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1. Eric the Cerise (nattiegoogie@mstdn.io)'s status on Friday, 12-May-2023 16:37:27 JST Eric the Cerise

   • Aral Balkan

   Watching @aral et al rage against the machines, this has been on my mind for awhile.

   Bear with me.

   Corporations are not evil.

   They are constructs; artificial life forms defined and designed by us, just trying to survive in an artificial ecosystem we created for them.

   When we see "evil" corps rise to the top, and "good" corps go bankrupt...that is just an indication that we have designed them poorly.

   A bad algorithm.

   We do not need to "fight evil corps".

   We need to redefine what a corp is.

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Friday, 12-May-2023 16:37:27 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     @nattiegoogie I’m not sure where even to begin…

     The corporate form is the way it is because it was designed by the wealthy in their mission to get wealthier and avoid individual responsibility for their actions. It is not broken. It is working exactly as designed. It is not a failure, it is a tremendous success (within the success criteria of capitalism).

     The last thing we need is to try and repair the brand. They’re trying to anyway with B Corps, etc.

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Friday, 12-May-2023 16:41:05 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     @nattiegoogie (I agree with you that corporations are artificial life forms – well, as “artificial” as anything can be that’s created by something “natural” like us. Where we differ, clearly, is that I see them as an invasive, parasitic species.

     You take a group of people, absolve them of individual responsibility and then tell them they must extract value from anyone and anything on an ever-increasing scale… what have you created if not an institutionalised psychopath?)

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Friday, 12-May-2023 16:44:06 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     @nattiegoogie (And it’s not like we need corporations. There are other means for people to cooperate and create things that don’t result in extreme centralisation of wealth and power. There are cooperatives. We can fund and create things from the common purse for the common good. Thinking we need corporations is a profound failure of imagination. Corporations need us. We don’t need them.)

   • Eric the Cerise (nattiegoogie@mstdn.io)'s status on Friday, 12-May-2023 19:52:05 JST Eric the Cerise

     in reply to

     • Aral Balkan
     • Lien Rag

     @lienrag

     That might be what I had in mind. Why can't we just convert the FAANG corps into those?

     I realize that's not an easy task, but Big Picture, wouldn't that be easier than putting them out of business and starting over from scratch?

     Or is that equally infeasible?

     @aral

   • Lien Rag (lienrag@mastodon.tedomum.net)'s status on Friday, 12-May-2023 19:52:09 JST Lien Rag

     in reply to

     • Aral Balkan

     @nattiegoogie

     Well, good design exists already : that's called a workers' co-op.

     @aral

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Friday, 12-May-2023 19:52:42 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Lien Rag

     @nattiegoogie Several things:

     1. They are what they are and they’re making mint. You can‘t make them into something else.

     2. Calling them out matters. The more people know, the harder it is for them to get away with things and the more uncomfortable policymakers become when considering getting in bed with them.

     3. We won’t be putting them out of business no matter what we do. IBM literally helped Hitler carry out the Holocaust and they’re still around. We must build alternatives.

     @lienrag