SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Veteran author and longtime Silicon Valley resident Andrew Keen has stepped up his criticisms of the Internet. Describing the net as a platform that has devolved from its initial ideals and promise into a vehicle of monopolistic, manipulative and exploitative practices, a Guardian article summarizes views now gaining traction. By using Amazon, Google, Facebook, Airbnb, Uber or any other online giant, are we striking a Faustian pact, behind which lays a mass of suffering, surveillance and ruthless harvesting?
Keen supports his arguments by mentioning that even online businesses that cite individual collaboration, those of the 'sharing' economy, are mere cynical fronts for firms already valued in the billions. As money has been sucked out of retail, transportation, photography, research and other industries into the coffers of new Internet giants, the net result has been losses of jobs and the compromise of working conditions. As for the Internet's much-touted 'individual empowerment', Keen counters with the rise of mob mentality - “Rather than creating more democracy, it’s empowering the rule of the mob. Rather than encouraging tolerance, it’s unleashed such a distasteful war on women that many no longer feel welcome on the network". Keen's book - The Internet is not the Answer - is, a touch ironically, available on Amazon.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday February 11 2015, @12:02PM
Yes, and it should reward innovation and meaningful contributions to the common good. No more worthless bankers sitting around playing number games that don't actually produce anything. No more bond traders getting obscenely wealthy in the circle jerk that is the debt market. In fact, we should replace every class of financial worker with a very small shellscript.
The dream of striking it rich is a good motivator, so a system that eliminates that won't thrive. A system that discourages hard work by taxing labor many times the rate of taxing capital will not thrive. A nation that transforms itself into a society of layabouts who collect handouts--and rents--from an increasingly hard-pressed middle will fail. If you siphon capital from the productive and hand it to the shiftless poor and shiftless ultra-wealthy, the pool of the future's entrepreneurs, engineers, and social drivers will starve.
So your idea of a cap on wealth could be an answer. Something on the order of, "Once you have $100 million, you can afford anything anyone would ever want."
Washington DC delenda est.