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[...] tech companies are under fire for creating problems instead of solving them. At the top of the list is Russian interference in last year's presidential election. Social media might have originally promised liberation, but it proved an even more useful tool for stoking anger. The manipulation was so efficient and so lacking in transparency that the companies themselves barely noticed it was happening.
The election is far from the only area of concern. Tech companies have accrued a tremendous amount of power and influence. Amazon determines how people shop, Google how they acquire knowledge, Facebook how they communicate. All of them are making decisions about who gets a digital megaphone and who should be unplugged from the web.
Their amount of concentrated authority resembles the divine right of kings, and is sparking a backlash that is still gathering force.
Is it that the tech companies are creating problems for society as a whole, or merely disrupting the status quo for the old Powers-That-Be?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday October 15 2017, @05:25AM
That's moving the goal posts. Power is another valued thing. You've just moved the goal posts to make "money" mean anything of value.
Powerful for what? Notice that this supposed scenario is quite irrelevant to the Bolsheviks. They weren't powerful due to some sort of imaginary distributed wealth. Instead a key aspect of the time that they were coming into power is that they destroyed wealth rather than created it. Their political system actually made them one of the poorer factions. Some of their opposition was relatively wealthy and also supported by wealthy countries like the UK and the US. Turns out you need more than money and weapons to have power (a lesson that I guess we'll just need to keep learning here on SN). The Bolsheviks had key aspect that was missing in the other factions - organization, unity, and viable, experienced military units.