| |
| ▲ | Quarrelsome 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | its not necessarily "capitalism". Think about how Myspace was, or early Facebook, that was capitalism but didn't have the same issues. Its the "lean startup" culture as well as books like "Hooked, how to build habit forming products" - Nir Eyal. The dark lean startup pattern is where you break down the big picture rationale for the company. You extract metrics that contribute to the company's success (i.e. engagement) and you build a machine that rewards changes to the underlying system that improves those metrics. If done successfully, you create an unwitting sociopathy, a process that demands the product be as addictive as possible and a culture that is in thrall to the machine that rewards its employees by increasing those metrics. You're no longer thinking about purpose or wondering about what you're doing to your users. You simply realise that if you send this notification at this time, with this colour button, in this place, with this tagline then the machine likes it. Multiple people might contribute a tiny piece of a horrifying and manipulative whole and may never quite realise the true horror of the monster they've helped build, because they're insulated by being behind the A/B test. | | |
| ▲ | Jensson 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | > its not necessarily "capitalism". Think about how Myspace was, or early Facebook, that was capitalism but didn't have the same issues. No thats exactly capitalism, capitalism ensures processes gets more and more efficient over time, as you say previous versions were less efficient at inducing addictive behaviors but capitalism ensured we progressed towards more and more addictive apps and patterns. Capitalism doesn't mean we start out with the most efficient money extractor, it just moves towards the most efficient money extractor with time unless regulated. This is well known and a feature, capitalism moves towards efficiency and regulation helps direct that movement so that it helps humanity rather than hurts us. Capitalism would gladly serve you toxic food but regulations ensures they earn more money by giving you nutritious food. Now regulations are lagging a bit there so there is still plenty of toxic food around, but it used to be much worse than now, the main problem with modern food is that people eat too much directly toxic compounds. | | |
| ▲ | Quarrelsome 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | That's a type of capitalism. Quakers built plenty of capitalistic entities that were primarily interested in profit but cared more for the long term with more of an eye on social and spiritual purpose. Extractive capitalism doesn't get to pretend its all of capitalism, we just assume that because its been active throughout our entire lifespan. US hegemony has permitted and encouraged shareholder primacy, hostile takeovers and leveraged buyouts in order to facilitate the growth of its markets. However we'd be blinkered to assume that this is the only way capitalism can be. Its a choice we make and we deserve this outcome where we've enslaved a generation of children to be eye-balls for ad impressions for silicon valley startups. We could make other choices but then we'd be personally less rich and see less growth. Do we really think those extra zeros in very few people's portfolio's are worth this macabre world we've created? | | |
| ▲ | Jensson 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > Quakers built plenty of capitalistic entities that were primarily interested in profit but cared more for the long term with more of an eye on social and spiritual purpose. And those were replaced by profit seeking enterprises, that is capitalism. Sure some try to create such benevolent entities, but the profit seeking ones out-competes and replaces them over time, that is how capitalism works. So you can temporarily have a nice company here and there, but 50 years later likely it got replaced by a profit seeking one. The only way to get pro social behaviors from these is to make pro social acts the most profitable via regulations, but its still a profit seeking enterprise that doesn't try to be benevolent. | | |
| ▲ | Quarrelsome 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | yeah that's because we allowed aggressive takeovers, especially leveraged ones. They got replaced by extractive capitalism due to a lack of regulation, not just because "capitalism". The extractive profit seeking entities don't "out-compete" they just use their capital in unregulated conditions to strip mine economies and poison capitalism to become sociopathy. Letting that happen is a choice, letting it continue is a choice. | | |
| ▲ | Forgeties79 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Yet if you advocate for regulation you are immediately attacked by billionaires and massive companies and people who think those two groups benefit them more than the regulations protecting them. These groups bring unbelievable sums of money to bear to influence policy and public perception to make sure they are as under-regulated as possible. “Regulation” is a four letter word in the US. Look at the hostility we see on HN whenever it comes up with AI . | | |
| ▲ | Quarrelsome an hour ago | parent [-] | | Which is why our democratic systems need to provide solutions because they're places where we still have power. I'm from the UK and an increasing amount of our economy is locked up in exploitive equity extraction, much of it US based. Its really bad in some fields (e.g. care homes, foster homes), where the entities are straddled with such debt that the orgs "have no choice" but to charge sky high rates while paying peanuts. At some point I'm sure it will break and our politicians will "break the rules" in order to reign in private equity and sour their investments. It used to be the case that we permitted these excesses because they guaranteed our security, but now that recent US governments have shit the bed on that one; there's considerably less of a need to tolerate it. |
| |
| ▲ | Jensson 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > The extractive profit seeking entities don't "out-compete" they just use their capital in unregulated conditions to strip mine economies and poison capitalism to become sociopathy So they did out-compete them? You saying they won using unfair ways doesn't change the fact that they out-competed the other companies. Capitalism will use any means available to out compete others, I don't understand why you try to argue against this. You just say "but if we restrict the means available its fine", that means you agree with me, so I am not sure what you disagree with. | | |
| ▲ | Quarrelsome an hour ago | parent [-] | | > So they did out-compete them? Having more money doesn't necessarily mean "out-compete". Its not that they're delivering a better product, more loyal customers or better branding. Its simply that they put down more capital at a given point, and were allowed to buy the company, despite its owners not wanting to sell. In most cases they didn't even have money, its simply because they obtained significant financing from money brokers by selling them on plans of sociopathy. > I don't understand why you try to argue against this. because you're trying to squash this into "capitalism bad". We get to make choices, we're making shit choices. You don't have to upend the whole system to undo these choices, you just have to have the spine to regulate and break up existing structures. | | |
| ▲ | Jensson an hour ago | parent [-] | | > because you're trying to squash this into "capitalism bad". I never said "capitalism bad", I said it optimizes for profits and that it gets better at that over time, that is not bad or good, that is just what it does. |
|
|
|
| |
| ▲ | saubeidl 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I judge a system by what it does, not by what it's proponents say it could theoretically do. Extractive capitalism is real-world capitalism. | | |
| ▲ | Quarrelsome 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | but it does that because of US hegemony empowering its equity to be extractive. We've lost a lot of organisations in the UK due to aggressive and leveraged buyouts. That's not necessarily reflective of capitalism as an abstract but geo-political reluctance in regulating its very worst excesses. I appreciate your position but I can't help but feel like it's like saying cars are crap because they breakdown too easily, when in practice; you're constantly red lining them. My point is that it doesn't have to be like this, but its a choice that we as society make, and we could choose to not make it. | | |
| ▲ | Jensson 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > That's not necessarily reflective of capitalism as an abstract but geo-political reluctance in regulating its very worst excesses. That capitalism needs to be regulated or it results in these toxic outcomes is core to capitalism, yes, that is what we are saying. There is no benevolent capitalism without regulations. | | |
| ▲ | Quarrelsome 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | > yes, that is what we are saying its almost as if its what I've been saying the whole time, but adding the context of where the line is, where MySpace seemed healthy and TikTok is unhealthy. Lean startup culture is an equasion that produces sociopathy, I've always hated it and I think its relatively disgusting how it was embraced at the time. I guess I needed to rail against every type of capitalism at the start for you to appreciate my position earlier. | | |
| ▲ | Jensson 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | > I guess I needed to rail against every type of capitalism at the start for you to appreciate my position earlier. No, your position earlier was wrong according to what you are saying here, you said Facebook and Myspace didn't have these issues so its not capitalisms fault. But Facebook and Myspace existed under much less regulated circumstances than exists today, so your original statement would make it seem you want less regulations and think things will just sort out themselves. Or do you really think going back to 2005's regulations would fix things because internet was less toxic then? Internet wasn't less toxic then since capitalism was different, internet was less toxic then since it takes time for capitalism to optimize a system. | | |
| ▲ | Quarrelsome an hour ago | parent [-] | | > But Facebook and Myspace existed under much less regulated circumstances than exists today sorry, what regulation are you talking about here? Afaik regulation in the US is pretty much the same back then as it is now. Worst case scenarios are usually slap on the wrists like when Snapchat lied to its users about ephemeral messaging and got fined a pathetic amount. > No, your position earlier was wrong according to what you are saying here or how about the idea that you've misunderstood my position and instead are shadow-boxing a monsterised impression of me that isn't real. I just don't like blaming capitalism in the abstract because it doesn't have to be like this. We can change it. Also on the off chance you lean considerably left, it might help to understand that I have experience of the USSR. So simply saying "capitalism bad" with an implication that we need to tear down the system isn't good enough for me. Been there done that, ancestors deported to Siberia. We could maybe try regulating first? | | |
| ▲ | Jensson an hour ago | parent [-] | | > I just don't like blaming capitalism in the abstract because it doesn't have to be like this. We can change it. But saying that Facebook or Myspace wasn't that bad does nothing to support this position, so why did you bring those up? > So simply saying "capitalism bad" with an implication that we need to tear down the system isn't good enough for me Read my post, I didn't say "capitalism bad", I said its good from the start. Its you that never understood why I objected to you and not the other way around. |
|
|
|
| |
| ▲ | saubeidl 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Lenin described this exact process a century ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperialism,_the_Highest_Stage... The 'choice' is an illusion. To quote Lenin, the state becomes the 'executive committee of the financial oligarchy.' The refusal to regulate isn't a a choice or a policy failure; it's the inevitable outcome of the system. | | |
| ▲ | Quarrelsome an hour ago | parent [-] | | well my mother was born in the USSR, so I don't have to accept Lenin's position because my people suffered his "inevitable outcome of the system" for the choices he made. I'd rather fix up this existing system then day dream about a glorious socialist revolution that always seems to end in blood. | | |
| ▲ | saubeidl 27 minutes ago | parent [-] | | What if this current system also always ends in blood, as history has shown so far? |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
