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[...] might have been surprised when headlines began appearing last year suggesting that Google and its fellow tech giants were threatening everything from our economy to democracy itself. Lawmakers have accused Google of creating an automated advertising system so vast and subtle that hardly anyone noticed when Russian saboteurs co-opted it in the last election. Critics say Facebook exploits our addictive impulses and silos us in ideological echo chambers. Amazon's reach is blamed for spurring a retail meltdown; Apple's economic impact is so profound it can cause market-wide gyrations. These controversies point to the growing anxiety that a small number of technology companies are now such powerful entities that they can destroy entire industries or social norms with just a few lines of computer code. Those four companies, plus Microsoft, make up America's largest sources of aggregated news, advertising, online shopping, digital entertainment and the tools of business and communication. They're also among the world's most valuable firms, with combined annual revenues of more than half a trillion dollars.
In a rare display of bipartisanship, lawmakers from both political parties have started questioning how these tech giants grew so powerful so fast. Regulators in Missouri, Utah, Washington, D.C., and elsewhere have called for greater scrutiny of Google and others, citing antitrust concerns; some critics have suggested that our courts and legislatures need to go after tech firms in the same way the trustbusters broke up oil and railroad monopolies a century ago. But others say that Google and its cohort are guilty only of delighting customers. If these tech leviathans ever fail to satisfy us, their defenders argue, capitalism will punish them the same way it once brought down Yahoo, AOL and MySpace.
[...] There's a loose coalition of economists and legal theorists who call themselves the New Brandeis Movement (critics call them "antitrust hipsters"), who believe that today's tech giants pose threats as significant as Standard Oil a century ago. "All of the money spent online is going to just a few companies now," says [Gary Reback] (who disdains the New Brandeis label). "They don't need dynamite or Pinkertons to club their competitors anymore. They just need algorithms and data."
Related: Microsoft Relishes its Role as Accuser in Antitrust Suit Against Google
Google Faces Record 3 Billion Euro EU Antitrust Fine: Telegraph
Antitrust Suit Filed Against Google by Gab.Ai
India Fines Google $21.17 Million for Abusing Dominant Position
Google's Crackdown on "Annoying" and "Disruptive" Ads Begins
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mhajicek on Friday February 23 2018, @12:36AM (20 children)
If you don't believe laws are violently imposed try violating them. Even the most trivial of laws, if you insist on violating it while law enforcement is attempting to enforce it, they will eventually kill you rather than allow you to continue.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 4, Insightful) by NotSanguine on Friday February 23 2018, @01:10AM (16 children)
Those laws are imposed by the consent of the governed. That means you and me.
If you believe (and you won't get a lot of argument from me about it) that those who are employed to *enforce* those laws do so in far too violent a fashion, then we need to replace those who manage and oversee those folks, to make sure that they do so much less violently.
However, that's a governance [wikipedia.org] issue that needs to be addressed, not a complete breakdown of our society. The fact that you and I can rail against it with impunity is ample proof of that.
I'm sure there are as many opinions as to *how* those changes should be implemented as there are people who express them. Fortunately, we control how governance is managed in the US. Both indirectly (through the representatives we elect) and directly (via ballot initiatives, where those are available).
Just because you (rightly, IMHO) don't think that people (ourselves included) should be murdered in the streets for allegedly selling cigarettes [wikipedia.org], gunned down for having a broken tail light [npr.org], reporting a potential crime [wikipedia.org], any number of other minor issues or even an attempt to do the right thing, doesn't mean that our laws are imposed at the point of a gun.
Rather, it shines a light on a dark and frightening aspect of our society and how those who are tasked (by the will of the voters) to uphold the laws enacted by our representatives (elected by those same voters) are given far too much leeway in "protecting" us.
Does that make sense to you?
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Friday February 23 2018, @12:24PM (14 children)
You don't get what I'm saying. No, the laws are not imposed by the concent of the governed.
Groups of people, elected or otherwise, decide what the laws will be. The governed are seldom consulted. Those laws are then enforced by violence and the threat thereof.
If, for example, I wanted to sell Beanie Babies on a street corner without a license in a jurisdiction which requires one, members of the government would show up to stop me. At first they may try nicer things like asking me to stop and imposing fines, but if I refused and didn't pay the fines they would escalate to forcibly removing me. If I effectively resisted their force they would kill me.
That is true of all governments. With the exceptions of corruption and graft, they will kill any subject rather than allow them to continue violating the law.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Friday February 23 2018, @06:07PM (5 children)
If you have the political franchise [wikipedia.org] Then you help to decide who makes up those groups of people.
And if you don't like the decisions they make, you can work to elect different folks, or have legislation considered as a ballot measure [wikipedia.org]
I'm sorry you're so ignorant of basic civics. Perhaps you should have paid closer attention in school?
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Saturday February 24 2018, @02:10AM (4 children)
You are completely missing the point. I'm not passing judgement on the laws themselves or who decided what they are, only pointing out that every law in every country is imposed by violence and the threat thereof. If you continue to violate a law despite enforcement's attempt to stop you, they will increase their force until you give in or are dead. If this were not true one could avoid taxes, ignore the speed limit, etc. just by being stubborn.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Saturday February 24 2018, @03:03AM (3 children)
No. I'm not missing the point.
Words have specific meanings.
If you mean to say that "government has the *legal* monopoly on violence." you won't get an argument from me.
If you mean to say the words you actually used: "Laws are violently imposed," that means something different, and I'll argue that, at least in the US, that's not true.
Does that clarify things for you, as you seem to be a little confused about what *i* mean?
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 24 2018, @04:06AM (1 child)
That monopoly on violence is used by some people to make impositions on other people.
Also, you are begging the question (using circular logic) by calling that monopoly "legal"; you are assuming that which is to be proved; you are assuming that there is consent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 24 2018, @04:15AM
Hopefully to stop your inane drivel.
Can't you go suicide by cop or something?
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Saturday February 24 2018, @06:03AM
Whoosh. Stupid or trolling?
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by vux984 on Friday February 23 2018, @09:52PM (7 children)
The majority of citizens (residents and business orders) Again, local residents and business owners don't want their streets wall to wall with guys sitting on blankets selling their used CDs, art, beanie babies and everything else. These business ventures disrupt traffic, block walkways, prevent access to the other businesses on the street, they often leave all kinds of mess and garbage behind and don't take responsibility for cleaning up, they fight over the best spots, they may agressively accost passersby. They might sell food in unsafe ways. Or chinese toys full of lead. Etc etc etc.
Despite your complaint that you can't sell beanie babies on the corner, most of society doesn't want that crap all over the city wherever these peddlars would like to be. So they support its regulation, and small numbers of such permits are available for limited purposes, people who get them can be held responsible for what they are doing, it eliminates fights over who its allowed to be where and when. And we designate market spaces specifically for them, open air markets, flea markets, etc.
Uh-huh.
Highly doubtful, unless by 'effectively resist' you start threatening the lives of the enforcement people; at which point you aren't being killed for your beanie baby business, you are being killed for this other much more violent thing you are doing.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Saturday February 24 2018, @02:14AM (6 children)
Try this: stop paying taxes and attempt to go about your business ignoring all attempts to collect said taxes. Eventually someone will attempt to arrest you. If you refuse to be arrested the force applied to you will increase until you are subdued or dead. The same holds true for every enforced law in every nation, with exceptions for graft and corruption. There is no condition under which the police will say "Oh, you mean you really really don't want to follow the law? That's ok, have a nice day." Unless you have sufficiently bribed them to do so.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by vux984 on Saturday February 24 2018, @04:57AM (5 children)
Again, The only way you end up dead is if you escalate the violence yourself in the process of "resisting".
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Saturday February 24 2018, @06:01AM (4 children)
No. You simply do not comply, and the violence will be escallated apon you. You apparently Know nothing about law enforcement.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by vux984 on Saturday February 24 2018, @07:25AM (3 children)
"No. You simply do not comply, and the violence will be escallated apon you."
I've seen lots of non-violent protesters hauled off, after refusing to 'comply'. Not shot nor killed.
"You apparently Know nothing about law enforcement"
You're evidently still alive, so at least you clearly don't have any first hand experience with this theory of years. But now you are going to claim to know people who were shot for not paying their taxes?
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Saturday February 24 2018, @03:42PM (2 children)
Allowing yourself to be hauled off is a form of compliance.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by vux984 on Saturday February 24 2018, @08:20PM (1 child)
If you were killed for getting violent then you were killed for getting violent. Not some other thing. You can piss and moan all you like that you wouldn't have gotten violent if it wasn't for the other thing, but you chose to get violent. Your argument is as immature as a 5 year justifying biting his sibling because the sibling was bugging him and wouldn't stop.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Sunday February 25 2018, @06:27AM
Bullshit.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 23 2018, @06:33PM
So why, if you don't sign up for selective service are you sent to jail? Shouldn't I be able to give my consent to be governed by opting in or out? Why is my consent taken for granted based merely on the fact that I was raised to the age of majority in this country? How can an average 18 year old leave, once they find out that they don't wish to consent to the governance of the land they live in?
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday February 23 2018, @04:38AM
The rich Whites solve the problem by further subdividing neighborhoods into rich and poor.
Back when I first lived here, The cops would protect the neighborhood. Now, they moved the "boundary of protection" North and ignored those to the Southern boundary. What was once a protected neighborhood became demarcated by Whites and all of those troublesome minorities.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by darkfeline on Friday February 23 2018, @07:15PM (1 child)
Laws are finally enforced using violent means, but in the vast majority of cases they are not, unless you define receiving a ticket, fine, arrest or prison sentence as "violent", in which case there's a good chance that you define getting called an asshole as "violent" in which case everything is violence and your argument is moot via reductio ad absurdum.
We live in an era of unprecedented peace and absence of violence. There has never been a time in human history where so many civil conflicts and crimes/misdemeanors are resolved without violence (e.g., getting a ticket or fine, court resolutions instead of duels).
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Saturday February 24 2018, @02:21AM
Issuing a ticket is a threat of "Pay up or we will arrest you". And of course if you don't pay up and refuse to be arrested the force used against you will increase until you are subdued or killed. If you are arrested and attempt to escape you will be forcibly subdued or killed. It's all backed up by violence.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek