thought I knew.
Good article. I have been noting this being a GOP'er myself. My own party won't get behind laws that will help break up big tech monopolies. Meanwhile those monopolies are working to break up the GOP. I just shake my head in disbelief. The GOP needs to step up here. As a whole I have not seen big problems with the laws proposed by the Dem's. Of course that Dem bill will not be passed by Dems either as I think this is all for show. Tech money if flowing into our leaders bank accounts and they have been bought off. They will be allowed to pretend to be doing something but I am sure Facebook, Google and the like have them on a short leash: you can pretend to do something but you will not be allowed to actually enact these laws. I am really disappointed by the GOP reluctance in particular since it is my "side". But I am a strong supporter of bipartisanship and would like the D's and R's get together and break these companies up. While I agree these companies can censor constitutionally, their reach is so great they are the public square now. At a minimum these companies need to be common carriers like the phone system. If the GOP cannot get behind this then I guess they are going to go back to being the pre-Trump GOP of only supporting big business and screw the working class. The Dem's have already have become the party of the rich and big business (which is a mistake in my view). And the GOP needs the working class supporters that Trump brought into the party. The GOP was given and opportunity for a viable coalition and it sounds like they are going to blow it by going back to their big business sycophancy. Big business by their words and deeds have shown they are aligned with the Democrats. Why these GOP reps are trying to protect these monopolies means that the big tech cash has bought them off as they have the Dems and nothing of significance will be done. And big tech will rule with impunity.
Thanks Glenn for this very substantive interview with a brave, intelligent and civilized guest (oh these strange times when we can no longer expect basic civility from a member of Congress "by default" :-) ).
And -- two recent jewels worth seeing -- including Tim Dillon brief but unforgettable song:
- TYT-Jimmy Dore War Shows Toxic Pathologies in Liberal Discourse – July 5, 2021 ( OUTSTANDING ! ) System Update with Glenn Greenwald -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoXZP4m-Af8
Describing the big four's monopoly perch: "a position that enables them to write one set of rules for others, while they play by another, or to engage in a form of their own private quasi regulation that is unaccountable to anyone but themselves.”--also spot on description of the political/media ruling class as manifest in everything they touch.
Here are two issues of many no doubt, that are protecting big tech. First, of course, is their largess when it comes to the political enterprise. Both parties swill at the big tech trough. Secondly and perhaps more importantly is the intelligence bonanza available to the US government from the tech behemoths. Regardless of the rhetoric about protecting your privacy, I think by now we've all figured out that the intelligence agencies get what they ask for. If we break up big tech, perhaps those things could be negatively impacted. Can't have that.
If you don’t like liberal social media, then build your own social media.
Builds Parler, and it gets deplatformed.
That's actually a point that's made in the video. Fact is, it's extremely difficult to get a tech giant (or even social media tool) going these days, and Big Tech is now actively trying to continue their own monopolies. All the more reason for the government to step in.
Parler is back on.
Trump and Co built GRIFTR. Check it out.
Having lived and worked in the San Francisco Bay Area for many years I can say without question they are destructive, parasitic and evil entities. Whether or not they are monopolies is a question that might interest lawyers but there cannot be any doubt these companies distort market incentives and corrupt public policy. I wonder if they would even go so far as to undermine our democracy and the basic rights and freedoms so many of our ancestors fought and died for. It’s as pathetic as it is sad. As a technology enthusiast I’m angered by the stifling of competition, which is the driver of innovation, and the amazing devices, gadgets, products and services they are stealing from all of us by preventing their development on the FREE market. My hat is off to Glenn and Representative Buck for facing down these thugs!
Glen is wonderful on so many topics--international affairs, free speech, the war machine, and so on. But I cringe when he wades into economics. He's prey to all the socialist idiocies of the left. He has no practical understanding of how businesses are built and people are employed. Any student of Tech could look back on the last 30 years and see the wisdom of Milton Friedman's belief that it's the free market that destroys monopolies, not the government. It wasn't the government that brought Microsoft's monopoly down. It was the internet, along with Apple and Google and other innovative companies. Government interference in the free market works as well as government interference in free expression.
I didn't wade in on economic policy. I interviewed the extremely conservative ranking member of the House subcommittee on antitrust law about his efforts to ensure compliance. If you want to abolish laws against monopolies and antitrust, that's your right to try, but while those are laws, Google, Facebook and the others shouldn't be allowed to get away with violating them and using anti-competitive practices because they drown both parties with campaign cash and pay lobbyists to sabotage regulatory efforts to ensure compliance.
Huge supporter Glenn, but you are committing the common fallacy here of "begging the question." Facebook et al have not been proven to have a monopoly; just last week a federal just stated that prosecutors failed to prove Facebook has a monopoly in social networking and dismissed complaints.
Tech companies yield an immense amount of power no doubt, but competition amongst them is alive and well. And I think it'd be foolish to say that Google's search, maps, documents and many other free features are a net detriment to society (the consumer), even with glaring privacy concerns.
Have you read the report I referenced in the beginning? It's extremely comprehensive on that question and, in my view, very convincing. There's a summary of it here:
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/10/house-amazon-facebook-apple-google-have-monopoly-power-should-be-split/
Can you please never link ArsTechnica as a source for anything again please? They are yet another wing of the Conde Nast DNC empire (Anna Wintour's donations are easily checked on opensecrets) that has had their own CEO's caught changing content on their site at the DB level.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/adolfoflores/reddit-ceo-admits-changed-comments-on-pro-trump-page
I cannot even click that link that site has given no evidence of posting anything other than PR or bullshit, just like "the verge" telling me how to build a PC.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-2Scfj4FZk
STOP LINKING THESE SHIT SITES TO SUPPORT ANY ARGUMENT YOU HAVE
HE LINKS DIRECTLY TO THE REPORT IN THE FIRST SENTENCE OF HIS ARTICLE LMAO
CAN YOU DO ANYTHING
HES LITERALLY QUOTING ARS TECHNICA IN THE ARTICLE I AM REPLYING TO
CAN YOU READ ANYTHING
The people who have been lobotomized do not know it has happened, due to the lobotomy.
In this case, conde-naste takeover of the entire formerly technical techincal press some years ago now. They have no idea this occurred. They believe they are referencing technical experts, when all the experts left after the dumb down into the marketing channel you are referring to.
All of the technical publications that used to be great are now purile sales noise.
Yes. It is all about the BRAND. Now Harvard has "campuses" in many many places. Even in China you can go to Harvard and get that coveted degree.
Again. John Le Carre: The pedigree of the information is what is crucial always.
John Le Carre: The pedigree of the information is what is crucial always.
My friend got banned for one day for reposting a quote of Shakespeare. Jes sayin'
The court also ruled that the sun doesn’t have a monopoly on light.
Considering all the social
Media companies colude together to censor people at the same time, how is it not monopolistic? Google has over 90% of search and even more of video streaming. How is that not monopolistic?
It has beenimpossibletomarket the. sun for energy purposes. Why it hasn't gone over big.
Collusion occurs in secret. This censorship is out in the open. Maybe "mobbing" is the right term.
Much of it is still invisible. Like banning someone - my friend - for reposting a quote by Shakespeare on facebook. AI will never work. So we should applaud it for its stupidity. Actually I love it when Iget banned. Ihave noticed now I get lots of pop ups refuting what I say and quoting the CDC or some such other agency of. the federal govt as its. unpedigreed information
The free market capitalist in me has to respond with - "Because they dont have 100% and aren't actively attempting to suppress competition."
There are plenty of other markets where individual companies have similar market shares. Why are we picking and choosing which industries should be regulated. Either regulate all or none.
Either you cant exceed a threshold of market share or you can have it all. We cant have it both ways in capitalist America.
Yes we probably should be regulating those other markets too then. Feel free to get on top of pushing for that. In the meantime, there's no good reason not to regulate this one, is there? Do we need to wait until we can simultaneously regulate EVERYTHING before we start to regulate ANYTHING?
Yes regulate andmake themstronger and stronger. That's exactly what they want you. to propose and do. Then there will be no change. Voila! Marcuse here andhis Pac-Man metaphor is relevant.
If you discover #Varoufakis andhis new book #AnotherNow he wonderfully deconstructs capitalism for you, then elicits carefully a new economic system of "Markets without Capitalism." It is ingenious and brilliant.And he walks the walk and did by goingtothe EU for Greece and then resigning and blabbing about what they really do and did. His conversation with Obama is juicy, dicey and the best quotes ever on The Obama.
He's a lifelong academic and Marxist and isn't really my type of individual.
Which country did capitalists bankrupt?
Did you want to cite something to support this statement?
But even Rand said "there has never been free capitalism." Regulation keeps it from imploding. in on itself. Capitalism gets regulated into saving capitalism and FDR did it.
Yes this is Rand 's Atlas Shrugged.
Again, "free-market" is nearly always misunderstood and I suggest it's better to simply call it what it is, commerce - sans capitalism.
There's more at play here, I think. FB may not be a monopoly in the legal sense but what is this "immense power" you speak of. Why the biased and selective censorship? Why the revolving door relationships with career government officials? Focussing on whether FB is a monopoly or not appears to be yet another distraction ploy to keep us otherwise engaged while Big Tech does the bidding of the entrenched (global) interests. Somewhere in there is the real story of how and why this immense power manifests itself.
Yes. It places the argument square in the middle of the Dominating Discourse which is BINARY and keeps us occupied playing forever ping-pong for distraction and achieving busyness.
Virilio for the devil in the details
Why are we only talking about Big tech? Why aren't we holding all media to this same standard?
Why are only the tech barons something that need to have regulation? Oh right because currently they arent yet completely working for either the DNC or RNC.
I believe the differentiator between Big Tech and other "traditional" media began in 1995 with a court decision.
Kind of interesting, actually...
http://www.tomwbell.com/NetLaw/Ch04/Stratton.html
Before the Internet, bookstores, publishers and even newsstands had to legally ensure that the newspapers they distributed were not considered defamatory. Courts initially extended this principle to online platforms.
Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act immunizes online platforms for their users’ defamatory, fraudulent, or otherwise unlawful content. Congress granted this benefit to facilitate true diversity of political discourse. This exemption from standard libel law is extremely valuable to the companies that enjoy its protection, such as Google, Facebook, and Twitter! Big Tech got this special dispensation because it was assumed (myopically) that they would operate as impartial, open channels of communication and NOT curators of acceptable opinion.
The media is a fucking HATE MACHINE. Virlilio on the hate part.
Much like unions the media has been twisted from the good it once was into something far more sinister and compromised.
The moment the 1960's hippies stopped protesting and started raising families, the shitlords moved right back in :(
Because the IDEOLOGICAL STATE APPARATUS FOR THE REPRODUCTION OF THE IDEOLOGY OF THE RULING CLASS has not yet beeninscribed on their foreheads and inside their brain neurons. Why I keep repeating is like a MacDonald jingle. the media is doing exactly what itis designed to do. It is doing it perfectly. dont knock it for being bad. Knock it for being perfect.
It amuses me when as we teach history in our schools we learn about those terrible monopolies of the late 1800’s: Big oil, big steel, etc. those companies were playing patty cake compared to the rapaciousness of Bill Gates Et. Al
All those companies you mention were empowered by the government. The railroads right of way etc etc etc. They were not true free capitalistic monopolies. The camouflage over themnow just conceals the real
"Facebook et al have not been proven to have a monopoly" The only "proofs" are in mathematical theorems. There is no way to "prove" that facebook is or is not a monopoly. It is impossible. One can only get statistic inference at a .o5- .o1 or .0X level of significance. That's it William. Only a judicial can call that ball and we all know that the "Legal and Judicial machine is a IDEOLOGICAL STATE APPARATUS FOR THE REPRODUCTION OF THE IDEOLOGY OF THE RULING CLASS. See #Althusser pdf on this.
And just how are you measureing competition? How weak or how strong? U must be able to define your terms when you go after Glenn. He is not a stupid man. It is obvious you are ill educated in ? American Universities perhaps? Derek Bok has written an excellent book on the poor education served up in the US at all universities these days. And even quite awhile before these days.
Googles searches, maps etc "used to be very informative." They are not any longer so stuffed with ads and pop ups for money one has to leave the google browser to get the help one needs that Google used to provide. Anyway Facebook Google and Twitter are committing suicide IMO only. When they indulge in propaganda and censoring they lose all the good will they once spent so much time developing.
Despite this terrible, grammatically error-ridden rant, I'll bite. The burden of proof is on the legal system. It's that simple. They are innocent until proven guilty under the American system. They have not been proven guilty as of now and are thus, not guilty at this point in time. Unfortunately you have your logic backwards where you assume guilt.
And your linguistic comment on my grammatical errors (I haven't bothered to check) has long been identified by feminism as the male patriarch's method of DOMINATING through language. I like that you did it. Nice catch for me. Thanks so much.
There is nosuch thingas PROOF except in pure mathematics. Your definition of"proof" is only a statistical level of significance. This is what Einstein meant when he said, "I dont believe God plays dice with the universe." g\Go argue with Einstein. He said it not me.
We are talking about legal proof, not mathematical. This doesn't have to be so hard.
The only thing better is listening to Freidman Fellators and Reagan-Randroids whining about "liberals" shutting down Parler.
Oh Irony...where is thy sting?
Parler was an example of suppressing competition and is a rare example that actually has merit in the antitrust position against big tech.
You are wise to pretend it isn't important as a matter of PR for the DNC. Tell Mr. Brock you need a promotion.
The fact that it was suppressed has made it a player for those of us who get censored. What is it about that that you dont like?
They have made Parler very very attractive and even more wealthy. Neat catch eh.
You think it was a coincidence that the "rioters" (who were FBI informants btw) went to the RNC-controlled social media platform to do this?
You don't think that was all part of the plot from day 1? Lock down social media and try and impeach Trump again for constitutionally protected speech and at the same time destroy a fledgling conservative-run social media app and be able to show your constituents an example of big tech being nasty without even hitting your own supporters like FB or Twitter.
Open your eyes, Parler was a casualty of the war to win the elections of 2020 which bailed out every DNC state in the country.
REgulate and you make. them stronger. Marcuse: Pac-Man metaphor. Devour the opposition and grow ever stronger with their food in. your stomach.
The Cartel is an invisiblecorporation. Like diamonds and debeers........
There is no 'competition' when it comes to free speech. Something has to be done about Big Tech censorship mostly of conservative POVs. The fact that Donald Trump can't participate on these platforms but every other tin pot dictator around the world can is damaging to our civil life and promotes corrutpion.
STOP! This is of great VALUE! When you are censored you become VALUED but only by those who recognize your value. As Bolano said about all the junk books piled up[ in boodstores, that this is a good thing. It allows you todiscover treasures to read. And Bolano is a TREASURE to read. All ofhis work. I remember how we felt when the Catholic Church banned books in the 1940's and 50's. God's Little Acre by Erskine Caldwell. Wow! We carefull passed it around. We were thrilled! There was a RAPE scene in it, and incest and we loved it. Actually it is now a classic literary achievement that PC feminists will ban when they find young adults reading it, but it is a true literary classic not only of its time but of ours also. Forever Amber was a best seller, not literary but definitely banned. And Payton Place? Banning made those novels and made their writers very very rich. 50 Shades of Grey is still the top selling ever on the NYTimes book list. SEX PORN FOR WOMEN! Mostly soft but a little bit hard. CENSORING SELLS! Dont knock it.
I'll check again. It was so full ofjunk the last time Ilooked I left.
OK willcheckthis out. Iwanted Trump. Not because of any CONTENT he offered but by the fact that he was and was going to unpack, destruct the "Institutional Political Discourse." He fulfilled my wish totally.Only Zizek validated me so I felt strong. The DISCOURSE is GROUND in McLuhan's sense. It is invisible so 99% dont even see it or knowit is there. And it isthe most powerful of all MEDIUMS.
The Donald has already done his utmost radical gift for us. He has brought down the house. He has opened the fly trapand released all the transparent lies, the fake Discourse of Washington DC full of meaningless tripe, the exposure of every one of them for all of. us to see if our eyes are open and are ears have been cleaned. He has already done it. Now he probably will seek real power which is to head the GOP machine to set in place a strong opposition to the DNC. Ihave little hope about that.
"As an Apple user, I’d hate to be forced to move to some crappy product that does not function, is inefficient with a minimal lifespan."
Um... You DO know, don't you, how Apple has been PROVEN to, and later ADMITTED to screwing with phone batteries and phone performance _specifically_ to get you to "upgrade" from your old iphone to a new one, RIGHT?
In this present capitalistic culture no matter how big and strong your company corporation is, you must continually metastasize like cancer cells to grow and be competitive in the GLOBALIZED WORLD CAPITALISTIC CULTURE! You have no alternative. The planet is out of space. Ways to do this are limited only by your own imagination. SO YOU CHEAT!
Since you never like to cite anything let me do it for you.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/apple-lawsuit-slow-iphones_n_5a3edcd6e4b0b0e5a7a293fc
My brain freezes at the word huffpost. I amnot doubting you on this, I amjust saying this BRAND has been ruined for me by their past behavior so me do not trust.
A lot of companies do that, though. It's called planned obscelecence
Yes. Now tell us something we dont know.
Yes, and several forms of it should be outlawed... I recommend a mechanism for doing that to be providing favoritism in the court system for the starting and progression of class-action suits where it's easy for consumers to identify artificial faults (as opposed to inherent limitations) that cause product premature failure; it harms not only the buyer but also our shared environment.
I have a Blü brand G5 phone, and FAR too many computers to comment about here. The phone, unlocked, cost about $75, and is very comparable to last-years IPhone.
BTW, if you want a good deal for a desktop computer to replace your ipad or Macintosh with that's likely to meet _most_ computer user's needs for a great price, try the Raspberry Pi 4 Model B 8G. Yes, you'll need to be savvy enough to order up the extra components you'll need to get what you want, such as your own video screen, keyboard, mouse, etc, but the base price is $75 and you can have the whole thing up and going for well under $200 if you already have a monitor, keyboard and mouse - and maybe even if you don't! AND, it has TWO "4k" video hdmi feeds, either or both of which can be touch-screens... It has 1G "ethernet" and a wi-fi that covers all current standards, and blue-tooth, etc, etc, etc. ... Why spend $2k+ for the Apple?! PLUS, with the right case, the main unit will fit in your shirt pocket!
To say the Apple products are overpriced is an understatement.
O I wish I could understand this better.
Look up how much market share Omnicare had in the long term care healthcare industry when they got sold to CVS in 2015.
They had something like 74% of the entire LTC industry which is bigger than illegal drugs ;)
The DNC is so deep in bed with the big healthcare industry its disgusting. The same industry that hasn't "cured" anything in hundreds of years.
It is not its purpose to CURE anything at all. THE HEALTH CARE INDUSTRY IS AN IDEOLOGICAL STATE APPARATUS FOR THE REPRODUCTION OFTHE IDEOLOGY OFTHE RULING CLASS. Sorry if I am being repetitive but once you get this you will understand that criticism of ANY state apparatus is futile. The State Apparatus is doing EXACTLY WHAT IT WAS DESIGNED TO DO. Perpetuate itself. Why voting changes nadda.
That is what they believe their purpose is but I believe their purpose is to provide actual results which we really dont see these days :(
And guess who will buy the stocks and cash in? You? Or Nancy Pelosi? Or some other in the know.
yes
Jules Henry in #Culture Against Man: Under capitalism schools teach children to hate each other in socially acceptable ways. You cannot compete with your "brother" and drive him/her out of business if you "love" your brother/sister as yourself. I'll leave the rest of you to play with this one. My great regret is that I never could sit in on classes with Jules Henry at Washington University in St. Louis by the time I found him. I did meet a remarkable woman later who had and had been very influenced by him.
I don’t find the Ars Technica article compelling. A naive reader would come away with the idea that operating a business with network effects, privileging your own search results, or operating a marketplace that sellers can’t afford not to use are illegal.
AFAIK those are all legal.
The way Apple operates its App Store is almost identical to the way that game console companies operate, down to the generous commission on sales and policies on in app purchases. Yet I almost never see this comparison when people report on Apple’s App Store policies.
You mean, it's an additional thing non-gamers should understand should be shut down?
This is the point. The lack of experience. Just as Trump thought it was a swamp and it is an ocean
Would someone kindly share how lobbyists sabotage regulatory efforts? Thank you in advance.
FDR saved capitalism with the New Deal. Capitalism requires regulatipon, restrictions to keep on going. As Marcuse tells us capitalism is like Pac-Man. It devours its opposition only to digest it and make itself stronger. Capitalism MUST have opposition or it will implode. We are now in a time of SPEED.
We probably agree more than disagree when it comes to extolling the virtues of a free market, but Parler being de-platformed is probably a prime example of what the report refers to when it states; "these firms typically run the marketplace while also competing in it — a position that enables them to write one set of rules for others, while they play by another, or to engage in a form of their own private quasi regulation that is unaccountable to anyone but themselves."
Again, for a free market to have a chance at defeating monopolies, it must first BE a free market.
I viewed the banning of Parler as less of a monopolistic antic and more Big Tech throwing the DNC a political bone. But in doing so they showed are full partners in the administrative state.
"they are"
Banning is a greathonor. A great club to have joined. When I was a child it was banned books by The Church of Rome. Then the hunt was on to find a copy and READ it! Erskine Caldwell's God's Little Acre (1933) such a dirty little book then and so important now. I was in 9th grade and it was "so adult" to me, so forbidden, so desired like that apple in the Garden of Eden. God knew what he was doing eh.
My thoughts exactly. Although there may not have been an overt agreement, Apple, Alphabet (Google), and Amazon, almost simultaneously killed the phledgling Parler.
This is all good. PIarler will rise again no doubt. Freedom is in the air now that dominatiuon and totalitarianism are asserting. I always think of democracy being born in Greece while slavery was there giving the philosophers leisure time to think. And then reappearing again in the North American colonies by those themselves who enslaved others. Again the unknown?known creeps in on little cat feet. Slavery signals liberty. Without slavery liberty would be invisible.
Ah you are right smack with Varoufakis of Greece. His new book #AnotherNow imagines "markets without capitalism" which he also discusses in lectures on youtube. I really like the one he gives to Boston students of Marx. As he says "financial capitalism" is what we have now, not markets. The beginning was the East India Company that had such fantastically imagined trading it required huge sums no one comapny could come up with so "SHARES WERE INVENTED" and that was the beginning during the time Shakespeare was writing Hamlet. A neat Foucauldian CUT. It's not long. Varoufakis is so intelligent - sexy I think - witty and so free that his charisma shines.
Ah if you dont know then read Virlio. "The shadow knows." Today I hae watch MSNBC which Is so periciouc I have had an anxiety stomach all day long. It is the most dangerous media out there for a particular segment of the masses. SPEED - Virlio again the architect of the theoretical imprtance and danger of SPEED - is vibrating in your face on that chanel. All the talking comes bullet fast. There is no reasoned explanation of anything at all. You are word bombed, "information bomb" as Einstein named it, to the point of no comprehension whatsoever. The wordsmiths just pour it on you like honey and red pepper all mixed together and THERE IS NOT A MOMENT TO THINK WHAT IS SAID OR TO CRITICALLY EVALUATE WHAT YOU JUST HEARD ND WATCHED. Right there is Virilio's "NICE CATCH" on McLuhan who completely missed VELOCITY as the crucial variable. Think Trump hating on and on and on but with a certainl amount of ho hum in it. But along came a spider who sat down beside us and its name was COVID and the WORLD-WIDE snynchronous hysterical state of FEAR was born. And still the VELOCITY kept on and on with all those inflated numbers of positives and manipulated deaths on the right of the screen. The US and the World going up in Flameful Fear. And there I am a few nights a week on the running trreadmill at Planet Fitness dividing deaths by "positives" and getting at first 2.8% and the trending down of month after month. Hey I went through the POLIO epidemic and that disease was far worse if you lived! And yet WE WERE NOT AFRAID. We had Roosevelt how went thruough it saying, "The only thing to fear is fear itself." So we followed him and were not afraid. Joni Mitchell had it as a child. Her parents stopped coming to see her. She was doomed so better to detach than to suffer eh. And Joni deicded nnope I'm not going that way now. She fought. Who knows how. But she won. And then there was Dr. Temple Fay -Faye? - at the med school of Temple University taking polio patients and using vibraters on them to induce orgasms and people thought he was crazy. Probably just following Wilhelm Reich in his thinking and practice of Orgone Therapy. i wonder;.
Web hosting can be achieved without relying on companies like Amazon. It’s expensive but it can be done. Gab achieved it by building their own infrastructure.
Things like apps on the App Store on the other hand can’t be done. Those are gatekept by Apple and Google.
As someone who hosts web services for some 60-ish domain names (mostly from friends of mine), I can tell you it's not at all expensive - or at least need not be.
Hmm, do you rent a rack space somewhere? I think the costs are not linear with the growth of the size of the hosting.
Hosting aside, one is still at the mercy of Google (at least today), as they may suppress the search (like they did with Gabbard). There is also the actual domain registration that can be denied (wouldn't surprise me).
"mm, do you rent a rack space somewhere?"
Why rent when you can own? ...I have my own rack, and have had for about 25 years or so now. a reasonably high-speed link, some technical savvy for computer administration, and you're good to go.
But of course, renting rack space somewhere isn't crazy expensive, either, and I've done that on a few occasions when the network demands were more than I / we cared to fund to my own place. In this case, you get what's called a "colo" - co-location - service where there's a cage inside a computer room that's all your own and you can have as many racks inside that room as you care to afford. The provider provides electrical power, networking, and air conditioning, a physical security program (including a live video feed of your cage) and you do everything else yourself - and I mean _everything._ ...I usually configure things so I have a clone at my rack and use binary replication to keep the machines synchronized in the event of failure, including a logging system to track changes as they occur and can back-track if a cracking (AKA "hacking" by people not in the industry) event is detected, so reduced risk for data loss. (That doesn't protect against _copies_ being made, though, if you get cracked.)
So far as we're aware, we've only ever been cracked _once,_ and it was by a major US MILC player who was in competition with us over a NASA contract - we found out because they'd tried to use some internal documentation to convince our customer we weren't competent to satisfy their needs, and our customer shared the documents with us. We explained the stolen information and ended up getting the contract.
We found out when I was visiting a NASA facility in person, and I called the office immediately and told 'em to take us offline _that_instant._ We did a _complete_ scrape and re-installation of our _entire_ computing environment, and went offline while it was in progress. And before going back online, we upped our game regarding network security, from "competent" to "paranoid." So far as we know, never cracked since, but our logs show us attempts at all hours of the day, every day, on-going...
Anyway, for an informed, competent staff, this stuff is relatively easy, it's just that so many people can't be bothered to hire "informed, competent staff" as we're not $15 / hour people. ... I do this for most of my friends, especially when their needs are modest, for free, or at most trade favors now and then - such as one guy manages an off-site backup for us in exchange for a production environment on our servers.
Power begets power. The level of market freedom available nearly always correlates to eventual high levels of industry concentration. Thus, ironically for conservatives, the *continuance* of *actual* market freedom always needs to be enforced ... by government.
How, or when, did these companies become monopolies? During the heyday of neoliberalism.
"How, or when, did these companies become monopolies? During the heyday of neoliberalism."
And given a giant push by Citizens United.
(come for the corruption, stay for the Fascism)
Anyone at Burning Man over the last 10 years saw the wretchedly excessive freight train of shit hurtling at themselves. I was the recipient of said shit, and copious amounts of LSD only clarified the perception.
I've heard (and read, of course) 8P Glad I experienced only '00 and '01. Although I was itching to go later, some told me 'just *don't* do it'.
I went to the first few, but when they moved to the desert, the timing was bad, and I haven't been since. -shrug- Sounds like it has morphed into something it wasn't when it began.
Probably impossible to avoid given the population growth, even without the aforementioned "corruption". (Actually, I don't view much in art as corruption, per se, usually just infinitely fascinating social transformation.) If you were there on the beach, I don't see how it could be qualitatively like the city it was already in '00.
The elephant in the room is that when you have enough power to corrupt the markets, they are no longer free. Devour your competition and neuter the justice system with the regulatory state and you can be a monopoly too
Milton Friedman:
The punchline to the joke nobody told. It's Friedman's "philosophy" that has us in the mess we're in now.
> he wisdom of Milton Friedman's belief that it's the free market that destroys monopolies
hahahaha! thanks for the good laugh. Maybe MSFT missed the internet things because it was busy defending its monopolistic behavior?
It is only government that can provide and guarantee a free market. Otherwise you get the Free Market, Somalia Edition.
I've said it before and I'll say it again; a conscientious and informed public has the ability to regulate a market all their own, and with the efficiency and expediency not remotely possible for a government.
Now, is our apathetic, zombie-like society capable of such conscientious behavior? Seems doubtful, but I submit that change would happen a lot sooner than a just and regulated market would, via the federal government.
I know, I know, I'm an ignorant, naive, ________.
We don't need a "just and regulated market". We need more fragmentation in tech. Breaking things is actually something that government does regularly. Let them have a crack at Big Tech. Ramping up the diversity requirements in those companies is a start. Government could also promote unionization, community set-asides, etc.
You are fine :) If a bit idealistic ;)
I'm afraid the same argument critics of Marxism use applies here just as well - the 'human nature' is what will never let this happen.
What hasn't this happened in Somalia yet? Society is not that apathetic there, yes?
Thanks for going easy on me, Sasha. Idealism is not such an easy thing to express these days, but it sure is a more pleasant mindset than the alternative.
If you're interested in my view on the role of human nature, you can find my comment just above. All the best! -Joshua
Hey, we are two of a kind :)
My ideas might not be that great, though. Or maybe I'm older? ;)
But then people wouldn't be making so much money in a conscientious and informed public that can regulate a market all their own.
One of Marxism's key insights that made him popular is that capitalism isn't just unjust, it's also self-contradictory. His core economic idea was that capitalism and competition are incompatible, because a perfectly competitive market yields no profit. Therefore, according to Marx, any good capitalist would seek not competition, but advantage. https://www.forbes.com/sites/gregsatell/2014/10/17/peter-thiel-believe-it-or-not-is-a-marxist/?sh=1669ea89466e
The article you linked repudiates the idea that the world is easily reducible to mathematical / logical formulas which seriously undermines the significance of the contradiction. It also points out specifically that the contradiction was challenged substantially by Schumpeter.
Where were you planning to find this conscientious and informed public? Yes, you are naive. That's only a bad thing when it drives you to embrace and expound bad ideas. If we had such a conscientious and informed public, I wouldn't be worried about government either, because we'd have wise voters and politicians.
"Self-regulating" free market assumes a couple of absurdities:
1) There are no people willing to treat the world as a zero-sum game and who will take advantage of others' conscientiousness and sense of fairness.
2) Network effects do not drive natural monopolies.
These are both easily observable.
Proud of yourself, are you? It took longer than I expected, but as sure as the day is long, you finally arrived. By "you", I mean a person filled with such underserved hubris, not even they actually believe in it, evidenced by their need to "pile on" a comment that already acknowledged the shortcomings. What else do you do for fun (validation) - stand outside mental health clinics and berate the depressed? [slow clap]
Let's take a closer look at your contribution, shall we?
"Where were you planning to find this conscientious and informed public?" You don't "find it", it is cultivated over countless generations. While idealistic, I'm not so naive as to think there is an easy, quick fix. No such solution exists, and certainly not from electing the right politicians. Well, save for those who realize that it's not their job to cure all of society's ills, or so arrogant to believe they're capable - THAT would be a great start. Lest you think the human condition reacts to force better than self-actualisation? I'd argue the opposite is "easily observable".
"If we had such a conscientious and informed public, I wouldn't be worried about government either, because we'd have wise voters and politicians" Not sure "wise" has anything to do with it, unless you're referring to emotional wisdom. I'd posit that humanity's greatest asset, our emotions, is also its greatest obstacle. Like a broadsword in the hands of a child, we are not developed (evolved) enough to wield this unfathomably, powerful tool. Take us, for example - two people capable of much better things to do than engage in pithy comments, but alas, servicing the ego is such a tempting force, yes?
Look, human NATURE, for all its' flaws, is capable of evolving like anything else in nature. Does a top down government aid in this evolution or hinder? This is the fundamental question at hand, I think.
Have a god day, Mr. Wurzer.
It would probably have been more polite to say that you are idealistic. I chose to use the word you did ("I know, I know, I'm an ignorant, naive"), and it was thoughtlessly rude of me.
However, that doesn't really change my point: we need idealism and idealistic people, but when that idealism serves to embrace policies that actually gut the morality and benefit that results from the idea they embrace and harm everyone, the idealism is harmful. You didn't make any policy suggestions, so my rancor here is perhaps misplaced, especially since you acknowledged that our society (in its current state) isn't capable of producing such a self-regulating free market.
In the realm of theory, I don't think human nature has evolved much in the < 10,000 years we've had civilization. It does evolve, and will continue to do so -- largely on a scale that is imperceptible to any of us over the course of a lifetime (though it doesn't have to be), and it will be driven by what makes us successful (and unsuccessful) in passing on our genes.
That basic, very slowly changing human nature does far more rapidly change how it's expressed with culture. Perhaps a change in cultural expression of our current nature can bring about the the kind of informed and conscientious public you'd need. However, I'd want to see that before I'm willing to entertain purist ideas that, absent said public, have a demonstrated tendency towards monopoly and large-scale harm for the benefit of few (and, as monopoly seeks to further entrench and enrich itself, oligarchy). I don't have much hope on this score, but stranger things have happened, and efforts to engender a conscientious and informed public seem like a good activity libel to pay dividends for any success it may achieve, even absent the ultimate goal.
Question: how does the informed and conscientious public avoid the problem of monopolies through network effects? To me the answer is regulation, which of course is rather inimical to free market self-regulation. Did you have some other mechanism in mind?
There's a lot to respond to here. First and foremost, thanks for taking my return jabs (albeit even harsher in nature) in stride and not ramping up the discord. No apology was necessary, either.
I must admit that I have nothing specific or original to offer in terms of a short term solution. As I think we're in the process of illustrating, we (society) must first isolate and understand what the actual problem is (in some cases figure if there really is a problem) before enacting a solution is possible. To do otherwise, merely mutates the problem, or creates all new ones. IOW, we need to stop treating symptoms (poorly) and search for the pathogen. To say I lack the wherewithal to even broach such a task, is the ultimate understatement. I don't mind offering some thoughts on the matter, though, and I'll start with your question.
I'm not an expert in the field of network effects, but based on my cursory knowledge of the matter, it seems to me that it, in and of itself, is a good thing. It's merely a way in which the users and company experience increased value in a geometric (if not exponential) fashion. Presumably, this is good for everyone involved. The problem ONLY comes when this value is leveraged as power to do harm. Admittedly, this harm can manifest in a myriad of ways with censorship and anti-competitiveness seemingly the biggest issues at present. Ultimately, it doesn't matter what the issue is, though. Just as we like to say with democracy - that the government's power is derived from we the people, so too with public (and private) enterprise. Except with one huge, massive, difference! Rather than having to wait till the next election to vote someone out (only in hopes that the next person isn't as bad or worse); theoretically, those same people could just vote with their money instead. The company would then be faced with immediate call to action. They would either have to change the objectionable actions, post haste, or lose that value (by extension their power) even quicker than it was accrued.
If you agree in theory, this leads us back to our mutually agreed issue of a society that is either severely polarized, misinformed, or just utterly apathetic. Ironically, this same societal "rot" which prevents "self governance", seems only to get worse the more we succeed responsibility to the government.
As for the evolutionary aspect, it's been way too long of a day, and that's way too involved of subject matter to delve in now. I appreciate your input on the subject, though. Till next time, all the best.
Don't forget the coup instigator Musk :)
Musk isn't in the same category, really. . . I see the other two as having no redeeming qualities and that Musk does. -shrug-
Well, he dated Heard, so that's something :)
I think it's great for this conversation that you cite the Chicago School's most notable Nobel Laureate, Milton Friedman in a discussion about the role of Big Tech and government. I remember a Chicago politician they called the 'the Social Media President', who went on to exclaim, the internet and social media are “the single biggest threat to our democracy.” Do you have any practical understanding of how a Political Machine is built and who they employ? We now have a political machine that has captured the reigns of democracy and keeps all the establishment dogs on the same leash. If the government isn't going to bring the monopolies down, these monopolies could bring down the government. I can't remember reading about an era in which politics wasn't a corrupt and dirty business. Is that the free market?
Wow, ask Chiki and Argentina how they did with Milton Friedman "free trade". Google and Facebook are destroying their competition via blatant privacy and constitutional violations. It's the representative governments job (the people's will) to correct those who violate our rights to information, discussions, access to opposing views, and free trade. These technocrats are not participating in fair trade or competition. Read the report. Talk to the censored.
This illustrates PURE ignorance about the field under discussion:
"Any student of Tech could look back on the last 30 years and see the wisdom of Milton Friedman's belief that it's the free market that destroys monopolies"
AAAAAAAAAAAAAaaahahahaha.
Buddy, I joined TANO - Technical Associates of New Orleans - in 1979, and have been engaged in the computer industry ever since, and, first of all, Milton Friedman doesn't know the first thing about this topic, and secondly, the real-world hasn't performed as you suggest; the "free market" _creates_ monopolies, buddy.
Free markets, when these companies are predatory? It's kind of like China's free market system. You made me cringe with your foray into economics, but more so with your understanding of freedom.
Did the market destroy Standard Oil, the big trusts of the 1890s, Bell telephone, etc?. No, the Sherman Act did. Have the big banks lost their market power after crushing the world economy in 2008? No, in fact, they've gotten bigger through government capture and their own size. Microsoft never had an absolute monopoly, but an extreme duopoly with Apple. This hasn't really changed either.
You do realize that Milton Friedman's ideas (and by extension the Chicago school and Austrian school of economic thought) were the main drivers of neoliberalism markets (which is just laissez-faire capitalism 2.0), right?
If you... s t i l l ...haven't read Shoshana Zuboff's "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism," you have no place in this conversation. Go educate yourself and come back. aw
Yes and Rand saw this very well. She was a wonderful desciple of Nietzsche. "To get rid of something carry it to excess and it immplodes,"which she wrote in her journal Jan 1 just as she started Atlas that day. But why is she held up as the symbol of FREE capitalism? Because she knew but didn't know she knew. Rumsfeld's the "unknown/known" so laughed at at the time he uttered it. It is straight from the brain of Zizek reading opposites through Hegel and permuting them into 4 ipairs. If you can learn to think like Zizek instead of arguiing theories of his online it will help. All these companies were start-ups by start uippers. But it is inevitable that a beginning of great promise will "METASTASIZE" like cancer cells into a bureaucratic webbed monolith consuming everything it can get in its paws and continuing to grow. But as Marcuse tells us in his Pac-man metaphor "capitalism eats its op[osition only to become stronger." This is what Roosevelt knew but didn't know he knew, another example of the unknown/known. Roosevelt SAVED capitalism with his NEW DEAL of wonderfully imagined Gederal programs and Federal Agencies to regulate and empower those outside the feast. These young wizards operated freely without restrictions because govt had no idea of what they were, what they were doing until much too late.You see govt during that time had greatly entrenched their own bureaucracy and lost focus and have not regained it as govt is now a career not a service. All regulation does is strengthen the corporations. We need opposites to focus our attention and thinking. Would night even exist without daytime sunshine. Or turn that on its head, invert it, and you see it is the same. As Rand said, "When govt tells you what it is going to do to please you, turn it inside out and extract its opposite and you will know what it is going to do." FDR said we are not going to war on foreign shores and then Pearl Haror was arranged. Now it is getting more sophisticated as Jung's statement that all of politics can be understood from the point of view of projection. Think Trump a minute and every acfcusation hurled at him - some very true- and also very true of his accusers as well as ones he was innocent of his accusers were not. That is what we are getting now. Glen misses this as do all the other journalists, and what would it change if people knew this and thought this way? It is deadly to know when you can't unknow. And knowing does no good and does incredible harm to the knower. Writers have written this for decades and decades. Few have excaped its horror. Think Conrad and his Heart of Darkness and Kurtz's last cry of his dying breath, "The horror! The horror."
Thanks for likeing this. I fixed the typos and edited it a bit and ppublished it on my newsletter FOCUSFREE. I am resisting doing an email marketing thing. I learned a lesson form STROLLI" who started his own Italian restaurant in South Philly during the late 70's. My gf and I loved it and told him she had seen no advertising on it until the New York Times had a clip on it. Stroli told us "I plannned it that way. If people discover it on their own IT BECOMES THEIR PLACE, THEIR RESTAURANT! THE ONE THEY KNEW BEFORE EVERYONE ELSE. IT IS THEIRS! So I thought I would try that to let people discover what I am thinking about and writing since I cant stop it anyway. We will see. I love those odd books I find at used bookstores that I never heard of before and decide to try.
As I understand it one of the reasons Microsoft didn’t kill off or co-opt Google was the recent antitrust suit the DOJ had pursued against Microsoft. I want these companies much more concerned about their illiberal marketplace activities. I want the government very scared about “we the people”. Right now I live in fear. They should be living in fear
Those in fear are easy to manipulate, so beware of living in fear, it's bad for ya.
Economics, religion, fashion, and politics…the Four Horsemen of Quackery.
Rep Buck stated that the big tech companies spend $50 million on lobbying. That's all you need to know to understand why nothing is being done, despite all the rhetoric.
And that's just lobbying. More importantly, I'd like to know how much the spend in campaign contributions. It's all bribes. Legal bribes, but still bribes.
“There was a huge gap between GOP rhetoric about the evils of Big Tech and the actions of House Republicans”
It’s almost as if most Republican politicians are like most Democratic politicians.
Sad.
Most politicians are whores, including Republicans.
How dare you insult the working girls of this country by comparing them to politicians!
As a person much wiser than myself said:
"Politics is a kind of greasy pole climbing contest - where the object is not to see who can climb the pole the fastest or the farthest, but rather...who can emerge with the cleanest shirt."
Republicans = incompetent spineless cucks
Democrats = evil identity politics exploiters
The local "D" bosses tried to get my father (a Depression-Era/WW2 success story) to run for office for years. My father refused. Only after years of foray into local politics (in both the "D" and "R" side of the house) did I finally understand why.
I stopped voting over 25 years ago based, at least in part, on that very sentiment.
1. Justice Clarence Thomas opined couple months ago discussing big tech censorship quite extensively. The case was regarding whether Trump was allowed to block people on Twitter and it being a 1st amendment violation. While the case was declared moot as Trump left office, Justice Clarence Thomas took the opportunity to discuss censorship. How politicians like Trump aren't allowed to block users on big tech but big tech is able to block and ban government employees and how this creates a weird power dynamic. Here's a couple excerpts:
"But whatever may be said of other industries, there is clear historical precedent for regulating transportation and communications networks in a similar manner as traditional common carriers. Candeub 398–405. Telegraphs, for example, because they “resemble[d] railroad companies and other common carriers,” were “bound to serve all customers alike, without discrimination." ... "Internet platforms of course have their own First Amendment interests, but regulations that might affect speech are valid if they would have been permissible at the time of the founding. See United States v. Stevens, 559 U. S. 460, 468 (2010). The long history in this country and in England of restricting the exclusion right of common carriers and places of public accommodation may save similar regulations today from triggering heightened scrutiny—especially where a restriction would not prohibit the company from speaking or force the company to endorse the speech." ... "The similarities between some digital platforms and common carriers or places of public accommodation may give legislators strong arguments for similarly regulating digital platforms. [I]t stands to reason that if Congress may demand that telephone companies operate as common carriers, it can ask the same of ”digital platforms." ... "For example, although a “private entity is not ordinarily constrained by the First Amendment,” Halleck, 587 U. S., at ___, ___ (slip op., at 6, 9), it is if the government coerces or induces it to take action the government itself would not be permitted to do, such as censor expression of a lawful viewpoint. Ibid. Consider government threats. “People do not lightly disregard public officers’ thinly veiled threats to institute criminal proceedings against them if they do not come around.” Bantam Books, Inc. v. Sullivan, 372 U. S. 58, 68 (1963). The government cannot accomplish through threats of adverse government action what the Constitution prohibits it from doing directly. See ibid.; Blum v. Yaretsky, 457 U. S. 991, 1004–1005 (1982). Under this doctrine, plaintiffs might have colorable claims against a digital plat- form if it took adverse action against them in response to government threats. The Second Circuit feared that then-President Trump cut off speech by using the features that Twitter made available to him. But if the aim is to ensure that speech is not smoth- ered, then the more glaring concern must perforce be the dominant digital platforms themselves. As Twitter made clear, the right to cut off speech lies most powerfully in the hands of private digital platforms. The extent to which that power matters for purposes of the First Amendment and the extent to which that power could lawfully be modified raise interesting and important questions. This petition, unfortunately, affords us no opportunity to confront them."
The last 2 points are important as Thomas is basically saying "give us a case which brings up these two questions and then we will have a deep look."
I would highly recommend reading his opinion:
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/20-197_5ie6.pdf
2. Totally agree with the republican RINOs who say one thing on TV while doing another or not doing anything at all. Lindsey Graham is a perfect example and why I can't stand Hannity. Lindsey kept going on Hannity and grandstand for 2 years about how he's gonna doo all these big things to hold the FBI and CIA accountable for the russiagate nonsense. Yet he didn't get anything done except a couple hearings where Rosenstein blatantly lied and nothing happened to him. Lindsey is one of the worst republicans imo.
3. You brought up the point about SCOTUS having ruled in the past that if a private actor is pressured by government that if they don't do something, then they will be punished, is a violation of 1st amendment. Have you looked at the recent Fauci emails, especially the ones with Zuckerberg (which are also redacted)? Fauci is the government and him working together with FB in building their "COVID dashboard" which censored many people, especially those talking about the lab leak theory as well as Ivermectin. This has to be a violation right?
4. One of your questions was regarding why Big Tech is hyper-liberal democrat supporters. While this is ideologically driven, one big point which didn't get raised was H1B visas. This is also why all the tech companies were so against Trump - he cut/tried to cut their supply of H1B visas - their primary labour supply. The immigrant folks who get brought in on H1B visas are basically exploited for work on lower wages. Liberals often think they are more virtuous for supporting H1B because companies like Apple and Google have lectured them about how H1B visas bring diversity. Anyone seriously thinks FAANG tech companies care about diversity? They care about low labour cost, employees who won't complain and won't report shady stuff going on in the company. H1B visas are perfect for that.
H1B visas is pretty much modern day slavery (bit hyperbole in a way) but it essentially gives full power over an immigrant to the employer because these employers have work rules that if you don't get promoted every 1-2 years, you get fired - which means H1B visa employees get deported back. So these immigrants end up working much harder for lower pay to not get deported. Meanwhile the companies get cheap labour while virtue signaling about diversity. This is also a reason why immigrants are hesitant to report work illegalities and thus the company prefer hiring them even more.
Here's another proof that this isn't about "diversity" or caring about immigrants but more about exploitation:
76% of the h1b go to Indians and 10% goes to China. Do you think this is about diversity? Does diversity only come from India and China? Source:
https://www.gadgetsnow.com/slideshows/h1b-visa-these-countries-got-the-most-approvals/india/photolist/64098647.cms
Democrats use immigrants as pawns and then abandon us when push comes to shove.
These 2 videos explain it well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFYj8Sg3x_c
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-3FYea07pc
5. I agree with what Ken Buck is saying regarding people being too compacent and lazy. He rightly is telling people to start getting engaged and taking over school boards because if they don't, then the CRT bullshit will destroy America from the inside. Thankfully in the last couple months, many parents are finally starting to speak up and hopefully some take over those school boards too. The nation's largest teachers union has approved a plan to promote critical race theory in all 50 states and 14,000 local school districts. The argument that "critical race theory isn't in K-12 schools" is officially dead. The union has also approved funding for "increasing the implementation" of CRT in K-12 curricula and for attacking conservative groups who oppose CRT indoctrination. The teachers union has made critical race theory its #1 priority—and want to implement it nationwide.
https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/status/1411473898491678720
Forgive me for being snide, but the Republicans and Democrats will seemingly use their rhetoric to please vast numbers of Americans, while stabbing the same people in the back. It allows them to pretend they're doing something, while using inaction as a forever talking point.
As with Climate Chaos, the Republican report that Rep Gaetz promised a few years ago (where is it?), hopefully the solution cannot be found in technology and *market* solutions.
Still waiting for John Durham’s report on the corrupt FBI machinations against Trump in 2016.
Data required. “Climate Chaos” is an absurdity.
Climate catastrophe. Climate devastation. Pick your own favorite, Mr Heath.
Show us the unmolested data. Guess what happens when you come out of the little Ice Age? Hint: the planet gets greener, more productive and more livable. Oh! The horrors for the Doom Goblins! Lol
Silly boy. We get all kinds of weather disruptions along with askew pollination timing, droughts over once prolific breadbaskets, acidifying and thermocline disruptions in our oceans, further species die-offs---things that are ALREADY occurring. Never mind, smarm always wins in the crayon-eating ghettos of misinformation that it appears you inhabit. You'll be trading in your crayons soon enough for all of the words you will shortly be eating. So enjoy your moment in the sun, the hot, hot, and getting hotter sun.
According to the Doomer Class, we’ve been either frozen to death or melted to death over the last 50+ years. We’re all dead, so let’s eat more mescaline and get funky with it.
"and get funky with it."
Disco is NOT dead...and I have some shirts in my closet, somewhere, to prove it.
https://dressthatman.com/product/70s-unworn-vintage-shirt-s/#SHIRT5170
Wear a mask for the climate!! Lol
Guess what? You doomtards have been wrong on each and every sorry prognostication you’ve ever made. But like the Jehovah Witnesses, your religion will get it “right” someday. Just keep paying and praying! Lol
We have a Mann-Made believer! Cling cling! Lol
Satire worthy of the Onion or the Bee! Nice!
That sun shines on you too.
Just saying.
Remember Nancy: always trust the expert” class. SARS 2.0, weather, financial system. They got this! Lol
Trying to read you is nearly impossible. You believe it or you don't? You don't like the idea that things must change or you don't accept some of the solutions? You don't think climate refugees are a real issue?
Many scientists are experts, but if you don't believe the science, Earth help you.
(Must have pissed you off.)
Which month should I believe in science? March 2020-April 2021 or April 2021 onwards when “scientists” magically started believing lab leak?
“Belief in science” is not science. I’ll leave that with you to discover on your own time. Having said that, I’d love to have a beer with you sometime. :-)
“Belief”? Baby, belief has nothing to do with science. You’re in the wrong room.
> catastrophe
Why does everything have to be hair tearing hysterical and emotional for leftists?
Catastrophe just happens to be the correct word on this occasion.
Lest we forget Sandy Cortex and her “climate refugees”. Lol
Your first paragraph is solid - not snide - but this I just don't understand:
"As with Climate Chaos, the Republican report that Rep Gaetz promised a few years ago (where is it?), hopefully the solution cannot be found in technology and *market* solutions."
What kind of "technology solution" do you hope cannot be found?
Frankly, the unwillingness of the ultra-rich who control the world to manage the world's most important crisis - the accumulation of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere and inevitable destruction of the current biosphere - INCLUDING HUMANS - is stupendously stupid, dangerous, reckless, criminal and a few dozen other negative adjectives, and HAS LEFT US IN DESPERATE NEED - the entire fucking biosphere - OF A TECHNOLOGICAL SOLUTION because all the easy ways to solve this were ignored since forever.
Do you want us to go extinct, Nancy?
What if I told you that all life on Earth ceases at 150ppm CO2? What if I told you we hit 180ppm a few thousand years ago and we’re crawling our way out of a near-death plant food crisis? What if I told you my weed grow is happiest at 1100ppm CO2? What do you tell the plants struggling to grow at 420ppm? How about I roll a big fat joint of Train Wreck and we discuss what CO2 actually is and the deception fed to us by the Technofucks? :-)
What if I told you that I'm an Earth scientist and you're talking gobbledygook?
But, your rolling a big fat joint and smoking it isn't a bad idea.
What if I told you that I too am an Earth scientist and those are objective facts that anyone can look up for themselves? The weed is great. Wish you were here to enjoy it with me.
When the Republicans speak of technological solutions, they are desperately seeking ways to avoid doing the real work necessary to stop/reverse this devastation. Such as: clean coal (if anybody is still pushing this myth), carbon capture, or my fave: geoengineering.
Gaetz is like all the other republicans, or as Mark Twain pointed out...Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she laid an asteroid.
Indeed - in some cases.
I suppose the fundamental scientific question is this: does plant food = pollution? Then work backwards from that fallacious proposition. FauciFlu = “climate catastrophe”? Or victory for the Technocracy that Hitler initiated.
Look how one little ol empire helped destroy the planet. Proud of yourself?
Nancy, have you ever been to India? Please do.
I’m guessing you’re a fat n’ happy recipient of the spoils of that “little ol empire.”?
I could have told you she wasn't happy!
Like the kid complaining about how comfortable their bed is. Best to ignore the chattering whiners in the house. Lol
Not fat and not happy, but of course I am a recipient. I also recycle, walk, drive very little, save electricity and water, and the other small things that one conscientious and caring human can do.
Question: where does water come from? Secondly, if you “save” it, where does it go? Lol
Well ain’t you a virtuous (albeit ungrateful) little recipient of the empire you so despise.
I don't understand the point of your nastiness. Truly.
So off topic and so unnecessary.
What an ignorant statement. If you don't think it will make a difference here, please educate yourself. I don't have a solution for 8 billion people. We must all act.
I will act. (From my G-650)
As with “reparations”, you go first and prove your virtue.
I am virtuous in my care of the environment on a daily basis.
Hitler did. Please elaborate.
Don’t you love that collectivist bullshit? Lol!
"Let's be independent together"
Lmao! (Collectively, of course.)
We must recycle. We must switch from fossil fuels to clean energy. We must conserve electricity and water. We must leave the land in better shape than we found it. We must move away from plastics. We must invent better ways to pack and protect and create everyday items. We must cut our consumption and our toxins.
You do realize how awful “alternative” energy is, right? If you’re not pro-nuclear, you are delusional. Look at the cumulative impacts of “clean” energy vs. organic. (Energy density and all that inconvenient stuff…)
What do mean by "awful"? My neighbor across the street from me is "off the grid" most of the year because of the way he designed and built his house. But it cost him a BUTTLOAD of money. And with money, you can design and build infrastructure that isn't "awful".
Nuclear energy production cannot be executed safely while placed in for-profit hands. Likewise, as demonstrated by Chernobyl, it cannot be placed in politically corrupt ones, either.
The US Navy is able to utilize nuclear power, safely, ONLY because it does not fall under those auspices.
BTW, ~ 62% of all energy production (i.e. what is produced at the power plant) is lost before it reaches your home. And there is a workable solution to a large part of that, today.
Anything other than nuclear is worse or equally as bad as fossil fuels. Things like solar panels and wind turbines get made in China, Germany etc so more jobs shipped. Plus they aren’t even that efficient. Battery storage is horse shit and the materials are extracted from earth again using underage slave labour (even liberal media admits it). Almost Everyone in western world “recycles” as in puts the cans and cardboards where they are supposed to go. But the next step of it being actually recycled isn’t happening nearly as well because we ship the plastics to China for it to be recycled an even they have started refusing it.
Meanwhile people who want climate Justice live buying their new phones, drive a car, take uber, use useless packaging for their consumer goods and so on.
China and India doesn’t do any of the climate Justice stuff but they don’t get even talked about.
It's not the left you're talking about there, but neo-liberals.
Anyway, a focus on what the USA does makes sense for people in the USA because that's the country we theoretically have some control over - or at least some influence. And, you can't really bitch at others when your own house isn't in order.
Gina McCarthy has a private jet and a yacht?
Bam! 🙏
Empty rhetoric is all what many people have when it comes to emotional manipulation.
Glenn, I subscribed to your site because you practice true journalism that is sorely lacking these days. I understand that video reaches a large audience, but it's not useful to me, and I suspect many others. I read faster than most people can speak intelligibly, and I'm not going to spend my valuable time watching a video. Please post transcripts for those of us that still exercise literacy.
"and I'm not going to spend my valuable time"
Oh, Heavens to Murgatroyd! We got us a live one here.
I'm convinced this is the biggest issue of our time.
The scandalous recent letter by two California House "lifers" and useless Democrats Anna Eshoo and Jerry McNerney to CEO's of cable companies are truly unparalleled and represents the rise of fascism in the US -- under a guise of "fighting fascism." All these multiple attacks are clearly carefully choreographed and coordinated -- easily predicted and well understood since we should always keep in mind that there is one huge elephant in the room:
The scam of the century - the now 5-year long Russia-gate hoax initiated by Obama/Biden administration. The bipartisan decade long major crimes and hoax against Syria are equally scandalous and finally being surfaced to the US population.
The Russia-gate hoax and two-impeachment “entertainments” were concocted by Obama/Hillary/Biden/Pelosi, Schumer, Schiff, Maxine Waters, Jamie Ruskin, etc., etc. -- and their intelligence and DNC executives on behalf of their Wall Street and military and security industry donors, i.e., the War party. For them - censorship is mandatory.
I'm going to watch the video, but I did want to point out one thing. (First, I agree with you Glenn! And I hope Rep. Buck kicks some A$$.)
But thank-you for highlighting this! This is a serious issue, and I've been stumped about something. I'm a staunch conservative, who is open to other opinions, and have come to appreciate many of the perspectives that Glenn has to offer. However, I have been deeply puzzled by conservative protection of "big business" in all its forms.
Sure, I'm against excessive taxation as it has a trickle down effect on the cost of doing business. I'm also open for free expansion of business and praised President Clinton's instincts on a free and open (and untaxed) Internet. (I was working in the business at the time.)
However, somehow, Facebook, and the other tech giants, and their overwhelming power in the market place still hold some kind of magic power for some conservatives (like Kevin Williamson of National Review thinks that Facebook is the cat's meow, last I heard, though I fail to see why).
It's not just the censorship (and for the record, I'm not saying "free speech" SOOOO many people confused first amendment rights with censorship). Hint: Censorship can be done by *anyone* even you censoring yourself.
So, yes, obviously, these tech companies are censoring people. Some for legit reasons, others, not so legit. And, usually, the liberal response to such things (when countering the right leaning complaints) "Hey, go found your own twitter or facebook and let the owners of this tech do whatever they want!"
Yeah, like you can start a billion dollar competitor out of your basement. And, hey, if you do, then the tech giants will collude and knock you out of business anyway!
In any case, I want to highlight one particular example of the confusing state of our anti-trust laws, and how an article (which I read years ago and have lost the link to it) changed my mind on Amazon (who, I still probably spend $10k a year with...)
The thing is, Amazon is SO big, that any time they choose to go into a market (particularly in small business, but increasingly into even larger business, like going up against Wal-mart. Or ask Google or Oracle how they're doing in the virtual cloud business?) - Amazon de facto wins. They are overpowering. They are more than a conglomerate.
God forbid you happen to be selling anything - even on Amazon's reseller store, that Amazon decides to start selling on their own.
Yet, our anti-trust laws don't really protect sellers, do they? No, they are designed to protect consumers. So, it's going to be a beast of a journey to nail down Amazon since everything they're doing and designed to do is to deliver the cheapest price to the consumer.
Does it harm a consumer if Amazon starts making shirts, and pants and batteries, and speakers and they're all as good a quality as someone else's, and cheaper? Nope. But it could put hundreds of people out of business, but that's not really anti-trust law's problem, is it?
It's time we fix our anti-trust laws to cover those types of issues. Or really good lawyers who can figure out how to fix that practice.
And high minded conservatives need to also think in terms of the small business people who get squashed on a daily basis by the likes of Amazon.
I just about want to gag every time I read something from Williamson. While there are still a few writers I respect at Nation Review such as David Harsanyi and Charles C. W. Cooke, most of the staff are shameless, establishment neocons. Now that Jonah Goldberg and George Will left, the title of the most shameless and out of touch neocon goes to Kevin D. Williamson. He is an elitist, out of touch, corporate bootlicker who thinks he is witty, and has a pronounced authoritarian streak. A good rule of thumb for any Republican politicians going forward is to read his articles and whatever Williamson claims that "true" conservatives should do, do the opposite.
I agree with all of that, except the authoritarian part. (I even consider Cookie and Harsanyi my favorite writers there. Though, I do still like Gerarity, McCarthy and occasionally even Rich Lowry.) I still get Jonah's "newsletters" and even when he's trying NOT to talk about Trump, he still does. It's kinda pathetic, honestly. He was the model of my conservativism for twenty years.
Anyway, in Kevin's defense, he often laments just how much ...let's call it "majesty" that Americans put on their commander-in-chief, even complaining about holidays, like Presidents' Day.
However, he does have this idea that every big tech is amazing and that conservatives would be screwed if it weren't for Big Tech, and I just don't see that. One primary difference between he and I, is that I have actually worked in tech for over twenty years and KNOW we do not need this ridiculous dependence on it that the Internet has fostered.
He seems to think (and I am paraphrasing, probably wrongly) but that a big chunk of our economic boom is due to Big Tech. The problem is, he's not matching all those billions being spent with where the money is being dumped. Most of those big tech companies (Amazon being the exception, particularly as they grow their distribution network, buying their own trucks, etc) - they employ far, far, far, fewer people (including in the US) than all the other major companies in the fortunate 100.
So, that stock boom maybe helping some people with retirement funds (nothing like what the Wall Street Hedge fund managers make, etc) - and low prices are nice, but how does that help all the Google, Apple, Facebook users? It's not in jobs, which are nearly all in Silicon Valley.
In any case, where conservatism is TODAY, for the common man, for the middle class, is not in hedge funds, but in personal liberty. And these big tech firms don't give a rats butt about personal liberty. In listening to Glenn's interview, they talked a lot about where the parties are re-aligning, and part of the reason for the Lincoln idiots, and the NeverTrumpers is that they are actually on the outside of that change in conservatism. It's not just about Trump. The new political reality is actually more about class and elites vs. the common man than it has been in a long time.
Why else would a state like West Virginia change from D to R practically overnight? Or that the Rs picked up the largest gains in minorities in 2020, and lost the most in whites? Because the elites haven't caught on that it's not about race - it's once again (going back millenia here) about class. (Sorry, I digressed a bit!)
Omg. How Cooke came out Cookie.. I guess I was hungry? ;) Anyway, yes, Charles C.W. Cooke has emerged as probably my favorite writer at NRO over the last year.
And I see what you mean below about the Authoritarian stuff - e.g. it's more a passive thing behind a lot of what he says, as opposed to what he actually writing. I wonder if he even realizes that he's pushing less freedom for the individual and more power for the state.
The trouble with corporations, when they get SO big, is that there is massive collusion between the government and corporations. It definitely happened with Health Care which wallopped the middle class (and for what? Obama's Lie of the Century about keeping our health care?)
Well, Big tech is doing the same thing. More people on the Right need to get back to their roots. I mean, yes, Teddy Roosevelt was a monopoly buster. And breaking up monopolies gives more freedom to the individual.
I agree completely. The authoritarian part has only really emerged recently for me. Williamson seems less inclined to defend the Bill of Rights every year, he does not seem all that bothered by the surveillance state, he supports every lie said by the establishment about anything or anyone populist, and he has no problem with abuses of power towards those he sees as his enemies. I was never the biggest fan of Williamson but he seems like almost a different person now. Personally, the most important part of Trump becoming president is that he ripped the mask off of people I thought I knew.
Good article. I have been noting this being a GOP'er myself. My own party won't get behind laws that will help break up big tech monopolies. Meanwhile those monopolies are working to break up the GOP. I just shake my head in disbelief. The GOP needs to step up here. As a whole I have not seen big problems with the laws proposed by the Dem's. Of course that Dem bill will not be passed by Dems either as I think this is all for show. Tech money if flowing into our leaders bank accounts and they have been bought off. They will be allowed to pretend to be doing something but I am sure Facebook, Google and the like have them on a short leash: you can pretend to do something but you will not be allowed to actually enact these laws. I am really disappointed by the GOP reluctance in particular since it is my "side". But I am a strong supporter of bipartisanship and would like the D's and R's get together and break these companies up. While I agree these companies can censor constitutionally, their reach is so great they are the public square now. At a minimum these companies need to be common carriers like the phone system. If the GOP cannot get behind this then I guess they are going to go back to being the pre-Trump GOP of only supporting big business and screw the working class. The Dem's have already have become the party of the rich and big business (which is a mistake in my view). And the GOP needs the working class supporters that Trump brought into the party. The GOP was given and opportunity for a viable coalition and it sounds like they are going to blow it by going back to their big business sycophancy. Big business by their words and deeds have shown they are aligned with the Democrats. Why these GOP reps are trying to protect these monopolies means that the big tech cash has bought them off as they have the Dems and nothing of significance will be done. And big tech will rule with impunity.
Thanks Glenn for this very substantive interview with a brave, intelligent and civilized guest (oh these strange times when we can no longer expect basic civility from a member of Congress "by default" :-) ).
And -- two recent jewels worth seeing -- including Tim Dillon brief but unforgettable song:
- TYT-Jimmy Dore War Shows Toxic Pathologies in Liberal Discourse – July 5, 2021 ( OUTSTANDING ! ) System Update with Glenn Greenwald -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoXZP4m-Af8
- Tim Dillon -- WONDERFUL “Afghanistan withdrawal” song (for Heroin and Pedophile Warlords) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVMvq6N8psc
Describing the big four's monopoly perch: "a position that enables them to write one set of rules for others, while they play by another, or to engage in a form of their own private quasi regulation that is unaccountable to anyone but themselves.”--also spot on description of the political/media ruling class as manifest in everything they touch.
Here are two issues of many no doubt, that are protecting big tech. First, of course, is their largess when it comes to the political enterprise. Both parties swill at the big tech trough. Secondly and perhaps more importantly is the intelligence bonanza available to the US government from the tech behemoths. Regardless of the rhetoric about protecting your privacy, I think by now we've all figured out that the intelligence agencies get what they ask for. If we break up big tech, perhaps those things could be negatively impacted. Can't have that.