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Governments have killed more people than any other institution. Corporations have largely made our lives better.

_heimdall 3y ago
Facebook alone has reeked havoc on at least a few societies. Corporations also enable government actions by developing the tech and tools/weapons needed.
- esafak 3y ago
  Facebook wreaked havoc, and they reek (stink).
  - _heimdall 3y ago
    Yes, thank you for the typo correction here. Sent that one too quickly and I did indeed mean "wreaked"
the_monocle 3y ago
Uhm the east indian company has an estimated death toll in the dozens of million people? [1] [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_major_famines_in_India_during_British_rule https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_major_famines_in... The company was only nationalised in 1858 and until then effectively colonised india until then
- nanis 3y ago
  > [The Queen] granted her charter to their corporation named Governor and Company of Merchants of London trading into the East Indies.[15] For a period of fifteen years, the charter awarded the company a monopoly[26] on English trade with all countries east of the Cape of Good Hope and west of the Straits of Magellan.[27] Any traders there without a licence from the company were liable to forfeiture of their ships and cargo (half of which would go to the Crown and half to the company), as well as imprisonment at the "royal pleasure".[28] Government granted monopoly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_India_Company https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_India_Company
  - Jensson 3y ago
    The government didn't tell them to kill or enslave people, they did that on their own since that was more profitable than not doing it. The government then stepped in and forced them to stop killing and enslaving, which made the world a better place, today we don't have many companies that kill or enslave thanks to governments.
    - lazide 3y ago
      Do you want someone to add up the gov’t direct death tolls so we can compare? Just off the top of my head; holodomir, the Great Leap Forward, the holocaust, the Khmer Rouge are at least 10x the East India companies death toll. We should probably add in war casualties too - at a minimum WW1 and WW2. I think I could list off probably 10 more with about 5 more minutes of work. People can be terrible. More direct power usually means more terrible. Gov’ts usually have the most direct power. East India company was an odd case because they were granted defacto delegated gov’t power over a region that was full of ‘others’. Considering the factors involved, it’s amazing they weren’t worse. Like the French Congo [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Congo https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Congo].
    - astrange 3y ago
      Slavery isn't profitable, people do it for emotional or ideological reasons, or because they're not competent enough to run a business that has to actually trade. This is literally why economics is called "the dismal science". Slaveowners called economists that when the economists told them to stop doing slavery.
  - jncfhnb 3y ago
    Monopoly is the natural state. Government is the only reason we have any alternatives.
    - Gormo 3y ago
      No, it is very much the other way around. Government is itself a monopoly, and has historically been justified by the intention to mitigate the "war of all against all" that emerges from chaotic competition between divergent factions in a raw state of nature. But the modern status quo is so massively skewed toward government that the benefits from mitigating the worst cases of competition are vastly eclipsed by the detriments of monopolistic centralization.
- mnky9800n 3y ago
  Dozens of millions of dead people is chump change to any empire.
  - Jensson 3y ago
    USA hasn't killed more than dozens of millions. If that is chump change then it makes USA looks pretty good for an empire.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - MeImCounting 3y ago
      Well except that it definitely has. From more than 50 million people in pre-colonial times to less than 3 million in the 90s. USA has done genocide on a scale similar any other ethnic cleansing or to any communist regime.
      - Jensson 3y ago
        > 50 million people in pre-colonial times USA didn't exist pre-colonial times, it started as a colony. Do you mean the British Empire? That one did way worse, yeah, but USA isn't the British Empire.
riffruff24 3y ago
Off the top of my head, dutch and british corporation colonize a lot of lands for hundreds of years. I don't think they left the place much better than when they came.
andsoitis 3y ago
Both governments and corporations have generally made our lives better. Both governments and corporations kill people (look up annual tobacco deaths, for just one fun example).
- Gormo 3y ago
  Aren't deaths from tobacco directly caused by intentional individual behavior? I'm not sure how that relates to either example.
  - astrange 3y ago
    Individual behavior doesn't really exist, you don't have choices outside the ones provided by society. It's also a bit silly to mention it in the context of a literally physically addictive drug. Interestingly schizophrenic people almost universally smoke, and it's thought this is because it's a better treatment than the actual drugs we give them, though that's not proven.
    - Gormo 3y ago
      > Individual behavior doesn't really exist, you don't have choices outside the ones provided by society. No, that's quite backwards. Individual behavior is effectively the only thing that objectively exists, as "society" is just an emergent pattern of aggregated individual behavior. Individuals' choices are limited by their own particular capacities, and "society" factors into that only in the sense that the choices of other individuals in the same bounded context, in aggregate, can function as environmental constraints. So a more accurate statement is "every individual has full freedom of choice, but external constraints including the behavior of others may limit one's ability to fully execute the choices one has made". Given that the act of smoking entails deliberately choosing to purchase a product, light it on fire, and actively inhale the fumes -- all behaviors which are necessarily the result of purposeful intention -- and given that within any social context one will find some people who smoke but a great many who do not, along with many who have chosen to quit (despite the external influences and incentives being largely constant), it seems impossible to attribute smoking to anything other than conscious individual choice. I once asked family member why they smoke, and the response was "because I love it". I had, and could have, no retort to that -- if another person consciously chooses to make the risk/reward tradeoff in favor of short-term pleasure rather than longer-term health, then there's no further argument to be had, and the only demand that any other party could make is that they not be exposed to negative externalities resulting from that choice.
immmmmm 3y ago
Oh you should go say that to farmers close to the equator whose crops are failing due to climate change. All that while fossil fuel companies receive 7000B$ of annual subsidies, and spend billions yearly to fuel disinformation.
nyc_data_geek1 3y ago
Ask the people in Bhopal how DOW Chemical has made their lives better, or the workers in Shenzhen Apple factories, or the people making your clothes in the third world, or the people picking through trash mountains for a living, how much corporations have made their lives better.
- astrange 3y ago
  The people working at Foxconn are doing it voluntarily because it pays better than their other alternatives. Same for Bangladesh clothing factories.
  - nyc_data_geek1 3y ago
    There is voluntary, and then there is voluntary. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/09/09/apple-accused-worker-violations-chinese-factories-by-labor-rights-group/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/09/09/apple-a... Why don't you ask the people who were slaving in United Fruit plantations how much corporations improved their lives? Or East India Company colony subjects? Corporations benefit those who benefit from them, often at the expense of everyone else/extraction of the commons.

Facebook alone has reeked havoc on at least a few societies. Corporations also enable government actions by developing the tech and tools/weapons needed.

esafak 3y ago
Facebook wreaked havoc, and they reek (stink).
- _heimdall 3y ago
  Yes, thank you for the typo correction here. Sent that one too quickly and I did indeed mean "wreaked"

the_monocle 3y ago

Uhm the east indian company has an estimated death toll in the dozens of million people? [1] [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_major_famines_in_India_during_British_rule https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_major_famines_in... The company was only nationalised in 1858 and until then effectively colonised india until then

nanis 3y ago
> [The Queen] granted her charter to their corporation named Governor and Company of Merchants of London trading into the East Indies.[15] For a period of fifteen years, the charter awarded the company a monopoly[26] on English trade with all countries east of the Cape of Good Hope and west of the Straits of Magellan.[27] Any traders there without a licence from the company were liable to forfeiture of their ships and cargo (half of which would go to the Crown and half to the company), as well as imprisonment at the "royal pleasure".[28] Government granted monopoly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_India_Company https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_India_Company
- Jensson 3y ago
  The government didn't tell them to kill or enslave people, they did that on their own since that was more profitable than not doing it. The government then stepped in and forced them to stop killing and enslaving, which made the world a better place, today we don't have many companies that kill or enslave thanks to governments.
  - lazide 3y ago
    Do you want someone to add up the gov’t direct death tolls so we can compare? Just off the top of my head; holodomir, the Great Leap Forward, the holocaust, the Khmer Rouge are at least 10x the East India companies death toll. We should probably add in war casualties too - at a minimum WW1 and WW2. I think I could list off probably 10 more with about 5 more minutes of work. People can be terrible. More direct power usually means more terrible. Gov’ts usually have the most direct power. East India company was an odd case because they were granted defacto delegated gov’t power over a region that was full of ‘others’. Considering the factors involved, it’s amazing they weren’t worse. Like the French Congo [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Congo https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Congo].
  - astrange 3y ago
    Slavery isn't profitable, people do it for emotional or ideological reasons, or because they're not competent enough to run a business that has to actually trade. This is literally why economics is called "the dismal science". Slaveowners called economists that when the economists told them to stop doing slavery.
- jncfhnb 3y ago
  Monopoly is the natural state. Government is the only reason we have any alternatives.
  - Gormo 3y ago
    No, it is very much the other way around. Government is itself a monopoly, and has historically been justified by the intention to mitigate the "war of all against all" that emerges from chaotic competition between divergent factions in a raw state of nature. But the modern status quo is so massively skewed toward government that the benefits from mitigating the worst cases of competition are vastly eclipsed by the detriments of monopolistic centralization.
mnky9800n 3y ago
Dozens of millions of dead people is chump change to any empire.
- Jensson 3y ago
  USA hasn't killed more than dozens of millions. If that is chump change then it makes USA looks pretty good for an empire.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - MeImCounting 3y ago
    Well except that it definitely has. From more than 50 million people in pre-colonial times to less than 3 million in the 90s. USA has done genocide on a scale similar any other ethnic cleansing or to any communist regime.
    - Jensson 3y ago
      > 50 million people in pre-colonial times USA didn't exist pre-colonial times, it started as a colony. Do you mean the British Empire? That one did way worse, yeah, but USA isn't the British Empire.

riffruff24 3y ago

Off the top of my head, dutch and british corporation colonize a lot of lands for hundreds of years. I don't think they left the place much better than when they came.

andsoitis 3y ago

Both governments and corporations have generally made our lives better. Both governments and corporations kill people (look up annual tobacco deaths, for just one fun example).

Gormo 3y ago
Aren't deaths from tobacco directly caused by intentional individual behavior? I'm not sure how that relates to either example.
- astrange 3y ago
  Individual behavior doesn't really exist, you don't have choices outside the ones provided by society. It's also a bit silly to mention it in the context of a literally physically addictive drug. Interestingly schizophrenic people almost universally smoke, and it's thought this is because it's a better treatment than the actual drugs we give them, though that's not proven.
  - Gormo 3y ago
    > Individual behavior doesn't really exist, you don't have choices outside the ones provided by society. No, that's quite backwards. Individual behavior is effectively the only thing that objectively exists, as "society" is just an emergent pattern of aggregated individual behavior. Individuals' choices are limited by their own particular capacities, and "society" factors into that only in the sense that the choices of other individuals in the same bounded context, in aggregate, can function as environmental constraints. So a more accurate statement is "every individual has full freedom of choice, but external constraints including the behavior of others may limit one's ability to fully execute the choices one has made". Given that the act of smoking entails deliberately choosing to purchase a product, light it on fire, and actively inhale the fumes -- all behaviors which are necessarily the result of purposeful intention -- and given that within any social context one will find some people who smoke but a great many who do not, along with many who have chosen to quit (despite the external influences and incentives being largely constant), it seems impossible to attribute smoking to anything other than conscious individual choice. I once asked family member why they smoke, and the response was "because I love it". I had, and could have, no retort to that -- if another person consciously chooses to make the risk/reward tradeoff in favor of short-term pleasure rather than longer-term health, then there's no further argument to be had, and the only demand that any other party could make is that they not be exposed to negative externalities resulting from that choice.

immmmmm 3y ago

Oh you should go say that to farmers close to the equator whose crops are failing due to climate change. All that while fossil fuel companies receive 7000B$ of annual subsidies, and spend billions yearly to fuel disinformation.

nyc_data_geek1 3y ago

Ask the people in Bhopal how DOW Chemical has made their lives better, or the workers in Shenzhen Apple factories, or the people making your clothes in the third world, or the people picking through trash mountains for a living, how much corporations have made their lives better.

astrange 3y ago
The people working at Foxconn are doing it voluntarily because it pays better than their other alternatives. Same for Bangladesh clothing factories.
- nyc_data_geek1 3y ago
  There is voluntary, and then there is voluntary. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/09/09/apple-accused-worker-violations-chinese-factories-by-labor-rights-group/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/09/09/apple-a... Why don't you ask the people who were slaving in United Fruit plantations how much corporations improved their lives? Or East India Company colony subjects? Corporations benefit those who benefit from them, often at the expense of everyone else/extraction of the commons.